Nike Strategic Planning

For Nike's business model to continually flourish and stay profitable, the senior management team and strategic planners must continually monitor short, intermediate and long-term economic factors that will affect their operations. Nike's business model is heavily dependent on supply chains, as the majority of their products are manufactured in Asian nations, either in their own manufacturing centers or contract manufacturing partners. Sales forecasts for next-generation shoes, apparel and sporting equipment must be accurate to ensure the supply chain estimates and forecasts can meet product demand. The influence of economic factors on sales and marketing planning and strategy development is among the most immediate and significant for any enterprise operating in global markets (Cerullo, Avila, 1975). Strategic planners at Nike, working in conjunction with product development and product launch teams, must understand the price elasticity of demand for a given new product or an entirely new division before launching it. Economic data gives Nike senior management and strategic planners the insight necessary to determine which new products to launch or not, when, and in which specific regions of the world. Economic variables will in short tell Nike's senior management how to navigate risk and capitalize on opportunities as quickly as possible.

The report focuses on the Economic Value Added of Nike Inc. The analysis is conducted through a detailed assessment of the financial statements including income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow. Such financial statements are then applied to derive common-size statements for income statement and balance. The trends and predictions obtained from the common-size statements predict the future economic value. Similarly, the Pro-forma financial statements derived provide vital future economic performances of Nike Inc. According to the regression analysis and the assessment of the common-size and Pro-forma financial statements; Nike Inc. has a growth in revenue and earnings per share. The EVA computed using WACC, Net Operating Profit after Taxes (NOPAT), and Invested Capital is positive (+$391.24); this shows that Nike Inc. is financially stable and will grow in the next three years.

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

Despite changes in the market environments, Nike has stuck to its decentralized and networked organization structure. Each business center of the company focuses on their operation like research, marketing, or production. The company has subcontracted its most crucial operation, which is manufacturing itself. Besides this, it had also outsourced several back office and non-executive jobs.

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.

Expanding globally is a very serious decision for any corporation. Before making this decision, management should take into consideration the health of the corporation and identify the long term financial goals. In this assignment, I will discuss the importance for the financial managers of Nike Inc. to use economic variables in identifying long term financial goals and the major techniques/tools that the financial managers of Nike Inc. can use for forecasting future directions in the stock market and in the economy as a whole.

Companies today face many challenges to maintain market share and differentiate themselves from a highly competitive and ever evolving market place. Marketing is crucial to a company’s long term success. The aim of this paper is to use the “Nike - The art of selling air” case study and concepts from strategic marketing

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.

Nike’s main strategy revolves around product branding. Their brand compromises of a swoosh logo which is accompanied by a message of “just do it”. The logo was imprinted on all of their products with the message developed to express the individuality of their target group. The branding was further promoted by Nike’s relentless approach on the quality of their product as demonstrated when considering overseas business opportunities, quality must not be compromised in order to do so. This ensures consumer satisfaction and loyalty towards 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

Before the Internet era, Nike had already established itself. It had done well though TV ads and celebrities getting on board like Bo Jackson. However, when the new era came, it changed everything for Nike. They needed to be able to change with the new era. If millions of people use Facebook, IG, and Twitter, Nike needed to expose themselves in those areas as well. Therefore, they became more up-to-date, and gained more attention that way with the millennial crowd. This allowed Nike to become more holistic in the modern world. This new community created insane amounts of data, which Nike used to track behaviors, creates online groups of Nike fans, and builds meaningful relationships between the brand and its customers. Nike adopted a range of digital exercises such as a strong emphasis on storytelling, being an authentic brand, understanding and communication with customers on their terms, being extraordinary and shareable, and allowing complete customization.

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.

Competition is very fierce due to the number of companies competing for sales. Lots of money goes to marketing and promotions using various channels to reach the young demographic group of consumers who spend the most money on Nike’s products. Growth is slowing down in the athletic footwear industry. But new markets are emerging with high growth rates. These markets include extreme sports market and the corporate merchandise market.

One of Nike’s main opportunities is product development. Developing their product range makes them more competitive and because products tend to go out of fashion quickly, Nike must introduce new products relatively fast because consumer demand the newest and latest products. Increase in internet shopping will no doubt reduce the cost and improve prices making them even more competitive.

A comprehensive analysis, using market data and market research, allows us to assess all areas affecting Nike’s strategic direction: