Cougar Essay

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ASSIGNMENT BRIEF - Cougar Japan The management of Cougar Japan and Cougar International must reach a decision soon about the direction to give to the Japanese subsidiary. The directors will be meeting in the near future to discuss next year's marketing and sales plan. Your assignment is to discuss, and reach an agreement on, the future with your parent company, Cougar International. 1. Expansion opportunities Cougar Japan is still a prestige product company. However, in order to increase its market share, the Japanese subsidiary must move into lower price ranges as well. This is particularly important now, as the market for low- and medium-priced sports shoes is expected to grow significantly faster than the upper end of the market. Moreover, the rise of the yen has given importers a strong competitive advantage over Japanese manufacturers. Most Japanese marketers of sports shoes offer a number of basic shoe models at several price levels. In the medium term, it would be useful to add squash shoes, soccer boots, baseball shoes, and track shoes to the Cougar line. In the short term, squash shoes seem the most promising area for expansion. Of the other foreign companies on the market, only Strike Sports Shoes offer a full range of shoe types. However, Strike have never sold into the top end of the market and so do not enjoy a prestige product image. Cougar could have a competitive advantage in this respect. 2. Suppliers Cougar has manufacturing subsidiaries in Korea, Singapore, and Sri Lanka. Shoes sold by Cougar Japan are imported from South Korea at an average cost price of US$15.85. Their quality is excellent, and this arrangement should continue for Cougar's up-market models. However, Cougar Japan has also been approached recently by the Mirama Corporation of Taiwan. Mirama have quoted a price of US$10.15 on orders of 250,000 pairs or more,

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