As Amer Sports moves towards areas of faster growth, higher profitability and better asset efficiency, the company said apparel and footwear will be at the heart of the change. Amer Sports softgoods has a proven track record in sustainable growth.
“Since 2010, we have grown disproportionally in softgoods, much faster than the rest of the portfolio. We will be over one billion euros in sales this year,” said Jon Hoerauf, president of Amer Sports Apparel, at the Amer Sports Capital Markets Day in Helsinki.
Softgoods has a clear role in Amer Sports’ updated strategy: full acceleration towards the mid-term target of 1.5 billion euro sales. Hoerauf explains why accelerated growth is a realistic target:
“Softgoods fits perfectly to our direct-to-consumer business model, and it has a lot of possibilities in two key markets, U.S. and China. We can surround the consumer all year long, and we have proven in China that we know how to do business across the globe.”
Repeatable Business Model
Recently Amer Sports acquired the Swedish sports fashion brand Peak Performance. The acquisition gives Amer Sports substantial new opportunities.
“As Peak Performance now joins our brands, we have re-established the whole softgoods category. We are going to be very strategic in the way we manage our brands. Furthermore, with three big brands, we can drive specific scale and synergy items.”
As a whole, Amer Sports apparel category has a three-dimensional mission.
“The first priority is to support and enable apparel capability building. Not only between the existing brands, but also between us and our hardgoods brands. Second, we have to execute this in an efficient and effective manner. Last but not least, we have to strengthen our brand consumer experiences.”
The target of the mission is to create a repeatable business model to enable sustainable, profitable growth.
“When our business model becomes repeatable, it becomes plug-and-play. Then we can utilize the full potential of our brands.”
Some building blocks of the new business model are already in place.
“Consumer first -innovation goes through all our brands. Sourcing and supply chain shares materials and opportunities in manufacturing and logistics, and we know how to do business across the globe.”
Sustainability to the Next Level
Sustainability is essential for all softgoods brands.
“For us, sustainability means innovation. How do we start doing things differently? How can we take sustainability to the next level?”
At Arc’teryx, sustainability will become a part of the business platform, said Hoerauf, who is also the CEO of Arc’teryx.
“Consumers and shareholders are asking questions. If you are a company that has nothing to hide, you should put it out there. At the Arc’teryx website, consumers can deep-dive in the information about where and how our products are made.”
Looking forward
In 2019 Arc´teryx will turn 30 years. Most probably, there will be no big fuss around the birthday.
“We are not a heritage brand. We are a brand that always looks forward,” said Hoerauf.
As Arc´teryx grows, it has to attract even more new consumers.
“In most parts of the world, we are known as a technical outdoor company. Now we need to evolve beyond that. We need to become more inclusive, more open and more human. Because we play in all different regions, we need to show up differently in the eyes of the consumers. We are evolving the way the consumer sees us and interacts with us, and we are evolving how and where we bring our products to market.”
