Developing a Global Vision
UNIQLO stresses their idea of becoming the world's number one casual clothing brand and one way to achieve this is to establish a profitable overseas business.
Like most businesses, UNIQLO has business targets. They target countries like the United States, Japan, Korea, China and the UK. Even though, in the UK and China, they are not doing as well as they want to, in Hong Kong and South Korea, they are doing better than they thought they would. As for the US, they find it a bit of a challenge but a lot of other retailing companies are finding it challenging as well.
To have an outstanding business overseas, they must do several things. For one thing, they have to change their global mindset. A lot of their people think that their Japanese operations are separate from their overseas businesses and they need to lose that mindset and think of themselves as one business with many stores worldwide. Another thing is that they need to replicate their key success factors. They essentially sell the same sizes and products in their Japan stores with success and so they replicate it in their overseas stores. They were successful in their customer services in their Japan stores and they need to stop struggling in their overseas stores and replicate their successful customer service. Another thing they need to work on is getting more local staff to the top. A lot of their top managers are from their Japan store that moved to the other stores to help out and even though they are great at what they do, they're not as fitting with the needs of the overseas customers than someone who is local to that country. Therefore, having a local staff at the top would help them become a better overseas business.
In order to get their name known, they needed to build a flagship store and they did so by opening a flagship store in SOHO New York in Autumn 2006 that displayed all their best products. They are looking forward to opening more stores in the various fashion capitals.
Source: UNIQLO
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Friday, September 21, 2012
Chapter 4: The Marketing Environment
Like most businesses, UNIQLO has a target consumer. So what exactly is their target?
According to their size charts, the sizes of their supplies and products are very limited. It is clear that they don't offer sizes for both petite and plus-size people. Most of their pant sizes don't go above size 33 for men and a lot of their sizes are in the form of XS, S, M, L and XL. For those who are smaller and larger than that will have a hard time looking for something to buy. On top of that, UNIQLO adopted the slogan "Made for All" and but it doesn't offer sizes for people who don't fit the range of their size chart. In summary, UNIQLO targets those that fit the range of XS-XL.
However, recently, on September 7, 2012, UNIQLO launched their Kids and Babies Collection for the Fall/Winter 2012 season. Expanding on their idea of "Made for All", what better way than to make clothes for children, too? Their famous Heattech product is being utilized in their kids collection for minimizing the sweating they might have during recess. In addition, their pants in the collection have elastic waist bands for extra comfort and it makes it easier to maneuver. Although UNIQLO does not offer plus sizes or petite sizes, they are moving one step closer to their fulfilling their slogan "Made for All" with their newly launched children's collection.
Souce: UNIQLO
Friday, September 14, 2012
Chapter 3: Ethics & Social Responsibility
Ethics & Social Responsibility
A company should always be responsible for protecting their workers and preserving the environment. UNIQLO, along with The Fast Retailing Group (FR), have selected the strictest safety standard in the countries that they do business in such as Japan, Europe and the U.S.The Fast Retailing Group incorporated these safety rules and regulations in to the UNIQLO Global Quality and Safety Standards. These standards are set by the Quality Establishment Committee led by the officer in charge of the production.
The FR has also published "Case Studies on Abnormal Values." This is a series of proposals that address quality related problems which teaches employees who handle their products. The FR overseas share their problems so that it stops problems from reoccurring.
All of the materials that UNIQLO uses are subject to safety inspections. These inspections are by a third-party monitoring organization and include sampling tests for dye fastness and residual formalin. They also perform pre-production inspections to confirm that the safety standards are being followed and pre-shipment examinations are being implemented before the supplies leave the factory. After these supplies are shipped to the warehouses, they go through another inspection before it goes to the stores.
Source: UNIQLO
UNIQLO's Quality and Safety Control System
A company should always be responsible for protecting their workers and preserving the environment. UNIQLO, along with The Fast Retailing Group (FR), have selected the strictest safety standard in the countries that they do business in such as Japan, Europe and the U.S.The Fast Retailing Group incorporated these safety rules and regulations in to the UNIQLO Global Quality and Safety Standards. These standards are set by the Quality Establishment Committee led by the officer in charge of the production.
The FR has also published "Case Studies on Abnormal Values." This is a series of proposals that address quality related problems which teaches employees who handle their products. The FR overseas share their problems so that it stops problems from reoccurring.
All of the materials that UNIQLO uses are subject to safety inspections. These inspections are by a third-party monitoring organization and include sampling tests for dye fastness and residual formalin. They also perform pre-production inspections to confirm that the safety standards are being followed and pre-shipment examinations are being implemented before the supplies leave the factory. After these supplies are shipped to the warehouses, they go through another inspection before it goes to the stores.
Source: UNIQLO
Sunday, September 9, 2012
Chapter 2 Strategic Planning
Strategic Planning
UNIQLO is becoming Japan's top brand and is expanding its sales outward to other countries. In order to become a top brand, it's main focus was to put emphasis on urban stores. They have become an increasingly attractive tenant of department stores and commercial buildings. These urban stores generate strong sales and are popular with customers who have help broaden their name.
UNIQLO is known for their exceptional quality. To ensure the development of the products of exceptional quality, it has refined its SPA (Specialty store retailer of Private label Apparel) business model. This allows for control of the entire business process — from planning and design to material procurement and sales. They are continuing to develop products of exception quality in order to "create clothing with new and unique value and to satisfy customers worldwide.”
They also care a lot about their customers and their feedback. The UNIQLO Customer Center receives approximately 70,000 comments from customers annually. Their HEATTECH product continues to become refined each year based on the customer feedback. With feedback from their customers, UNIQLO is able to produce the exceptional quality that it does.
Source: UNIQLO
UNIQLO is becoming Japan's top brand and is expanding its sales outward to other countries. In order to become a top brand, it's main focus was to put emphasis on urban stores. They have become an increasingly attractive tenant of department stores and commercial buildings. These urban stores generate strong sales and are popular with customers who have help broaden their name.
UNIQLO is known for their exceptional quality. To ensure the development of the products of exceptional quality, it has refined its SPA (Specialty store retailer of Private label Apparel) business model. This allows for control of the entire business process — from planning and design to material procurement and sales. They are continuing to develop products of exception quality in order to "create clothing with new and unique value and to satisfy customers worldwide.”
They also care a lot about their customers and their feedback. The UNIQLO Customer Center receives approximately 70,000 comments from customers annually. Their HEATTECH product continues to become refined each year based on the customer feedback. With feedback from their customers, UNIQLO is able to produce the exceptional quality that it does.
Source: UNIQLO
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