Outpacing the Competition: Adidas and Salesforce Commerce Cloud

When you think about the characteristics of a great athlete, some of the ones that come to mind first are agility and speed. Such qualities have set apart the good from the great since the ancient Olympic Games.

Such abilities are equally important in commerce, and can also separate the decent stores from the greatest. Of course, it’s not that easy to develop agility and increase speed; that’s why the many are simply average.

One brand that does have the capabilities is Adidas – which needs no introduction in what they specialize in. The sports brand has been disrupting retail and manufacturing with personalized design with a digital approach.

“This generation, they expect something now,” said Jacqueline Smith-Dubendorfer, VP of Digital Experience Design. “They want instant gratification. They want to explore. They want to discover…. We need to lead and be able to respond to those consumer expectations immediately.”

Salesforce speed

The ecommerce site of Adidas is a key component of its commerce strategy. It’s become a space where it provides tailor-made, elevated experiences. As Jacqeline added: “We are capturing people online. We’re driving traffic. The brand is on fire, and that marriage of Adidas and Salesforce allows us to be reactive, proactive, and design and evolve for the future.”

Adidas has been using Salesforce for a decade now, and uses its broad solutions, from Commerce Cloud and Marketing Cloud to Service Cloud. 

Gone are the days when consumers begin their shopping experience in a store. Today, we use a cocktail of physical and digital to come across, research, and buy products and services. And with Adidas, more and more of their customers are beginning their interaction with the brand online.

As one example, during the last holiday season, there was a sharp rise of revenue coming from millennials, and they found that almost all of them started their journey online.

This kickstarted the necessity to prioritize the digital experience, while continually tracking and following changing trends and consumer preferences. And this meant investing deeper in the Salesforce ecosystem, and building better online journeys on Salesforce Commerce Cloud and Service Cloud.

The latest upgrade

Using Salesforce Service Cloud, Adidas’ workforce (which is around 1,100 strong) are able to carry out their duties smarter and faster across email, phone, and social media – all from a singular platform. This tighter connectivity means that customer service has become much more efficient.

Using Commerce Cloud, Adidas has been able to cultivate quicker relationships with customers across the globe. In fact, Adidas operates just over 50 stores spread across 40 countries, and is capable of editing and updating each one quickly to respond to local changes. 

Getting personal

As a major global brand, it’s difficult to treat each customer as a real, human being. Yet what Salesforce has helped Adidas with is to treat consumers like individuals rather than data. As Jacqueline added, the platform helps to answer whether they know a particular customer, where they come from, and what they’re interested in.

“Those data points then enable us to adapt what we present, when we present it, and how we present it to ensure that we deliver as close to what that customer is looking for as we can,” said Jacqeline.

With the knowledge of each customer generated through their preferences stored on Salesforce, Adidas can create better products by tapping into what their customers want both at the individual level as well as the broader level.

Collective creators

In addition, with the knowledge built up for each customer, it generates greater possibilities for offering customized products. And this sense of shared creativity is acknowledged by the higher-ups at Adidas. They’re aware that the relinquishing of full control is the price for putting their customers front and center of their strategy.

“The Salesforce platform has been integral to this process,” said Jacqeline, “because it creates the digital interface that enables the company to engage with shoppers. The fact that there is so much noise out there and there is so much data and so many stories, putting them at the heart of our brand and what we create allows us to be much more relevant.”

Giving a certain amount of creative power to its customers has already paid off. It has been witnessing record-breaking growth… “24% growth in North America for its brands; a 59% increase in ecommerce globally” which translates to almost $1.1 billion.

“The scale and consistency at which we’re able to deliver and bring our brand to life is incredibly important,” added Jacqeline. “And the partnership we have with Salesforce has enabled us to do that across many, many markets. It is enabling us to be faster to market, to deliver better experiences quicker, and to drive scale and consistency in a way we weren’t able to do before.”

PS: ArganoUV is one of the world’s leading Salesforce Commerce Cloud (Demandware) development & strategy teams. Contact us to see how we can work together.