Mission Statement : An Affordable Price Point

NIKE Inc. has been the worldwide leader of athletic shoe sales for many years now. The company’s successful brand image combined competition and enablement for the competitive, athletic user. Nike has to modify their brand to a focus of excitement and freedom and not just competitiveness. By collecting and studying an assortment of material we could be able to understand where NIKE is currently placed in the athletic shoe industry compared to their competition, and how they will be able to adjust their brand focus so it can be more effective in the future. These adjustments can help NIKE reach the more casual group of urban runners and ultimately increase the sales forecasts, while still controlling a percentage of the market for athletic shoes.

sale of Nike’s high-margin products to high-end customers. Regardless of the low cost of the World Shoes, they

Such shoes coupled with good marketing strategies can be a huge success as according to

Nike may be typically known for focusing a lot of gear solely on athletes; yet, it is not just for them. Nike’s objective

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.

The company has launched the Nike products, which embody a love of sport, discipline, ambition, practice, and other athletic traits.

There mission is to be recognized by their customers as the number one sports and fitness that serves and inspires athletes and outdoor people to achieve their best in everything they do. The vision of the store is to build brands that serve and inspire athletes and outdoor enthusiasts also to create value for the shareholders through improvements of everything they do (DKS Annual Report, 2012).

Nike is the leading and yet renowned supplier of athletic apparel and shoes. The company controls close to 33% of the global athletic shoe market (Dogiamis & Vijayashanker,2009).Nike was founded by Bill Power and Phil Knight in 1962 as a Blue Ribbon Support and then was later on renamed to Nike in the year 1968 (Patrow,2003).The company supplies very high quality product in close to 100 countries with major markets being located in the U.S,U,K, Asia Pacific as well as in the Americas. The company has managed to attain its lead and legendary position via the application of innovative and yet attractive product design which is backed by quality production as well as well crafted marketing strategies.

When people think about shoes most of them have one superior shoe company come to mind, Nike. This dominant company was founded by Phil Knight and Bill Bowerman in 1964. Little do some know this company hasn’t always been on the top of shoe companies. When it first started off it was called Blue Ribbon Sports, but it was later changed to its iconic name Nike in 1973. Matter in fact it was started in the back of a car, and now it’s worth roughly around $15 million dollars. This change didn’t happen overnight. It took a lot of grit from Knight and Bowerman to achieve this elite status, which was obtained through two individuals with great ideas on how to reach it, and the grit to back their ideas up.

This further strengthens brand loyalty as consumers develop further attachment to the brand when they are self-involved in the design of their footwear.

Differentiation was achieved by creating a completely new type of fashionable and functional shoe that was extremely comfortable to wear and fun because of its bright colors. in addition, because of Crocs’ innovative inventory replenishment system, which allowed retailers to order what they needed and get new stock in a couple of weeks, retailers did not need to

Currently, Nike stand as a leading figure in producing high quality sports and fitness equipment and apparels. Bearing just a simple start of selling Japanese imported shoes from a station wagon has transformed

The athletic shoe industry is made up of companies that produce footwear for athletic use. This is a strong industry and has been around for over 100 years. The athletic shoe industry is one of the fastest growing footwear industries and have top growing sales compared to other footwear industries (NDP Group, 2016). The key players that currently dominate the market are Nike, Adidas, and Puma (Kates & Bolduc, 2013). This paper will use the porter five forces, industry life cycle, and the key players to understand the industry. Over these years the athletic shoe industry has grown into a competitive market.

As one of the leading companies in the athletic shoe industry, Debel has experienced success in many areas. Debel has thus far successfully differentiated themselves from other competitors. Many players in the industry seemingly began with a strategy of differentiation but suffered from tunnel vision and focused mainly on the quality of shoes being produced. To combat other differentiation focused companies in the market place, Debel has invested in not only producing high quality shoes, but also a wide range of model for consumers to choose from (488), two celebrity endorsements (Oprah Letterman and LaBron Game), and traditional marketing and retailer support. The financial outcomes of Debel’s decisions will be discussed in the following text.

Nike has seldom manufactured products own premises, except their air bladders. The shoes are manufactured through outsourcing and alliances with other companies. A successful company like Nike formed its organization on the customer values that have the MOST impact on the consumers mind – Design/R&D, Marketing and Distribution. Even though manufacturing is a vital function to perform, Nike realized that there were other ways to go about this function and thereby save both cost and maintain its focus on the critical customer value areas.