Nike Internal Factors

Nike Corporation today is the largest sports apparel and footwear brand in the beingness. Thousands of population wear Nike gear not only to the playing field further similarly so social gathering and other fooling events. Nike is one of the pioneers to run sportswear from the playing field to public domain. It not only made wearing sports wear popular and turned it into fashion wear but also simultaneously captured the serious performance wear market place.The growth of the company over the age has been attributed to its brand building efforts and creative marketing. When it first enter into the industry the market was dominated with German returns and others products even those made in America were considered inferior to the products from the European giants akin Adidas and Puma. To overcome this they collaborated with Japanese partners who can stomach similar attribute at cheaper prices. After nearly eight years of selling through importing, Blue Ribbon Sports the comp any that evolved into Nike was formed. The name NIKE was taken from Greek goddess of victory and swoosh was adopted as brand logo. (Nike, 2007)Strengths of NikeNike Business ModelThe Nike business model has little changed over the last four decades. The company was founded with the belief that it can provide customers products at competitive prices by getting them manufactured in Japan and selling them over in United States. Over the years the destinations have changed but the philosophy remained intact.As the income level in Japan increased it shifted it manufacturing units in mainland China and Korea. After the boom in Korean and Taiwanese economy it shifted its root word in other emerging economies like Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and China to leverage the cost of production difference. This has resulted in reducing the costs significantly and the company is enabled to deliver upper limit value to its customers.Strong Marketing AbilitiesAll this time Nike managed the product d esign, marketing, sales and distribution system which made it one of the first company in the world to charge on the core competitive advantage and outsource the rest.Strong Supply Chain ManagementThis strategy not only enabled Nike to focus on its strengths of marketing and designing but also able to leverage the specialization of the vendors supplying the goods. For example Shoes were manufactured cost effectively in Taiwan and Japan while clothing is manufactured in labor inexpensive countries like Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand. Recently with increasing operations and established brand the company has changed center on streamlining operations, efficient demand forecasting and supply chain management.Celebrity Advertising with Cutting Edge ProductsOn the marketing front the company miss big amount on building the brand since the mid eighties. The success of Nike advertising can be attributed to its repeated success of picking up the coterminous superstar in world or sports l ike Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods in past or Sharapova and Michelle Wie at present.Efficient Retail Management and check ManagementStarting from the running shoes, today the company has turned into a lifestyle brand. Today it not only sells shoes and sports gear but casual clothing, bags, fashion accessories etc (Holmes, 2004). The number of stock keeping Units (SKU) becomes large if one considers that these accessories and gears are bumped according to miscellaneous sports following like cycling, aquatic, skateboarding, outdoor activities, football, baseball, soccer, golf and tennis. sell MixTo enter into various price points with diluting the brand Nike has bought various brands like Exter, Starter, Team Starter, Asphalt, Cole Haan shoes, Converse, Hurley skateboard gear, Bauer etc.WeaknessIssues with SweatshopsThis dead fish focus on leveraging low labor cost in South East Asian economies to deliver competitive products has often landed Nike in various sorts of troubles from hum an right groups and labor unions back home, most blaming the company for exploiting children and workers in inhumane conditions. Numbers of these groups blamed it for bringing in and supporting the sweatshop culture in these economies and the company once famous for innovative designs and creative products soon became poster child of anti-globalization worldwide. Noting this Phil Night in said in annual meeting The Nike product has become synonymous with slave wages, forced overtime, and arbitrary abuse. Since then Nike has taken number of steps to cut this malaise in the system and develop respectable human and working standards for its third party vendors.Fall in the Sports shoes market due to changing trendsOver the last few years there is continuous decline in sports shoes sale because of trend of non sports shoes with jeans. This has resulted in increasing discount and low realization. Nike has to sort out this panorama of their business along with the rest of sporting gear.C onclusionOver the years Nike has moved from manufacturing to purely a R&D and marketing company. Today Nike central office only looks after the designing, market trends and marketing of the products while outsourcing all others. This may have resulted in cutting the cost but it has also increased the dangers like sweatshops and blemish to the brand equity of the company.Nike (2007) Nike official Website 2007. Retrieved on 20th March from www.nikebiz.com