Pantagonia Case Study

PATAGONIA CASE STUDY

Q1. Evaluate Patagonia’s business model. How important to Patagonia’s business model is its environmental position?

Patagonia is a brand of performance wear and sportswear products. The brand aims to provide quality products to customers with an environment-friendly business model. The whole idea of this brand is to “challenge conventional wisdom and present a new style of responsible business”. They try to respect this environmental commitment through their whole value chain.

First of all, the product itself is made with selected raw materials (organic cotton, innovation materials…). Patagonia gives very much importance to innovation by developing, testing raw materials and reducing its packaging. The choice of their suppliers and business partners is also eco-responsible driven. For example, the company expects them to join One percent for the planet and participate on environmental projects.

Secondly, the brand selects its retailers compared to its competitors like Columbia Sportswear Company. Each store is a place where you can find the spirit and the values of the brand. The brand has its own very unique universe. Also, they sell on the internet and by catalog where you can find the same universe and pictures and articles which promote their unique lifestyle and their love for the environment.

As far as the marketing is concerned, Patagonia put only 1% of sales on advertising. The good quality of their products and their brand values are enough to have free advertising by the press. Again, the strategy is to respect the core values instead of wasting money in a department that is quite contradictory for their beliefs. This no marketing strategy gives a really positive image to the brand and is in fact a type of marketing.

About the human resources, the company makes sure that the employees have values which can feat with the brand values. They are persuaded that you can learn how to do business but it is much more difficult to...