Case Study: Nike

Nike was founded by an athlete Phil Knight and a track coach Bill Bowerman in 1964 on a handshake. In addition, Nike is the number 1 contender in athletic footwear industry. Over the years Nike has developed a reputation for providing quality footwear that not only appeal to athletes (prior only male), but that of female customers and children. There were implications that Reebok had an advantage over Nike, somewhere in their success they lost their strategy. However, over time Nike gain a competitive advantage over Reebok, they had conducted research and form a well thought-out plan that gave them a top position with U.S. and foreign markets as far as athletic products (i.e. athletic shoes, clothing), branding (i.e. Swoosh logo and “Just Do It” positioning statement) and sports celebrities (i.e. Michael Jordan, Phil Sampras, Tiger Woods). Nike’s management team was responsible for Nike’s success. Phil Knight, Nike’s CEO was a former excellent marathon runner. He knew what runners wanted in a shoe, so he knew what type of strategy to use as far as shoes and how to make it work; he decided to make products according to the consumer wants and needs. Examples of great decision-making are:

- Nike should be able to cater to the target markets specific needs in fields of sports, fashion, and lifestyle, Nike would be able to widen its consumer base and generate more revenue.

Nike is the leading and yet renowned supplier of athletic apparel and shoes. The company controls close to 33% of the global athletic shoe market (Dogiamis & Vijayashanker,2009).Nike was founded by Bill Power and Phil Knight in 1962 as a Blue Ribbon Support and then was later on renamed to Nike in the year 1968 (Patrow,2003).The company supplies very high quality product in close to 100 countries with major markets being located in the U.S,U,K, Asia Pacific as well as in the Americas. The company has managed to attain its lead and legendary position via the application of innovative and yet attractive product design which is backed by quality production as well as well crafted marketing strategies.

Nike was growing rapidly. Consumers enjoyed the quality of the shoes so much that the company decided to branch off and design sporting goods that would also be produced using oversea manufacturers. There are many positive and negative aspects to their

Since its creation, Nike has proven itself as a popular brand and it has created niches by selling products such as footwear, apparels and various types of sports equipment. This paper will attempt to trace the product development of Nike shoes from its origins in conception and design to the manufacturing and production process located in contract factories in developing countries to advertising and marketing of Nike as a cultural commodity and finally, the retailing of the footwear around the world.

Nike’s main strategy revolves around product branding. Their brand compromises of a swoosh logo which is accompanied by a message of “just do it”. The logo was imprinted on all of their products with the message developed to express the individuality of their target group. The branding was further promoted by Nike’s relentless approach on the quality of their product as demonstrated when considering overseas business opportunities, quality must not be compromised in order to do so. This ensures consumer satisfaction and loyalty towards Nike.

First, In the SWOT it is possible to notice that one of the major strength of Nike is also related to one of the company weakness. The fact that the company does not have its own factory and outsource its production in underdeveloped countries can guarantee a high-quality-low-price product to the final consumer, which it is very important in the current footwear/sporting goods high-competitive market, however, for a growing group (including people who practices sports and try to accomplish a healthy life), just the quality of the product and its

Nike Inc is an athletic footwear company founded in the United States, they also has athletic clothing and sporting goods. Nike dominates the sporting industry along side it's famous competitors; Adidas, Fila, Converse and Reebok (Locke, 2002). Regardless of it's competitors and the controversies‘ that rose from their success, Nike is currently the largest and most important athletic wear company in the world. They dominate the market and have a global presence all over the world. Significantly because they took advantage of globalization and outsourcing opportunities, it has allowed them to take over the market share for athletic footwear. But there was negative results from becoming a multinational corporation. We will be

Nike’s organizational Form reflects a conglomeration of resources, processes and people around the activities most critical to their target customers in terms of its Value Proposition. It decided therefore to concentrate in depth on the critical activities and competencies rather than increasing the breadth of its

After sluggish focus and growth in the 1980ies, Nike experienced strong growth in the 1990ies and cemented the position as global recognizable brand. The increased international focus created strains on the supply chain, which was consider inadequate to cater efficiently to the organization and the rapid changes consumer demands . As a consequence of the afore mentioned supply chain problem Nike faced inefficient inventory management, problems in flow of goods and poor demand

Introduction When growing an enterprise that you wish to compete on a global market, what needs to be taken into consideration is scaling. Most importantly for investors, what will it cost to expand this company and offer their products on a global scale? This is what Nike faced in the 1980’s when they expanded by outsourcing their production Asia, 86% of their production housed primarily in Korea and Taiwan by 1986, (Locke, 2002) with only 17% remaining in the US by the end of the 1990’s. By manufacturing off-shores in low-wage countries, Nike garnered the nickname “Sweat Shop” as most people in the 1990’s believed their practices to be unethical. For the ones calling the shots at Nike in the 1980’s and 1990’s, was this just another case of “desperate times call for desperate measures”? Or was there an alternative route they could have taken? How did Nike come to this situation through its expansion strategy?

Nike, Inc. has been the world’s leading innovator and provider in athletic footwear, apparel, equipment and accessories for 50 years. Their mission has been to bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world; if you have a body, you are an athlete. Arguably one of the most innovative companies in the world, Nike has built its brand into an iconic world-class powerhouse that continues to dominate the market with no signs of slowing up. Nike’s marketing and advertising have been breakthrough, aspirational, and legendary over the years, featuring high-profile athletes and heroes.

Nike began as Phil Knight’s semester-long project to develop a small business, which included a marketing plan. This project was part of Phil Knight’s MBA course at Stanford University in the early 1960s. Phil Knight had been a runner at the University of Oregon in the late 1950s. His idea for his project was to develop high quality running shoes. He thought that high quality/low cost products could be produced in Japan and then shipped to the United States to be sold at a profit. His professor thought that Knight’s idea was interesting, but not much more than a project.

Meaningfulness as a brand the meaning of Nike is the “greek goddess of victory”. Likability of the brand the symbol of the brand reminds the minds the sign of ok in addition it is associated with victory and winning. These all have a positive effect on peoples minds. Adaptability is how the brand responds to change nike has changed its logo many times in years which shows how Nike uses adaptability for brand equity. Transferability is the capability of the brand to add new products nike always adds to their portfolio of products they also change their logo according to gender ,product etc. Protectability is the last of these elements which is about protection and legal registration nike has protected their brand elements with the swoosh appearing alongside the trademark “just do it” since

• Nike has no factories. It does not tie up cash in buildings and manufacturing workers. This makes a very lean organization. Nike is strong at research and development, as is evidenced by its evolving and innovative product range. They then manufacture wherever they can produce high quality product at the lowest possible price. If prices rise, and products can be made more cheaply elsewhere (to the same or better specification), Nike will move production.