Fashion Marketing and Management

Apart from this, customers prefer to purchase the products of company which can provide them value for money experience and the entire product range meet with their requirement in the market (Brand, 2011). Customer preferences play a crucial role in the fashion industry as products are purchased by customers as per their needs and requirements. For the present essay, organization chosen is Hugo Boss which is a German luxury fashion house. Business offers a large number of products to its customers such as high fashion, accessories and footwear. Main products of company are boss black, orange, selection, green, etc. (Hugo Boss AG, 2016). Various tasks have been covered in the present research which involves strategies followed by company to generate profits, organization’s approach towards managing brand, etc.

Previous and Current Strategies Followed By Hugo Boss

IT is to generate profits and list of luxury management approaches or strategies the company has been followed

Hugo boss has undertaken large number of strategies in order to operate efficiently and this has directly become one of the basic reasons of company behind success (Li, Li and Kambele, 2012). In past company only focused on its premium brand where majority of the customers perceive Hugo boss as distributor of male oriented products where high quality products are offered at premium price. Further, company has strongly focused on exclusive luxury and high fashion brands. Business totally relies on strengthening its customer base by offering them wide variety of products (Rageh Ismail and Spinelli, 2012).

One of the main motive behind rise in profits of business is effective distribution channel where no intermediaries are present and the products directly reaches to target market in short period of time. The distribution policies of Hugo Boss rely on two points where business operates its stores on its own to develop brand image. Moreover, the second point is associated with trading partners where focus is on maintaining control on the quality. Apart from this, effective training program carried out for staff members in relation with sales and product technique are also fruitful (Nagurney and Yu, 2012). Through this it becomes easy for enterprise to satisfy need of its target market and has assisted to generate higher profits.

On the other hand, the current strategies being employed by Hugo Boss are also effective where CRM approach has been considered which has lead to rise in level of customer loyalty in the market. Effective communication sources have been employed by company so that information linked with products can be easily shared with those of target market (Kim and Ko, 2010). Appropriate media sources along with other tools have supported Hugo Boss in sharing proper information with its target market. Business has undertaken resource led approach which is linked with stretching organizational resources along with the competencies with the motive to provide value for money experience to its target market.

Organization is efficient enough in differentiating its product range from those of target market and due to this reason annual sales along with profits of business are high (McColl and Moore, 2011). The present strategy of Hugo Boss also focuses on elevating the brand by engaging customers emotionally, leveraging the brand potential in women’s wear and shoes, building more effective retail online and offline channels and exploiting growth opportunities being present at the global level. The entire ranges of present strategies have allowed Hugo Boss to enhance overall performance at global level where enterprise can easily gain competitive advantage (Jansson and Power, 2010).

Apart from this, different luxury management approaches have been followed by Hugo Boss such as differentiation focus strategy, effective distribution, effective design of products, building brand image on cultural values and lifestyle, developing products on the basis of customer’s culture etc (Miller and Mills, 2012). These approaches being undertaken are fruitful for business and have become one of the main reasons behind success in every market where it operates. Moreover, product development only takes place after considering the overall need of customers and through this Hugo Boss has earned higher profits.

Theories or Models on Managing Luxury Brand Profitability and Other Aspects Related To Luxury Brand Management

In order to better understand about the concept of brand management model of consumer conversion model is quite effective. Further, it takes into consideration series of stages which are beneficial for companies in development of brand (Matthiesen and Phau, 2010). First stage is unaware where customers are not at all aware about the brand and due to this reason they does not prefer to purchase products of enterprise. Second stage is name awareness where the marketing efforts applied by organization leads to name awareness and majority of the customers are interested in knowing about the brand. Next stage is brand familiarity where target market knows about the brand and this develops positive image in their mind.

In every stage customers apply large number of efforts so that customers can know about the brand and they can take purchase decision easily (Kim and Ko, 2010). With the rise in level of familiarity customers are convinced to try the product and this in turn allows them to indulge into practices of purchase. Acceptance is the next stage where majority of the customers tries to accept product and this leads to rise in satisfaction level. This stage is considered to be beneficial for business as when acceptance starts then profitability along with the sales volume of company enhances which is one of the main objective of company. Last stage is linked with usage on regular basis where customers prefer to consume the product on regular basis.

In short, customers are only influenced to purchase products when they are satisfied with the same and in case if satisfaction level is low then it leads to decline in performance level of organization in the market (Yan, Hyllegard and Blaesi, 2012). Therefore, in this way consumer conversion model is effective enough to understand about brand awareness and the stages through which any particular brand is known in the entire market.

Strengths and Weaknesses of Luxury Management Strategies

According to the case scenario, Hugo Boss Corporation used different kind of strategies in internal and external environment. Most of the strategies are based on its customers need and desire as well as how the organization beat competition in the market. There are strength and weakness of different strategies which have been used by HUGO BOSS and they are as follows

Effective Distribution Strategy

Hugo Boss Corporation follows three level of distribution strategy where clients give their order to retailer and this person take all the material from the store of the organization. By following this strategy, company fulfil the demand of its customers across the world (Venkatesh, Joy, Sherry and Deschenes, 2010). Moreover, the organization also upgrade its website where its customers can easily book their orders and get the fashion products on time.

Strength of Distribution Strategy

• Easy to understand.
• By using three level of distribution firm reduce the percentage of unemployment.
• By using distribution strategies, company can easily make strong relationship with other suppliers

Weakness of Distribution Strategies

• It is time consuming.
• Due to recession time it is hard for Hugo Boss Company to pay the profit percentage to their distributor.
• It is time consuming as compare to other distribution channel.

One Product Base Strategy

According to the case scenario, it shows that Hugo Boss Corporation put its focus on only product development process (Workman and Cho, 2012). For the same, this company only produced and sell fashion products. By doing this they can easily full fill the need and desire of their UK customers and also maintain their brand images into the competitive market.

Strength of One Product Base Strategy

• The main advantage is for company is it is time and money saving. The reason behind this is for development planning, managers do not need different secession. They can easily make a plan for their all products.
• By putting the concentration in one field, managers easily fulfil the demand of their customers and also give their concentration on productivity (Kapferer, 2012).
• Company can easily do marketing for their all products by using one advertisement.
• Weakness of One Product Base Strategy
• By using this strategy organization lose the diversification into products.
• Due to high competition in market, sometimes company are not able to satisfy their customers.
• For maintaining their current status, firm have to put lots of money into research centre because head department do not have other choices (Kim, 2012).

Global Strategy

Hugo boss is an international fashion firm and famous for good customer services (Phan, Thomas and Heine, 2011). For the same, at the time of production, company follow all the legislations of different country and their culture.

Strength of Global Strategy

• The major advantage of this strategy is based on centralization, where company manager develop their all fashion products for all kind of culture peoples.
• By taking feedback from the customers of different countries, company is planning and development department analysis the need mad desire of their customers and then change their production strategy.
• By using global strategy head department of Hugo Boss Company easily make a customer portfolio (AlMutawa, 2013).
• Further, this strategy also put their focus on efficiency of their employees.

Weakness of Global Strategy

• Macroeconomic risk- The major disadvantage of global strategy is, it is not necessary that one strategy can work in all different market (Ko and Megehee, 2012). The main reason behind this is all market has different taste and culture. Du to this, it is not possible for the Hugo Boss Company to fulfil all demand of their different customers.
• Operational risk- The government of UK time to time changes their policies so this put negative impact on the performance of company. For this, company have to change their product price as per the instruction of the government. So, this thing raises the brand image of company and reduces the percentage of sale.

Resource Strategy

The human resource strategy of Hugo Boss Company is based on how this department recruit the best candidate for right position (Amatulli and Guido, 2011). It is a process which are based on planning, where HR department analysis their whole department and then take a final decision.

Strength of Human Resource Strategy

• The main advantage of this strategy is HRM department know each employees skills and negative points so they can easily hire the right person at right place.
• Only this department reduce the misunderstanding among all departments.
• Weakness of Human Resources Strategy
• Hugo Boss Company every year spends approximately 1000 dollars in HRM training department due to this, company financial system goes down.
• It is not possible for HRM department to take information of other country internal management system (Kim and Ko, 2012).

High Quality and Price Strategy

This strategy explains the quality of Hugo Boss Company products. This organization is famous for their high quality services as well. For this company manufacturing department use their own raw material and this organization also having their own manufacturing department In UK. High quality strategy is based on how organization raises their quality standard. For this organization used total quality application where they measure the quality of their all fashion products.

Strength of High Quality and Price Strategy

• By using total quality application, company can easily identify their quality for their products and services. This application explains the negative points into manufacturing process, due to this, organization by using appropriate strategy planning department change into positive points (Brand, 2011).
• At the time of price setting firm first analysis the actual rate of their raw material then select a final price of their all product.

Weakness of High Quality and Price Strategy

• It is expensive so Hugo Boss Company most of the time avoid to use total quality application. On other hand, it is hard to understand the techniques of this application. Due to this, all employees cannot use this application.
• For providing high quality services company raise the price of their fashion item, so most of the people cannot afford Hugo boos company products (Li, Li and Kambele, 2012).

Evaluation of The Organization Approached Towards Managing Its Brand

From the given case study, it has found that HUGO BOSS has been used various brand management approaches. These all have helped the organization to maintain its brand image at international level (Rageh Ismail and Spinelli, 2012). To determine the effectiveness of approaches to manage brand, evaluation is required and in this context, first approach is resources led. At the time of opening the business, HUGO BOSS was adopting this tactic because that time, company had limited resources. With this concept, firm wanted to grew as a world leading fashion organization. After the evaluation process, it has found that resource-led approach makes HUGO BOSS Company as a leading firm at the international level in fashion world (Nagurney and Yu, 2012). It offers quality products to its customers which are the combination of European designs. So it can be said from the assessment process that resource-led approach has effectively manage HUGO BOSS brand at international, national and local level.

On the other hand, the cited firm has followed value chain approach to manage its brand at all the level (Kim and Ko, 2010). Basically, the aim of this model is to create or add value in the products for the customers so that they can get value added services all the time by meeting the demand of the market. For HUGO BOSS, the objectives behind the use of value chain approach is to maximize business activities that can create values in the products and minimize costs of unproductive operations. From the evaluation of this strategy, it has determined that company has achieved its objectives and it lead to manage its brand in different nations (McColl and Moore, 2011).

The value chain of organization consists of different elements which are new collection development, material procurement, manufacturing, sales and distribution and customer services. All these activities have effectively managed HUGO BOSS operations and deliver the right with value added products to the end users in minimum time. It has lead to minimize the operating costs as well as storing cost of finished goods within the warehouse of the long time (Jansson and Power, 2010). Therefore, it can be concluded that value chain approach of the company has helped in managing its brand.

Beside this, one of the most important approaches that have been followed by HUGO BOSS for managing its brand is global approach. Under this strategy, the organization has treated the world as a large and single market for the business. Along with this, there has one single source of supply of the products with small variations (Miller and Mills, 2012). So, to keep the control over supply of the goods and to gain competitive advantages, organization has adopted this strategy. From the assessment process, it has been discovered that global approach has helped HUGO BOSS to take advantage of cost efficiency via achieving economic of scale. Major reason behind this is to maintain the dependency of subsidiaries on parent company.

By doing this, it has not brought the large variations in the products features and characteristics (Matthiesen and Phau, 2010). Therefore, it has lead to maintained brand all across the world. Along with this, the evaluation process shows that global approach has increased efficiency of HUGO BOSS by extend the product life cycle and bring flexibility in operational activities. In addition to this, it has minimized diversified macroeconomic risks such as variations in quality of the goods etc. Hence, from the evaluation process, it has proved that HUGO BOSS has taken competitive advantages with the help of global approach and effectively manages its brand image at international level (Kim and Ko, 2010).

On the other hand, another approach follow by HUGO BOSS for managing its brand, a centralized management approach has used. The reason of using this is to coordinate all business relevant decisions to ensure high level of consistency (Yan, Hyllegard and Blaesi, 2012). From the assessment process, it has identified that the aim behind the use of the following approach is to reduce Investment & Cost related risks. Along with this, to keep tight control over core business activities so that homogeneous products can be easily deliver across the worldwide to maintained brand image. In addition to this, with the application of centralized management approach, product quality has been maintained according to the set standards and monitored time to time (Lam, Liu and To, 2011).

Conclusion

From the above essay, it can be concluded that HUGO BOSS has a world leading fashion organization. For maintaining its brand image at international and domestic level, it has used various kinds of strategies, models and approach for luxury management. Along with this, some strengths and weaknesses of various strategies have also defined that maintained its brand image. The evaluation process has explored that the approaches used by HUGO BOSS has most effective and efficient to maintained brand image of the firm at international level. It is found that recommendation of Hugo boss organization contribute effectively to reduce many issues in international market.

References

• AlMutawa, F.S., 2013. ConsumerGenerated Representations: Muslim Women Recreating Western Luxury Fashion Brand Meaning through Consumption.Psychology & Marketing,30(3), pp.236-246.
• Amatulli, C. and Guido, G., 2011. Determinants of purchasing intention for fashion luxury goods in the Italian market: A laddering approach.Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management: An International Journal,15(1), pp.123-136.
• Brand, C.P., 2011.Italy and the English romantics: the Italianate fashion in early nineteenth-century England. Cambridge University Press.
• Jansson, J. and Power, D., 2010. Fashioning a global city: global city brand channels in the fashion and design industries.Regional Studies,44(7), pp.889-904.
• Kapferer, J.N., 2012.The new strategic brand management: Advanced insights and strategic thinking. Kogan page publishers.
• Kim, A.J. and Ko, E., 2010. Impacts of luxury fashion brand’s social media marketing on customer relationship and purchase intention.Journal of Global Fashion Marketing,1(3), pp.164-171.
• Kim, A.J. and Ko, E., 2012. Do social media marketing activities enhance customer equity? An empirical study of luxury fashion brand.Journal of Business Research,65(10), pp.1480-1486.
• Kim, E.Y. and Ko, E., 2010. Achieving brand power: Bean pole of samsung.Journal of Global Fashion Marketing,1(1), pp.61-70.
• Kim, H., 2012. The dimensionality of fashion-brand experience: Aligning consumer-based brand equity approach.Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management: An International Journal,16(4), pp.418-441.
• Ko, E. and Megehee, C.M., 2012. Fashion marketing of luxury brands: Recent research issues and contributions.Journal of Business Research,65(10), pp.1395-1398.

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