Lululemon Athletica Inc. is a Vancouver, BC based designer and retailer of athletic apparel, operating primarily in North America. Its line of offerings include yoga-inspired apparel and accessories, including fitness pants, shorts, tops and jackets designed for athletic pursuits. As of February 2009, the company's branded apparel is sold in 113 stores across Canada and United States. This paper intends to study Lululemon Athletica from the point of view of Organizational Theory and analyze its structure, culture, value generation functions and understand what efforts and strategies have contributed to Lululemon's exponential growth in the highly competitive athletic apparel market. Furthermore, the strategic objectives of Lululemon and how they are aligned with the company's mission and vision will be discussed and an evaluation of the environmental factors and risks and uncertainties that the company faces presented.
Assessing Lululemon's Current Mission Lululemon’s products are associated primarily with physical wellness, however, there is the aspect of mental and spiritual wellness associated with their brand name. Lululemon, like any for-profit corporation, exists to maximize profits but as importantly, it exists to provide value to its customers and shareholders. Lululemon has experienced steady growth, which allows the company to capitalize on the opportunities of a large-scale organization such as specialization, cost savings, better management of the external environment as well as the ability to exert power and control.() The corporate mission of Lululemon is “Creating components for people to live longer, healthier, more fun lives”, which is further evidence that their aim and purpose is to sell products that affects customers on a more personal level. Lululemon believes that their products are able to profoundly affect the customer and will ultimately lead to improvements within their lifestyles in accordance with