Case Study: New Balance Athletic Shoes Essay

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New Balance was founded in 1906 by William J. Riley, a waiter who built arch supports for people who spent all day on their feet. Riley then designed a running shoe for the Boston Brown Bag Harriers, a Boston running club. The success of the shoe allowed the company to make custom shoes for other sports (basketball, baseball, boxing and tennis) in the 1940s. By 1960, the company expanded production significantly by making running shoes in multiple widths. The company was purchased by James Davis in 1972 for $100,000. Under the leadership of James Davis and his wife Anne Davis, New

Sportsman Shoes has been a leader in the shoe industry for more than thirty years. Sportsman manufactures and sells athletic shoes for all types of sports. The company has pursued a low-cost strategy in order to sustain their success. They sell a limited number of shoe designs and have held costs low through manufacturing efficiency and standardized operations. However, the past five years have been a struggle at Sportsman. The shoe market has seen a rise in the availability of low-cost imported shoes that has threatened Sportsman’s competitive position. As a result, company executives have decided it is time for a strategy shift.

Shoe companies could help out so many kids to play the sport they love if they donate shoes and equipment to high school athletes. There are some students that don’t get to play a sport because they don’t have the money. Shoe companies would be doing a great thing by donating shoes and equipment to a school that needs it. Students should be able to enjoy their high school years even if they can’t afford some things. Shoe companies should be able to give away free shoes and equipment to high school athletes.

serious, high performance, American brand capitalizing on the nature of basketball as a tough game that is most popular in the states. From the other side this association, in addition to the personification of the brand, it increased the brand awareness. Nike communicated this association through their TV ads that was a hit at their time in the states like the Jordan air ad that caught fire and increased their sales dramatically. In addition, one of the most important sources of Nike brand equity is the high perceived quality of the brand not only among athletes but also between the public. Although most of their market was the public that used their shoes just for

New Balance had a problem. Nike owned the lion’s share of the athletic shoe market and no one could touch them. New Balance was also behind Adidas and Reebok, but something happened in the last two years that changed everything.

“Americans are willing to kill each other for shoes. And while each fatal incident may seem like a freak occurrence, sneaker-motivated deaths can mount over time.” (Quartz) An issue in the sneaker culture is the amount of effort they put in trying to buy material things and the number of deaths caused over them. In the pioneer age of sneaker collecting back in the 90’s and 90’s, the era was certainly flawed but the society expected to see positive growth relating to every aspect of the culture, especially violence. This current wave of the sneaker community has seen positive growth in almost every aspect except violence, which is a huge con. The older generation of sneakerheads frown upon and despise our younger generation of sneakerheads because of how

By adopting unethical practices (e.g. false advertisement, worker exploitation, child labour etc.), firms risk their reputation and could lose consumer confidence, ultimately leading to decreased sales and in some cases, boycotts. Beder (2002) reported that Nike has lost significant shares in 1997 after being exposed of utilising ‘sweatshops’ —subpar/ inhumane working environments— and child labour. Under heavy criticism and suffering from diminished sales, Nike was forced to reevaluate its approach and rebuild its reputation by actively seeking endorsement from non-governmental organisations (e.g. the Fair Labor Association) and rectifying their mistakes (Beder, 2002). It is obvious that Nike fared a long way since the scandal as it is now one of the most prominent sportswear brand. This underscores the relevance business reputation— that it is a necessary component, which enables businesses to increase profits. Nevertheless, per UNICEF (2016), child labour remained pervasive in society; it is estimated that there are 150 million children engaging in labour, where one in four child-workers (from the poorest countries) are exposed to hazardous jobs. This fuels arguments that accuse businesses involved in foreign markets for encouraging child labour, challenging the reputations of firms. Moreover, it has been suggested that involvement in the process of globalisation and foreign markets does not guarantee success for businesses. Werhane (2012) found that quite often, there is

CSC, or better known as Charleston Shoe Company to the general public, is a local comfort brand that sells stylish shoes to women. CSC is a specific lexis that only members of Charleston Shoe Company would understand. This feature is defined by John Swales, who defines a discourse community in his book Genre Analysis. CSC recognizes that many women have problems with their feet, which can include bunions, high insteps, and plantars fasciitis. The Charleston shoes have elastic uppers so that the shoe can form to the foot, which makes them extremely comfortable while they remain in style. While the members of Charleston Shoe Company may seem like a regular group of people, in reality, it is a tight knit discourse community. According to John Swales, a discourse community has six identifying characteristics, all in which need to be present to decide if a community is a discourse community. The six characteristics include: Common goals, a system of intercommunication between members, participation that leads to information and feedback, one or more genres of communication, a specific lexis and a balance between levels of expertise (471-3). It was important that Swales created a definition of discourse community because all previous definitions were either too vague or were not clear in how to identify a discourse community (469). Now that it has been properly defined, one can see that discourse communities and rhetoric have a direct correlation.

Nike was known Blue Ribbon Sports (BRS) that was found in 1964 by Bill Bowerman and Phil Knight. They came up with the new idea of lighter weight training shoes that had a soft and flexible outsole for fraction in 1971. Nike case background: Kimi Ford, the manager of the North Point Large Cap Fund invested in Fortune 500 companies; Nike started to experience loss, decline in sales growth, decline in share market and profit because of supply chain issue. On June 28, 2001 meeting was held to review the strategy, Nike has estimated that could increases the price on footwear and other multiple segments. There was the signal for Nike’s change from the market. Kimi Ford made her own strategy as discounted cash

Brown Casual Shoes Inc., an American casual footwear company, is looking to reduce manufacturing costs through globalisation. Brown Casual Shoes has chosen Chung Sun Manufacturing, located in Shanghai, China, for its cheap labour, already established relationship with similar American companies and the potential for a new free-market economy with a population over 1.3 billion people. Mr Robert Brown Jr., president of Brown Casual Shoes and a team of senior company members travelled to Shanghai to negotiate the business proposal and experienced some cultural and communication issues that could potentially affect the business deal. This report will analyse these issues within the context of intercultural issues, intercultural verbal

Nike is a huge supplier if athletic shoes for the world these days. Philip H. Knight, the founder of this corporation came up with an idea of an athletic shoe at the track field of the University of Oregon.

Nike is the largest seller of athletic footwear and athletic apparel in the world with subsidiaries in over 200 countries across the world. It is a company that was founded by Phil Knight in the 1960’s, who was a talented middle-distance runner from Portland. He approached the Onitsuka Co. in Kobe, Japan, and persuaded the manufacturer of Tiger shoes to make Knight a distributor of Tiger running shoes in the United States. He partnered up with Bill Bowerman , a nationally respected track and field coach at the University of Oregon who had been researching ways to give his athletes a competitive

New Balance’s goal is to help you achieve yours. With that being said they aid olympians in chasing medals, drive an everyday athlete to go that extra mile, help an average runner compete in their first five kilometer run or just simply promote a healthier lifestyle. Their products are a perfect blend of fashion, affordability,  and functionality. Providing high performance training equipment to athletes across the world, regular consumers , and underprivileged youth. They were founded in 1906 originally known as “New Balance Arch Support Company” by William J. Riley out of Boston, Massachusetts. The very first product innovated by William wasn’t a shoe at all, rather a shoe insert to promote healthy foot arch. He targeted those who worked jobs that require a lot of walking and or standing. Sales went through the roof when the company was presented at the 1972 Boston Marathon. They went from having six employees making thirty pairs of shoes a day to having 2 factories and producing over 1,000 pairs of shoes. The company has reached a total estimated profit of approximately forty billion dollars since 1991.

Nike, founded by Bill Bowerman and Phil Knight in 1964, was formerly “Blue Ribbon Sports and initially operated as a distributor for the Japanese shoemaker Onitsuka Tiger (now known as Asics). It officially became Nike Inc. in 1971” (O’Reilly 2014). Both Bowerman and Knight had a driving passion to experiment with shoe designs to improve the feel and usability of them. Bowerman, who coached track and field, and Knight who ran, worked with numerous runners to get their input for innovative shoe designs and through these efforts, the company continued to expand and succeed in the business. By the 1970’s the two eventually broke off their relations