Nike: World's Leading Sports Brand and Manufacturer of Shoes - Essay Sample

Introduction

Nike, Inc. is a company that operates under the sports industry. It is the world-leading manufacturer of shoes and the sportswear brand. It was founded in 1964 by Bill Bowerman, and its first name was Beaverton Oregon. The company was renamed Nike Inc in 1978 and was launched two years later. Currently, Nike, Inc. has established its brand with various outlets and distributors located globally in over 170 countries (Anon, 2010). It is among the most recognizable brands in the world with its curved logo called "swoosh" (Levin, and Behrens, 2003). Nike, Inc. is a company involved in the design and development, marketing, and selling of athletic apparel, footwear, accessories, equipment's and services. The company leadership includes the company's president, chairman of the Board and the Chief Executive officer Mark G. Parker. Andrew M. Campion is the Chief Financial Officer and vice president, Elliot Hill, the president of consumer and Marketplace, Eric D. Sprunk, chief operating officer, and Hilary J. Krane, the executive vice president, chief administrative officer, and general counsel (Ramaswamy, 2008).

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Nike, Inc. faces a lot of competition from various major competitors like Adidas, Puma, Fila, New Balance, and Sketchers, among others. However, with the stiff competition, Nike, Inc. was still able to make huge sales amounting to over $22.3 billion, and maintained a 27.4% market share globally in the year 2018 (Stabile, 2018). The competition is so stiff, but Nike, Inc. has still managed to come above these companies. This essay will discuss how Nike, Inc. has been able to remain on top as the worlds leading sports shoes and sportswear producer.

To see off competition Nike uses its principal competitive advantage, using its resources to come up with advanced products (Innovation) and the use of focus groups (creativity), which helps them to understand their consumers. According to Robert Franken, creativity is the ability to recognize or generate ideas, possibilities, or alternatives that will be vital to solving a given problem (Albu, 2017, p. 3). On the other hand, innovation is the process of translating ideas into service or the good of value hence attracting consumers to purchase them. For a product to be termed innovative, it must be an idea that is replicable at an economical cost, and it should be able to satisfy a given necessity or need (Cokpekin, & Knudsen, 2012).

Nike, Inc. is a very professional company that has invested more in creativity and innovation since it faces stiff competition. To be a reliable company as compared to the other companies, Nike has implemented some high tech means to develop its products and to market them. An excellent example of how Nike has used creativity is by employing minority groups to work in their company. 48 % of their global taskforce are women and minorities (Segran, 2017). Nike Company is the pioneer of sustainable infrastructure. It has a large distribution center in Europe that ships 99% of its products using canal instead of the standard trucks, simple because channel uses renewable energy. By 2025, Nike Company is planning to use 100% renewable energy (William Strange, 2012). In 2001, Nike Company, alongside the World Wildlife Fund and the Centre for Energy and Climate solution, took the initiative towards reducing greenhouse emissions gases from its plants globally. Starting from its manufacturing facilities, by-products for their products and packaging material, Nike has made sure that they all comply with the environmental conservation from greenhouse effects (Porteous, and Rammohan, 2013).

Nike products, 75% of them are made from recycled products such as plastics, wherefrom the wastes the company transforms them into new materials (William Strange, 2012). Nike is the leading consumer of recycled polyester globally. One of their iconic innovations is Air Rift Shoes, which were introduced in 1979 and were made up of pressurized air inside the Nike Air sole unit (Lebron, 2010). The Nike Air shoe gives an athlete the sensation of running or walking on air. The technology makes the shoe very light yet durable and minimizes the company's impact on the use of recycled materials. The shoe comprises 99% recoverable dye, which is recyclable, and the shoe consists of 50% recycled manufacturing waste (William Strange, 2012).

Nike Company is an innovation hub, with fully implemented digitally-enabled innovation, design, and personalized service. Nike footwear has the most significant showcase internationally, which is located in New York City. The store is fully digitalized, and it allows its clients to have a one on one interaction so long as you book in-store on their Nike app. The company's shanghai house of innovation is also digitally enabled center court where the consumers who are shopping enjoy digitally-led training sessions. The store also facilitates a one on one meetings between the clients and the designer where customized shoes selected by the client can be made for them individually (Childs, & Jin, 2017).

Nike Company's primary mission, at its inception, was to help athletes to be better. Up to now, the company is still working on its sole course (Anon, 2010). Some of its best innovations include Air Force 1, which is training attire. Additionally, the company embraces the culture of all its clients globally. For instance, the Nigeria Football Federation kits were explicitly designed in the spirit of Nigeria; thereby, expressing the real culture of the Nigerian people (Mann, 2018).

But how is Nike Company, able to achieve such great strides into the creativity and innovation world? The answer is that the company has employed 1000 employees who're primary purpose is to innovate in the company (Warrillow, 2017). Moreover, the company has a well-organized approach to the world of innovation, wherewith the help of the management and the employees, the company conducts a lot of brainstorming (Ferguson, 2017). Everybody comes up with their best ideas, and nobody's opinion is made to look bad, but the group is encouraged to vote for the best product. The best views of about five are selected, and more study is done on the said ideas. As explained by their designer and sustainability leader Noah Murphy-Reinhertz, innovation is core to Nike's main business (DeLong, 2009). The designers will go out to the athletes and give them their prototypes to check on their effectiveness. The prototype will be submitted at different stages. The company takes its time to develop quality products that call for a lot of perseverance, and in the process, the company comes up with high-quality products. The company is also very open to new ideas where it allows individual employees to design their views even if the other employees do not see the success in those ideas. The company encourages its employees to try on each thought they got (Epstein et al., 2010).

Recently, Nike is working closely with a Kenyan Athlete, Eliud Kipchoge. The company innovated one of its kind running shoes that enabled Kipchoge to run the 42-kilometer race under 2 hours in Vienna. Although the marathon run by Eliud Kipchoge was done under a controlled environment, you cannot deny the fact of the uniqueness of this shoe for it was a record-breaking shoe (Robinson, 2019). Another record-breaking female athlete Brigid Kosgei, also a Kenyan, was able to break Paula Radcliffe's 16-year marathon world record by merely running on the Nike shoes. In the case of Kipchoge, it looked like an impossible task for him to run under 2 hours. However, Nike Company's innovation enabled Kipchoge to break the world record. The secret was the Vapor fly 4% shoes that boosted the Kipchoge's speed more than the other athlete's shoes. The shoe is made from carbon fiber that acts as elevating spring that pushes the athletes further.

Athletics isn't the only field that Nike has focused on in their innovation, but also in basketball, Nike has come up with some unique sneakers. It has developed some fit and customized modern sneakers (Newcomb, 2019). Using the brand Nike Adapt BB performance basketball shoes, the company has implemented some very creative techniques such as advanced power-lacing system and also implemented an app to create a custom fit (Fuller, 2007). The shoe works by loosening for blood flow and tightening for higher performance in the process the athlete's experience is improved. Under the basketball, Nike has developed some unique shoes like Flywire and Flyknit, who were explicitly designed for fit. When the athlete wears these shoes, they sense the tension that is required by the foot, and it adjusts according to the comfort of the foot (Hutchinson, 2019). Additionally, the company is still working to develop more digitalized shoes that will be more customized to the basketball players. More features like shoes changing its colors accordingly and even showing the battery percentage are some of the features the company looks to add to the sneakers.

To add on the basketball sneakers, the company has developed some customized shoes for top basketball athletes. They term them as signature shoes and are reserved for top athletes. Some prime beneficiaries of the shoes are LeBron James and Kevin Durant, to name a few. In total, the top athletes who have customized shoes from Nike are 18 in number (Myers et al., 2019). The signature shoes are costly from the stores.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Nike, Inc. is a well-organized company that rides high on creativity and innovation. The company starting from its management to the employees are well motivated to be innovative so that the company can remain competitive. The company faces a lot of competition from various companies. Still, the companies' ability to create unique products and acquire the services of world top athletes has made them be that reputable brand that cannot be broken easily. Much of the companies' success is its ability to use what is available in the market to develop unique brands that have immense market viability as compared to other brands. Nike Company has made it is brand one of a kind, as it goes for profit-making in its venture as well as making sure they conserve the environment but also giving the athletes the best services (Mahdi, 2015).

References

Albu, A., 2017. Fundamentals of innovation. Key Issues for Management of Innovative Projects, pp.3-24. https://www.intechopen.com/books/key-issues-for-management-of-innovative-projects

Anon, 2010. Nike: Most Innovative Company. Fast Company. Available at: https://www.fastcompany.com/company/nike [Accessed December 26, 2019].

Anon, 2010. Read Nike's Mission Statement and find information about NIKE, Inc. innovation, sustainability, community impact, and more. Nike News. Available at: https://about.nike.com/ [Accessed December 26, 2019].

Childs, M. & Jin, B., 2017. Nike: An Innovation Journey. Product Innovation in the Global Fashion Industry, pp.79-111. DOI: 10.1057/978-1-137-52349-5_4

Cokpekin, O. & Knudsen, M.P., 2012. Does Organizing for Creativity Lead to Innovation? Creativity and Innovation Management, 21(3), pp.304-314. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8691.2012.00649.x

DeLong, M., 2009. Innovation and sustainability at Nike. Fashion Practice, 1(1), pp.109-113. https://doi.org/10.2752/175693809X418874

Epstein, M.J., Buhovac, A.R., and Yuthas, K., 2010. Why Nike kicks butt in sustainability. Organizational Dynamics, 39(4), p.353. DOI:10.1016/j.orgdyn.2010.07.007

Ferguson, E., 2017. Nike Inc. Operations Management: 10 Decisions, Productivity. Panmore Institute. Available at: http://panmore.com/nike-inc-operations-management-10-decisions-areas-productivity [Accessed December 26, 2019].

Fuller, J., Jawecki, G., and Muhlbacher, H., 2007. Innovation creation by onl...