Rawlings Sporting Goods is one of the most respected sporting goods manufacturers in the world. They attribute a lot of their success to their marketing department and their one-of-a-kind products. They also have a reputation of being “the” original baseball glove, a difficult reputation to live up to with respectable new entrants in the baseball equipment market. Rawlings was started in 1887 in St. Louis by two brothers, George and Alfred Rawlings. The company has been the market leader in the sporting goods industry the vast majority of the company’s existence. They are the leading North American supplier of Baseball and softball, basketball, and football equipment. They have expanded their operations to Japan where they are increasing market
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After deciding to enter an existing market with a new product, they decided on starting with Product Development. I was involved in a couple different areas of the internal departments that carry out the value creating activities or the Value chain. While daily I worked with the design team on the actual design and appearance of the glove. I also went on business trips with the marketing department and was a key person with the Marketing Research part of the New Product Development Process. As for the process of developing this product, the idea generation stage was decided by the Glove Developers that I worked for, along with some executives, after Mizuno created the $500 price point and was very successful thus far. A lot in the baseball equipment industry is based off of what the competition is doing and Rawlings’ was able to use the External Idea Source for this new glove from Mizuno. The Idea Screening stage suggested that the $500 price point was the most in demand product that Rawlings was not a player in. As a team, Rawlings management decided that they would be very bold and use the same name that the current $100 price point glove that was named, “Gold Glove Series”. They thought the best glove in their Product Line should have the best name, which I agreed with. Although it was a bit risky because the $100 price point “Gold Glove” series …show more content…
Rawlings’ had employees whose job is specifically designated to maintaining player relationships amongst minor and major league players. Being the leading baseball supplier of gloves in the major leagues, Rawlings’ would be able to be very particular on who they allowed to wear the glove and they would be able to make that decisions based on player with the most television time such as pitchers and big name infielders. Once we were able to provide the chosen players with their new glove, the players were able to take the gloves and use them in practice and if they preferred the glove to their current one, they were able to use it on the
After deciding to enter an existing market with a new product, they decided on starting with Product Development. I was involved in a couple different areas of the internal departments that carry out the value creating activities or the Value chain. While daily I worked with the design team on the actual design and appearance of the glove. I also went on business trips with the marketing department and was a key person with the Marketing Research part of the New Product Development Process. As for the process of developing this product, the idea generation stage was decided by the Glove Developers that I worked for, along with some executives, after Mizuno created the $500 price point and was very successful thus far. A lot in the baseball equipment industry is based off of what the competition is doing and Rawlings’ was able to use the External Idea Source for this new glove from Mizuno. The Idea Screening stage suggested that the $500 price point was the most in demand product that Rawlings was not a player in. As a team, Rawlings management decided that they would be very bold and use the same name that the current $100 price point glove that was named, “Gold Glove Series”. They thought the best glove in their Product Line should have the best name, which I agreed with. Although it was a bit risky because the $100 price point “Gold Glove” series …show more content…
Rawlings’ had employees whose job is specifically designated to maintaining player relationships amongst minor and major league players. Being the leading baseball supplier of gloves in the major leagues, Rawlings’ would be able to be very particular on who they allowed to wear the glove and they would be able to make that decisions based on player with the most television time such as pitchers and big name infielders. Once we were able to provide the chosen players with their new glove, the players were able to take the gloves and use them in practice and if they preferred the glove to their current one, they were able to use it on the