Lululemon Athletic Company Analysis

In order for a company to be successful, one must be highly innovative. For a company to keep customers engaged in their products, they must keep changing the products that are available. Most companies change their products from season to season. Businesses go through a process called product development in order for their new products to reach the market. According to Forbes, Lululemon Athletica is ranked number 41 on the 2015 ranking of the most innovative growth companies. Based on its renown status of being an innovative company, Lululemon Athletica has an outstanding process for introducing new products to the market. Lululemon, like all companies, has a product development process that is unique to its business. After a long, problematic history, the brand is now in good hands and is on the road to a successful future. Lululemon is a company that never stops innovating. The brand was founded in 1998, and the first store opened in 2000 in a beach area near Vancouver, Canada ("Lululemon Athletica: Our Company," n.d.). From the start, Lululemon Athletica goal image has been healthy living, yoga, balance, and diet (Campos, 2013). In 2003, the company was named “the most innovative retailer of the year.” In 2004, the company expanded and moved out of Canada. The company became public in 2007, therefore before this year there is no public records on Lululemon …show more content…
A new product development process is when a company “must carry out strong new product planning and set up a systematic, customer-driven new product development process for finding and growing new products” (Armstrong & Kotler, 2015, p. 239). Team-based product development processes are used in markets that change rapidly. With that being said, the company also uses a sequential process to bring new products to the market. Therefore, Lululemon is unique in that they use a combination of both processes to bring their products to