Lululemon’s origin and vision

The topic introduces the concepts of strategic management considering the business organisation named Lululemon within the apparel and clothing industry.

The strategic management involves continuous planning, analysis and monitoring of business actions for fulfilling the needs, goals and objectives of the organization effectively. 

The business organisation was facing quality control issues, because of which, focus differentiation and market segmentation will be essential for managing products and services accessible to the customers with ease and effectiveness. 

The topic will also illustrate about the ways of implementing business level strategies along with approaches to gain competitive advantage in business with the management of a proper and effective culture at Lululemon. 

The targeted clients of Lululemon are basically those who are aware of health and fitness and are more inclined towards sports activities, fitness goals and aimed at living a healthy life. 

The four different kinds of market segmentation approaches are demographic segmentation, behavioural segmentation, psychographic segmentation and geographic segmentation. 

A suitable market segment has been identified as the target market to break down the market into segments and fulfil the needs and preferences of the homogenous group of people with similar kinds of needs, characteristics and preferences. 

To segment the market, the company targeted the health and fitness cautious clients and even made new range of clothing items available after every 3 o 12 weeks for attracting more clients (Hill, Jones and Schilling 2014). 

To manage the market segmentation strategy, the company also sold products at full prices, mentioning it may soon be out of stock.

The scarcity strategy has worked fine for the company to sell the clothing products at premium prices, which also resulted in forming a huge customer base and higher revenue generation (Hill, Jones and Schilling 2015). 

Lululemon’s business level strategies are aimed at gaining competitive advantage by focusing on the delivery of yoga and sports inspired clothes that are stylish as well as comfortable made with the best technical fabrics. 

The company manages refund or return of clothing items only when the clothes are not worn or still have the price tags attached to it.

The Ambassador program has also helped in promoting local leaders who have reflected the culture of the place along with promotion of health and fitness of the communities.

The program has also induced the behaviours of clients and made them share their passion and dedication towards athletics, health and fitness of the communities.

The store manager of the company stores has also been associated with the use of funds for the creation of partnerships with community leaders during a global yoga event (Hill 2017).

This has also created positive mind sets among the people and influenced their buying behaviours for higher sales revenue and profit generation too. 

The focus differentiation strategy is the main focus of the organisation that combines the three business strategies at the functional level.

This has been an effective strategy for targeting the smaller groups of clients with differentiated products and services offered to them (Drnevich and Croson 2013) 

Lululemon’s business strategy and success

The focus differentiation has helped in targeting smaller groups and fulfilled their needs and preferences and establish a sense of trust and loyalty among the customers.

The focus differentiation strategy enabled serving the clients more than its competitors in business by becoming a leader in delivering products to a niche market (Eden and Ackermann 2013). 

The focus differentiation enabled meeting the needs of narrow market segments and adapt to changing demands and expectations of customer regarding the products along with differentiation of those to be unique from its competitors. 

Based on the case study, there was unregulated capitalism.

The software generated data provide false statements regarding security of products and negative feedbacks were provided by clients.

The black yoga pants were too much sheer that enabled see through feature, because of which, there was also lack of rear end coverage. 

The clients also complained about poor customers’ services provided by the employees and even they were mistreated who demanded them for a refund (Hitt and Duane Ireland 2017). 

With the proper management of stocks and supply chain activities, the manufacturing and production processes improved, leading to extra refined materials used for the development of products along with lowering down of manufacturing costs and production costs. 

In case the quality of supply chain is poor, the products are likely to get destroyed or broken before the estimated warranty period.

The quality control is important part of the supply chain management, which can also reduce the chances of risks associated with the rate of return and hazardous failures related to the products (Wheelen et al. 2017). 

The quality control in supply chain enables audit of supplier relationships along with inspecting the materials and finished goods inventory required to manage the value added activities properly. 

CEO Potdevin left the company with inappropriate relationship with the subordinate of the company

The leadership skills lacked and inappropriate actions were undertaken, which further affected the culture of the organisation. 

The focus differentiation was though useful and effective still it lacked proper focus on quality, which made many customers unsatisfied with the kinds of products delivered (Meyer, Neck and Meeks 2017).

The false sense of security and inappropriate behaviour by the employees to serve the clients further affected the culture negatively and resulted in a toxic culture which create negative impact on the business level strategy too. 

Drnevich, P.L. and Croson, D.C., 2013. Information technology and business-level strategy: Toward an integrated theoretical perspective. Mis Quarterly, 37(2).

Eden, C. and Ackermann, F., 2013. Making strategy: The journey of strategic management. Sage.

Hill, C.W., Jones, G.R. and Schilling, M.A., 2014. Strategic management: theory: an integrated approach. Cengage Learning.

Hill, C.W., Jones, G.R. and Schilling, M.A., 2015. Strategic management theory. Cengage Learning,.

Hill, T., 2017. Manufacturing strategy: the strategic management of the manufacturing function. Macmillan International Higher Education.

Hitt, M. and Duane Ireland, R., 2017. The intersection of entrepreneurship and strategic management research. The Blackwell handbook of entrepreneurship, pp.45-63.

Meyer, G.D., Neck, H.M. and Meeks, M.D., 2017. The entrepreneurship?strategic management interface. Strategic entrepreneurship: Creating a new mindset, pp.17-44.

Wheelen, T.L., Hunger, J.D., Hoffman, A.N. and Bamford, C.E., 2017. Strategic management and business policy. pearson.