Essay: How Adidas Group achieves its objectives / values adopted

“A man can be as great as he wants to be. If you believe in yourself and have the courage, the determination, the dedication, the competitive drive and if you are willing to sacrifice the little things in life and pay the price for the things that are worthwhile, it can be done

INTRODUCTION OF ADIDAS

This report is regarding one of the world’s gigantic leading sporting goods industries, Adidas group. The name Adidas was come from the name of the creator Adolph Dassler who started to produce sports shoes after his return from World War 1. As his nick name Adi and the first three letters from his first name has taken das totally formed as “Adidas”. Although the business was first called the Dassler Brothers Shoes Factory. Adidas formed the business together with his brother Rudi in 1924. In 1947 the brothers split up with Rudi forming Puma and Adidas forming Adidas. This report tells the two areas in which the Adidas has reigning contemporary one of them is London and another one is the origin of Adidas Germany. Total Revenue 10,084 Million, Net Income 483 Million .(“Adidas group history” from www.scribd.com).

In London, Adidas has various varieties to sell out, they have plenty of out lets in the London City itself, most of the goods are on sports based, which are basket ball, Tennis, Foot ball, running, swimming, cricket. In 2003 Adidas had 15,686 employees, in 2004 it had 14,219, in 2005 it had 15,935, and Adidas had just more than 30,000 employees which was then increased by 19% on the year ending of 2007 comparing to the previous year in which they are 26,376. In Germany, where the Adidas Group is headquartered, employees from almost 50 countries are working as one team. Over the years, the worldwide workforce in the means of growing diversity Adidas group has evolved their own communities, and varied the activities in the global marketplace. English is our global business language, helping us welcome people from all corners of the globe. The Adidas management gives the commitment to understanding levels between the various levels of employees valuing, understanding and incorporating in diversity of their culture. However as the diversity helps all the organizations it did helps Adidas too Adidas to sustaining the competitive advantage, to motivate and to ensure the Organizational stability and success. The approach to the commonalities and differences are to maintain the richness of to acknowledge to the diversity which they share and the intrinsic worth of each unique employee. The products and their sports contribution and the competition of athletes are enhanced through this multiple and difference perspectives. Adidas groups aspiration is to create appreciation and respect among all the employees so that the diversity range also increase and hence they planned to promote the spirit of honesty and partnership among the employees and within the communities as well. To make sure the environment respects and welcomes and follow the diversity it maximize the core value of work force diversity. Hence they can achieve the excellence by means of people and products. (Annual Results 2008″. Adidas. http://www.adidas-group.com/)

IMPORTANCE OF PROJECT

This project is about the Adidas which is the world leader in sports manufacturing and holds a big sports market share of the world. This project reveals that how a key leading sports manufacturing company achieves its objectives and the different characteristics of the values adopted by adidas’s.
This report reveals that In order to be competitive in the world market and sustaining the image in this era of globalization how Adidas is practicing the rules and what values adopted and the procedure while recruiting staff and how Adidas acquire the right and skilled people from diverse culture. This report also gives a deep insight that how Adidas realize the need of training for the employees and how give them the right type of training.
This report also reveals that how adidas’s manage diversity in the environment and how the staff of Adidas works in team work while have a different national and ethnic background, how Adidas resolve the conflicts between the employees. Team work is directly related to the success of organization when company operates in diverse culture with diverse work force then there are more chance of conflicts so the recruitment policies are designed according to the requirement so that the staff they hire must be supportive and motivated and can work in team work all these things discussed in the report in detail.
This reports presents that the staff of Adidas is the key strength for the success of the company and this report reveals that Adidas keep its performance up to the level by recruiting right people, by providing them right type of training, keeping the motivation level high and by providing the right type of leadership which always make sure that a diverse work force work together and involve the employees by giving them the sense of importance. The leadership makes it ensure that each and every individual of adidas’s is contributing in the success and excellence of organization and achieving its goals and objectives.
This report reveals all those policies, strategies and features of the organization that makes it ensure that the organization achieves all of its objectives. This report also gives an insight that how adidas’s motivates its employees and how to satisfy them either by increasing the salaries or by giving them good promotion.
Finally this report gives an overview of the cross cultural issues facing by adidas and how adidas cope up with those isssues and why such issues exists in the diverse cultural with diverse work force,

RECRUITMENT, SELECTION AND TRAINING OF PERSONNEL

Adidas has a clear mission: “To be the leading sports brand in the world”.
The Adidas Sport Performance division has one guiding principle: to equip all athletes with product to achieve their own “impossible”. While Adidas is proud to support athletes in all sports, the Sport Performance division is mainly focused on four key categories: running, football, basketball and training. ??

“Adidas Group is growing very rapidly which means an effective global talent management strategy is absolutely critical,” commented Steve Bonomo, Head of Recruiting at Adidas Group “We are implementing Active Recruiter to greatly speed up and increase the efficiency and effectiveness of our recruitment process, which will in turn help to enhance our employer brand and ensure we attract, hire and retain talented people.”

Most of adidas’s senior executives from German, Canada and USA whereas most successful western corporations employ more diversely at the corporate level. (Takeuchi et al, 2008)
Furthermore, this explains adidas’s success in all aspect of their business. As a result, since its foundation, Adidas has been able to achieve market advantage by keeping up with it technology and more importantly being ahead of its competitors.

Recruitment and Selection

Adidas has a very rigorous hiring process and often only recruit those who have had higher grades and are smart and very dedicated to the sposrt industry. But it can be argued that intelligence isn’t always the key to excellence, particularly in an industry that is influenced by changing technologies as well as competition. Adidas should aim to make the organisation attractive to potential candidate by carrying out an analysis of the labour market in all the local areas that the company operates in. Pay and other benefits might not be the only factors to consider. The company could introduce flexible working hours in the UK for example and where mostly men are employed, they could consider hiring women.

Training

Adidas operates in many countries and therefore training can be challenging. Training was replicated in the past until the company found a more efficient and quicker way of bringing all team members together. Adidas refers to this as “lean training” where all team leaders work together to produce a new model.
Overall conclusion of Adidas recruitment, training and selection is that they recruit the finest innovative brains and skilled workers from around the globe. They give equal opportunity to shine from every nation, cast, color and creed. Adidas is considered to be in the top sports brands, and to stay in the top Adidas have to take edge over their competitors, and in doing so major part is played by its recruitment, selection and training programme.

TEAMWORK

LEADERSHIP IN ADIDAS

Leadership:
”Leadership is the process in which an individual influences others to perform for the certain activities in a common goals” (Gibb, 1969)./p>
Features of Leadership:

• • Leadership is a ongoing processes of behaviours of followers.

• • Leaders always try to influences its followers to motivate and achieve common goals.

• • Leader leads its teams by direction and his own practises.

• Leadership tries to accomplish its targets by the help of follower in specified circumstances.

Importance of leadership:

• • Leadership is important for any organisation to motivate its employees.

• • Good leadership can built a atmosphere of confidence among employees within the organisation.

• It can also built morale of employees by setting and clearing the targets.

There are many different theories on different leadership styles. Each style has its own pros and cons. Some of leadership theories are as follows:

• • Trait Theory
  • Charismatic leadership theory

• • Behavioural theory

• Situational Theory

Leadership Styles:
Leadership styles are the behavioural pattern adopted by leaders to influences its follower in achievement of certain goals. These styles depend upon the behavioural or situational approach of leadership. These are as follows:
1. Autocratic leadership is a leadership style in which leaders takes their own decision and direct follower strictly according to instructions
2. Participated leadership is a style in which in which leaders creates emotional and mental involvement participation of follower to motivate and accomplish the set goals.
Addidas is an innovative company and follow the idea and participation of its workforces however there are certain limitations in which large organisations like Addidas has to consider some autocracies. Addidas has to assess, evaluate and assimilate new ideas for brand image as an innovative company. In fashion and sports wear organisation, innovation is a key to develop and retains its brand image in order to maintain its competition with its competitors. It has to accomplish its goals by functional benefits, participation and team building within the workforce. Its all done within the organisation chain however its not implemented in the outside working partners like the marketing and other production participants.
Competitor’s comparison:
Its main competitor Nike is also among the global leaders in sportswear and footwear industry. However, although the present hike in position of Nike, it still faces great competition with Addidas in their respective field. Addidas is still a leader of market of footwear and sports equipment customers.
Critical analysis:
As we have seen different leadership styles but we have to be careful in choosing these styles in deferent organisations. These styles can be vary within the same organisation as in deferent departments, deferent styles may work may work better. For the argument sake we can an examples like a research and development department and marketing department. In R&D, Addidas cant use autocratic style as people are really creative and motivated by setting targets so if we put set rules to them, it will creates difficulty in new designs to be creative. In the same way, if we talk about the marketing department of Addidas, it will be very difficult to implement autocratic style of leadership as this industry requires a lot of charismatic and innovative style of marketing. i.e. we can see the advertisement of Addidas in different part of the world, for the football lovers, it created its unique philosophy by promoting its products to masses by using famous footballer like David Becham and in the Cricket lover region, they have used famous stars of cricket like Shahid Afridi to promotes its sports wears and equipments.
On the contrary, departments of the same company may got its administrative departments and accounts department, there is no need to have Free-Rein leadership style, rather autocratic or participative style will work more better in these field. Addidas has created a public image and has big market share because of its good mix of leadership style in all over the company

EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION FOR ADIDAS COMPANY

1. THE IMPORTANCE OF MOTIVATION

People’s behaviour and performance of their work is determined by what motivates them (Mullins, 2002). Motivation helps people to increase their performance and also makes them work effectively. Employees’ job performance can be evaluated by looking their personal ability and motivation.
Motivation is significant for people for most of the situations, because it helps to encourage people. Motivation is a psychological concept related to the strength and direction of behaviour (Torrington, Hall 1991). People who are really motivated can be more successful than the others.
Motivation is a very important reason for work because it is raising people’s individual morale, as a result of that it makes a positive energy for the every employees. When people are motivated they can easily focus on their future works. Another significant reason for motivation is employees’ individual problems. Some people may have personal problems but after good motivation people can concentrate their current work.

2. THEORIES OF MOTIVATION

While understanding what motivates people, researchers found some theories.
Maslow suggested that human motivation was dependent on the desire to satisfy various levels of needs (Torrington, Hall 1991). He thought about motivation which is based on human’s main needs for work. Maslow’s hierarchy of five basic needs are physiological needs, safety, social belonging, esteem and self-actualization. (Pinnington, Edwards 2000).
Herzberg’s theory focuses that well satisfied person is a powerful employee. One set factors are hygiene factors which is related to job and environment to itself. The other set of factors are motivators which are serve to motivate the individual to superior effort and performance (Mullins, 2002). Hygiene factors are important to avoid some unattractive workplaces. Motivators are helping to show the employees’ abilities and past experience.

3. ANALYSING MOTIVATION FOR ADIDAS COMPANY

Adidas is a very successful and famous company in the world. Their people are critical to our continuing commercial success and their motivation plan is all about providing reward and incentive schemes in a working environment that promotes commitment, engagement and well-being (http://www.adidas-group.com/en/SER2007/g/g_2.asp).
When we use motivate people based Maslow’s theory Adidas Company can supply their employees’ needs. For instance, in order to support their physiological needs they can pay well, supply food and drink at work, and give good shift to let them live their own life so they can have a rest as well. Feeling comfortable always makes people work with better performance. Adidas Company can give rewards for their employees in some easy ways, for example it maybe clothing staff from their own work, or can be a vouchers from other shops. The company also make a deal with the other companies in order to swap their goods as a reward. For their safety needs, company can have good security system and can health and safety rules. Social needs can also be very important for an employee; in a friendly workplace people can have a good teamwork. They can share their problems and can find the solutions together. Managers’ friendly behaviors makes can encourage people to show their potential abilities. In this way professional help can be given to the people more easily. The company should also care about their workers’ esteems. In each part of their company; designers, customer assistants or even cashiers always deserves more respect from their authorities and teams. For more success self-actualization has a significant position. Therefore Adidas Company can supply more technology for new creations, and help their workers to follow future fashion at anytime. In order to challenge their workers they can try to understand their own abilities. This helps the employee to make self- development.

CROSS CULTURAL ISSUES

Define:
“Culture is the combination of behaviors, values, norms and traditions”. Culture influences our lives and gives a definite shape to our feeling and attitudes, and learning from experiences and our communication with others. Due to our culture we gain knowledge, build beliefs and ethics, how to behave in certain situations and our views which we share with those who have same cultural traditions. These old experiences and learning’s transferred from generation to generation, impact our ethics that what is right and what is wrong, what type of behaviors are acceptable and not. Our culture also helps us to understand the world. Matikainen, T. & Duffy, C.B. (2000)
Importance:
the culture of an organization comprises collective attitudes of the organization employees, their attitude towards their job and their role in the organization hence culture has a significant impact on the overall atmosphere of the organization and efficiency of the individuals within the organization and the overall performance of the organization itself. The most important is that the success and failure of an organization is closely related to the culture of an organization.
Adidas: the culture of Adidas is both staff and customer friendly. Adidas believes on continuous professional development and continuous improvement through the training of staff, talent management, good compensation packages and incentives, employee engagement and a specific code of compliance. Employees from top to bottom are treated with respect and professional dignity. The culture of Adidas encourages positive and constructive competition among the employees.
Cultural diversity
Hofstede, (1980), states that culture is the “mind set of people which distinguishes the member of one human group to the other”.
Hofstede G (1996) states that Due to globalization it is very important to understand the culture of different countries because organizations are crossing the boarders in order to earn high profits but also facing high risk due to cultural diversity. Adidas is a multinational company and holds 22% sports market share of the world.
The elements of culture is almost same from company to company but when organizations cross the border then they face different type of issue which are also same for every company but how to cop up with those issues varies from company to company
Dupraw and Axner [3] (1997) states that there are six fundamental elements of cultural differences are

1. 1. -how to disseminate the information

1. 1. -how to resolve the conflict

1. 1. -how to accomplish the tasks

1. 1. -information sharing styles

1. -attitude to gaining knowledge and skills

The major issue faced by Adidas is language because it differs from culture to culture and Adidas overcome this issue by hiring local staff from country to country.
The 2nd major issue faced by Adidas is conflicts between management and staff .Adidas resolve this issue according to the culture like in western countries Adidas see conflicts undesirable and try to tackle them immediately and in some other countries they see it as profitable because due to conflicts some better ideas come in view so they use them to get competitive advantage over the others.
The third main issue faced by Adidas is how to accomplish the tasks on work environment because the way of doing work differs from country to country so adidas’s solve this issue by giving training to their employees and through the standardization of work process.
The fourth main issue is sharing of information among employees and management of Adidas across cultures. In some countries there is a leader who communicate and make decisions, and responsible of the entire work but in some there are some common practices to follow.
The fifth main issue is the behavior of employees at work place so Adidas overcome this issue by setting some common norms and values.
The fifth main issues is the attitude of employees towards training and knowledge which vary from culture to culture so they arrange training programs according to the culture of the country mostly they prefer on job trainings of employees. DuPraw, M.E. & Axner, A. (1997)