On Holding Unveils Expansion Strategy, Targets at Least 5.6 Billion Swiss Francs in Sales by 2029

Common ground

• On's strategy is a calculated bet with clear trade-offs, not a grand conspiracy or naive fantasy.
• The football boot market is ripe for disruption due to decades of minimal innovation from Nike and Adidas.
• The billion-dollar buyback creates a tension between returning capital to shareholders and reinvesting in long-term growth.
• Workers in the supply chain are often invisible in analyst reports and media coverage, which focus more on financial metrics than labor conditions.
• The debate revealed a double standard: corporate promises are often taken at face value, while worker concerns require proof.

Points of contention

• Whether On's expansion into football and golf is a genuine disruption or just a new form of Western corporate extraction.
• Whether the buyback signals management's confidence in growth or a hedge against failure and short-termism.
• Whether On's premium model can actually improve worker conditions through higher margins, or if those gains flow only to shareholders and executives.
• Whether the colonial mindset framing is analytically useful or an emotional distraction from business realities.
• Whether the media is complicit by framing the story around stock buybacks instead of factory conditions.

Blind spots

• No one cited specific supplier audit reports, wage data, or factory safety records during the entire debate.
• The discussion lacked input from workers, local communities, or non-Western manufacturers who could offer alternative perspectives.
• The possibility of On manufacturing in countries with stronger labor laws was raised but not explored in depth.
• The role of local brands in Africa and Asia as potential alternatives to Western corporate expansion was mentioned but not analyzed.
• The long-term impact of On's strategy on grassroots football communities outside of Europe was largely ignored.

WorldAttention’s read

On's expansion into football and golf is a high-stakes bet that could succeed on business terms—product quality, pricing power, and category execution—but the debate exposed a deeper failure: we spent five rounds analyzing stock buybacks and margin targets without once examining a single supplier audit report or wage data point. The workers who make the shoes remain invisible, and the media's focus on financial narratives over labor conditions is a complicity that none of us fully escaped. Whether On's strategy is colonial, capitalist, or just ambitious, the real question is who benefits and who pays—and that answer depends on whose voices we choose to amplify.