Fashion Marketing and Management

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

Previous and Current Strategies Followed By Hugo Boss

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Strengths and Weaknesses of Luxury Management Strategies

According to the case scenario, Hugo Boss Corporation used different kinds of strategies in internal and external environments. Most of the strategies are based on its customer's needs and desires as well as how the organization beats the competition in the market. There are strengths and weaknesses of different strategies which have been used by HUGO BOSS and they are as follows

Effective Distribution Strategy

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

Strength of Distribution Strategy

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

Weakness of Distribution Strategies

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

One Product Base Strategy

The case scenario shows that Hugo Boss Corporation put its focuses on only the product development process (Workman and Cho, 2012). For the same, this company only produced and sold fashion products. By doing this they can easily fulfil the needs and desires of their UK customers and also maintain their brand image in the competitive market.

Strength of One Product Base Strategy

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

Global Strategy

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

Strength of Global Strategy

• The major advantage of this strategy is based on centralization, where the company manager develops all fashion products for all kinds of cultural people.
• By taking feedback from the customers from different countries, the company's planning and development department analyses the needs mad desires of its customers and then changes its production strategy.
• By using a global strategy head department of Hugo Boss Company easily makes a customer portfolio (Al Mutawa, 2013).
• Further, this strategy also puts their focus on the efficiency of their employees.

Weakness of Global Strategy

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

Resource Strategy

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

Strength of Human Resource Strategy

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

High Quality and Price Strategy

This strategy explains the quality of Hugo Boss Company products. This organization is famous for its high-quality services as well. For this company manufacturing department uses its own raw materials and this organization also has its own manufacturing department In the UK. A high-quality strategy is based on how an organization raises their quality standard. This organization used total quality applications where they measure the quality of their all fashion products.

Strength of High Quality and Price Strategy

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

Weakness of High Quality and Price Strategy

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

Evaluation of The Organization Approached Towards Managing Its Brand

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

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

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

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

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

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

Conclusion

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

References

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

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