Coach Inc.
Coach – The Leading Consumer-centric Corporation
October 25, 2012
Abstract
Fashion trends are sensitive, and customers are unpredictable. It makes fashion industry become a highly competitive market. To survive and thrive, fashion companies need distinctive strategies. It seems aspiring but not many firms can achieve. As an exception, Coach proves its success in this challenge by not walking through the same way as others rivals (e.g. Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Prada, and Hermes) have done. Coach has created a customer-focused model and a result-driven strategy to lead its business to overcome crisis and expand market. Even though there still have many challenges in the fashion sector, Coach’s strategy seems to be sustainable.
Coach – The Leading Consumer-centric Corporation Coach was a family-run company founded by Miles Cahn in 1941 in New York (Coach, 2012). Coach was famous for traditional crafted leather goods, but keeping the classic styles drove it to dramatically lose market share. Based on the excellent management of Chairman Lew Frankfort, Coach shifted from a conventional leather division of Sarah Lee Corp. to a fashion-oriented brand name and a customer-centric corporation (Boorstin, 2002). Coach has thrived not only in North America but also in Japan, China and other countries (Coach, 2012 & Tsukahara, 2011). Therefore, Coach’s strategy is sustainable.
Successful Management in Turbulent Economic Conditions
The secret formula for Coach’s success simply comprises two components. First, it is the perfect collaboration between Lew Frankfort (Chairman and CEO) and Reed Krakoff (President and Executive Creative Director). Since Frankfort took his office, he implemented several typical reforms: created customer database to examine consumer behavior, built multichannel distribution system (retail stores, factory outlets, boutiques, and online store), and hired Reed Krakoff to refresh Coach’s product design (Slywotzky, 2007). Krakoff made a
October 25, 2012
Abstract
Fashion trends are sensitive, and customers are unpredictable. It makes fashion industry become a highly competitive market. To survive and thrive, fashion companies need distinctive strategies. It seems aspiring but not many firms can achieve. As an exception, Coach proves its success in this challenge by not walking through the same way as others rivals (e.g. Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Prada, and Hermes) have done. Coach has created a customer-focused model and a result-driven strategy to lead its business to overcome crisis and expand market. Even though there still have many challenges in the fashion sector, Coach’s strategy seems to be sustainable.
Coach – The Leading Consumer-centric Corporation Coach was a family-run company founded by Miles Cahn in 1941 in New York (Coach, 2012). Coach was famous for traditional crafted leather goods, but keeping the classic styles drove it to dramatically lose market share. Based on the excellent management of Chairman Lew Frankfort, Coach shifted from a conventional leather division of Sarah Lee Corp. to a fashion-oriented brand name and a customer-centric corporation (Boorstin, 2002). Coach has thrived not only in North America but also in Japan, China and other countries (Coach, 2012 & Tsukahara, 2011). Therefore, Coach’s strategy is sustainable.
Successful Management in Turbulent Economic Conditions
The secret formula for Coach’s success simply comprises two components. First, it is the perfect collaboration between Lew Frankfort (Chairman and CEO) and Reed Krakoff (President and Executive Creative Director). Since Frankfort took his office, he implemented several typical reforms: created customer database to examine consumer behavior, built multichannel distribution system (retail stores, factory outlets, boutiques, and online store), and hired Reed Krakoff to refresh Coach’s product design (Slywotzky, 2007). Krakoff made a
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