Under Armour Company Overview

Introduction:

Under Armour, is acknowledged as an American brand offering the casual apparel, sports apparel and footwear. Before 2006, Under Armour was in initial years just focusing on apparels and then in 2006, started offering the footwear brand (Under Armour, 2017). The headquarters of the firm is situated in Maryland (Baltimore) along with other location offices around the North America. Under Armour is acknowledged as one of the leading and well known firms in sports industry all over the globe. The firm successfully enhanced its position along several past years and the Forbes ranked this firm at 5 around the world compared to the other leading sports brands as in 2014 (Team, 2017). The firm implemented enhanced technology initiatives, through which it achieved excellence in quality products as well as now in USA, its ranked 2^nd biggest sports retailer, where (Under Armour, 2017). The corporate ownership and board of directors are outlined below:

1. Corporate ownership:

The corporate ownership is divided into the institutional and non institutional holdings and is presented below:

Institutional Holdings	58.22%
Non-Institutional Holdings	41.88
Total Number of Holders	569
Total Shares Held	128,235,336
Total Value of Holdings	2,318,494,875
Net Activity	(5,195,433)

(Source: Nasdaq, 2017: Institutional Ownership)

 

The top five institutional holdings are presented below:

1.	VANGUARD GROUP INC	16,884,235
2.	STATE STREET CORP	7,188,742
3.	SANDS CAPITAL MANAGEMENT, LLC	7,161,870
4.	BROWN ADVISORY INC	6,966,492
5.	BAMCO INC /NY/	6,229,353

(Source: Nasdaq, 2017: Institutional Ownership)

The graphical presentation of the holdings is presented in Appendix section.

1. Boards of Directors:

The boards of directors of Under Armour are outlined below:

Name	Designation
Kevin A. Plank	Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board
Byron K. Adams Jr.	Former Managing Director and Founder of Rosewood Capital, LLC
George W. Bodenheimer	Former President, ESPN, Inc. and ABC Sports
Douglas E. Coltharp	Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, HealthSouth Corporation
Anthony W. Deering	Former Chief Executive Officer and Chairman, The Rouse Company
Karen W. Katz	President and Chief Executive Officer, Neiman Marcus Group LTD LLC
A.B. Krongard	Former Chief Executive Officer and Chairman, Alex.Brown, Incorporated
William R. McDermott	Chief Executive Officer and Executive Board Member, SAP SE
Eric T. Olson	Admiral, U.S. Navy (Retired) and Former Commander, U.S. Special Operations Command
Harvey L. Sanders	Former Chief Executive Officer and Chairman, Nautica Enterprises, Inc.

(Source: Under Armour, 2017: Board of Directors)

2. Current Situation

1. Brief Firm History:

In 1996, Kevin Plank, the CEO of Under Armor was established. He was a well known athlete (Football team), at that time in the Maryland University alongside his colleagues. He at that time saw the under dress shirts were constantly substantial with sweat. After graduation, he started the way toward making an answer for this predicament and in this manner started Under Armor. In the wake of making his first arrangement of models, he began to offer them to his previous Maryland partners to test, which increased mass reputation over the USA (Under Armor, 2017). Amid the early years of Under Armor, they concentrated on inward wear for American football players, which have from that point forward extended to different games on a worldwide stage. Today Under Armor produces creative execution apparel, footwear, and adornments for all sexual orientations and age. This adjusts as an inseparable unit to their statement of purpose which guarantees improving each athlete through coordinating energy, plan, and the determined quest for Innovation (Team, 2017).

Since 2005, after becoming public, Under Armour started off its growth slowly but got a boost in 2009 en. The firm stock at that time grows by almost 500% after following 2012. Evidently, through research and data it is clear that the largest growth of Under Armour’ can be seen along the past decades (Google site, 2017).

Under Armour is expert in offering the high-performance products intended for offering the sportswear for every environment and climate situations. The offering of the firms are to sustain the body temperature at consistent and facilitates in drying at all sports level. The offered products are ranged from programs for digital fitness, accessories, apparel and footwear (Under Armour, 2017)

1. Strategic Posture.
2. Mission Statement:

The vision statement of the Under Armour is “Empower Athletes
Everywhere”. The mission statement is “Make All Athletes Better through Passion, Design, And the Relentless Pursuit of Innovation”. The vision and mission statements portray the firm’s enhanced quality offerings and efforts. To fulfill its mission and vision, the firms follow the four following chief values:

1. Make Great Product
2. Tell A Great Story
3. Provide Great Service
4. Build A Great Team

(Under Armour, 2017)

2. Company’s Strategy:

• Business Level Strategy

Under Armor separates itself from other athletic apparel organizations by utilizing manufactured material in creating its dress. They were the main organization to creatively utilize manufactured material innovation which keeps athletes cool when the climate is warm and warm when the climate is chilly (Gaines, 2016). Its technique is to locate the cutting edge stars to speak to their image, and that is the reason its essential focused on gathering of people is singular athletes and donning groups (Google Site, 2017). Under Armor experienced first-mover advantage in execution sports apparel. They are second movers in the general games apparel and footwear parts. Additionally, Under Armor endeavors to expand their nearness in ladies’ market with the guide of promoting through online networking.

• Corporate Level Strategy

On the corporate level, their technique is to obtain and join forces with school or expert groups since they are hoping to purchase rights to support those groups (Soni, 2014). Being a North American organization, Under Armor is expanding their hang on the US showcase and venturing into worldwide markets by focusing on European locales and enormous urban areas in Asia (Google Site, 2017). Under Armor is seeking after a low level overwhelming business enhancement procedure. Their key income source is apparel deals, just about 80%, and whatever is left of the income is drawn from footwear, frill and permitting (Gaines, 2016).

• International Strategy

A major part of Under Armor’s growth system is extending abroad, which additionally ties into how they plan to oversee rivalry. Under Armor has been extremely centered around the United States, despite the fact that Europe and Asia give a major chance to Under Armor to keep extending (Under Armour, 2017). Keeping in mind the end goal to pick up control over the European market, Under Armor has embraced the biggest media exertion in Europe. At present, Under Armor has full uniform sponsorship manages 3 groups and 4 singular supports in Europe (Nasdaq, 2017). To extend all around, Under Armor uses a multi-residential corporate level procedure. Under Armor tailors its items and administration in light of neighborhood markets, particularly as indicated by the need of individual athletes and games groups (Team, 2017).

• Co-operative strategy

With the end goal of growing its operations, Under Armor is taking after Nike’s means by marking supports with games groups and rising athlete stars. Its current development in Europe was an immense stride focused towards presenting the Under Armor mark inside the European market (Gaines, 2016).

Resource Base View (RBV)

Under Armour has the capacity to create a competitive advantage in different areas. Under Armour provides solutions to athletes by creating value. This value is created with the help of its advanced technological measurements it takes in the material used in its products. Technology is what is driving the modern world. Under Armour is also adoptable to technological innovative solution that provides it a competitive edge. Their material is tried and tested with the help of latest technologies and therefore, the needs of the customers are fulfilled.

The organizational fit is another competitive edge that Under Armour has. The organization and its employees are in full synchronization with each other. The company takes care of the needs of the employees. In return, the employees do their best to meet the goals and objectives of the company. The employees are encouraged to reach their full capacity and full support is provided where needed.

 

 

Bibliography:

Under Armour. (2017). Under Armour Annual Report 2014. Retrieved from:

https://www.underarmour.com

Under Armour. (2017). Mission and Values. Retrieved from:

http://www.underarmour.jobs/why-choose-us/mission-values/

Nasdaq. (2017). Under Armour – Institutional Ownership. Retrieved from:

http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/ua/ownership-summary

Team T. (2017). Under Armour: Key Areas of Growth through Connected Fitness. Retrieved

from: https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2017/01/24/under-armour-key-areas-of-growth-through-connected-fitness/#693c531e4248

Gaines C. (2016). Under Armour has a brilliantly simple strategy to do something Nike has been

Unable to do — conquer the golf world. Retrieved from:

http://www.businessinsider.com/how-under-armour-plans-to-do-something-nike-failed-to-do-conquer-the-golf-world-2016-3

Google Sites. (2017). Nike and Under Armour – Corporate Strategies. Retrieved from:

https://sites.google.com/site/nikeandunderarmour/corporate-strategies