The reason Under Armour is suitable for this assignment is due to the lack of effective public relations training in management, less than suitable selections of brand representatives, and the companies failure to evolve with the times. The American market has been UA’s strongest for sales in the past, yet recently it has been dominated by e-commerce, something the company has had a difficult time establishing itself in (Morris, 2017). These components of the business present changes that need to be made in significant subsystems in order for the company to continue to flourish.
The three subsystems relevant in this project are those of the Public Relations department, E-commerce sector, and the Recruiting department. The PR department, Kevin Plank in specific, made a large mistake earlier this year that cost the company millions of dollars in share value when Plank praised President Donald Trump, leading to a public uproar and several company representatives expressing great disapproval of the remarks that were made. Plank needed to be more aware of public views on the subject when speaking about President Trump, yet this neglectful behavior when communicating cost the company severely. The companies ability to transition sales into the e-commerce marketplace has been a slow process, and with the majority of their sales occurring in North America where most people are making this shift, they have found themselves struggling to keep up with their competition. Selection of high-cost brand representatives has not been conducted wisely at Under Armour as the athletes they have selected, although popular in America, are not of great recognition globally, in the markets that the company has recently been attempting to expand into.
Three stakeholders of significance at Under Armour are those of the 15,000+ Employees, the Shareholders, and the Company Directors as these are the people who are affected by the businesses poor performance when there are faults in any of the subsystems (Statista, 2017). If the company continues to lose profits, it will need to cut back on its operating expenses, which will result in employees being let go. The recent decrease in share value has come as a great loss to shareholders of Under Armour stock (UA), greatly impacting the financial positions of those highly invested. CEO, Kevin Plank relies heavily on his self-developed organization to satisfy his financial needs and will surely suffer if the companies subsystems are to continue operating inefficiently.
Identify and explain how you would ensure that the proposed change will satisfy any three stakeholders of Under Armour?