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CASE 27: New Balance Athletic Shoe, Inc.
Assignment question to guide the written executive report
Jim and Anne Davis, the owners of New Balance, Inc., have employed you as a consultant to evaluate the company’s approaches to executing its strategy and to make recommendations for improvement. Please prepare a 3-5 page report evaluating the athletic shoe industry and New Balance’s current situation. Offer specific, actionable recommendations to the Davises as to how they can sustain the success of the company. Your situation analysis should include an examination of the industry’s dominant economic characteristics, the driving forces impacting the industry, the industry’s key success factors, and a summary of the factors acting to make the industry environment favorable and those making it unfavorable. In addition, your analysis should include an assessment and identification of the company’s current strategy, performance, and position, a thorough analysis of its strategy implementation activities to date, an identification of which of them have been key to the company’s success, and an evaluation of its market opportunities. Your recommendations should clearly identify a specific course of action that New Balance should pursue and be well supported with arguments and justifications from your analyses for each. Your report should include two to four pages of specific recommendations that logically flow from your analyses and problem identification and whatever supporting charts, tables or exhibits you deem helpful.
Assignment questions for class discussion
1. What do you see that is impressive about New Balance? What aspects of New Balance do you find less impressive? What accounts for New Balance’s success since the early 1980s? Is it great strategy, sound strategy implementation and execution, great leadership, or just plain good luck?
2. What are the key elements of New Balance’s strategy? Which of the five generic strategies is the company employing?
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