Burberry Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Burberry - Case Study Example However, in 2005, General Universal Stores divested their stake in 2005. The current CEO of the group is Angela Ahredts, who replaced Rose Marie Bravo. (Burberry Official Website, 2010) From its inception, the brand has experienced massive growth and now owns thousand of outlets and franchises throughout England. The company specializes in menwear, womenwear, childrenwear and non-apparel garments. Out of these, the largest share of its revenue comes from womenwear. Burberry is also a household name in the international market. This feat was achieved with the recent trend of globalization and this is where the company pays most attention. The company has no distinctive mission statement. However, reading on from their annual reports it can be seen that the company wants to maximize its revenues in order to increase the business profitability. This is what the entire team and the management of Burberry plc works for and for many years now. In order to achieve their mission of maximizing revenue the company is trying to streamline their operations by moving towards focused collection. Although, this is a generic term but it implies that the company is moving toward more balanced collection in terms of design, style and quality. The company is doing this through constant innovation strategies. They have increased the frequency of new designs coming to retail outlets. The brand also aims to achieve its objective by increasing productivity, streamlining store operations, by adopting a policy of quick expansion and by making use of the latest technology to make their operations more and more efficient. (Burberry Annual Reports of 2008, 2009) From our discussion about Burberry plc Group, we can see that it has been doing brilliantly since its inception. However, in the recent years, the firm is facing some challenges in the form of recession and fierce competition in the industry due to entry of a lot of new firm in this market to cater the needs of the consumer. In the next part of this report, we are going to look at some of the strategies that Burberry has adopted to counter these challenges. Burberry has been greatly affected by the ongoing recessionary phase in which we find global economy in. Economic recession has affected Burberry indirectly in an adverse way. As a result of economic recession, people's purchasing power has been deteriorating and now they have to think twice when buying a luxury item like Burberry. As a result of this, Burberry's profits are fast falling and irked the top management of the company for sometimes now. One example of how Burberry is been affected by continuing recession can be seen in the Burberry Group's income statement for the year which shows a profit of 99.8m as compared to 170.9m that were earned a year before. This was decline of approximately 41%. This shows how badly the firm is affected by the current recessionary wave that the world is experiencing. Another thing that worries Burberry's management is the structure of supply-chain of the company. The company finds that in few of the firm's product categories, it relies on small number of supplier. As a result, these suppliers command more authority over Burberry and this over reliance on few suppliers can cause a lot of trouble to Burberry. However, the only way the situation can be improved is by restructuring the supply-chain management of the company, which the company is trying to undertake with some success. Similarly, most of the firm's