A company's managers should probably give serious consideration to changing from a low-cost/low price strategy for branded footwear to a different strategy when it is very risky to build large-scale plants in both Asia and Latin America. the company would have to build plants in all four geographic regions in order to be adequately profitable. the risks of sizable unfavorable shifts in exchange rates are quite high, company managers are fearful of trying to underprice rival firms, and the company's ROE is currently below 15%. the company's branded footwear costs are near or above the industry averages for many/most of the benchmarked cost categories contained in the FIR and, furthermore, many other rivals are charging low prices for branded footwear and thus are apparently pursuing a low-cost strategy. the company's profit margins per branded pair sold and per private-label pair sold are below the industry averages in all four geographic regions.
