Strategic Analysis Nike Essays

Strategic Analysis Nike Essays Strategic Analysis Nike Paper Strategic Analysis Nike Paper a part of the website allows a customer to customize his own shoes and buy it. The website is available in 14 languages and is different according to the country requirements. Manufacturing Strategy: Nike manufactures all of its footwear from outside United States. Nike has contract suppliers in China, Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand. These countries accounted for 36%, 36%, 22% and 6% of total NIKE brand footwear respectively. Nike also has manufacturing agreements with independent factories in Argentina, Brazil, India, and Mexico to manufacture footwear for sale primarily within these countries. Primary reason for this is that it is cheaper to manufacture in South East Asia and transport it to USA and Europe, regardless of the transportation and tariff costs involved. Organizational Strategy: With over 21,000 employees worldwide, the company was organized into departments by both geographic divisions and product categories, which created overlapping management responsibilities and a fluid leadership structure. For example, a footwear manager in Europe answered to both the Vice President of Footwear and the Vice President of Europe. However, there was no formal communication link between the regional vice presidents (those in the United States, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Latin America) and the product vice presidents (footwear, apparel, equipment). Human Resources Management Strategy: The sweat shop debacle in late 1990s has led Nike to form a distinctive strategy to provide a good working environment for employees. They have several internal guidelines and compliance standards apart from state laws for ensuring proper working conditions for all workers in its contracted supplier factories. Due to the magnitude of Nike and their number of stores and manufacturing plants throughout the world, Nike has taken the time to recognize the importance of each individual and what they can contribute to the team. For this reason, Nike does not call its employees, ‘employees’ but rather ‘team members’ because each part of the team has something to add to the business. They have also admitted that they have a very large array of workers and this brings many diverse cultures and points of views together. According to one of its statement, diversity and inclusion is a crucial factor in Nike’s diplomacy in their many locations and globally. In identifying the differences they have set apart the opportunities to better understand how their teams will work together and what adversity they may face because of this. In order to strive to reach this mission they have put into action these strategies: * Cultivate diversity and inclusion to develop world-class, high-performing teams * Ignite change and inspire critical conversations around diversity, inclusion and innovation * Create venues and environments for open dialogue, diverse opinions and a multitude of perspectives All of the above will in future venture apply and assist them in working more efficiently and having more satisfied employees for longer periods of time. Technology and Innovation strategy: Nike fields some of the best in class technological practices and has a few patents to its credit. Nike emphasizes on these and has developed a lot of new products with use of high technology and sophistication. An example of that is the microprocessor shoe to give great experience and comfort to the customer. However, Adidas is also working on high tech innovations to provide high quality shoes. Lately, Adidas and Nike have been doing entertainment based marketing campaign by forming alliances with technology/entertainment companies. Nike had an alliance with Apple to sell Nike shoes with Apple iPods while Adidas tied up with Microsoft to sell Adidas goods with Microsoft Xbox gaming systems. So far the success of these alliances is yet to be quantified. Manufacturing strategy: Nike follows a 100% outsourcing strategy. Most competitors follow the outsourcing strategy. Exceptions to this are New Balance and other smaller players. New Balance claims that 75% of its production is from the US and other small companies produce in the US as well.