Outdoor Research (OR) has issued a European license to Scott Sports, starting from the beginning of this month, which will enable the U.S. outdoor company's European team to focus on sales and marketing.
The move comes about three months after Youngone, the Korean company that bought a majority stake in OR last year, acquired control of Scott. Youngone already bought 20.1 percent of Scott in 2013 and it raised its stake earlier this year to own a small majority in the Swiss group specialising in ski, outdoor, running and cycling products.
OR's European distributor network is to remain broadly unchanged. Its European business will still be led from Winterthur by sales director Maurice Brenninkmeijer and marketing director Guido Anderwert.
However, OR's European activities other than sales and marketing are to be taken over by Scott from its office in Givisiez near Fribourg in Switzerland. Orders will go through Scott's centralized system and the Swiss company will handle customer service for OR. The third employee in the OR team in Winterthur, handling customer service, had already decided to quit.
With an enlarged marketing budget, OR will have more scope to invest in both offline and online marketing activities, through social media, events, sponsorship, retail partnerships and more.
While Scott will support OR in Europe, the Swiss brand could lean on the outdoor company's infrastructure in North America. Design and development for the two brands remain independent.
