North Face 2002 Annual Report Download - page 20
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any other apparel company, and giving them and our retail
partners the right products at the right time.
Keep the momentum going in our U.S. jeans businesses.
Challenges we expect to face this year include new competition
for our jeans brands in mass market stores and the closing of a
number of stores by one of our largest customers. We’re attacking
these challenges on a number of fronts. At the top of the list is great
product. We’ll be building on the product successes of 2002 with a
steady stream of new, consumer-right products across all our
brands. Second is marketing: maintaining a healthy level of
investment behind our brands to keep them front and center with
consumers. Third, we’ll be leveraging our low cost supply chain and
state-of-the-art replenishment services to be the gold standard in
responsiveness to retailers. Last but not least, we’ll continue to
search for new brands to add to our portfolio.
Identify new ways to take advantage of changing retail
dynamics. The winners of tomorrow will be those who control
the destiny of their brands on the retail floor, who can supply an
ever-changing array of new products and brands to consumers,
and whose business strategy is aligned with those of the strongest
players in the industry. Our European jeans and intimates units are
taking the lead in this area with the rollout of new in-store shops and
boutique concepts. In the U.S., we’re putting more resources behind
analyzing our customers’ business, to identify common areas for
growth and to increase the frequency and hit rate of new ideas.
Continue to lead with product innovation. In 2003, our Intimates
group will be launching the CurvationTM brand, targeted to curvaceous
women seeking beautiful, comfortable bras and panties in mass
stores. The North Face will launch the A5TM line of functional cotton
apparel in sports specialty stores. Lee®Jeans will roll out its Lee
Dungarees Series 66202TM line of casual, hip cotton pants for
department stores. And this spring, JanSport is introducing its
Live WireTM pack, with built-in features for CD-carrying music
enthusiasts. These are just a few examples of how VF will continue
to use innovation as a means of meeting the specific needs of
targeted groups of consumers.
Fill the gaps in our current portfolio. We’re committed to growth
and see opportunities to expand our top line by adding brands
and products that reach new and different consumer segments,
geographic markets or channels of distribution. Our top priorities are
in our jeans and intimates businesses — particularly in the upper and
mid-tier channels of distribution — both here and abroad. We’ll also