Any bets if this BU will be set up for success any better than the last ?
Remind, anyone, what the point or advantage of LA relocated office?
14 replies (most recent on top)
LA isn’t cheaper but it is s-xier than PDX.
@ vlpu+1kKNhh5A seriously? And you probably think LA is cheaper and doesnt have any issues. San Andreas ring a bell?
PDX is a VERY expensive place to operate business and the public mental health crisis paired with dr-gs/addiction/fentanyl is not helping.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole market moved.
Years ago I heard that the hospital allegedly sold their building because it was built on/near an earthquake fault line. If true, the company would certainly been informed (it’s a common issue/widespread risk in PNW), and perhaps they maybe always saw PDX as a temporary stopping point to a more major American city for NAM HQ.
Team Sports
Pressure to return to office started as early as 2021, way ahead of office opening, then 2022 while it was questionable if water or bathrooms were accessible in the temporary space, SLT saying that it was up to them to decide if they will enforce any future changes to remote flex. Fwd to 2023., office finally opened, SLT advised it is up to individual teams to decide which meetings r needed for in person.
Then, mandatory 3 day in office communicated, but still flex which days.
Then, all cross functional meetings mandatory in office.
Then, mandatory no less than 3 days and mandatory all cross functional meetings on-site, plus additional judgement if you’re coming in less than your peers, regardless of productivity.
Then, clear divide of who comes in and who doesn’t, people taking “tally’s”.
Then, if you don’t come in, you’re perceived as not caring or less invested as your peers, regardless of productivity.
Then, rumours of those not coming in as often, top of list to cut (regardless of productivity).
Then, let it begin…
Saw more 'signs of life' driving by campus today than I have in 3 years since covid. New CEO motivating, new mandates, or everyone suddenly wanting to show their faces pre- fiscal year end...?
If building culture influence is what adi was meaning to do with the LA office the very last place adidas deserves to be is CMC or downtown fashion district. An area historically known to be an epicenter of small business and designers, creators, and og hustlers. Now further driven out by the conglomerate. The biggest influence adidas has created so far is the influence for neo-na-is hanging an anti-Semite flag over the 405, thanks YE.
basketball can be run every bit as effectively from Portland, probably even better than LA. The competition proves that.
As for pulling out of Portland for locations like Camas or Vancouver it’s a non starter.. Completely decentralized for workforce. The village could not be better situated in its ability to be equidistant from most areas of the urban area.
LA is a dead office in a dead downtown, Westland of a city no one wants to be in. With Yeezy being done, there is now zero need for it.
Basketball can be won from any major location - LA has nothing to do with success of this program.
When the tax-holiday for helping develop that location expires - you can certainly bet they will close it.
If adidas was smart, they’d look to smaller burbs, and even think of pulling f out of PDX… no one wants to be in that wasteland either.
Camas WA would be a nice campus. Vancouver WA even… less business tax / lower costs.
Right now this company suffers from “sunk cost fallacy” where they think holding onto these bad locations, in geographically difficult location is important. It’s not… we just need work from home enablement, and small gathering spaces and a few innovation centers.
Stop with the big offices in poor
Locations… Enable the worker, and focus on the customer.
I still can’t figure out what’s going on with the brand SLT.
While the Yeezy business was profitable as he-l, there’s no way that partnership could continue. Then we watched KW spiral in public. We learned more details about the working environment he fostered - and and I hear that’s only scratching the surface.
There’s no excuse, and it was professional malpractice for our leaders to maintain that debacle. We had painted ourselves into a corner, for sure….Play with fire and get burned!
Now, more and more about the failure of the Basketball strategy. Partnerships sputtering, and brand heat going no where.
Where is the accountability?
Where is the accountability?
How the Wex was won.
Pun intended. When he was around LA mattered, Kayne mattered. Employees mattered. All mattered. Now it’s see nothing say nothing. The west was lost. Kayne west was also lost. LA is as needed as the suite in the staple center. No one can afford to move or live there but employees will move on adidas’ dime and use the LA office as a resume builder. Look at the basketball BU!! Simply a illness that can’t be cured. Prediction.
The lease will be broken in 18 months. What’s the point ? We can’t keep up with the Jones’ any longer. Might as well build offices in Baltimore as well.
Details, please? Can anyone help with more context? Have teams been told that there will be a consolidation to LA??
Misguided as the first move to LA was and is, I always thought it foreshadowed a complete move of the creation center, if not the whole market..
After bball and originals etc etc…what BUs are there left to move to LA? PDX is a ghost town already.
From HQ vantage: The point is 'cleaning up' - layoffs without layoffs - very few able to or willing move to LA