Done by
Noureldien Al Masri
INTRODUCTION:
There is no doubt that Riva is one of the famous brands that operate in a number of countries. The company has to develop and expand on its operations because there are a lot of competitors in the market and the company should keep up with the latest updates in the fashion market around the world. The collections that are presented by Riva allow a mix of Western and Eastern inspirations to present a unique look with a special appeal. The outstanding collections are out of extensive creativity. The collections allow every woman to express themselves through unique and beautiful colors, patterns and special themes. It is also evident that Riva had considered and respected all the cultural boundaries of its customers. Riva operates in a niche fashion market and there are many differences between the high street European labels and the international appealing collections. The administration shall supply its market with the products that are matched with the fashion market. It is possible to say that Riva is a contemporary brand for the women clothes. Riva is number one in the passion to empower its customers and clients through the creative, selective and confident collection in each season. It is known that at the beginning of each season the rate of sales shall be high. This essay will focus on vision, mission, objective, corporate structure, stakeholders and the reputation of Riva in the market. It is also paramount to pay attention to the social responsibilities strategy, advertising strategies, media relations strategies, government relations strategy and crisis communication strategies.
HISTORY AND BACKGROUND OF RIVA:
Riva is one of the most well-known brands in the fashion industry. It is extremely successful among international brands. The roots of Riva go for many years and it was established in Paris, France. It was intended to invest more across the countries that are located in the Gulf area in significant way especially during the coming ten years. The franchising show in the Middle East is poised to set the stage for Riva fashion brand as the most brands which pursue expansion. Riva has established itself as a great successful fashion brand in the Middle East since its origin in 2001 (Jackson et al, 2014). It is clear that Riva had witnessed a great progress during the last five years; the organization had developed its sales in far of the original targets. On average, Riva Fashion Stores had managed to increase its sales about twenty five percent annually. The success has motivated the head of original branches to expand their operations. Kris Barber who is working as Business Development Manager of Riva stated that the organization will not stop its work to this limit but it will keep progressing to be the best brand in the fashion market (Moore et al, 2000). Riva Fashion Stores is owned by the Kuwait based Armada Retail Corporation Group; Riva had many outlets in Kuwait, which count to 10 at the moment. These stores are spread around Kuwait. The administration of Riva aims to establish a lot of outlets to reach to one hundred outlets across the Gulf Countries in the coming years. In 2017, many stores shall be opened in the cities of Kuwait, Centre of Burjuman Dubai and Al Wadha Mall that is located in Abu Dhabi.
BRAND VISION
Riva aims to be the leading Brand in the retailing market throughout the Gulf countries. It is clear that the company is working hard in the market to attract more customers. Riva Fashion has become a famous name in the Kuwaiti market because it has many branches in Kuwait but the administration aims to have more branches to cover all cities of Kuwait. The vision of Riva in the next decade is being the top brand not only in Kuwait but also in the whole Gulf Area. The brand is one of the most innovative brands in the fashion market and it became one of the leading clothes producers (Moore et al, 2000). The company will focus more on the quality standards, technical perfection and the innovative effects to be more unique.
THE MISSION OF RIVA:
The mission of Riva is working very hard to provide the best products and unique services to all the customers through the policy of on time delivery. Riva Fashion Stores are working also to enhance the clients' satisfaction by paying more attention on the quality and the most outstanding prices. Riva managed also to gain some loyalty from the customers and they will work more to sustain this loyalty by offering wide range of products and excellent services (Moore et al, 2000). It is noticed that the clients who are visiting our outlets come in different shapes and varied size and each one of them has special preferences, but Riva provide varied collections designed to fit all the customers and it shall be suitable for the different lifestyles of customers.
THE GOALS AND OBJECTIVES:
It is important to say that each company has its special philosophy and each member in this company should abide by this philosophy. In the case of Riva, we are one Family and all the employees who are working in Riva Fashion Stores are loyal for the organization and honest. It is possible to say that the loyalty of the employees is a major reason behind the success of Riva Fashion. The staff members are working hard and they are employing their efforts to place Riva Fashion Stores as the best company in the fashion market. The administration of Riva realized that keeping the promises meant for the clients is an essential element. All the employees in Riva work very hard to be the best in the services that are presented for the clients. It is possible to make the clients work with the company as promoters indirectly when they are provided with the best services. The creativity of the employee is a priority for the administration of Riva.
RIVA STAKEHOLDERS:
Riva is one of the well-known brands under the umbrella of Armada Group. It was established in 1997. It is noted that Riva is working now in five countries of Gulf countries (Jackson et al, 2014). These countries are Kuwait, United Arab of Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabian and Bahrain. Riva has more than thirty outlet stores and the company still expanding its works to be 150 by 2017.
CORPORATE STRUCTURE
CORPORATE IDENTITY, IMAGE AND REPUTATION
Riva is considered a unique brand which provides fashion styles for women and men beside the children clothes. It is defined by combining bold colors with special details and fresh new silhouettes. Riva fashion has a great reputation in the market because the stores have varied sizes of clothes. The main target of Riva is satisfying all the potential customers. The company provides varied clothes with different sizes to be matched with all people (Jackson et al, 2014).
The special image of Riva comes from the provision of the varied cloth styles that are suitable for all ages. The collection of Riva Fashion store is offering elegant and stylish designs. It is important also to say that the fashion stylists provide the markets with varied colors. The Riva stores present the collections in suitable prices to be suitable for all persons (Christian &Ehrenstorfer, 2015).
INTERNAL COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES
It is known that the effective internal strategy of communications is an important part of any famous organization. This strategy would play a great role in all aspects of the business of Riva Fashion and the great communication shall be permeated in every level of the corporate.
The formal internal strategy of communication helps the business to reach its major goals and share its mission, values and vision with the staff members. In addition to these benefits, the internal strategy of communications can be valuable in the following ways.
Using the E-mail (especially: Outlook)
Printed notes on paper materials
Company Mobile and Office Line
The strategy of Riva Store boosts the productivity of its employee and it shall improve the satisfaction of the employees. The internal communication strategy creates a sense of the community to solidify the trust and loyalty of the employees. This strategy shall permit the employees to take a lot of decisions in quick way because they will use the latest tools of knowledge to make the "right" decisions (Christian &Ehrenstorfer, 2015).
CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITIES
The great organizations such as Riva Fashion will have special social responsibilities. Riva's social responsibility comes in many forms.The sponsors of Riva Fashion adopted some projects that will bring joy and pride to its customers around the world. The social projects shall participate in a wide range to improve the social standard of living for many persons. It is significant to say that the corporate sponsorships should be fitted with the culture, values and basic principles (Kemper et al, 2013).
The concept of corporate social responsibility is underpinned by the idea which corporations can no longer work as isolated entities operating in detachment from the broader society. It is known that the traditional views about survival, competitiveness and profitability are being swept away.The participation of Riva Fashion Store in the social responsibilityhad managed to develop the reputation of the corporate among the other competitors (Kemper et al, 2013). It will be a special motivator for the clients to buy all their needs from Riva Fashion.
CORPORATE ADVERTISING STRATEGIES
Riva Fashion Store is considered one of the top brands that provide the customers with the high quality clothes. The company employs the social media nowadays more than the traditional marketing. Riva Fashion is using Twitter and Instagram in a wide range. Riva Fashion Store uses this new technique always. Every week, the company shows appreciation for their followers, by mentioning them for some pictures of the new clothes. The images include their products also. They take one step further by using the Instagram photos which include fans (Scherer & Palazzo, 2008).
Riva Fashion should provide more information in the promotional campaign regarding the outletsof Riva in Kuwait and the varied designs that are offered and for sure the promotion will provide Riva Fashion more reputation in the Kuwaiti market. Riva Fashion didn't ignore the newspapers also but they had used these tools also for promoting. It is noted also that Riva had used outdoors and billboards (Christian &Ehrenstorfer, 2015).
MEDIA RELATIONS STRATEGIES
The director of marketing department had adopted special strategy in media relation. This strategy concentrates on keeping the list of contacts for the concerned persons to keep in touch with them to inform them with the latest fashion designs that are presented by Riva. These contacts should include the partners of Riva Fashion also to arrange with each other to cover the whole market with the clothes. The department of marketing is going to interact with the media accounts and channels accounts in the social media (Scherer & Palazzo, 2008).The employees of e-marketing branch are going to keep in touch with customers through Riva Fashion account in Facebook and Twitter.
GOVERNMENT RELATIONS STRATEGIES
The department of public relation should specify one of its staff members to be specialized to keeping in touch with the public entities and the governmental authorities to arrange between them and Riva Fashion Store. This competent employee shall pay great attention for maintaining a harmonious relationship between the store and the governmental authority. He will be authorized to organize for the exported goods and determine how and when it will enter the Kuwaiti lands.
He is going to feed the custom authority with the necessary details of the containers that are coming from varied countries to be sold in the outlets of Riva that are located in the State of Kuwait. The employee should have a great experience in dealing with the official entities and the procedures that are needed to manage these tasks.
CRISIS COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES
It is important to say that the crisis communications in the world of public relations can have a lot of different interpretations depending on who one asks. However, Riva is trying to mitigate any damage to the reputation of Riva by using third party sources. Crisis communications turns that on its head by dealing with negative earned media.
The most important thing is assigning the proper employee in the right position to solve any problem in a limited time. This employee should have great experience in the store to have the ability to solve any problem may occur in the outlets of Riva.
RECOMMENDATIONS:
It is recommended that for Riva to be the most important store in the fashion market there is need to improve and develop the strategy of advertising and exert more efforts in the social side by sponsoring some volunteer events. The great organization is getting the value from any recommendations that shall be directed to it. Riva will also specify a hot line and special email to receive all the recommendations from the customers. It will be better to have a special hot line to keep in touch with the governmental and public authorities. Also, the head of public relation department should be encouraged through activities such as opening more channels for the customers to know their impact of the services. The company also needs to learn from the experience of others in solving any crisis. At points where the company experiences low sales, it is vital for the administration of Riva to increase the promotional campaigns. The company should open more channels with more investors coming on board to support expansion of their work in the market.
REFERENCES:
Kemper, J., Schilke, O., Reimann, M., Wang, X., &Brettel, M. (2013).Competition-motivated corporate social responsibility. Journal of Business Research, 66(10), 1954-1963.
Scherer, A. G., & Palazzo, G. (2008).Globalization and corporate social responsibility.
Moore, C. M., Fernie, J., & Burt, S. (2000). Brands without boundaries–the internationalisation of the designer retailer’s brand. European Journal of Marketing, 34(8), 919-937.
Jackson, S. E., Schuler, R. S., & Jiang, K. (2014).An aspirational framework for strategic human resource management. The Academy of Management Annals, 8(1), 1-56.
Christian, S, &Ehrenstorfer, B. (2015).The importance of automotive services in the distribution business and their critical factors for success.Issn 2045-810x, 133.
