Yonex Co., Ltd / Bryan Abraham Ben

Yonex is a Japanese sports equipment manufacturing company that produces equipment and apparel for tennis, badminton, golf and running. This company analysis will focus solely on the badminton aspect of its products, specifically badminton shoes and it will be investigated, identified and analysed as well as coming up with solutions tailored for the problems faced by their current product(s). The inevitable problems regarding sports equipment are that they are most likely subjected to wear and tear after prolonged use and sometimes break altogether when used incorrectly or when accidents occur. For professional athletes that are sponsored by big name brands, such problems are trivial or even negligible but for upcoming athletes or hobbyist, this is something significant and should be addressed accordingly. The issue in particular that is being pressed on is the issue with the insoles of their shoe products. They are primarily fitted with stiff foam as its insole straight from the factory. Normally, this is a normal choice when it comes to sports wear and this grade of stiff foam is rated for a more robust and vigorous usage. However, using a stiff foam means that they miss out on opportunities to improve the design, technology, potential and capabilities of the shoes since they choose as such. In other words, they have been objectively pursuing the advancement of shoe technology; constantly improving each aspects of the shoe with minimal improvements each time but they don’t look at the most obvious anatomy of the shoe, the insoles, as a part that can be improved. There are no qualms on the work ethics of this company in particular. A handfuls of documentaries show the insides of these factories and they all indicate that each and every single one of these factories value quality and has put through all of their products through rigorous testing prior being shipped out to their brand outlets. This means it is unlikely that this company produces defective or lacklustre product. However, with this company highly valuing quality, it makes sense that their products is priced so highly and thus, most of their products usually gain traction after a new successor to their products drops and in turn reduces the price of the previous generation of products to a more reasonable price.