MI ADIDAS

MASS CUSTOMIZATION INITIATIVE

MEANING OF MASS CUSTOMIZATION..

• Production of personalized or custom-tailored goods or services to meet consumers'

diverse and changing needs at near mass production prices.

• Customer is integrated during co-design, configuration and product specifications.

• Mass customization is designed to deliver highly customized products with mass production

efficiency..

MI ADIDAS..

This case examines adidas “mi adidas” initiative aimed at delivering

customized athletic footwear to retail customers. It discusses the practical

implications associated with expanding the initiative from a small

pilot to a wider operation with a retail presence.

• Mi adidas was launched in April 2000 to provide consumers with a chance to create unique athletic footwear produced to their personal specifications. It was an entirely new idea to customize product, test consumers’ demands and fulfill their expectations as far as possible.

BRAND EXPERIENCE

Phases of mi adidas…

Phase 1: The mi adidas Pilot

It paid attention towards the evaluation of the feasibility and prospects of mass customizing

athletic shoes . The objective was to offer a customized product to test

customers demand for the product and fulfill their expectations as far as

possible. It included the following steps-

Product selection Free shoes as for testing

Marketing Customer feedback

Check on competitors activities

This led to a positive impression of the brand amongst the customers.

3-D foot scanner Fitting terminal

Retail tours

Phase 2-The mi adidas Retail Tours

• After the success of phase -1 & satisfying customer, mi adidas entered phase-2 where it paid more attention towards the retail stores. Retail units were set up which were more durable and customer friendly.

• A large number of retailers were willing to take part in this phase but only 50 were selected.

• Adidas paid more attention towards the small specialty stores where in their products can be easily marketed and customer can easily access the customization process.

• As the first phase was fully event based, now the second phase was 90% on the shoulders of retail outlets and 10% event based.

• There were some problems faced by the retailers regarding the geographical location and the fee of promoting and marketing the brand. This also hampered the engagement of customers in the project.

The main stress was laid on the customized fit over customized design. For this purpose the 3D foot scanner was replaced by a simple foot scanner unit for the best measurement for length and width.

The prices of the customized shoes were also kept at premium about 30-50% over the catalog price.

After being successful in the field of soccer shoes, mi adidas was now ready to enter into the running shoe market and launched its customized shoes during marathons.

• As the demand for the customized shoes increased, Mi adidas faced some problems but slowly and steadily it tried to maintain fit, design and performance of the product.

Competitors...Nike

New Balance Athletic Shoe, Inc.

Custom Foot Corp.Creo Interactive GmbII

Customatix.com of Solemates, Inc.

Distribution channel

RETAILER EVENT KIOSK E-ROOM

FACTORY2nd LEVEL RETAILERS

CUSTOMERS

Check in Scanning Fitting

TestingDesigning

CUSTOMIZATION PROCESSS

Phase-3• This phase will pay more attention

towards bringing of new shoes under customization process such as basketball and tennis foot wears.

• Targets has been set for the shoes like Precision, Supernova, Bromium and Barricade.

Phase-4• This phase will pay more

attention towards setting up of permanent MC units in adidas stores and selected specialty stores.

Future of mi adidas• Consumer feedback was

enthusiastic and enticing for adidas to repeat the offerings of mi adidas.

•In the long run only those mass customization systems will be successful that manage the tradeoff between the benefits and costs of customer integration sufficiently.

Imagine personalizing your shoes on your feet

without even removing your

shoes?

Discussion..

What was Adidas Distribution strategy for mass customization approach?

Can you suggest an alternate distribution strategy for Adidas?

Alternative strategies..Emphasize on Horizontal Growth

Strategy with Focus on Diversification-expansion of its products in other geographical locations, for example, in emerging countries like India, Brazil and Russia where the market is growing very rapidly.

Also consider to diversify its sports products by using price strategy. For instance, under pricing strategy there are premium prices with high quality products, medium price with high-high quality or high medium quality of products, or low price with average quality. By diversifying such many pricing strategy, customers will have much choice and more can choose according to their affordability.

Stability strategyAdidas can stop or limit its production

towards some products to have an innovation and redesign. This can help to increase the company’s products image and reputation. This is because over produced products will cause products low value and it will not be appreciated as it will be easy to get.

Presented by- GROUP 7

Devendran S.PGaurav KhatriPushpam ShreeSiddharth TripathiTimsi LuthraVandana Madhuri

Singh

Thank you for your time and

attention..