What Is Nike Competitive Advantage

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

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

Nike has totally changed the sports footwear and sportswear market. Nike's huge selection of merchandise consists of specialized workout equipment, footwear, clothing, accessories and sports components. Nike is among the world's biggest brands and a leader in the sportswear industry because of their advertising, innovative products and sponsorship of top teams and

As Nike is a multibillion dollar company, Nike has its own way of recruiting new potential employees. As the same time, there will be some weaknesses in its company’s recruitment and selection policies and procedures. Nike, Inc. has boundless chances to fuel beneficial development and further bolstering drive good fortune. Nike’s pioneers work consistently to guarantee Nike, Inc. understands its potential by rousing each one of its more than 40,000 workers to understand their potential. Human Resources experts at Nike, Inc. work as stewards of association adequacy, ability and change. The capacity attempts to guarantee that Nike, Inc. has capable, differing and comprehensive groups composed viably against Nike's greatest

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 invested in their brand by getting sports heroes to advertise for their brand such as Michael Jordon, Tiger Woods and the Brazilian football team. This further fuel the products appeal towards the consumers.

Brands use different strategies to create competitive advantages to beat with their rivals. Some companies use “Overall Cost Leadership” to increase profit by reducing costs and increase market share by lowering price. Some companies use “Focus Strategies” to select a group of market and tailor its strategy to serve that group. The others use “Product Differentiation” as a strategy to obtain a premium price by making unique products. Nike, with its differentiation strategy, the company is continuing to separate its self from the competitors by using its superior technology and innovation. This paper mainly discusses on the company’s product differentiation and analysis how the company using this strategy to build its brand image and become a market leader in sportswear industry. A brief discuss about Nike competitive advantage which related to its broad differentiation aspect and the company product life cycle are also presented on this paper.

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

Enderle, K., Hirsch, D., Micka, L., Saving, B., Shah, S., Szerwinski, T. (2000, March 14). Strategic Analysis of Nike, Inc. Retrieved on December 14, 2005, from

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.

Diversifying products (into sports wears and others) was a smart move that had contributed to the current and growing success of Nike.

Nike, Inc. has been the world’s leading innovator and provider in athletic footwear, apparel, equipment and accessories for 50 years. Their mission has been to bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world; if you have a body, you are an athlete. Arguably one of the most innovative companies in the world, Nike has built its brand into an iconic world-class powerhouse that continues to dominate the market with no signs of slowing up. Nike’s marketing and advertising have been breakthrough, aspirational, and legendary over the years, featuring high-profile athletes and heroes.

There are numerous definitions of competitive strategy; whether, it was defined by a scholar, a textbook, or a dictionary source, it is not the same. A source may refer to this subject as a competitive strategy or a competitive advantage. Therefore, this subject is difficult to understand and then apply to a company. The Five Generic Competitive Strategies that Michael E. Porter developed are not really five strategies, more like five with subsets under them. Nike does not fit neatly into a specific strategy. The first factor within the competitive strategy as described in the Essentials of Strategic Management textbook is a broad target market or a narrow target market. The second factor considers