Sport Obermeyer
Sport Obermeyer
Sport Obermeyer, Ltd was created around 1947 by Klaus Obermeyer. While teaching at an Aspen Ski School, Klaus noticed a difference between the clothing that his students wore and the clothing skiers wore in his native Germany. Although Klaus started out by traveling to Germany to find high-performance skiwear that was suitable for his students, he designed his own line of skiwear and ski equipment products and that was how Sport Obermeyer, Ltd was introduced. Sport Obermeyer developed into one of the top competitors in the U.S. skiwear market, commanding a 45% share of the children’s skiwear market and 11% share of the adult market in 1992. The core competencies of Sport Obermeyer would be functionality and style. The functionality has to deal with the quality of their clothes. Sport Obermeyer has achieved their style through innovation. This is how the company competes in the skiwear market, by offering a strong price/value relationship and value consisting of the functionality and style of their product. Their products offered key elements that serious skiers wanted, such as products that were warm, water-proof and without constraint. While competitors offered outerwear for both skiing and casual wear, Obermeyer sold most of its products to customers for use while skiing. Obermeyer offered a variety of fashion ski apparel and based each “gender” market according to price, type of skier and the fashion forwardness of the market. Obermeyer faced two major problems in this case. Due to increasing product variety and intense competition, Obermeyer was unable to make accurate predictions of what retailers demanded. This left Obermeyer with excess merchandise that had to be sold at discounts that were considerable below manufactured cost and a shortage on their most popular products. The second problem that Obermeyer faced was which products to produce in Hong Kong and which to produce in China. While labor costs were
Sport Obermeyer, Ltd was created around 1947 by Klaus Obermeyer. While teaching at an Aspen Ski School, Klaus noticed a difference between the clothing that his students wore and the clothing skiers wore in his native Germany. Although Klaus started out by traveling to Germany to find high-performance skiwear that was suitable for his students, he designed his own line of skiwear and ski equipment products and that was how Sport Obermeyer, Ltd was introduced. Sport Obermeyer developed into one of the top competitors in the U.S. skiwear market, commanding a 45% share of the children’s skiwear market and 11% share of the adult market in 1992. The core competencies of Sport Obermeyer would be functionality and style. The functionality has to deal with the quality of their clothes. Sport Obermeyer has achieved their style through innovation. This is how the company competes in the skiwear market, by offering a strong price/value relationship and value consisting of the functionality and style of their product. Their products offered key elements that serious skiers wanted, such as products that were warm, water-proof and without constraint. While competitors offered outerwear for both skiing and casual wear, Obermeyer sold most of its products to customers for use while skiing. Obermeyer offered a variety of fashion ski apparel and based each “gender” market according to price, type of skier and the fashion forwardness of the market. Obermeyer faced two major problems in this case. Due to increasing product variety and intense competition, Obermeyer was unable to make accurate predictions of what retailers demanded. This left Obermeyer with excess merchandise that had to be sold at discounts that were considerable below manufactured cost and a shortage on their most popular products. The second problem that Obermeyer faced was which products to produce in Hong Kong and which to produce in China. While labor costs were