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Acknowledgement


Writing a dissertation is always the most challenging part of a students life. It was
definitely the most important academic contribution by me. This however would not have
been possible without the encouragement and of a few people. Here I take this
opportunity to display my gratitude towards them.

First and foremost, I would like to thank my professor, Dr. Ian Combe for being a source
of support and encouragement, guidance and persistent help. Thank you sir for your time,
support and patience. My Sincere thanks to both academic and non-academic staff of the
Aston University and Aston Business School, for all their assistance.

I would like to thank my parents for love and support bestowed on me. Thank you for
your blessings. Also I would like to thank my friends for staying by me during the
difficult parts in the strange and unknown country. I would then like to thank all the data
sources which helped me complete the dissertation.

Last but not the least, I would like to thank God for all.


Aakash Patil









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Abstract


Strategic flexibility is given utmost importance today because of the ever changing
environment, which is very dynamic in nature. On the other side, there is the promotional
aspect of the marketing mix, which plays a very important role in the growth, and
profitability of the organisation. A good promotion strategy would help the overall
corporate strategy to be flexible. However, there is very little or no research done on this
topic of the relationship between strategic flexibility and promotion in the UK high street.
Therefore, the primary objective is to analyse the importance of the role of promotion in
strategic flexibility.
In this paper, firstly, literatures about strategic flexibility, promotional aspect and the
change in consumers perception due to promotional activities are displayed in order to
understand them from the academic point of view. After that taking PUMA AG as the
basis of the research, secondary data is collected. After data collection, an overall
analysis is discussed in order to assess the importance of promotion in order to attain
flexibility in the strategy, taking PUMA AG as an example.














$
Table Of Contents

1. Introduction ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, 4
1.1 Brief overview ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, 4
1.2 Aim ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, 5
1.3 Research objectives: ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, 5
1.4 Dissertation structure ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, 5
2. Literature review ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, 67
2.1 Strategic flexibility ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, 67
2.2 Marketing Strategy ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, 68
2.3 Influences on marketing strategy ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, 69
2.4 Promotion ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, 6:
2.5 Puma AG ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, 6;
2.6 Strategic flexibility in promotion mix. ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, 65
2.7 Change in consumers perception due to promotion strategies ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, 6<
3. Methodology ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, 86
3.1 Research Design ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, 86
3.1.1 Exploratory research %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% "&
3.1.2 Descriptive research %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% ""
3.1.3 Causal research %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% ""
3.2 Data Collection ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, 88
3.2.1 Secondary Data collection %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% ""
3.2.2 Primary Data %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% "#
3.4 Research objectives ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, 89
3.5 Research Approach ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, 8=
3.6. Research Strategy: Case Study ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, 8:
3.7. Sample Population ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, 84
3.8. Data Analysis ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, 84
4. Analysis & Discussion ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, 8;
4.1 Marketing and Promotion ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, 8;
4.2 Strategic flexibility and Promotion ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, 8;
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4.3 PUMA Analysis ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, 85
4.4 Strategic evolution of PUMA ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, 97
4.5 Strategy with respect to the changing trends ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, 96
4.6 Strategic flexibility and fashion ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, 98
4.7 Strategic placements of PUMA stores ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, 99
4.8 Importance of Innovation in PUMAs success ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, 99
4.9 Strategy with competition ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, 9:
4.10 PUMA and CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, 9:
4.11 PUMAs changing promotional strategies ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, 94
4.12 Interview Analysis ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, 9;
4.13 Conclusion ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, 95
5. Conclusion ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, =7
5.1 Introduction ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, =7
5.2 Research Analysis ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, =6
5.3 Conclusion ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ==
5.4 Limitations ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, =:
5.5 Future Research ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, =:
6. References ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, =4
Interview ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, =<
Transcripts ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, :7










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1. Introduction

1.1 Brief overview

In the fast changing environment of today, which is defined by rapid technological
changes, global competition, high rate of emergent economic issues and short product
lifestyles surviving in today's global environment is a critical issue for firms. This is
especially in the high street which is characterised as a place where people gather to
socialise, celebrate events and shop. The companies are facing dramatic challenges due to
increase in channels which might be recognised as very convenient and reasonable to
make purchases.
Consequently, the rate at which customers visit high street stores has considerably gone
down after the recession. Therefore it is a critical issue for firms to survive in this
dynamic environment and deal with the problem of change. Due to the increase in
competition and ever changing environment many firms go bankrupt every day. In order
to tackle these issues organisations need to formulate flexible strategies which would help
them survive in today's dynamic market.
The role of strategy for an organisation in the high street is to attain competitive
advantage. Competitive advantage is the source which helps an organisation to satisfy its
consumers needs in a more enhanced way than its competitors. It can be through a
number of factors like product, services, technology, processes or culture.
The use of strategy is a way in which managers keep a tab of the constantly changing
external environment. A good strategy allows an organisation to optimally use its
resources, to tap the opportunities and to reduce the threats in the external environment
(Henry, 2008).
Managers need to possess a flexible strategy within the high street, which is greatly
questionable and affecting environment prompting a response towards complications
promptly. Strategic flexibility can be defined as the capability of the organisation to
acclimatize itself to the significant, indeterminate and fast-moving changes in the
environment that have an important impact on the organisations performance. It focuses
on environmental changes that are significant enough to influence long term constraints
)
and to compose a requirement for strategic adaptations (Aaker and Mascarenhas, 1984).
This strategic flexibility demands the managers to discover the right equilibrium between
committing the supplies essential to convey out a decision and bypassing into buying of
good cash in awful projects. .
In the 21st century, in this case of high street, managers found that the issue was hard to
detect as the environment changed so quickly and therefore they cannot react as they
could have before. Literatures suggest that strategy has emerged as an important topic for
researchers in recent years (Grewal and Tansuhaj, 2001; Kastsuhiko and Hitt 2004;
Nadkarni and Nareyannan, 2007; Sanchez, 1995, 1997).
There are different aspects of the marketing strategy which would help the overall
corporate strategy to be flexible. Being flexible in today's marketing environment is very
important because environment changing at a very high rate. Promotion is one of those
factors. Promotion is an important aspect of the marketing mix as it attracts the end users
i.e. the consumers to the product. Several communications activities attempting to endow
with incentives or added value to consumers, retailers, wholesalers or other
organisational clients to rouse current sales are included in sales promotion. Sweepstakes,
point-of-purchase (pop), coupons, contests, premiums, rebates, samples and displays are
some of the examples of devices which are used in sale promotion.
These resources are expensive so their productive management is absolutely crucial to
gain optimum profit from the advancement expenditures. Close coordination is required
across the responsible entities in the organisation in order to combine these components
into dependable endorsement strategy (Cravens and Piercy, 2006).
The major benefits affiliated with promotional sales are a straightforward way to discover
clientele answer and it works fast. It is furthermore a cheap trading technique. Sales
advancement does not habitually convey affirmative influence to enterprise; sometime
this kind of promotion can give root to pessimistic brand impact on consumers mind in
the long- term. Therefore, by taking into account the cost of losing brand value, a
promotional technique is required to be planned. And so, marketers are required to be
cautious and must recognise the dissimilarity between advertising and sales promotion.
As stated above, promotional activities generally affect the consumer's perception about
different products. Promotion plays a vital role in the growth and performance of a
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product in the high street, where the competition is very high and survival is difficult.
It has been seen in the earlier researches that buyers purchase decisions are changed by
retail price promotions and also that in order to boost their sales, the retailers make use of
price promotions very frequently (Inman and McAlister, 1993). This makes promotion a
vital aspect of the marketing mix. Organisations understand the importance of the role
that promotional activities play in order to change the consumer's perception of their
product. They spend more than 50% of their revenues on promotion i.e. attracting new
customers and retaining the old ones.


1.2 Aim

The aim of this research is to understand the role of promotion in the overall strategy and
how it can help the strategy be flexible.


1.3 Research objectives:

1. To study the importance of flexibility in marketing strategy. 2. To study the role of
promotion in strategic flexibility. 3. Role of promotion in strategic flexibility, explain
with the help of PUMA AG. 4. The strategic flexibility followed by PUMA AG for its
recent success.
1.4 Dissertation structure

The structure of this dissertation follows through an examination and review of existing
literature related to research objectives whereby trying to gain an explanation about the
importance of the promotion strategy being flexible with an example of an organisation
(PUMA AG) operating in the high street. The next step describes the method used in the
research done and also its justifications for using secondary data sources for collecting
the necessary information. The next chapter involves analysing the data in order to see
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how different promotional aspects affect the consumers. Later based on the conclusions
drawn we would state the importance of the promotional aspect in order to achieve
strategic flexibility.


























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2. Literature review

Literature review is a summary of the published and researched topics by researchers and
scholars.
As the objective of this study is to identify or explore the relationship between strategic
flexibility and promotion, taking the company PUMA AG as the basis for the study. It is
therefore, essential to have an overall view of each item and also the relationship between
these items.
Therefore, this chapter tries to utilise the numerous researchers from journals and books
so as to achieve the objectives.

2.1 Strategic flexibility

An enterprises ability to recognise transitions in the background and to rapidly dedicate
wherewithal to new activities as a reaction to the transitions and to immediately act when
it is time to stop or reverse such dedicated wherewithal is known as tactical adaptability
(Katsuhiko and Hitt, 2004). According to the opinion held by Edith Penrose (1959, p.24)
an enterprise is a set of wherewithal which are constructive and it is not the wherewithal
that act as the input for the manufacturing processes but it is merely the service that the
wherewithal actually provide. As per Sanchez (1959, p.25)), tactical adaptability relies
mutually on the intrinsic adaptabilities of the extant wherewithal in the enterprises and on
the enterprises adaptability in using those wherewithal to substitute activities. Sanchez
further adds that tactical adaptability includes wherewithal adaptability and
synchronisation adaptability; moreover under tactical adaptability an enterprise needs to
be able to employ adaptable wherewithal to direct those wherewithal in substitute
applications (Sanchez, 1997, p. 73). Wherewithal adaptability is typified by three facets
of possible applications of the wherewithal: (1) the extent of substitute applications to
which the wherewithal may be used; (2) the outlays and problems in alternatively
utilising one wherewithal to another (Sanchez, 1997, p. 73). The intrinsic attributes of the
wherewithal may be utilised to ascertain the wherewithal adaptability, while organisation
adaptability denotes the ability of the enterprise to utilise those wherewithal (Grewal and
&&
Tansuhaj, 2001). There are three facets in organisation adaptability: (1) classifying the
applications to which the firms wherewithal will be employed; (2) configuring
(recognising and formatting); and (3) using wherewithal through institutional structures
and procedures which employ extant wherewithal to intended applications (Sanchez,
1997). Organisation adaptability as per Sanchez (1997) focuses on how to classify,
configure and use the extant wherewithal. On the other hand, the forceful ability
viewpoint recommends that, when enterprises have to deal with extreme indeterminate
settings, they need to create their forceful abilities to amalgamate, develop and
reconfigure intrinsic and extrinsic skills to deal with the quickly altering settings (Sirmon
and Hitt, 2003; Sirmon et al., 2007; Teece et al., 1997). Dynamic abilities need not solely
depend on the enterprises extant wherewithal and abilities; they also need to comprise of
the enterprises capability to successfully get extrinsic wherewithal and skills and
additionally to control these in coordination to consistently develop novel wherewithal
and abilities (Eisenhardt and Martin, 2000). Furthermore, Ireland et al. (2003) indicate
that the ability to deal with the rising issues which essentially belong to the firms
dynamic ability and becomes a crucial aspect to attain an upper hand over other rivals.
Thus, depending on the forceful ability viewpoint, organisation adaptability also needs to
amalgamate the enterprises ability to discover new wherewithal and novel applications
of extant wherewithal for progress, and successfully lower the adverse influence of
greater environmental ambiguity. As a result, it is contended that organisation
adaptability denotes the enterprises ability to successfully and competently amalgamate
and use intrinsic and extrinsic wherewithal by discovering manners to augment the worth,
and quickly get unexpected advantages and gain an upper hand over rivals in the
ambiguous setting. Thus, as discussed there are four facets which detail the extended idea
of organisation adaptability: (1) discovering novel applications and/or novel
arrangements of extant wherewithal; (2) discovering new applications and/or novel
arrangements of new wherewithal; (3) using wherewithal quickly through institutional
systems and procedures to intended applications; and (4) dealing with the rising issues
successfully to enhance the advantage from a rapidly altering setting. Many analysts have
undertaken some superb researches and offered worthwhile information related to it
similar to the influence of tactical adaptability related to modernising the goods. For
&"
instance, Martinez- Sanches et al. (in press) signified that enterprises that are tactically
adaptable generally are competent to foresee market needs and react to them by suitably
producing creative goods and facilities. The researchers identified an affirmative
correlation amongst tactical adaptability and modernism by employing a sample of
Spanish enterprises and such an affirmative correlation is enhanced when the
environmental transition is more. Verdu-Jover et al. (2005) discovered that in a sample of
417 European enterprises that tactical adaptability has a crucial impact on the firms
reaction ability via modernisation. On the other hand, it is contended by few researchers
that tactical adaptability need not always provide input to creativity. It was discovered
that organisation adaptability strongly contributed to local enterprise creativity, while the
impact of wherewithal adaptability is adverse but not crucial (Li et al. (2008a, b)).
Irrespective of such studies, majority of the extant studies recommend an affirmative
correlation amongst tactical adaptability and goods creativity. Tactical adaptability is
considered as a sole, combined concept in majority of the extant editorials, with Li et al.
(2008a, b) being one exception. On the other hand, due to the crucial variations amongst
resource adaptability and organisation adaptability, they may enact varied functions in
correlating product creativity and performance of the enterprises (Sanchez, 1995, 1997).
Consequently, the restraining impacts of wherewithal adaptability and organisation
adaptability on the correlation amongst product creativity and performance of the
enterprises would be evaluated independently in the current research.

2.2 Marketing Strategy

There are many common characteristics between the marketing strategy and the overall
company strategy. Marketing looks into the requirements of the consumer and the
organisations ability to satisfy them (Slater & Olson, 2000, 2001). Most of the strategic
planning of the company deals with the variables of marketing such as market growth,
market share, market development and it is at times difficult to detach strategic-planning
from marketing-planning. (Yin & Zajac, 2004)
Few companies term their strategic planning as strategic marketing planning. Marketing
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has a key role in the strategic planning of any organisation. Firstly, marketing gives a
leading philosophy- the strategies of the company should be according to the needs and
wants of the different consumer groups. Secondly Marketing helps the strategic planners
to discover the opportunities in the market and assesses the potential of the firm so as to
grab the opportunity (Zheng, Yang, & McLean, 2010). Lastly within each respective
business unit, on the basis of marketing certain strategies are designed to attain the units
objective. Marketing management helps in attaining the different strategic objectives in
the different business units.
Marketing strategy is a set of integrated decisions and actions (Day, 1990, pp. 254) by
which a business expects to achieve its marketing objectives and meet the value
requirements of its customers, (Cravens, 1999, p. 14; Vardarajan and Clark, 1994, p/
87). It is related to making decisions about market segmentation and development and
targeting of a positioning strategy on the basis of distribution, promotion, price and
product decisions.
Johnson and Scholes (1986) state that, marketing strategy for a company is to ensure
that the companys capabilities are matched to the competitive marketing environment in
which it operates, not just for today but into the predictable future. For a commercial
organisation this means ensuring that its resources and capabilities match the needs and
requirements of the markets in which it operates. For a non-commercial organisation,
such as a charity or a public utility, it means achieving a fit between its abilities to serve
and the requirements of the public or causes it is seeking to serve.

2.3 Influences on marketing strategy

The companys objectives and mission are defined by the strategic plan. Marketing helps
in achieving the strategic objectives in the respective business units. . (Kotler, 1999)

Companies have to understand the external environment or the macroeconomic
environment in which they exist so as to plan and make decisions about the future events.
All the factors that have an influence on an organisation are included in the macro
environment and are out of control. A firm cannot influence these factors on its own and
&$
nor can these factors have an effect on the profitability of the firm directly. Any firm can
minimise its threats and maximise its opportunities by understanding the external
environment. Carrying out a strategic analysis involves a scanning of this macroeconomic
environment so as to understand and detect the long term, broad trends. (Kotler, 1999)
The marketing strategy of the company influenced by certain internal factors like the
suppliers, the various marketing channels, the public and the competitors. The marketing
strategy should be formulated after scanning these factors as they have an impact on the
whole company strategy.
After the company has decided its competitive marketing strategy, it is in a state of
preparing its marketing mix. In modern marketing, the concept of marketing mix is
considered as a central idea. We define marketing mix as the set of controllable tactical
marketing tools that the firm blends to produce the response it wants in the target market.
The marketing mix consists of everything the firm can do to influence the demand for its
product. The many possibilities gather into four groups of variables known as the 'four
Ps'; product, price, pace and promotion. (Kotler, 1999, pp. 432)
Product means the totality of 'goods and services' that the company offers the target
market. Pistons, spark plugs, headlights, bolts, nuts, and many more are the Honda Civic
product. Many civic styles and plenty of optional features are offered by Honda. The
car comes fully equipped with proper servicing, finance and warranty which are as
important as the car steering. (Kotler, 1999, pp. 437)
Price is what customers pay to get the product. The retail price that the dealers would
charge for each of its cars is suggested by Honda, but generally the full price is not
charged by the dealers. Rather each and every customer the dealers negotiate the price.
They provide credit terms, trade in allowances and discounts to bring the price of the car
with perceived cost and benefits by the customer and the current market situation. (Kotler
, 1999, pp. 439)
Place includes company activities that make the product available to target consumers.
Honda sells its cars through a set of dealerships which are independently owned. The
selection of dealers is done carefully and they give a strong support to them. The dealers
stock the Hondas cars, display and demonstrate them to the people, convert the potential
buyers to their customers, negotiate the car prices, achieve sales targets, arrange for
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finances, and do the after sales service.( Kotler,1999)
Promotion means activities that communicate the merits of the product and persuade
target customers to buy it. Honda spends hundreds of thousands on advertisement and
promotion every year to communicate and educate the customers about the company and
the products offered. Dealership salesmen assist the potential buyers and convince them
that the ultimate choice for them is The Honda Car. The company and its dealers offer
exceptional promotions like - cash rebates, sales, and low financing rates - as an added
purchase incentive.( Kotler,1999)

2.4 Promotion

The organisations promotion strategy integrates its communication initiatives which
include direct marketing, internet marketing, sales promotion, public relations, personal
selling , advertising to interact with the buyers and other people who influence the buying
decisions. Internet provides an emerging opportunity for one to one marketing for
consumer buyers and business. Billions are spent every week on promotion activities in
the world. These activities or resources are expensive so their effective management is
essential to untilise the expenses optimally. Close coordination is required across the
responsible units in the organisation in order to combine these components into a
consistent overall promotion strategy. (Cravens and Piercy , 2006, pp. 17)
In the last few, the companies have spent a major part of their promotion and advertising
expenses on consumer promotions. Consumer promotions can be offered in a variety of
ways such as free samples, sweepstakes, premiums, discounts, sales, rebates and
coupons. An organisation should keep in mind the effect different promotional activities
have on the consumers. How marketing managers decide among these types of
promotions is undoubtedly a consequence of both consumers oriented and firm oriented
considerations.



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Promotion strategies are fundamental for a hierarchical organization, this being a
scientific group, a company, a public administration, a cluster of computers, or a group
of animals. They are important for one to understand the dynamics of a pyramidal system
and eventually provide ways to improve its efficiency. It is not strange that physicists are
also working in this direction. In fact, in recent years, physicists have started to
collaborate with economists and social scientists in order to get a more quantitative
understanding of social science mechanisms (Buchanan , 2008). Actually, it is by now
largely accepted that, even in social sciences, simple schematic models and computer
simulations inspired by statistical physics are able to take into account unexpected
collective behaviors of large groups of individuals, discovering emergent features that are
independent of their individual psychological attributes, which are very often
counterintuitive and difficult to predict simply by following common sense. Along these
lines, by means of an agent-based simulation approach (Epstein et al., 2006), we study
here the effects of the Peter principle within a very general context in which different
promotion strategies are investigated in order to maximize the global efficiency in a
given hierarchical system.

Advertisement is any form of paid non personal communication by a specific sponsor
with a n intention of communicating a product, idea or organisation.
Personal selling consists of verbal communication among a salesperson and a potential
buyer in order to influence or make a sale. The annual selling expenditures are higher
than advertising, perhaps twice as much. Sales promotion includes many different
promotional activities such as coupons, trade incentives, point of purchase display,
samples, contests and trade shows, the expenditure on promotion is much higher than the
expenditure on advertising and as large as sales force expenditures.
Direct marketing includes the numerous communicating channels through which the
individual buyers can be directly contacted by the companies. For example through
electronic shopping, newspaper/ magazine/ radio selling, television selling,
telemarketing, direct mail, catalogues. Interactive/ Internet marketing promotion
component include the interactive television, Kiosks, CD-ROM, and internet. The sellers
and buyers can interact through interactive media too. Public relations are
&)
communications through commercial media placed at no charge to the company
promoting its product and its services and yet gaining publicity. Like for instance the
news of a new product might be printed in a trade magazine and the organisation does not
have to pay for this communication.
Promotion is an important tool in achieving financial performance and impressive growth
in the high street. For example In the world Louis Vuitton is the most profitable and
largest brand. The French producer of handbags, briefcases, and wallets is continuously
developing new products, improving the quality and efficiency of production processes
and rigorously promoting its brand against its rivals.. In 2003 the expenditure on
advertising was increased by 20 percent by Louis Vuitton while the competition cut down
on spending. Even with its aggressive advertising strategy, the company spends only 5
percent of its revenues on advertising.

2.5 Puma AG

Puma AG can be advised as one the premier manufacturers of athletic footwear,
sportswear, as well as accessories in the world. It is best renowned for its goods like
soccer footwear, and values sponsorship for its marketing strategy. Several sponsorships
for various superstars such as Diego Armando Maradonna has already been done by the
company, it also has offered various sport clothing line created by renowned designers
like Lamine Kouyate.
Dassler brothers (Adi and Rudi) first founded the organization as Gebrder Dassler
Schuhfabrik in English, the Dassler Brothers Shoe Factory In 1924. The separation of
the brothers because of a great fight between them during World War II lead to an end to
their partnership. Adi carried on the business and renamed it as Adidas, having the first
three letters of his own name. Whereas, on the other end, Puma AG Schufabrik Rudolf
Dassles, on the other side of Aurach, was created by Rudi as his own company in 1948.
Due to innovative products like process of vulcanization in producing their soccer shoes,
the company was recognized as that process had become the standard process of those
times. With the help of the Velcro strap ad the unique shape sole, the company launched
itself in running shoes.
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Cosa Liebermann bought the company and it was retitled as PUMA AG Rudolf Dassler
sport. Even after the new ownership coming into place, PUMA AG continued to back its
innovation philosophy by getting in new products and technology like S.P.A technology
in the mid- 1970s; Puma AG Duoflex sole in 1982; trinomic sport shoe system in 1989;
inspector shoes for children; and also the disc system.
Like many well to do companies, PUMA AG also had to face several problems regarding
their financial aspects. This led to the management deciding to to sell low cost products
in the market. This was aimed at the working class markets in various parts of the world
and also to compete with American giants Nike and also brands like Adidas and Reebok.
This would lead to a better market share and eventually leading to more money and
profits. But unfortunately for PUMA AG, the strategy did not work thereby leading to
grave problems. This was because PUMAs customer base was the higher class, but since
they started selling cheaper products, their loyal customers switched to other brands. The
overall sales of the company decreased because of the above situation.
When Jochen Zeitz became the CEO of the company, it was said to be a start of better
times for the organisation. During that time he was the one of the youngest CEOs of all
European publicly traded organisation. He had a masters degree form various European
business schools. He also acted as a product manager at organisations like Colgate and
Palmolive in Hamburg and also in New York. When he had become the Vice-president in
the year 1990 for international marketing and sales, his role for the company was to
manage its international communications and sales worldwide. Jochen Zeitz became the
CEO of PUMA AG in the year 1991. It was during that year that PUMA AG had stated a
profit of DM 25 million. This was for the first time since the year 1986.
For the financial period of 2010 PUMA AG had reported sales worth $ 2.70 billion.

2.6 Strategic flexibility in promotion mix.

Promotion is one of the most important parts of any business and for the whole marketing
process; its a basic ingredient. Through promotion the potential customers are made
aware of the various choices that are available to them regarding different services and
products. Generally, through the use of print media and broadcast advertising or through
&+
personal selling, sales promotion, direct mail and public relations this undertaking can be
achieved. Although, each tool in the promotion mix has its own communication
capabilities in order to promote the products and services that are offered by the firm, all
of them would not be considered to be of equal importance. therefore it is important for
the company to have an adequate strategy to promote its products and services.
Promotion is considered an important component of the overall strategy because it leads
to brand switching, purchase quantity and stockpiling. It also has been documented that
promotion acts as a catalyst for to switch brands or to purchase earlier or more. A flexible
strategy would not only help in brand switching, purchase quantity or stockpiling but also
help understand as to what kinds of promotional activities attracts the consumers. A
flexible strategy would assist in quickly adapting to the needs and wants of the customers
and also to the activities and strategies of the competitors. A promotion strategy that is
flexible also helps retain the existing customers. Promotion promotes consumer
awareness as well, so if a product is newly launched in the market, an aggressive
promotion strategy creates awareness among consumers thereby leading to a purchase.
National brand expenditures on sales promotions for frequently purchased consumer
products have increased dramatically in the past decade, with many companies spending
more on promotions than they do on advertising (Blattberg, Briesch, and Fox 1995). As
the competition is increasing in the market, the organisations have increased their
revenue spent on promotional activities. Since the amount spent is high, there should be a
flexible promotion strategy which shields the organisations against the risks involved.
The intense competition and slow growth in the recent years has made the retailers to
focus their strategies on attracting and retaining the right customers. But , a strategy that
is effective in acquiring new customers may not be the most effective in retaining current
customers (Sirohi, McLaughlin, Wittink, 1998)

2.7 Change in consumers perception due to promotion strategies

For a retailer to sustain and achieve success in a highly competitive market, they need to
have a high value merchandise and good store image. Three important components that
appear to be key to store patronage decisions are the retailer's store image, quality of the
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merchandise/brands sold and price/promotions. Consumers use certain cues as signals for
these components; store name, brand name and price discounts (Dawar and Parker,
1994; Dodds et al., 1991)
In the recent years price discounts as a form of sales promotion is widely used by
marketers. For example the price reduction offers in departmental stores increased to 19
percent in 1986 of total sales from 6 percent in 1963. (Blattberg & Neslin 1991), and the
distribution of coupons by the manufacturers quadrupled with 1976-2000. (Promotion
Marketing Association Coupon Council 2001). To add to this, many practical studies
have shown that price discounts lead to an increase in value perception. (Compeau &
Grewal ,1998).
Advertising is considered as the most visible element of marketing mix to the consumers.
A normal U.S. person is exposed to some 3000-5000 advertisements on any day. (Bower
2000) Advertising can be in different forms i.e. television, radio, newspapers magazines.
Advertisement acts as an essential tool in changing consumers perceptions because the
consumers are most exposed to promotions through advertising and also advertising is
low cost per exposure.

According to previous studies the consumers buying decisions are changed by retail price
promotions and this means of promotion is used often by the retailers to enhance store
sales. (Inman and McAlister, 1993). Whereas the effect of price promotion on consumers
buying decision and perceptions have been studied insufficiently.









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3. Methodology

This report will be totally focusing on promotional activities by PUMA sports promotion
perceptions by the general public.
Promotional techniques are the sales promotion practices which is preferred by the
customers. The sales promotion techniques are an important part of the marketing
activities, strategic flexibility with respect to promotion is studied in the research.

3.1 Research Design

Churchill and Iacobucci (2002) found three fundamental types of research design, which
are exploratory, descriptive and casual research. These three styles of research designs
seem to have slight correlation and are affected of concerned respectively.
According to Emory & Cooper (1991), investigative plans can be described in many
ways; an appropriate version for the current study, from latter sources, would speak of
investigative plan as a structure or plan with particulars of processes for gathering and
evaluating the pertinent data, from different sources, essential to recognise or respond to
an investigative conundrum or chance, so that the variation amongst the price of attaining
different extents of preciseness and the anticipated worth of information linked with each
degree of preciseness is optimised.

3.1.1 Exploratory research

The chief aim of investigative studies is to offer insights into and understand the
conundrum which the investigator has to deal with. The outcomes, on the other hand, are
directives to attain a superior comprehension of the conundrum dealt with instead of
anticipating being succinct ascertainment, and at the same time supporting the prudence
and innovation of the analyst (Malhotra, 1996).

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3.1.2 Descriptive research

As per Malhotra (1996), the main objective of the explanatory studies is to explain things
related to marketing attributes, roles or any incidents. It also investigates the correlation
(if present) amongst two variables opine Churchill & Peter (1998).

3.1.3 Causal research

The chief objective of causal studies (also termed as investigational studies) is to identify
and procure proof in context to the reason-and-consequence amongst variables in the
conundrum prototype. Reason-and-consequence correlation investigations are generally
the outcome of elucidatory and explanatory investigations.
In this case exploratory research is best suited because understanding of thetopicRole of
flexibility in Marketing strategy is done. The concept is understood with the help of
PUMA AG's case. PUMA's reasons for success in the recent years will be studied and the
role of strategic flexibility in the success will be analylzed.

3.2 Data Collection

The data gathered may either be primary or secondary in nature.

3.2.1 Secondary Data collection

Secondary data refers to data which has been gathered to fulfil the aim of a research
conducted previously by other analysts (Churchill and Iacobucci (2005)). To commence
evaluating a specific theme it is essential to have secondary data. It includes printed
sources such as broadsheets, articles which have been appraised b y colleagues, sources
present on the web and the like. The basis for any scholastic investigation is secondary
data.
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3.2.2 Primary Data

As per (Hooley, et al. 2008), primary data is collected by a researcher in the event of
secondary data being inadequate to offer comprehensive information related to the
investigative conundrum. Primary data, state Churchill and Iacobucci (2005), primary
data includes data, which has been solely amassed for the investigation undertaken by the
researcher. Myers (2009), states that sources of primary data are not printed and include
interviews, fieldwork and unprinted records.
The current study opted for primary research methodology wherein the data was collected
through interviews. The secondary data was also used from reliable academic sources to
form the literature review written in previous chapter.

Interviews can be highly structured, semi structured or unstructured. Structured
interviews consist of the interviewer asking each respondent the same questions in the
same way. A tightly structured schedule of questions is used, very much like a
questionnaire. The questions may even be phrased in such a way that a limited range of
responses can be elicited. For example: "Do you think that health services in this area are
excellent, good, average or poor? Bearing in mind the cost of conducting a series of one
to one interviews, the researcher planning to use structured interviews should carefully
consider the information could be more efficiently collected using questionnaires.
(Denscombe, 2000)
For the purpose of getting information regarding the strategic flexibility in organization,
the interview questionnaire was prepared for the management of chosen organizations.
The interview questionnaire with open-ended questions was prepared while keeping the
perception of information quality in the mind.

3.4 Research objectives

The research will be done on the basis of following research objectives.
1. To study the importance of flexibility in marketing strategy.
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2. To study the role of promotion in strategic flexibility.
3. Role of promotion in strategic flexibility, explain with the help of PUMA AG
4. The strategic flexibility followed by PUMA AG for its recent success.

3.5 Research Approach

For any investigative study the ideas related to Induction and Deduction is essential. It is
clarified that any studies depending on the Inductive technique chiefly include making
generalised deductions by relying on the examinations (Bryman and Bell (2003)). It
encompasses correlating the investigation to a premise which is relevant to the results
which have been investigated. On the other hand, under the Deductive technique, an
analyst builds up postulations depending on earlier studies and checks it depends on the
real knowledge. According to researchers (Bryman and Bell, 2003; Lee and Lings, 2008),
the chief rationale for a deductive investigation is to ably build a postulation and link it to
the functional limits.

An analyst can employ two techniques for validating the systems adopted Qualitative
method or quantitative method. A qualitative technique is abounding in text as majority
of the evaluation is textual in character. This method chiefly depends on the outlook of an
inductive analysis of the premise and investigation, thereby resulting in the study
reaching a conclusive premise opines Bryman and Bell (2003). This technique has some
limitations which include that the data collected through a Qualitative method may be
prejudiced or skewed and transparency is absent in context to gathering data (Myers,
2009; Bryman and Bell, 2003). A quantitative method is employed when the outcomes
need to be quantified and the selected populace is huge (Myers (2009)). This method is
chiefly a numerical method. The chief limitation of this technique is that the data lacks
the data intensity and chiefly puts forth a universal perspective.

Further PUMA's success will be evaluated on the basis of different comparative metrics.

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3.6. Research Strategy: Case Study

There are particular polices which are superior in character to handle particular
conundrums when varied investigative polices are considered. According to Denscombe
(2000), crucial tactical and systematic choices are actually taken prior to commencing the
real investigation in several instances. Five varied investigative polices are explained by
Yin (2003). These include: experiment, survey, archival analysis, history and case study.

There are three chief choices to consider before planning the investigative policy (Yin,
2003). These include:
i. The kind of investigative query asked;
ii. The degree of influence the investigator has on the real behavioural incidents;
iii. The extent of emphasis on modern in contrast to the historical incidents;

As stated before, case studies are suitable for small scale investigations which deal with
small units in a limited outlook and where comprehensive investigation would be
undertaken opines Denscombe (2000). He additionally elucidates that the emphasis of a
case study is on associations and procedures to obtain a perception of how these are
correlated with one another; the study is also undertaken in an environmental setting
which the investigator cannot influence; furthermore it offers the analyst a chance to
employ varied sources and techniques. It is asserted that a case study is an experiential
investigation which studies a modern event in its real-life setting, particularly when the
limits between occurrences and situations are blurred (Yin (2003, p. 13)). He additionally
mentions that a case study responds to queries which typically seek to answer how and
why things occur. A multiple-case study is appropriate when a researcher is investigating
two or more bodies and contrasting them; the advantage of this opines Yin (2003) is that
it enhances the soundness of a study. Yin (1994) further contends that within multiple-
case studies there are holistic multiple-case plans which are appropriate when the
universal character of an institute is studied.

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3.7. Sample Population

For the purpose of getting information regarding the strategic flexibility, the interview
questionnaire was prepared for the management of chosen organization. The interview
questionnaire with open-ended questions and 10 in number was prepared while keeping
the perception of given context in the mind. The reason behind keeping only 10 questions
in the interview was to make the respondents interesting in answering them.
The respondents for the interview were consisted of management of chosen organization,
who are working in the relative department. The researcher contacted the Human
Resource (HR) department of the organization who provided the names and contact
details of the respondents on random basis. The respondents were then contacted over the
phone so that the appointment can be taken and they can give the quality time for the
interview. The on-to-one interview was taken from each respondent and was recorded in
the tape. The researcher took almost 4 interviews which were then converted into
transcripts which has been included in Appendix section. This whole process took 1.5
months and then the researcher ended up with the data for survey questionnaire and
interview transcripts.

3.8. Data Analysis

This section provides the analytical framework used for the quantitative data analysis
methods to interpret the findings. According to Yin (2003), researchers must select a
specific mode of investigative method before they decide to review the information from
the context of questionnaires.
Miles and Huberman (2003) assert that researchers can identify the connection between
different concepts through descriptions and models, also by suggestions and
consistencies. In this research, the approach supports determined propositions related to
the structure of studying information for a relevant end.


")
4. Analysis & Discussion

4.1 Marketing and Promotion

Marketing and promotion are terms which have been in existence from the time the
product selling has been in the picture. The concept of promoting the products and
services to the consumers so as to influence their decisions has been present before the
medieval times as well. The promotion approach has changed over the years and with
time. Promotion of products has become necessary due to the increasing competition and
so as to create a brand recall in the minds of the consumer. In todays world the subject of
promotion has become all the more important as companies are exploring all ways of
capturing the customers and increasing their loyal customer base.
As a result of the increasing dynamism in the industry and the marketplace, the marketing
strategies of the organizations need to be in sync with the consumer demands. Cravens
(1999) also pointed out that market strategy of an organization needs to meet the value
requirements of its customers. The job of marketers has become all the more significant
and complex with the increasing fluidity of the market. It is no more possible today for
the marketing managers to devise a marketing and promotion plan and then follow the
same for years together. Moreover the companies cannot ignore the changing
requirements of the consumers in todays market place. Such rapid transformations in the
industry call for a pro-active approach by the marketers in designing the promotional
strategies. Moreover the plan once devised cannot be rigid in itself to ignore the changes
in the market.

4.2 Strategic flexibility and Promotion

The current research is directed at understanding the concept of flexibility in the
marketing and promotion strategy. The concept of strategic flexibility has already been
discussed in the literature review section of the study and the idea here is to understand
its relevance with Puma. Sports goods industry has been experiencing a lot of changes
"*
over the past few years. With globalization and opening up of economy the sports good
manufacturers have come across a sudden spurt in sales followed by stiff competition.
Puma has been a known brand in the sports good industry for quite long and has been
associated with a good amount of controversy and fame. The current chapter is directed
at understanding how has strategic flexibility been able to assist Puma in its growth and
expansion approach.

The chapter analyzes the perspective of various researchers and articles and then
discusses the same in the light of the research objectives. This section brings out the
application of the concept of strategic flexibility by Puma in designing its promotion and
marketing strategy.

4.3 PUMA Analysis

The research is directed at understanding the concept of strategic flexibility in designing
the promotional strategy by the organizations. The sports goods industry has always been
quite competitive and with the turn of the events over the past few years, this competition
has only increased. As such the study is quite relevant for the present situation of the
sector. In order to understand the same, researcher carried out the study of marketing and
promotion strategies of Puma over the past few years. The approach followed by the
researcher for the study is secondary, wherein various articles were studied by the
researcher.
For the purpose of determining how the concept of strategic flexibility is adopted by
Puma and how the same has influenced the organizations numbers and growth,
researcher analyzed a number of articles and material.
The study of the material provided a lot of important information on the subject. Further a
detailed analysis of the articles brought out significant points on how the concept of
flexibility has been applied by Puma in its promotional campaigns. One of the most
significant step that shows the flexible approach of Puma in the marketing and promotion
of its products is the shift from being an activity focussed product to a lifestyle based
product. Puma has traditionally been focussing on developing products for the particular
"+
sports and had been targeting to promote the goods for that particular segment. For
instance, it developed shoes for running, for playing basketball, for playing football etc.
However the marketers realized that the people are buying and using products not just for
the sole activity for which the company was promoting its products. As such the
organization modified its approach and adapted to the consumer requirement. Through
this approach the company was able to shift its focus from producing products for
specific activity to developing goods as per the lifestyle of the consumers. This not only
enabled the company to stand out among the various other sports goods manufacturing
organizations, but also it allowed Puma to create a niche brand image for itself. Aaker
and Mascarenhas, (1984) have also indicated to the point that the organizations need to
adopt a strategic flexible approach, wherein the organization needs to adapt its strategy as
per the changes taking place in the environment external to the organization. The
flexibility shown by the company in changing its marketing strategy brought a lot of
success for the organization. Puma is now seen differently by the consumers in
comparison to its other rivals and competitors. The strategic approach in this case that the
company undertook was to create a different brand and segment for its products in the
longterm. As a large majority of the customers do not use the products just for what it
was designed, hence it made a lot of sense for Puma to place its products as a
multipurpose one. It gave the advantage to the consumers for using the products for
different purposes and use it as a trendy and lifestyle product. A number of sports goods
manufacturers have a rigid approach in terms of promoting their products as an activity
based goods which means that such organizations would promote their shoe as a shoe for
running only or as a shoe for playing football only or so. However on the other hand
Puma with its flexible approach has removed such a label from its products, which means
a shoe is marketed as a lifestyle product and not for a single purpose. This allowed the
company to attract a bigger section of customers and created one shoe that could serve a
variety of purposes which was the key requirement of majority of the consumers. The
strategic flexibility of the company gave it an edge over its competitors and allowed it to
shrug off the activity based sports good manufacturer image to become a lifestyle brand
in the sports goods segment.
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4.4 Strategic evolution of PUMA

With the approach of the company changing from being a specialized activity based
product manufacturer to a lifestyle brand, the company had to produce products which
appealed to the customers and which were in line with the current fashion trends. In order
to do the same the marketers demonstrated their flexible approach once again, wherein
the products were redesigned to suit the requirements of the consumers. This enabled the
company to be inline with the requirements of the consumer and to appeal to them as a
product which is not just worn for its use but also for its fashion statement. Puma showed
a lot of flexibility in changing its approach from being a performance footwear to a
fashionable and comfortable footwear manufacturing company. Vardarajan and Clark,
(1994, pp 87) also indicated that marketing strategy of the organization must meet the
value requirements of the customers. The prospect which the company saw in becoming a
fashionable brand rather than being a performance brand was to appeal to about 80% of
the customers who buy the sports shoes as a fashion statement rather than for the
performance of the same. The constantly changing trends and fashion in the footwear
industry require that the company be flexible and adapt to the changing scenario and
requirements of the customers. In addition the company also found out that the customers
perceive fashion and performance to be symmetrical, i.e. the more fashionable the shoe
is, the more performance it would deliver. This made the organization to focus more on
the fashion and to be trendy in accordance with the current trends of the market. The
study of the articles also pointed out that good looks was one of the important
perspectives which the consumers kept in mind while purchasing sports goods such as
shoes. The strategic approach adopted by Puma in going along with the fashion and trend,
was directed at fulfilling the short term objective of increasing sales and accomplishing
the long term goal of being a fashion brand rather than a performance brand. The flexible
approach of marketers enabled the company to adopt such an approach and to move
ahead with the fashion aspect. Moreover the fashion approach enabled the company to
turn the tide in its favour in terms of the loosing market share with which it was grappling
for some time. The same was visible from the financials of the company. In addition to
all these aspects, the fashion approach allowed the company to create a fresh look for its
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products and goods in the mind of the consumer.

4.5 Strategy with respect to the changing trends

The trend and fashion approach that the company adopted to was directed at a marketing
approach wherein the focus was more on the younger generation. The article 2 pointed
out that the company promoted the brand as a young and hip brand which further
strengthened its fashionable approach. The company adopted a flexible approach in this
as well by partnering with Monarchy/Regency, which enabled the organization to free
advertising with some of the biggest Hollywood flicks such as Pretty Woman and JFK. In
addition the organization got into the television segment as well through a number of
popular TV shows. Moreover the company was able to en-cash on its Hollywood
connection even more with a number of celebrities sporting the shoes of Puma. All this
not only enabled the company to gather a lot of publicity but it also gave the company a
definite position in the fashion world. Puma was moved from just being a performance
sports goods manufacturing organization to a lifestyle and fashionable brand in the sports
goods segment. All this resulted in more and more youngsters going in for the products of
Puma and increasing its revenues. Organizations that have strategic flexibility are quite
likely to foresee the market needs and react in an appropriate manner to create products
and services, as per the requirements of customers (Martinez- Sanches et al., in press)
The focus on younger generation was more suitable for the company as it is this segment
which is more conscious of the fashion and trends and also the younger generation
spending power had increased over the past few years. The company in this case also
adopted a flexible approach with modifying its target customers segment and moving
along with the current market practices in the industry. The strategic approach followed
by the company enabled the organization to create a positive image for the company and
to target the more active portion of the population, in terms of the sports good
purchasing. The study also pointed out that the younger generation approach was seen as
a positive outlook and a number of customers wanted to go along with a product which
was portrayed as being for young people rather than just being performance oriented or
targeting the mature section of the customers. This flexible approach provided a long
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term objective of creating a young brand and in the short term it was able to attract the
younger and more active customers of the lot.

4.6 Strategic flexibility and fashion

The approach of turning Puma into a fashionable and trendy lifestyle brand from a
performance oriented product manufacturer, was coupled with the company introducing
apparels and other associated products in addition to the footwear. According to the
articles, it can be deduced that with this approach, the company saw a lot of scope in the
apparel and other miscellaneous products and it also went along with the image of the
company of fashion sports goods manufacturer. The company went into producing
apparels not just for the sporting activities but also the ones which were seen as a fashion
statement and which boosted its younger generation approach. This approach required a
completely flexible mindset as the company was to again shrug off its image of being just
a sports goods manufacturer. It enabled Puma to become a complete fashion brand in the
sports segment. In addition the company was able to offer a one stop shop solution with
this approach which is what the consumers are looking for in almost all the cases, as
evident from the researches of the various scholars. The approach also boosted
companys revenues by a significant amount and the focus on the apparel sector provided
an additional option for the customers when visiting a Puma store. In addition to this the
company was able to create a revenue source which was complimentary with its main
product options. The flexibility in marketing was further demonstrated by the company
when promoting its apparels for the consumers. The apparels were not shown off as a
requirement for fitness or for sports but it was demonstrated as a fashion statement and
having a segment of their own. The company adopted the flexible approach in this
segment which provided the organization an edge over its rivals and competitors. The
findings are in line with the findings of Verdu-Jover et al. (2005), which pointed out that
strategic flexibility plays a significant role in the organizations reaction ability towards
modernization. Thus implying that companies which are flexible in their approach are
likely to adapt to the modernization requirements more easily.

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4.7 Strategic placements of PUMA stores

With the availability of apparel along-with the sports goods, the company had a lot to
offer to the customers in the sports segment. However the organization needed to reach
out to the customers through exclusive stores wherein the consumers could come and
have an experience of the real Puma products in the way the company would like them to
have a feel of. The marketing approach called for flexibility in this as well. The company
needed to open concept stores which provided the customers a unique opportunity of
capturing the Puma experience in the real sense. According to the articles, the company
set up about 50 such stores for the consumers in the different parts of the world. These
stores were directed at not creating huge revenues for the organization but the key
objective was to create a brand image for the company. The branding objective was more
important with the concept stores as compared to the revenues. Dawar and Parker (1994)
point out that store name and brand name are important factors considered by a customer
while taking a decision regarding the store selection. Thus creating branding is an
important factor in attracting the consumer to a particular product or store. As per the
study the concept stores provided the opportunity for the consumers to experience the
technology and innovation which the company was about to introduce or had introduced
recently. Moreover it offered a feeling of being treated as special for the customers since
the consumers get access to different products and information on Pumas developments.
This promotional approach was mainly concerned with creating a popular brand name
and top of the mind recall for the company. Even-though the concept stores are not
opened with revenues in mind but even then they are generating about 9-10% of the
companys revenues and the same are expected to further increase as the popularity of the
brand goes up and the idea of concept stores catches on with the consumers across the
different parts of the world.

4.8 Importance of Innovation in PUMAs success

Innovation is the success for any product or service in todays world. People are always
on the lookout for something new and novel. Moreover innovative approach of the
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companies is what is driving them to growth and success, as can be seen in the different
industries. Innovation is about creating something unique and novel, which offers
additional value for the consumer. With the growth in competition and the increasing
demands of customers, innovation is one of the most important tools for creating a
satisfied customer base. The sports good industry is no stranger to the subject of
innovation. On the contrary, innovation is a part and parcel for this sector as people look
out for different new products and ways. The sports goods manufacturers are always on
the lookout to create a new technology, new product or an additional advantage which
they can offer to the consumer. Innovation plays a lot of role in determining the
preference of the consumers towards a particular sports goods manufacturer. Puma has
adopted the innovative attitude in a positive way and the marketers have exploited the
same to benefit the company in a significant manner. The company has been working on
introducing newer products and technologies regularly so as to keep the consumer
interested in the products of the company. The flexible approach adopted in promotion of
the innovative products can be observed from the point that the new technologies and
products are focused more on the utilization of the product as a solution to all the
problems rather than just as an answer to one particular problem. The innovative
approach is directed at providing a product which gives a solution for all the different
needs of the customers rather than on the specific needs. The marketing strategy of
promoting the innovation has an important role to play in increasing the numbers and the
revenues for the company. The study of various articles pointed out that the companys
numbers and revenues have seen a positive trend in majority of the cases when a new
technology or product is introduced by the company. This points out that the consumers
are always on the lookout for such products and goods. The flexible approach of the
marketing can be seen from the point that the company is promoted as producing
innovative products that provide a solution to the customer demands, rather than
resolving issues of athletes or sportsperson only. This gives the company a different
perspective from a normal sports good manufacturing organization and it also requires
that the company adopt to changing market needs, which Puma is able to do by way of its
flexible approach.

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4.9 Strategy with competition

The company has demonstrated a lot of flexibility in its approach over the previous years
with regards to its marketing and branding. Puma has also been quite aggressive in
promoting its products and has tied up with a number of unique and controversial
athletes, as pointed out by the articles. According to the same the companys tie up with
sporting personalities like Serena Williams and Nicolas Anelka has been beneficial for
Puma. Although these sporting stars have been involved in controversies but the same has
only had a positive effect on the sales of the company. This points out that the company
has been quite flexible in approaching the issue of promoting the products through
controversial personalities and then taking the controversies in its stride which has been
beneficial for the organization in totality. According to what can be deduced from the
various articles, the marketers of the company have been flexible in their approach
towards whether to tie-up with such sports personalities or not. Moreover the promotion
of the company has been positively influenced by the controversies generated from these
stars. Ireland et al., (2003) point out that strategic flexibility of an organization plays a
definite role in its capacity to deal with the rising issues and attain an upper hand over its
rivals or competitors. The companys marketing department has been quite flexible in
promoting their products through the controversial sportspersons. The flexibility in the
approach can be seen from the fact that a normal organization would try and avoid tying
up with such people who are involved in controversies. However Puma has adopted a
flexible approach and used the same to its advantage. The same has benefitted the
company in the short term by attracting a lot of customers for the products over which the
controversies had erupted. The concept of utilizing the controversies to their advantage
has been seen as a quite bold and flexible approach by a number of people in the industry.

4.10 PUMA and CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility)

Tying up with controversial sports persons is one side of Puma and on the other side the
company has adopted a flexible approach in the caring attitude for the environment. The
corporate social responsibility part has been played quite well by the company and it has
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been quite aggressive in reducing toxic pollution generated from its plants. According to
the article the company has responded quite positively in committing to the elimination
of the release of hazardous chemicals from its complete product life cycle by the year
2020. This has created a lot of positive promotion for the company and has enabled the
organization to cash in on the green concern of the company. The company has been
quite flexible in adopting the approach as it requires a lot of investment and commitment
from the organization at all levels. Moreover the company has been aggressive in
marketing the same to its customers in various parts of the world.

4.11 PUMAs changing promotional strategies

One of the most significant marketing strategies which demonstrates the flexibility in the
promotional aspect of Puma, is the Street Soccer Cup. This was a unique and novel
approach adopted by Puma wherein street soccer was popularized. The idea was to
promote technique and finesse over athleticism and casual fun over regulations. Also the
company promoted free style dress over uniforms and the game was played on the street
over concrete or asphalt surface. The innovative marketing approach required a flexible
mindset on the part of the management as the marketing could have bounced back for
Puma in the negative sense and which would have proved to be disastrous for the
organization. As such the company had to be quite flexible for adopting this strategy for
promoting its products. However as the studies point out, the methodology proved to be
quite successful for the company and a large number of customers were added to the
companys books, increasing the revenue by a significant amount. The same has been
followed for quite long after that and the companys has been able to capitalize the same
in effective manner for the benefit of the organization. The marketers of various other
organizations dread on taking such a flexible approach as it can play havoc for the
company if it goes in the wrong direction. However Puma has taken the stride and has
been able to benefit from the same.

Another important step in the marketing history of Puma has been the tie-up with Ferrari.
The company has again demonstrated its flexible approach by going in for a tie-up with a
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brand which does not really correspond to the athletics or the usual sporting activities
such as soccer or basket ball on which majority of the sports goods manufacturers have
concentrated upon. The promotion of goods through tie-up with Ferrari has been seen by
the company as a positive one, since Ferrari is the best brand in the Formula one segment.
In the tie-up with Ferrari, Puma has tried to depict itself as a fashion brand and being with
the best. This is in sync with the companys overall marketing strategy of being a
fashionable sports brand rather than just a performance oriented sporting activity.
According to Johnson and Scholes (1986), the organizations need to create marketing
strategies not just for the present but keeping in view the unpredictable future as well.
Thus Puma is developing strategies in line with the future requirements.

4.12 Interview Analysis

In order to further understand the concept of strategic flexibility and its relevance to
Puma, researcher captured the perspective of employees at Puma. For this purpose
researcher utilized the qualitative approach and carried out interviews with the employees
in Puma so as to find out how strategic flexibility approach has been put to use in the
company. A total of three interviews were carried out by the researcher. Due to
confidentiality reasons the name and details of interviewees were not disclosed.
The first interview was carried out with the sales manager at Puma, who had been part of
the company for about 4 years. The interviewee pointed out that Puma follows a
marketing approach where consumer is the centre of the activity and all the work is
focused on him or her. Puma has been making use of strategic flexibility and the change
from being a sports brand to a lifestyle brand demonstrates the same, as pointed out by
the respondent. Further, the interview also indicated that strategic flexibility is used in
promotion as well by the company, and promotion helps to change consumer perception.
On the whole interviewee pointed out that strategic flexibility is part of Pumas
marketing success and the tie-up with controversial stars is an example of the strategic
flexibility.
Manager from Marketing department was the next person to be interviewed by the
researcher, who had been in the company for 3 years. According to the interviewee,
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company follows an aggressive and out of the box approach. Strategic flexibility is used
by the company in almost every segment of marketing and the tie-up with controversial
stars and branding with Ferrari are examples of the same, as per the respondent. Further,
interviewee indicated that while establishing stores whose focus was to create a brand
rather than focus on sales, are indicative of how strategic flexibility is used in promotion.
Moreover promoting in this manner has helped the company in creating a brand, which
helps in attracting customers. Overall the use of strategic flexibility in Puma is apparent
by way of its migration to lifestyle brand from sports brand and introducing garments as
well.
The final interviewee was from the vendor operation and store sales department with five
years of experience in the company. As per the respondent, strategic flexibility is about
adapting tactically to the dynamic environment, and it has been used by Puma to
overcome issues. Further, the tie-up with Ferrari is an example of use of strategic
flexibility in promotion. The ability to set apart Puma through promotion as a lifestyle
brand has enabled the company to standout among the competitors. On the whole,
interviewee pointed out that strategic flexibility has been used by the company in
marketing tie-ups, branding, changing product profile etc., which has benefited the
company in a significant manner.

4.13 Conclusion

The research has been quite comprehensive in bringing out significant points on the
subject of flexible strategy in promotion. As evident from the various articles, Puma has
adopted a quite flexible approach in the marketing and promotion of its products. The
most significant example of flexible approach as demonstrated by Puma has been the
shift from being a performance oriented consumer brand to a fashion and lifestyle sports
goods manufacturer. This approach has been quite beneficial for the organization as it
enabled the company to target a large section of the customers who were not being
catered to by the various other sports goods manufacturers and who buy products as a
style statement more rather than for the designated purpose for which it is manufactured.
This enabled the company to create a positive shift and change the complete outlook of
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the organization.
Another important approach which has demonstrated flexibility in the companys
marketing strategy is the Street Soccer. The idea of popularizing the game to be played
on streets rather than on field and promoting technique over athleticism and freedom over
rules was a bold step in itself. This marketing approach required quite a flexibility and
bold step taking attitude in the company as it could have bounced back and resulted in a
lot of embarrassment for the organization. The flexible approach followed by the
marketing department proved to be quite successful and created a unique idea.
Various other approaches that the marketing department has adopted have also shown the
companys flexible approach. This includes the companys tie-up with a non athletic
sporting team like Ferrari which is into F1 racing and not into the normal league of sports
such as football or basket ball which the other companies target for. The interviewees
also pointed out that strategic flexibility is an important part of marketing strategy for
Puma and it has brought in several advantages for the company. The research also
pointed out that strategic flexibility approach has been used in promotion as well by the
company, in its tie-ups with controversial stars and Ferrari. Further the study indicated
that strategic flexibility used in promotion and marketing has created a different brand for
the company and has benefited the company substantially.


On the whole the research has been able to bring out that Puma has a flexible approach in
promotion of its products and the same has been quite beneficial for the company. It has
resulted in the company coming back from brinks and becoming one of the favourite
sporting brands of the customers across the world.






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5. Conclusion

5.1 Introduction

Promotion of products is one of the most researched areas in the marketing segment. The
promotional strategy which a company adopts and the success of the same, plays a very
important role in the operation of the organization. Blattberg et al., (1995), point out that
the spending on promotions has gone up considerably for the organizations as compared
to their spending on the advertisements. Various factors influence the marketing decision
of the company, in terms of what promotion strategy to adopt. Moreover the promotion
approach is also influenced by the approach of the decision makers. With the increase in
competition and the rapidly changing trends in the industry, a flexible approach is
required by the company. The marketing approach of the company has to be in line with
the present market situation and the requirements and needs of the customers.
A flexible approach makes the organization capable to handle the dynamism of the
industry and the consumers. Henry (2008) also pointed out that an appropriate strategy
enables the organization to effectively utilize the resources, capture the opportunities and
overcome the threats from external environment. The current research is directed at
understanding the concept of flexibility in the marketing and promotion strategy. In order
to understand the same researcher identified the sports good manufacturing sector as the
area of study. The sports good manufacturing industry has been in the limelight for quite
some time due to various reasons. Some of the biggest names across the different
industry and among the top 500 brands in the world are from the sporting industry.
Moreover it is one of the biggest revenue earners among the various other industries. As
such researcher carried out the study in this segment.
Among the various companies in the sports goods manufacturers, researcher identified
Puma as the company for the research. Puma is one of the oldest brands in the sports
goods segment and has originated from Germany just like Addidas. In fact the two are
from the same family with the owners being brothers and the feud among them resulted
in the creation of these two separate brands of products. Puma has experienced a number
of ups and downs in the recent times and the same has influenced the companys
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marketing strategy to a significant extent. The current research explores how has Puma
adopted flexibility in its strategy of promotion and how the same has impacted the
company.
The current chapter analyses the findings of the research and then discusses the same in
the light of research objectives. Further the chapter also highlights the limitations that
have acted as the constraining factors for the study and how the same can be addressed to
by future researchers for further development on the subject.

5.2 Research Analysis

The current study addresses the area of marketing and promotion. A lot of research has
been carried out by various scholars on the subject. The current research however takes
the same forward and address the specific segment of flexibility in the marketing and
promotion strategy adopted by the company. In order to understand the concept of
marketing strategy and strategic flexibility, researcher analyzed the works of previous
researchers. The literature review section brought out a lot of important aspects on the
subject. Strategy as defined by the chapter is about being different. It means deliberately
choosing a different set of activities to deliver a unique mix of value, as per Porter
(1996). Further the concept of strategic flexibility is also discussed in the section and it is
defined as the ability of the organisation to adapt to the substantial, uncertain and fast-
moving environment changes that have a meaningful impact on the organisations
performance. In addition the area of marketing strategy and the various factors
influencing the marketing strategy like price, product, place and promotion are also
deliberated upon in the literature review section of the study. Moreover the concept of
promotion and how strategic flexibility applies to promotion mix is also talked about in
the chapter. The chapter also gives an overview about Puma and the change in consumer
perception due to promotional strategies.
In order to further understand the concept of strategic flexibility in promotion and its
relevance for an organization, researcher carried out the study in Puma for the same.
Researcher adopted the secondary approach for the study wherein a number of articles
were reviewed and analyzed for the research. For understanding the company point of
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view, researcher used the interview approach. A total of three interviews were conducted
by the researcher with the employees of PumaAG.
The interviews established that strategic flexibility is an important aspect of marketing
for the company, and its change from a sports product to a lifestyle product is an
examples of the same. Moreover the interviews also established that strategic flexibility
plays an important role in promotion for the company, and establishing stores for brand
promotion only is an example of the same. Further promotion does have an impact on the
customer perception as per the interviewees. The role of strategic flexibility in marketing
was acknowledged by all the respondents, with change of product profile, branding,
marketing tie-ups etc., substantiating the same.
The study of the articles pointed out a number of important marketing approaches where
Puma has demonstrated flexibility in its promotional strategies. According to the study,
Puma has traditionally been producing products for the sporting activities and has been
creating performance products for the consumers. However, the company was unable to
create a significant mark and the market shares were also dwindling for it. The marketing
strategy was changed by the company and the management adopted a flexible approach
to the marketing of products by allowing the products to be promote as a lifestyle product
rather than as a performance oriented product. The same transformed the image of the
company from being a product manufacturer addressing specific customers only to a
large number of customers who brought sports goods as a fashion statement. The
company adopted the approach, based on the point that a majority of the customers
purchase the sports goods not for their designated purpose but as a lifestyle product and
for general purposes. As such the company was able to provide a product as a lifestyle
and fashion statement. The company displayed a lot of flexibility in the promotional
strategy in this case as it meant a complete transformation of the companys image.
However, it was in line with the requirements of the customers and the market scenario,
which resulted in the companys growth. The findings of Martinez-Sanches et al. (in
press) also substantiate this, as organizations which follow flexible approach are likely to
get an understanding of the changes in future market and can create products and services
as per the requirements of the customer.
Another important area where Puma depicted flexibility was when the company tied up
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with controversial sports persons for marketing its products. The marketing strategy was
directed at capitalizing the personalities for promotion of the products. There were a lot
of controversies created with the products of Puma and the sports personalities. However
the same resulted in increase of the sales and the same was positively capitalized by the
company. The flexible approach of marketing was demonstrated in this case as well since
the sports persons had controversies attached to them and it was not an easy approach for
the organization.
Puma also tied up with Ferrari for promotion of the products. However Ferrari is not from
the ordinary athletics league and it does not have anything to do with football or basket
ball or tennis which are the core sectors for majority of the sports goods manufacturers.
The flexible approach of the company was demonstrated in this case as well, with the
company targeting to promote its association with a company which is the best in F1
racing and a sport which is seen as more of a style and fashion statement rather than
athletics.
Another important marketing strategy by Puma has been the Street Soccer. The idea
promoted here was that technique is more important than athleticism and casual fun over
regulations. The concept was promoted in a large way and the same was accepted by the
people with open hands. The approach however again required strategic flexibility on the
part of the company. The company was targeting at fulfilling the short term objective of
creating a ripple in the industry and the long term objective of accomplishing that
freedom is more important and lifestyle products serve more purpose.

The study was able to provide an answer to the following research objectives
1. To study the importance of flexibility in marketing strategy. The research
established that flexibility is quite important with Johnson and Scholes (1986) pointing
that the market strategy should be designed in a manner which can incorporate changes
with time in future and also by the strategy adopted by Puma in various occasions. This
was also substantiated by the findings of the interview, with all the respondents agreeing
to it.
2. To study the role of promotion in strategic flexibility.
The part played by promotion in strategic flexibility was discussed in the literature
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review section. The research showed that with strategic flexibility the promotion can be
designed in quite different manner and it can give an edge for the company.
3. Role of promotion in strategic flexibility, explain with the help of PUMA AG
The subject was addressed in the various articles studied for the research. According to
the study, strategic flexibility has enabled the organization to promote its products as a
lifestyle brand rather than performance oriented brand which has enabled the company to
address the needs of a large majority of the people buying the sports goods.
The strategic flexibility followed by PUMA AG for its recent success. The research
showed that strategic flexibility has helped Puma in various ways in devising its
marketing approaches. Street Soccer, tie-up with Ferrari, addressing youth etc. are
examples where flexible approaches have turned the tide in the favour of Puma.

5.3 Conclusion

The research has addressed the subject of strategic flexibility quite comprehensively and
has been able to bring out significant aspects on the subject. The study has established
that promotion is an important part of the companys marketing strategy and a flexible
approach in the promotion of products is very much required in todays time for
addressing the ever changing market and dynamic consumer requirements.
Further the study also showed that Puma has successfully implemented the concept of
strategic flexibility in its promotional strategies. The change from being a performance
oriented sports good manufacturer to a lifestyle brand in the sports good segment has
been the example of biggest flexible approach by the company. This has resulted in the
complete transformation for the organization and has been quite beneficial for the
company in terms of its growth and financials. Moreover steps like tie-up with
controversial sports personalities, Street Soccer, branding with Ferrari, concept stores etc.
demonstrate the flexible approach adopted by the company in marketing and promotion
of the products.
The study established that strategic flexibility in promotion of the products is
advantageous for the company.

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5.4 Limitations

The research was instrumental in addressing significant areas of the subject and was able
to bring out various important points on the strategic flexibility. However certain factors
have acted as the limiting factors for the study. One such area is that the research does not
take into account the perspective of customers and the company employees on how the
strategic flexibility has changed the companys outlook and whether it has been able to
address the demands of the customers or not. In addition the research has been carried out
for one company only and that too in a specialized industry only, which restricts the
applicability of the study to other industries and generalization to other regions.

5.5 Future Research

Further study on the subject must address the shortcomings of the present research so as
to take the subject forward. One of the areas which must be addressed by future
researchers is that primary research must be incorporated in the study. This implies that
the view point of customers and employees of the company should be included for
getting the ground impact of the strategic flexibility approach adopted by the company. In
addition to make the study more generalized and to increase its applicability in the
different industries, the research should be carried out in different companies across
various industries and located in different regions of the world.






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Interview
Q1. How long have you been part of PumaAG?
Q2. What is the position that you hold in the company?
Q3. What marketing approach do you follow in Puma?
Q4. What do you know about strategic flexibility?
Q5. Is strategic flexibility relevant to Puma? If so how, and if not then why not?
Q6. Does strategic flexibility play a role in promotion? If so how?
Q7. Do promotion strategies affect consumer perception? If yes then in what way?
Q8. How has strategic flexibility assisted Puma in the success of its marketing strategy?





















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Transcripts
Interview 1
Q1. How long have you been part of PumaAG?
I have been here for about 4 years now.
Q2. What is the position that you hold in the company?
I take care of the sales in the northern region.
Q3. What marketing approach do you follow in Puma?
We have a marketing approach wherein customer preference is given the topmost priority
and we try to satisfy the customer in whatever way we can.
Q4. What do you know about strategic flexibility?
Strategic flexibility is the ability to modify the plans according to the changes taking
place in the market and the industry.
Q5. Is strategic flexibility relevant to Puma? If so how, and if not then why not?
It is completely relevant since Puma has been following the same in various activities.
The approach towards changing from a sports brand to a lifestyle brand is one of the
biggest examples of strategic flexibility.
Q6. Does strategic flexibility play a role in promotion? If so how?
Strategic flexibility is important in promotion as well, since promotion of a product might
have to be completely changed if the dynamics of the industry change.
Q7. Do promotion strategies affect consumer perception? If yes then in what way?
Promotion strategies have a lot of impact on customer perception. For instance if we
reduce the prices then consumers get attracted towards the store.
Q8. How has strategic flexibility assisted Puma in the success of its marketing strategy?
Strategic flexibility enabled Puma to tie-up with controversial stars thus giving the
company a lot of market attention.

Interview 2
Q1. How long have you been part of PumaAG?
My stint with Puma is of 3 years.
Q2. What is the position that you hold in the company?
I manage the marketing department of Puma for India.
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Q3. What marketing approach do you follow in Puma?
We are quite aggressive and usually follow the out of box approach.
Q4. What do you know about strategic flexibility?
Strategic flexibility is a term being used quite often in Puma these days and relates more
to giving the power to change the course of marketing at any point.
Q5. Is strategic flexibility relevant to Puma? If so how, and if not then why not?
Definitely yes. We are using it in every segment of marketing and have tied up with
Ferrari, and some controversial stars etc.
Q6. Does strategic flexibility play a role in promotion? If so how?
Yes, we have used strategic flexibility in promotion by creating lifestyle stores, whose
key objective is not to sell products but to give the customers an experience of what we
do and the products we have.
Q7. Do promotion strategies affect consumer perception? If yes then in what way?
We have created a brand through promotion and the same attracts the customers.
Q8. How has strategic flexibility assisted Puma in the success of its marketing strategy?
We have used strategic flexibility in almost every segment of marketing and the same has
been quite fruitful. We have made it a complete lifestyle brand and have even come out
with garments for it, which has helped changed consumer perception significantly.

Interview 3
Q1. How long have you been part of PumaAG?
I have been part of PumaAG for about 5 years.
Q2. What is the position that you hold in the company?
I manage the vendor operations and store sales.
Q3. What marketing approach do you follow in Puma?
We are focused on a flexible marketing approach which is customizable as per market
needs.
Q4. What do you know about strategic flexibility?
Strategic flexibility is about adapting tactically to the dynamic environment around.
Q5. Is strategic flexibility relevant to Puma? If so how, and if not then why not?
'"
Ofcourse, strategic flexibility applies to Puma. We have used it to overcome our issues
and come out as a unique company in this segment.
Q6. Does strategic flexibility play a role in promotion? If so how?
We have used strategic flexibility by tying up with Ferrari, which is not a normal sports
brand but more of lifestyle brand.
Q7. Do promotion strategies affect consumer perception? If yes then in what way?
We have promoted ourselves much differently from other sports brands and that has
helped us by changing customer outlook towards us.
Q8. How has strategic flexibility assisted Puma in the success of its marketing strategy?
We have used it in marketing tie-ups, in branding, in changing product profile etc., which
has been quite fruitful for the company.








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