...Abstract Nike is the world leader in the manufacturing of sports wear and gear. So at first, Nike didn't pay attention to the criticism it was receiving because it was coming from a small group of activists, although later on, the social pressure became very high that Nike was forced to take some measures to quiet down the public who wanted to know what was going on. In this paper we will examine the various difficulties Nike faced as they tried to balance both, the company performance and good corporate citizenship. We will also discuss what I would have done if I was in that position. Summary Nike, was founded in 1964 by Phil Knight, Nike's business model was developed by Knight while attending Stanford Business School in the early 1960's. In 1998, Nike was the leader in the sports shoe industry, with annual sales of $9.5 billion and a 40% share of the American sneaker market. It became a lightning rod for protest when alleged “sweatshop” conditions where happening in Southeast Asia. May 1998 is when Phil Knight, the founder and CEO, admitted that “the Nike product has became synonymous with slave wages, forced overtime, and arbitrary abuse.” What people couldn’t understand was how Nike could get associated with deplorable labor practices. The strategy that Knight developed involved outsourcing all manufacturing to contractors in low wage countries and pouring the companies resources in high profile marketing. They where trying to take the blame...
Words: 849 - Pages: 4
...For instance, although Nike was accused of a sweatshop scandal in the 1990’s, the brand and swoosh logo remains on the “World’s Most Valuable Brands” list on Forbes Magazine. George T. Haley, the director of the Center for International Industry Competitiveness says that "there will always be a part of the market that will respond to notice of sweatshops being used…But outside of that small constituency, they are hardly ever affected in the long run” (Fitch). The reason that Nike is able to continuously increase their revenue each year is because of the way that their brand is perceived in society. Media portrayal of athletes, celebrities, and famous icons who have continued to wear the famous swoosh logo without advocating, or even mentioning, the importance of better working conditions, higher wages, or implementation of moral ethics ultimately explains why our culture seems indifferent about what is occurring beneath the surface. Similarly, this explanation is applicable towards the Susan G. Komen Foundation’s pink ribbon logo. In 2011, the Komen Foundation was accused of being noble solely in its...
Words: 1434 - Pages: 6
...Marketing Plan MKT/421 July 2, 2012 Marketing Plan When the “swoosh” logo is seen on billboards or displayed in magazine advertisements, we automatically think of one company name, Nike. We do not have to see the company name to realize the effect Nike marketing strategy has had to make its logo a familiar reflection of a recognized brand name on shoe racks and in households all around the world. Nike is widely known for their superior innovations in running shoes and has given athletes competitive advantages in their area of competition and in their fashionable appearance. With its sleek, game-changer designs, and head turning appeal, the new Nike Air Max+ 2012 is the highly anticipated running shoes soon to hit the pavement at a store near you, priced at $170. In Team A’s paper, we will discuss the history of Nike, the latest running shoes to hit the market for 2012, why marketing is important, the SWOTT analysis, and their market strategy. Nike, Inc. History Established in January 1964 by a college track athlete and his coach, Blue Ribbon Sports was formed and operated as a distributor of a Japanese shoemaker. As a startup company, Blue Ribbon Sports operated as a distributor and begun selling track shoe out of one of the founder’s automobile. Later in 1972, Blue Ribbon Sports changed the company name to Nike and in 1980, went public under the Nike name; this is according to Nike, Inc. May 2011 Security and Exchange Commission filing (Security and Exchange...
Words: 1813 - Pages: 8
................................. 3.0 Ethical issue……………………………………………………………………………………………….. 4.0 Conclusion......................................................................................................... Preliminary Information: Iconography Explained Nike's Heritage NIKE, pronounced NI-KEY, is the winged goddess of victory according to Greek mythology. She sat at the side of Zeus, the ruler of the Olympic pantheon, in Olympus. A mystical presence, symbolizing victorious encounters, NIKE presided over history's earliest battlefields. A Greek would say, "When we go to battle and win, we say it is NIKE." Synonymous with honored conquest, NIKE is the twentieth century footwear that lifts the world's greatest athletes to new levels of mastery and achievement. The NIKE 'swoosh' embodies the spirit of the winged goddess who inspired the most courageous and chivalrous warriors at the dawn of civilization. (from Nike Consumer Affairs packet, 1996) The Swoosh The SWOOSH logo is a graphic design created by Caroline Davidson in 1971. It represents the wing of the Greek Goddess NIKE. Caroline Davidson was a student at Portland State University in advertising. She met Phil Knight while he was teaching accounting classes and she started doing some freelance work for his company. Phil Knight...
Words: 3267 - Pages: 14
...University of Phoenix Material Nike: The Sweatshop Debate Nike is in many ways the quintessential global corporation. Established in 1972 by former University of Oregon track star Phil Knight, Nike is now one of the leading marketers of athletic shoes and apparel on the planet. Today the company has $20 billion in annual revenues and sells its products in some 140 countries. Nike does not do any manufacturing. Rather, it designs and markets its products, while contracting for their manufacture from a global network of 600 factories scattered around the globe that employ some 650,000 people.1 This huge corporation has made Knight into one of the richest people in America. Nike’s marketing phrase, “Just Do It!” has become as recognizable in popular culture as its “swoosh” logo or the faces of its celebrity sponsors, such as Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods. For all of its successes, the company was dogged for more than a decade by repeated and persistent accusations that its products were made in “sweatshops” where workers, many of them children, slaved away in hazardous conditions for below-subsistence wages. Nike’s wealth, its detractors claimed, was built upon the backs of the world’s poor. For many, Nike had become a symbol of the evils of globalization—a rich Western corporation exploiting the world’s poor to provide expensive shoes and apparel to the pampered consumers of the developed world. Niketown stores became standard targets for antiglobalization protesters. Several...
Words: 3121 - Pages: 13
...Resistance can be interpreted into a variety of alike but altered interpretations all boiling down to being opposed to the ideas of others or to an entire situation occurring. These ideas lead to groups of individuals who have similar opposing ideas to what some call the norm, these are called resistance groups. These groups are usually hidden and show their own twist on the ideas altering from the countries beliefs. Naomi Klein and Barry Lopez are two boisterous authors when it comes to resistance. Barry Lopez was not the one to sit back and let something he believed to be not right go on without voicing his opinion. Therefore he creates the multiple short story book “Resistance” to show his readers how he believes the world is not healthy. Naomi Klein on the other hand takes her own approach to resistance and puts it into a more straightforward subject of excessive branding and globalization. “No Logo” created by Naomi Klein, focuses in on four parts of the excessive branding going on in the world today, “No Space", "No Choice", "No Jobs", and "No Logo." () These four confrontational ideas that Klein speaks about throughout “No Logo” are the basis to her resistance. “I was an angry bystander. I'd no power to intervene, and had no intention of dropping the work I was already committed to, not in order to raise someone else's awareness, promote greater indignation, or organize.” (Resitance) Lopez begins resistance with the short story “Apocalypse,” () a key short story to...
Words: 1566 - Pages: 7
...SEPTEMBER 6, 2002 DEBORA L. SPAR Hitting the Wall: Nike and International Labor Practices Moore: Twelve year olds working in [Indonesian] factories? That’s O.K. with you? Knight: They’re not 12-year-olds working in factories... the minimum age is 14. Moore: How about 14 then? Does that bother you? Knight: No. — Phil Knight, Nike CEO, talking to Director Michael Moore in a scene from documentary film The Big One, 1997. Nike is raising the minimum age of footwear factory workers to 18… Nike has zero tolerance for underage workers. 1 — Phil Knight, 1998 In 1997, Nguyen Thi Thu Phuong died while making sneakers. As she was trimming synthetic soles in a Nike contracting factory, a co-worker’s machine broke, spraying metal parts across the factory floor and into Phuong’s heart. The 23 year-old Vietnamese woman died instantly.2 Although it may have been the most dramatic, Phuong’s death was hardly the first misfortune to hit Nike’s far-flung manufacturing empire. Indeed, in the 1980s and 1990s, the corporation had been plagued by a series of labor incidents and public relations nightmares: underage workers in Indonesian plants, allegations of coerced overtime in China, dangerous working conditions in Vietnam. For a while, the stories had been largely confined to labor circles and activist publications. By the time of Phuong’s death, however, labor conditions at Nike had hit the mainstream. Stories of reported abuse at Nike plants had been carried in publications such as Time...
Words: 9469 - Pages: 38
...……………………………………………………………...5 Financial Overview…….…………………………………………..……………...6 Chapter 2…………………………………………………………………...….7 Internal & External Environment Analysis…………..……………………………….8 SWOT Analysis………………………………………………………….…….….9 Challenges faced by Nike………………………………………………………….11 Strategic Implemented for Rectification………………………………………….….13 Chapter 3…………………………………………………………………..….16 Leadership Hierarchy……………………………………………………..…...….17 Chapter 4…………………………………………………………….…….….21 Nike Core Competencies…………………………………………………..………22 Value Chain Analysis……………………………………………….…………….24 Chapter 5………………………………………………………………….…..26 Cooperate Governance……………………………………………………………27 BIBLIOGRAPHY……………………………..………………………….….30 C C hapter hapter 1 1 Introduction “Everything you need is already inside. Just do it” * Bill Bowerman (Fabrega, n.d.) “NIKE”, one of the most synonymous names with the sporting world, was initially established as Blue Ribbon Shoes in 1964. The brand was started by Bill Bowerman and Phil Knight at the University of Oregon; where the former was the latter’s track and field coach. (10 things you did not know about Nike, 2011) During Phil Knight’s time at Stanford University, he wrote a paper on ending German dominance...
Words: 5966 - Pages: 24
...Will Nike “Just Do It”? Name: Huzefa Poonawala Class: GM 675MC Instructor: Eric Baker Date: December 12, 2012 As one of the leading brands in athletic wear, it would seem that Nike would be in the frontlines promoting human rights in the factories where their products are made. There have been many reports of workers in Nike factories facing poverty, harassment, dismissal and violent intimidation (Wazir, 2001). The motto of “Just Do It” does not seem applicable to the company itself. Despite numerous reports and audits, Nike has yet to take action against human rights violations by their suppliers. In 1998, the CEO of Nike, Phil Knight promised six main improvements in conditions at Nike factories around the world. These were: all Nike factories would meet US air quality standards, the minimum age would be raised to 18 for workers in Nike shoe factories and 16 for those in clothing factories, Nike would include non-governmental organizations in factory monitoring, and the company would make inspection results public, Nike would expand its worker education program, with free secondary-school equivalent courses, a loan program would be expanded to benefit 4,000 families in Vietnam, Indonesia, Pakistan and Thailand and research on responsible business practices would be funded at four universities (Wazir, 2001). Despite such high aims by the company, there are still reports of human rights violations in factories manufacturing Nike products. In 2005, the company sent auditors...
Words: 2116 - Pages: 9
...Hitting the Wall: Nike and International Labor Practices Synopsis of The Situation Based in Beaverton, Oregon, Nike had been a corporate success story for more than three decades. It was a sneaker company, but one armed with an inimitable attitude, phenomenal growth, and the apparent ability to dictate fashion trends to some of the world’s most influential consumer. Selling a combination of basic footwear and street-smart athleticism, Nike pushed its revenues from a 1972 level of $62,000 to a starting $49 million in just 10 years. In the 1980s and 1990s, Nike had been plagued by a series of labor incidents and public relations nightmares; underage workers in Indonesian plants, allegations of coerced overtime in China, dangerous working conditions in Vietnam. For a while, the stories had been largely confined to labor circles and activist publications, until a young female worker had died in a Nike contracting factory in 1997, the labor conditions at Nike had hit the mainstream. While the marketing of Nike’s products was based on selling a high profile fashion item to affluent Americans, the manufacture of these sneakers was based as an arms-length and often-uneasy relationship with low paid, non-American workers. Key Issues Nike's strategy of shaving costs caused ethical dilemmas that ultimately damaged its reputation. Nike outsources all of its manufacturing. This approach has provided Nike with huge profits, from a 1972 level of $60,000 to a startling $49 million in...
Words: 2138 - Pages: 9
...Business Environmental Audit Critically assess the strategic Direction of the Nike brand William Hanrahan (060953199) ACE1004 Introduction to Management Contents 1.0 Executive Summary 2.0 Introduction 3.0 Nike 3.1 History 3.2 The Market 3.3 Industry Analysis 3.4 Trouble Ahead for Nike? 3.5 Nike Advertising 3.6 Brands of Choice 3.7 Nikes other Brands 3.8 Targeting New Markets 3.9 Financial Performance 4.0 External Market Drivers 4.1 Political Drivers 4.2 Economic Drivers 4.3 Socio-Cultural Drivers 4.4 Technological Drivers 4.5 Environmental Drivers 4.6 Legal Drivers 4.7 Charity Work 5.0 Competitive Environment 5.1 Porter’s Five Forces 5.2 Competitor Analysis 5.3 Nike vs. Fake Goods 5.4 Stakeholders 5.5 Stakeholder Mapping 6.0 The Brand 6.1 Competitive Advantage 6.2 The Swoosh 6.3 Routes to Competitive Advantage 6.4 Ansoff Matrix 7.0 Conclusions 7.1 Swot Analysis 8.0 Recommendations 8.1 Reflection 9.0 Portfolio of Information Sources 9.1 Primary Sources 9.2 Secondary Sources 1.0 Executive Summary Nike was founded in 1972 by Philip Knight and Bill Bowerman. Bowerman is well known in America as the University of Oregon coach. He brought jogging to America, built an unrivalled track and field program at that university, and taught his athletes to seek the competitive advantage everywhere - in their bodies, their gear and their passion. The Marketing men at Nike would like us believe that the brand is more than a product, it is an experience that we are buying into. Wherever...
Words: 10743 - Pages: 43
...CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY OF NIKE INC. Presented by NIKE Inc. Founded in 1964 as Blue Ribbon sports Renamed as Nike Inc. In 1971 Named after Greek God of Victory Νίκη Headquartered in Beaverton, Oregon Largest athletic footwear and apparel manufacturer One of the most visible brands in the world Revenues of over $25 Billion Profit of over $3 Billion Close to 50,000 employees all over the world Total valuation close to $70 Billion Trivia Nike Logo – “swoosh” is one of there most popular along with the logos of Mercedes and Apple Inc. NIKE Inc. Nike is the leading brand in the world of sports. Their closest competitors are Adidas, Puma and Reebok. Nike holds close to 1/3 of the global market share of Athletic Footwear. Known for heavy promotion using big stars. Sponsors the top athletes in all the popular sports. Nike Inc. Has growth at a cumulative average growth rate of 21% over the last 10 years. CSR A corporate self-regulation integrated into business model An in-built mechanism to ensure compliance with spirit of law & ethics A move to encourage positive impact through it activity on environment C S R • CORPORATE PHILANTHROPHY • RISK MANAGEMENT • CREATING SHARED VALUE Triple Bottom Line Approach to CSR The TBL is an accounting framework with three dimensions: social, environmental and financial. The TBL dimensions are also commonly called the three Ps: people, planet and profit and are...
Words: 1751 - Pages: 8
...I have selected is Nike Inc. Started as Blue Ribbon Sports (BRS) in 1964 by founders Phil Knight & Bill Bowerman and BRS started as a distributor for Onitsuka Tiger a Japanese shoemaker (now ASICS). Not just distributors, BRS were a part of the design process of the Onitsuka Tiger brand. In 1971 BRS branched out to start their own product offerings with the vision and company mission to provide “innovation in search of better, lighter, faster product performance”. This has been one of Nikes core competencies since its inception (officially Nike in 1978) but over the past decade has worked diligently on integrating Innovation & Sustainability into its core competencies. NIKE, Inc directly employs more then 38,000 people throughout the world and contracts directly with factories and manufacturers to employ an additional 800,00 employees. Nike issues a corporate responsibility report every 3 years, in which they identify the goals, successes and culture of NIKE Inc as an organization. Although the fiscal year 2009 (FY2009) and fiscal year 2012 (FY2012) reports touch on many of the same issues, it is clear that the FY2009 Corporate Responsibility Report focuses more on the organization and its internal structures. As NIKE Inc, maintains both dedicated staff and contracted labor with manufacturers and factories, they are tasked with both developing an organizational culture in their factories. Throughout the 1990’s NIKE Inc, was criticized for its use of sweatshop labor in the manufacture...
Words: 2267 - Pages: 10
...Nike: The athletic footwear industry History Nike started out just as plan developed in order to satisfy course work at Stanford University. Mr. Phil Knight a graduate student at Stanford University and a long-distance runner decided that he would make low cost running shoes in Japan and then sell them in the US. Knight solicited the assistance of a past coach Bill Bower man to assist him in his business venture and in 1964 they started Blue Ribbon Sports. Knight called his first shoe Tiger and began distribution at track meets. Blue Ribbon in 1971 earned it's "swoosh" and Knight introduced the first Nike brand line. In 1978 the Blue Ribbon became Nike and each year their profits grew steadily. Due to Nikes concentration in casual shoes in the 1980's, they missed the trend to aerobic shoes and fell behind allowing Reebok to control the market. Due to poor management in the years following and proceeding Reebok's take over things fell apart. Phil Knight repositioned and reestablished Nike following the bumpy years in the 80's. In 1988 Nike purchased Cole Haan for $64 million which allowed them to increase casual footwear sales by 16%, they also purchased the accessories company in 1990. Nike even expanded by opening their own retail store "Nike Town" in 1990. Nike distributes to 123 retail stores in the US and also in 52 retail stores in countries such as, the UK, Japan, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, and Canada. Ribbon Sports officially...
Words: 4803 - Pages: 20
...Nike: A Look Inside | June 22 2010 | By Bobby Bedsole, Matt Currie, & Brady Stoker | [Type the document subtitle] | Table of Contents Executive Summery External Analysis 1) Industry/Competition- Five Forces Current Rivalry opportunities/ Threats Potential Entrant Opportunities/ Threats Bargaining Power of Buyer Opportunities/ Threats Bargaining Power of Supplier Opportunities/ threats Substitute Products Opportunities/ Threats 2) General External Environment General Economic Opportunities/ Threats Demographic Opportunities/ Threats Sociocultural Opportunities/ Threats Political-Legal Opportunities/ Threats Technological Opportunities/ Threats Internal Analysis 1) Capabilities Assessment 2) Assessing the Primary Activities in the Value Chain a) Inbound and outbound Logistics b) Marketing c) Production Support Activities in the Value Chain a) Technological Development b) Human Relations Management c) Firm Infrastructure 3) Internal Audit of Functional Areas a) Management b) Information Systems c) Research and Development Financial Analysis- Conclusion Executive Summary Nikes Mission Statement: Our goal is to carry on his legacy of innovative thinking, whether to develop products that help athletes of every level of ability reach their potential, or to create business opportunities that set Nike apart from the competition and provide value for our shareholders...
Words: 13360 - Pages: 54
