The men footwear industry in Brazil: challenges and opportunities

• Autor(a) principal: Flores, Giovana Domingues
• Data de Publicação: 2018
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Institucional do FGV (FGV Repositório Digital)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10438/24899
• topic: Footwear; Shoes; Leather; Industry; Brazil; Calçado; Sapato; Couro; Indústria; Brasil; China; Ciência política; Calçados - Indústria - Brasil; Projetos de desenvolvimento; Desenvolvimento organizacional

After a deep economic crisis that started in 2014 and the entrance of Chinese products in the Brazilian footwear market, many manufacturers and retailers have experienced drop in sales and mass layoffs. These events served as a trigger for the study of the underlying factors that have caused the unfortunate events affecting the footwear industry. The purpose of this paper is to gather an industry perspective on what are the main threats the Brazilian footwear industry is facing nowadays and assess whether they are long or short term ones. In order to understand how these factors have impacted in the long term competitive advantage of the chain, 4 interviews were conducted with people working for a retail chain, a questionnaire was sent out to 9 manufacturers of leather shoes, and an online survey was sent out to more than 100 men about their consumption habits of footwear. The changes perceived in consumer preferences represented the biggest threat, given that new trends related to sports shoes and sneakers shifted the focus of the consumer towards international brands and shoes made of different material rather than leather, such as rubber, textile and EVA, mainly produced in China. This threat represents not only a temporary state of the fashion trends, but rather a long term one based on technological innovation and research that are permitted these companies not only with superior products, but also with lower production costs derived from cost efficiencies which are hard to compete with and imitate by the local manufacturers.