Discuss about the Management Business Strategy and Leadership.
Since its inception, Nike has been striving hard in making highly innovative products by integrating new technology and offering each athlete with footwear and apparel that assists them in succeeding in their athletic goals. Nike has often been the trendsetter in the segment of innovative sportswear and in the year 2016, their focus has been on innovation. Nike has grown immensely over the years, though the Nike brand was better known for all the wrong reasons; like paying its workers peanuts, products that were over-priced, environmental shortcuts and sweatshop conditions (Jacobs, 2015). However, the company has understood that its real success lies in the creation of business value and social innovation for a improved world.
Nike has thought of operating in completely new ways; doing so would make sustainability an integral part of its social innovation and performance. It aims to focus on the latest buzz words like transparency in business, social engagement and collaboration. The crucial part of this company would be to think ahead, craving to unearth solutions to the increase number of natural resources that would fast become scarce, driving up cost and competition in the process (Baker, Grinstein & Harmancioglu, 2016).
Nike’s obsession with social innovation can be associated with its eagerness and zeal to succeed in the market. Market report suggests that Nike as a brand has learnt three definite lessons, which have been essential to its evolution:
There is much essentiality in collaboration and working together generating zeal and sustainable change.
Collaborative working demands transparency and its strategic improvement facilitate the company to work healthier with governments and NGOs.
In a situation where innovation is shared, it does not imply sacrificing the competitive edge, through sharing of breakthroughs with other organizations meaning that environment’s impact becomes more noteworthy.
The most significant impending that Nike has achieved is that social innovation and sustainability is inadequate add-ons to its core procedure. Nike identifies that sustainability can have a constructive impact, developing its business and potentiality of growth. A company that states “Just do it” implies that the company believes in their ability, “We can do it”. It works with universal major players like United Nations Global Compact tender to prolong its principles and reports its carbon data to the Project of Carbon Disclosure. The long-term goals of the company demand an innovation that is disruptive in nature from the society, business and government (Coad & Pritchard, 2013). The last 15 years have witnessed Nike shifting from an approach of reacting simply to criticisms to trail its long-term growth. According to the Nike CEO, Mark Parker, Nike is in its process of looking through inventive lens of modernization, their main aim is producing breakthroughs that would develop the world.
In 2016, Nike came up with the first ever self-laced shoes, the Hyper Adapt 1.0. Mark Parker overviews this innovative power-lacing technology as a significant factor in the future of footwear in the coming years. As per Dilley, (2014), in future, the company would do well to channelize this technology of power lacing into its other categories that would become omnipresent as the company plans to move forward.
2017 is going to be a big year for Nike as the company is due to launch a bigger number of brands with innovations. Nike did display few of its new products in events like Rio Olympics, Copa America and UEFA Euro 2016. It generally chooses these events in highlighting its products as it appeals a global mass at a single time. The company should now focus on manufacturing jerseys with materials and technologies that keep athletes drier, lighter and slicker. Athletes do find it difficult when performing under extreme conditions and with jerseys that do not provide them with such facilities makes it even harder for them. The new FlyVent technology created with ideal amount of tightness on athlete’s waistbands is already creating a buzz. Nike has also manufactured new vapor jerseys in wicking away sweat 20% faster and drying it up 30% quicker than the older ones. Such new technologies can work wonders for the company, because athletes do want to be comfortable as they perform in alien conditions. They can perform better if they are comfortable with whatever they are wearing. Sweaty t-shirts, pants, are never easy to handle, moreover it breaks down the concentration level of the athletes. The AeroSwift technology of Nike enables uniforms to be 50% more stretchable and 15% more lightly.
The company’s partnership with another multinational information technology company HP has opened doors for many more innovations in future. Nike introduced a convention track spike for Allyson Felix, the sprinter, where the performance was pushed to an extent where possibilities of 3D printing were seen as a major possibility in delivering greater innovation (Shields, 2013).. Nike’s confidence has gone rocket high, and with HP by its side, Nike should plan to go beyond its normal course and shoot for smoother prototyping space (Carr, 2013). Nike in its partnership with HP needs to accelerate and scale the existing capabilities of its in continuing with the exploration of new manufacturing ways. Nike’s motto has always been to help athletes reach their full potential and with innovation in their kitty, things are bound to improve.
Nike’s innovation in design has enthused the excitement in people who loves watching or playing games. It pushed out the potential of sportsmen largely like breaking world records or their own frontier. Innovations of Nike expand the limits of sports accessories and letting rivals follow them. Nike’s newly designed soccer shoes should come with more specifications that would strengthen the free kick taking abilities of players with an affect of slicing. Philip Knight has been that sort of an entrepreneur who likes taking risks in launching new ideas into market before other competitors like Adidas and Puma brings them in. This is what serial entrepreneurships should do and Mr. Philip has done the same and put those ideas into effective practice. The Nike’s owner has been bold enough in overturning risks into success by proper formation and innovation. Focusing on soccer products would depict the actual picture of Nike’s real entrepreneurship. An innovative boss is great to have especially when he is able to study the market well and work accordingly. He is not scared to try out different things in fear of missing actual grounds if things do not work. Nike’s owner has always been innovative in his ways like assigning old employees to new sites for facilitation of quality control and training. Mr. Philip is set to exit but his principles and legacy would remain in Nike forever (Misra, 2014). Nike would continue to persist with innovation and creativity associated with risks and would still come on top of others.
Nike under their new CEO, Mark Parker is witnessing a top down leadership style where ideas might come from the lower level but direction wise it can be top down. This is a great way off involving employees in organization’s work process, which would only benefit Nike in future. Employees would feel themselves to be more of an integral part of the company and perform to the best of their capabilities.
Very few companies are as restricted in linking emotions to products as Nike. Nike has directed its focus on building the customer is feeling to a level where they themselves feel like athletes (Naud & Szirmai, 2013).. Nike’s products have always been associated to achievement, aspiration and status. Even when it comes down to categories associated with business-to-business, emotions have been highly significant. The features of products have always been deemed as secondary importance to the emotional connections where Managers take note of the same and work accordingly (Castillo, 2015). Nike’s focus on emotional connections leads to innovation in product and extension in brands. Through commitment of this sort, big companies like Nike redefine the expectations of consumers and challenging the conventional norms of their industry class.
Nike’s operating model boasts of its exceptional corporate structure which it calls the “Category Offense” (MoranSendra et., 2015). Nike has been emphasizing on breakdowns by sport over the geography. This move allowed Nike to target new products in a better way and showing efficiency in collecting more insights of consumers. Nike has always focused on maintaining good relationships with Athletes, mainly renowned ones that generates rapid growth in its sales. In future, the company would do well to create a high recital product line based on the important needs of athletes.
Nike’s plan needs to be based on its increasing ability in leadership in its emerging markets and enlarges the influence of its young athletes globally. The company would do well to focus on its women category of products too as there is increase in the number of women athletes who have been doing reasonably well in the global circuit. Nike’s strengths lie in multiple areas like impressive record of earnings per share growth, growth in revenue, largely strong financial position and notable equity returns (Allio, 2015). The company has been financially stable that assist in the company taking risks in the market. It pulls through because it has the required work force and technology to backup the risks it takes.
Conclusion:
This report is an indication on which factors Nike should concentrate more, related to the factors of innovation and entrepreneurship. Nike has been a company that has come a long way, benefitting from the innovations it has brought in its products. It has always wanted to manufacture something that gives comfortability to athletes, providing the same to even the commoners. The strong leadership abilities of its entrepreneur have been influential in directing it in the right path of success. Nike would go on and create more records as its associated athletes do, and would establish itself as a permanent leader in the market of sports apparel.
Reference:
Allio, R. J. (2015). Good strategy makes good leaders. Strategy & Leadership, 43(5), 3-9.
Baker, W. E., Grinstein, A., & Harmancioglu, N. (2016). Whose innovation performance benefits more from external networks: entrepreneurial or conservative firms?. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 33(1), 104-120.
Carr, A. (2013). Nike: The no. 1 most innovative company of 2013. Fast Company, 11.
Castillo, M. (2015). From Corporate Social Responsibility to Global Conscious Innovation With Mandalah. Global Business and Organizational Excellence, 34(4), 42-49.
Coad, N., & Pritchard, P. (2013). Leading Sustainable Innovation. Do Sustainability.
Dilley, M. (2014). Mutual Growth: Social Innovation and Environmental Sustainability. Design Management Review, 25(2), 25-27.
Jacobs, D. G. (2015). Practical example of base source optimization: footwear profiling at Nike, Inc (Doctoral dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology).
Misra, S. (2014). Corporate responsibility for sustainability in Post-Globalization: The Nike Inc. Lesson. International Journal of Management, IT and Engineering, 4(10), 501.
MoranSendra, M., Nilmeier, T., Liem, T., & Perkowski, T. (2015). Nike Inc.
Naudé, W., & Szirmai, A. (2013). Technological Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Development (No. 2013/17).
Shields, R. (2013). Innovation, Design and the Virtual. NA, 18(4).
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