Image by Julien Millerant from Pixabay
As you load up the car for the summer road trip, there is a chance you will be enjoying the great outdoors with gear from one of the many Northwest outdoor recreation manufacturing companies. One family-owned outdoor gear company has manufactured specialized outdoor equipment for avid recreationists to enjoy their time outside for generations. However, the company recently faced competition from cheaper foreign-made products.
The company contacted NorthwestTAAC, created a plan to rebuild sales using federal funding assistance, and hired consultants to implement it. Working with NorthwestTAAC, the company’s management developed a strategy to create new, specialized outdoor products tailored to the Northwest environment. Then, they chose and hired consultants to complete the work. The new products are hard to mass-produce or recreate without local knowledge of the customers and the environment. They also rebranded the company and created a fresh marketing strategy.
The company rebounded using the Trade Adjustment Assistance Program supported by NorthwestTAAC. Sales increased by about 20 percent, with further gains projected for the coming years. Despite rising import competition, the company’s new products remain popular in the local outdoor recreation industry.
The company used a successful competitive strategy by leveraging its unique local knowledge of the customers and the environment. By utilizing their local knowledge, they created new product lines that performed better than the cheaper, commoditized products produced overseas.