Nike Lean Thinking Strategy : Nike's Lean Thinking Strategies

Nike has a very sophisticated sustainability strategy. The strategy is based on company’s prospects for future, to ensure that the company remains profitable and reputable, taking into consideration the social responsibility of the company (NIKE 2013). For instance, the strategy is supposed to ensure that the company gains a stable supply for the raw materials for the product manufacturing that will ensure stable supply of the products in the market at favorable prices. The strategy also targets make the company responsive to environmental concerns, aiming at reducing environmental pollution through emissions to the atmosphere (Charter, 2001). The strategy outlines the company

Nike started to open up manufacturing factories in countries like Indonesia, Pakistan and Vietnam. Due to the wants of Nike to increase their revenue they tried to outsource the labor of their products since labor work in the US is very high and expensive. This was a bad idea due to that Indonesia pays their workers extremely low wages. Pakistan doesn’t have an age limit for them to be able to legally to work so many children in Pakistan were making

Innovation: In such a mature and competitive industry, continuous innovation is crucial to the success of the company as it gives a unique selling point that rivals do not have. Both product and process innovation are Nike’s

The factors that drive Nike’s decision to stick with its current organizational structure include its well-established brand name in the industry. The company positioned itself as a brand

6). This strategy is a major component of Nike’s business strategic level plan. In applying this strategy, Nike has attained a great deal of consumer insight, which it uses to offer uniquely designed premium products to the athletes. Still on product differentiation, Nike focuses more on research and development at a greater level. These unique features to Nike, have transformed the competition levels in this competitive industry, leading to a trend of a paradigm shift in the market. Most consumers opt for Nike branded sports products and apparels, at the expense of the other brand names.

Phil Knight and his track-and-field coach Bill Bowerman found one of the world’s well-known sports brand, Nike in 1964. With the beginning of Nike first “office” being the laundry room of Knight’s family home it has now become the biggest sports and fitness company in the world with international recognition. The vision statement of Nike as an organization was to think ahead in the long term and not to simply focus and be content with the present as described by Tom Clarke, chief executive of Nike.

Nike is known as one of the most consistently innovative companies for its technologically advanced products. As Nike stated, Innovation is the company’s heart in its business growth strategy because it helps them to become more sustainable company and to keep up with the competition and customer demands (nikeandunderarmour.com, 2015). Therefore, Nike vision innovation is a key business success of the company. It invests

Nike soon realized even though they have attempted to make changes within their subcontracting companies it has not been enough. Nike realized they have an ongoing obligation to the workers, as well to the different cultures that are involved. Nike implemented a process called The Compliance Generation, which involves increasing their business value by establishing the function, fighting fires, building a global team, and establishing partners. Employee management interaction making the work more systematic, building excellence in management audits, building environment, safety, and health global process, creating transparency, and creating ratings. Nike wants to have a transformational focus on building excellence in factory remediation, developing a sustainable sourcing strategy, building business integration and accountability, increasing contract factory ownership of corporate responsibility, and building industry conditions (Nikebiz, 2010).

Nike’s organizational Form reflects a conglomeration of resources, processes and people around the activities most critical to their target customers in terms of its Value Proposition. It decided therefore to concentrate in depth on the critical activities and competencies rather than increasing the breadth of its

Nike‘s vertical structure includes CEO Mark Parker and a board of directors chaired by co-founder Phil Knight. Although Nike has functional divisions and divisions based on specific products it is not a matrix organization. In a matrix organization, employees report to a functional and divisional manage. At Nike, employees report to the divisional manager and the president of each division reports directly to the CEO. Nike’s continued product innovation and successful marketing are due to the combination of functional and divisional organization using an operations department to insure communication between divisions. There is division of labor but it is not clearly identified. With a more pronounced division of labor and levels of direct supervision Nike can improve its

Nike’s recent decline in market share and stock can be attributed to changing trends in consumer spending habits and apparel tastes. Nike can re-establish a competitive advantage in the short-run by implementing an innovative design team and brand ambassador. Long-run competitive advantage can be achieved by fully committing to a sustainable innovative business model or by incorporating innovative technology trends into their retail structure.

Report on the Case Study Nike This report has been produced to provide an insight into the consumer decision-making process, buyer behaviour factors that consumers of Nike are influenced by. The report also details recommendations based on the findings. 2.0 Summary = =

The capacity of production in Nike’s operation indicated the valuable and costly to imitate traits without less rare and non- substitutable traits. The concept of lean operation is not unique in any business. All industries are aware of the total quality management with lean operation, but Nike’s adaptation of the concept is competitive advantage compared with other competitors. The performance of implication indicated as the avg. return due to no hazard in their business. Through the lean manufacturing, Nike could enhance their product quality with continuous improvement on their employee’s ability.

With a slogan of “Just Do It,” Nike is known all over the world for its products ranging from apparel to shoes. Receiving recognition and sponsorship from various celebrities and athletes including Michael Jordan, Nike’s brand is generally associated in a positive light. However, the brand itself, variety of products, and numerous sponsors exist as only a few aspects of this continuously expanding brand. Another aspect to consider when addressing the overall existence of a product as well as the constant introduction of new products is the production process itself: how the product came to be, who is involved in creating the product, and where the product is produced.

Nike’s management understands how important a relevant strategy is in the global environment, as Don Blair, Nike’s CFO, stated “...we are refocusing our efforts, increasing our investments in innovation, using our voice for stronger advocacy and looking at how we incubate new, scalable business models that enable us to thrive in a sustainable economy.”