Category Archives: Corporate Perspectives

3 cheers for efficiency & how it enables a financial record

Frank Thomas (Moderator)May 3, 2013 7:47 amBusiness Operations, Corporate Perspectives

Ever since our CEO Herbert Hainer presented in 2010 our five-year strategic business plan ‘Route 2015’, he has always been very clear about one thing: the adidas Group aims for quality growth that needs to be first and foremost sustainable. One way to foster sustainable growth is for example by investing smartly into our brands. Another way is by continuously improving efficiency. This might be achieved on an organisational level or through innovations in the supply chain: if, for example, we manage to decrease the amount of fall-out materials, we minimise cost and become more efficient. There is a lot of room for creativity to improve efficiency. Through relentlessly focusing on such initiatives, the adidas Group managed to achieve a pretty strong result in terms of its gross margin.

Exclusive Video: Herbert Hainer on the adidas Group’s Nine Months 2012 results

Jan RunauNovember 8, 2012 9:06 amCorporate Perspectives, Strategy Updates

This morning we released the adidas Group‘s Nine Months 2012 results. In the first nine months of 2012, adidas Group sales increased 8% on a currency-neutral basis driven by double-digit growth in Retail and Other Businesses. Net income grew 22% to 798 million euro. This marks the seventh consecutive quarter in which we grew the bottom line faster than the top line. Our results so far this year prove that Route 2015 is a powerful and robust strategic business plan that enables us to achieve record sales and earnings in 2012 and 2013. I interviewed our CEO Herbert Hainer exclusively for the adidas Group blog and he shared his views on our results, the current economic climate and how he expects the company to perform in 2013. Please take a look at the video.

A winning performance: Herbert Hainer on London 2012 and the adidas Group’s financial results

Jan RunauAugust 2, 2012 4:48 pmBusiness Operations, Corporate Perspectives

adidas has a very long, unique and authentic history with modern Olympics: Adi Dassler’s shoes were worn for the first time at the Olympic Games back in 1928. Today, the Olympic Games are still very important to the adidas Group; not only as a valuable platform to present the adidas brand, its products and innovations to a global audience but also because the Olympics echo the values of our Group: performance, passion, integrity and diversity. Therefore and to give a taste of the significant role the adidas Group plays in global sports, our CEO Herbert Hainer reported today directly from the ground of the London Olympics on the adidas Group’s first half 2012 results.

The results show that the adidas Group delivered another winning financial performance in this period - despite all that is going on from a macroeconomic and competitive perspective. In a nutshell we added one billion to our top-line year-on-year. In the following video Herbert Hainer shares some background on this topic and on how these Olympics are benefiting our Group. Just to give you an example: Herbert Hainer revealed today that, from a commercial perspective, this will be the most successful Games we have ever had, with Olympic licence product sales up 250% compared to Beijing. In the video Herbert Hainer also explains why he’d be awarding adidas with a gold medal.

Click-Tip: adidas CEO Herbert Hainer on London 2012

Frank Thomas (Moderator)July 24, 2012 5:47 pmBusiness Operations, Corporate Perspectives

The London 2012 Olympic Games are about to start and you can sense everybody’s increasing excitement. Our CEO Herbert Hainer was in London and spoke to Reuters about adidas’ involvement in the Olympic Games, how they benefit the company’s business and how success of sponsoring is measured. Check out the video “2012 to be adidas Olympic swangsong: CEO” and continue to get into olympic mood…

Leadership through innovation – introducing the adidas IT Innovation Team

Anna-Lena AngermeierJuly 13, 2012 2:57 pmCorporate Perspectives

Recently I had the chance to accompany Chris Zagel from the IT Innovation Team during his visit to Georg Simon Ohm University in Nuremberg where he gave a lecture to master students on the course of Marketing, Innovation and Technology Management. Chris presented on the topic of ’IT Innovation at the adidas Group’ and provided some insights into new technological ideas and developments the team is currently working on.

The two-hour lecture was really interesting for me for two main reasons: First of all, I joined the adidas Group just recently after leaving university and it was cool to see how students – just as I was not very long ago – react when they get an insight into the adidas world. The second reason is that I am very keen on getting insights into as many aspects of the company as possible. The adidas Group believes that innovation is essential to sustainable leadership in our industry. Therefore I particularly appreciated the offer to join Chris’ lecture in order to learn more about the IT aspect of innovation at adidas. Let me share a couple of my most important findings.