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HUGO BOSS has been one of the global market leaders in the premium fashion segment for years and has consistently strengthened its market position in past years. The Company’s sustained strategy of global growth has paid off. In recent months, the Managing Board under its Chairman Claus-Dietrich Lahrs, who has been head of HUGO BOSS AG since August 2008, subjected the existing strategy to a close examination and then rounded off the existing orientation with new accents.
HUGO BOSS’ high-quality brands and brand image are the Company’s most important commodity. The Group pursues a clearly-focused brand philosophy to increase the strength of its brands. Today, the BOSS core brand has been transferred to four independent product lines that cover several different areas of focus. The collections of the BOSS Black line focus on elegant business fashion, while BOSS Orange concentrates on the high-end casualwear segment. The BOSS Green label offers a fashionable golf-oriented collection. The luxurious tailored fashions of the BOSS Selection line are designed for customers with particularly high quality demands for materials, workmanship, and exclusivity. In addition, the HUGO brand improves on progressive and avant-garde style. With this broad and well-structured brand portfolio, HUGO BOSS can offer the right outfit to every target group for every occasion.
Based on this brand philosophy and high quality standards, HUGO BOSS aim to optimize further the presence of its brand family in the future. The Group wants to accentuate the individual image of these lines even more in coming years, in doing so more precisely tailoring them to the individual target groups within the brand family. BOSS Selection plays a key role here. Thanks to this line’s excellent quality, the HUGO BOSS Group will focus on the international luxury segment. The BOSS Orange line will be realigned to give this collection a more distinct market position and a brand statement more oriented to the target group.
Future brand positioning
HUGO BOSS will also significantly expand its operating range outside Europe to exploit additional growth opportunities. In doing so, it will consistently focus its corporate strategy on the most successful growth markets and regions. The stated target for the coming years remains to generate sustained positive development in the international markets, and particularly to increase the share as a percentage of total sales in the dynamic regions of Asia, Eastern Europe and North America. However, it is important to ensure that global growth continues to be accompanied by the presence in the traditional sales markets. This strategy aims to secure existing market share and further expand market positions using a portfolio with stronger regional diversification.
The number of point of sales will be therefore increased sharply, particularly in the emerging markets of Asia and Eastern Europe. China is still the most important market for the future with an enormous growth potential.
The share of sales outside Europe is expected to increase to 50% of total sales in the medium term.
In the past fiscal year, sales outside Europe already reached over 30%. HUGO BOSS aims for a more balanced sales breakdown in the coming years.
Sales split 20081 |
Mid-term target |
In addition, a significant proportion of growth potential for HUGO BOSS brands is an exclusive sales and distribution network. One of the Company’s strengths is the high number of more than 1,300 HUGO BOSS monobrand stores worldwide – which consist of own shops and stores as well as franchise stores that exclusively offer HUGO BOSS fashion collections.
HUGO BOSS wants to secure this advantage going forward and is investing in expanding the proportion of sales via the Group’s own retail stores. The share of Group sales has jumped sharply in recent years, amounting to 16% at the end of the fiscal year. Sales via directly operated stores allow the products to be presented in a highly exclusive atmosphere while also obtaining direct customer feedback on current collections. This feedback from the individual shops is passed on to the Group directly and is used developing future products. Another advantage of this sales format is that the HUGO BOSS brands can be better established and presented worldwide and that this concept supports the regional expansion.
This efforts are already the cornerstown of tomorrow’s growth.