Individual Fashion Industry Business Report

Executive summary:

Fashion industry in modern business world has grabbed a strong market position in global business platform. Marketers needs to use right leadership and management style to hold their competitive position in international market. Through using relevant strategies and proper market analysis, marketers of fashion companies can easily improve the overall competitive advantages and brand reputation. This report is going to make critical analysis of challenges faced by chosen fashion company, Ralph Lauren Corporation, an American fashion organisation in its supply chain management process and business environment. Ralph Lauren corporation always believes in maintaining positive and supportive work culture in workplace that will be high motivated for staffs. Through maintaining collaborative work framework, managers of this compony always focus on maintaining healthy relation with each staff, in additional to this, the company prioritise team work, in which all hierarchical staffs work in synergistic manner to meet the common organisational goals. Then this report will discuss the product and consumer range of this company by using valid and authentic information

1.0 Introduction:

In modern business world, fashion industry is one of the fastest growing industries that not only improve the lifestyles and fashion sense of people but also improve overall social as well as cultural perception about fashion at community level. This report is going to make critical analysis of challenges faced by chosen fashion company, Ralph Lauren Corporation, an American fashion organisation in its supply chain management process and business environment. Then this report will discuss the product and consumer range of this company by using valid and authentic information. Additionally, the report is going to demonstrate the influence of various leadership and management styles on overall employees’ behaviour of chosen company. Finally, the report will make suitable recommendation and conclusion. In recommendation section, the report will represent useful strategies that can be used by marketers of the chosen brand to improves its competitive position in global market. In conclusion part, the report will summarise main aspects that would be demonstrated in entire content.

Analysing key issues faced by Ralph Lauren Corporation in supply chain and business environment:

Following tools are useful in analysing challenges faced by Ralph Lauren Corporation in terms of running supply chain management and marinating successful operation in global environment

Porters 5 forces

Threats of new entrants

Due to fastest growth of fashion industry in global market, the number of new entrants in this industry increase day by day. Therefore, the threats of new entrants to Ralph Lauren Corporation is higher, which make it obligatory for its marketers to use such u innovative market strategies ta will assist this company to grab strong competitive advantage in global market.

Bargaining power of suppliers:

As there are many suppliers in fashion industry who supply raw material to fashion companies, the individua bargaining power of particular supplier is low. Marketers of Ralph Lauren Corporation need to take this lower bargaining power as a good e advantage in global business operation in which marketers can bargain the overall price of different raw material to buy them at minimum price.

Bargaining power of buyers

Bargaining power of byers are high I fashion industry as there are many fashion brands in global market. Customers have many option t buy their preferable fashion products instead depending on any particular rand. Therefore, Ralph Lauren Corporation needs to improve t overall quality of the products to grab customer attention. In addition to this marketer needs to set such market price of each product that will be affordable for customers.

Threats substitute products:

Threats of substitute products is low in fashion industry as there are very few companies offering products that are substitute of products of Ralph Lauren Corporation.

Rivalries:

Rivalries is high in global fashion market which there are potential brands that struggle to maintain their market sustainability. In this context marketers of Ralph Lauren Corporation needs to use smart market tactics and relevant business strategies to strength company’s competitive position in international market.

Core consumers and product range of Ralph Lauren Corporation

BCG matrix:

Cash cows:

Products that are included in this segment are considers as one of the major sources of company’s cash inflows (Mohajan, 2017). In case of Ralph Lauren Corporation, its highly trendy as well as stylish women and men clothes are the major its revenue. Therefore, marketers of Ralph Lauren Corporation need to prioritise the improvement of quality and

style stamen of these attire that can be high useful for this brand to grab strong competitive advantages in global fashion industry.

Stars:

Products included in this segment assist the company to grab good profit in market, but there are further chances for the company to grab better market advantages by improving their market strategies and business decisions (Guță, 2017). Here accessories, bags, watches are considered as the star products of Ralph Lauren Corporation, that assists this company to have strong profit margin in each year. Now Ralph Lauren Corporation needs to set such market strategies that would assist this company to make useful market penetration and product development process to improve the overall competitive position in global business platform.

Question marks:

Products that are low profitable as compared to the star and cash cow products are categorised under this segment (Chiu and Lin, 2019). Products from Polo sports and Polo golf are not as much profitable as the star and cash cow product are. Ralph Lauren Corporation can make this product more attractive and customer friendly to general more revenue by using smart market tactics such as offering discount on specific products.

Dogs:

These products are not involved in generating any revenue or profit for the company, rather the company needs to bear the production and maintained cost of these products that are higher than the profit expected from them. In case of Ralph Lauren Corporation, products of ink pony and Chaps are considered as underrated products.

How various leadership and management styles can influence employee behaviour:

As mentioned by Dhurup et al. (2014). right; leadership and management styles are strongly associated with developing positive behaviour in employees of an organisation. There are many types of leadership and management styles in corporate industry that impact on the overall, behaviour, attitude and activities of employees. There are generally five types of organisational leadership styles such as autocratic democratic, transformational, transactional and delegative leadership. Ralph Lauren Corporation generally believes in democratic and transformation leadership style, in which the first one assists this company to involve entire workforces in decision making process of the organisation, and the second one allows mangers to make effective transformation of each staff to enhance overall organisational productivity. On the contrary Cassidy (2017) argued that, while operating in global business market, companies sometimes needs to choose autocratic leadership styles that is useful in maintaining strict regulation and well-disciplined work framework in the organisation. Marketers of Ralph Lauren Corporation generally avoid autocratic leadership styles as it most of times spoil the healthy and trustworthy relation between the mangers and staffs. On the contrary Caro and Martínez-de-Albéniz (2015) argued that, authorcraft leadership styles although makes dominance on staffs, it is useful in global market in which organisational leaders want that entire workforce would follow their decision strictly without raising any question on them. Transformational leadership style is highly effective for Ralph Lauren Corporation in making positive transformation of behaviour as well as approach of staffs. Through transformational leadership style, organisational leaders of Ralph Lauren Corporation can not only make positive transformation of staffs but also can improve their professional skills such as communication skill, time management skill, analysing skill, judgemental skill and interactive skill. Marketers of Ralph Lauren Corporation also use transaction leadership style while operating in global market, which assist them to motivate staffs by providing them financial and non-financial rewards. On the contrary () argued that, transactional leadership is not only associated with giving rewards to staffs but also is concerned with providing power to each team to take small decision and market strategies. Therefore, transactional leadership styles will be highly effective for improving decision making skill of staffs which is important to introduce innovative strategies and smart market tactics in terms of grabbing strong competitive advantage in international platform. On the other hand, transformational leadership styles will assist Ralph Lauren Corporation to develop, positive strength and creative though in staffs that are important for creating highly supportive as well as optimistic work environment.

There are different management styles in corporate world such as autocratic, affiliative, coaching, democratic and pacesetting management styles. Each style has their own way to influence behaviour and perception of organisational staffs. Through using autocratic management styles mangers of Ralph Lauren Corporation would be able to take complete control over the situation, that somehow pose dominance and stress of staffs. As mentioned by Brun et al. (2017), autocratic management style generally poses negative impact on overall behaviour and attitude of staffs. In addition to this, this leadership styles can make conflict among staffs, managers and other high officials, that interfere with integrity and ethics of organisation. On the other hand, democratic management styles is opposite to

autocratic styles, that would allow managers of Ralph Lauren Corporation to involve all the staffs to take any small and bog market decision for the company. As mentioned by Caniato et al. (2015) democratic leadership styles is highly useful for staffs of a company to make them feel valued and respected, that enhances the positivity of their mindset, behaviour and attitude. Affiliative management styles is also helpful for Ralph Lauren Corporation to make heathy and trustworthy relation between managers and staffs, this management styles will allow managers of this company to understand the needs, preference and problems of team members. Through using proper strategies and tactics, mangers of Ralph Lauren Corporation can use this leadership styles to improve overall professional and personal skill of each staffs that not only enhance their professional level but also make positive transformation of their decision-making skill, behaviour and attitude. Coaching management style is also useful styles that will allow managers of Ralph Lauren Corporation to direct team toward grabbing better output by implementing highly relevant market strategies. As mentioned by Brun et al. (2017), this leadership makes staffs more aligned to their organisational goals thereby ensuring the chances of higher organisational productivity.

Analyse culture and leadership of Ralph Lauren Corporation:

Ralph Lauren Corporation always believes in maintaining positive and supportive work culture in workplace that will be high motivated for staffs. Through maintaining collaborative work framework, managers of this compony always focus on maintaining healthy relation with each staff, in additional to this, the company prioritise team work, in which all hierarchical staffs work in synergistic manner to meet the common organisational goals. As mentioned by Battaglia et al. (2014), positive work culture allows organisations to develop innovative stratus and creative decision that are proved to be highly effective for organisations. Ralph Lauren Corporation generally use transformational, democratic and transactional leadership styles. These leadership styles assist this company to maintain positive and healthy workplace with optimistic viewpoint towards the goals. In addition to this, these leadership styles are highly supporting toward improving professional and personal skill of staffs by providing them with better career opportunities.

Recommendation:

Following strategies are recommended to managers of Ralph Lauren Corporation to improve their organisation’s competitive position in global fashion industry

Managers should enhance the organisational flexibility to be adapted in any environment. Ralph Lauren Corporation needs to take such organisational strategies that will improve resilience, adaptability power and decision-making skill of entire workforce that allows the company to take high useful diction in any environment.

Managers needs to focus o making consistent evaluation of their market strategies and business tactics to enhance the effectiveness and relevant to these strategies

Marketers of Ralph Lauren Corporation should conduct innovative tools and techniques in fashion industry that will allow manufacturers and designers to produce highly trendy and stylish fashion products that can easily catch the attention of customers.

Conclusion:

From the overall discussion, it can be concluded that fashion industry in modern business world has grabbed a strong market position in global business platform. Marketers needs to use right leadership and management style to hold their competitive position in international market. Through using relevant strategies and proper market analysis, marketers of fashion companies can easily improve the overall competitive advantages and brand reputation.

Reference list:

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Battaglia, M., Testa, F., Bianchi, L., Iraldo, F., and Frey, M. (2014). Corporate social responsibility and competitiveness within SMEs of the fashion industry: Evidence from Italy and France. Sustainability, 6(2), 872-893.

Brun, A., Brun, A., Castelli, C., Castelli, C., Karaosman, H., and Karaosman, H. (2017). A focused supply chain strategy for luxury fashion management. Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management: An International Journal, 21(4), 544-563.

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