Nike Principals of Management

The company sells its product through their website, retails stores and also through independent distributors. The main portfolio brands for Nike are Jordan Brand, Nike Brand, Converse, and Hurley. The company’s competitors are, Lululemon Athletica, Puma, ASICS and Adidas. The mission statement of Nike is “To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world” (Nike, about us) If you have a body, you are an athlete. Nike believes in the carrying of the legacy of innovative thinking whether through creating business opportunities or developing products the help athletes to reach their potential Nike aims at facilitating athletes over the world with comfortable shoes and making everyone feel like an athlete if they have the potential to use Nike products.

The corporate structure of Nike is such a way that it addressed the needs of the different regional markets. The company has structures that enable adjustment in dealing with market differences. The nature of the organizational structure of Nike enable flexibility to address customer preferences in specific markets. Nike utilizes a geographical divisional organizational structure. The structure has the following characteristics (Gereffi, 1994); Corporate leadership on a global basis Semi-autonomous division geographically Global divisions for brand licensing and converse For the global corporate leadership structure, corporate managers have offices at the company headquarters from where they decide on the global organizational structure. The top managed can put into practice the feedback they received from the employee. Mark G. Parker, who the CEO of Nike has to build a culture that he always encourages the staff to looks for ways to keep improving.

Parker can use different leadership style depending on what circumstances are prevailing (Westerman, Bonnet, et al. When you need to go hard and fast, Parker uses top-down leadership. Continuous improvement is also used by Nike to help ensure continued growth and prosperity Financial controls are very important in an organization. Nike makes use of financial controls in making sure early diagnosis of financial problem can be detected and corrected early enough. Nike has also put in place operational controls that ensure that the company manages environmental impacts. These controls are important in having a sustainable business. The information system in Nike ensures that processes are followed that their uniformity in design. Technology plays a significant role in Nike operations. Nike continues to invest heavily in technology as it seeks to better its operations.

Nike makes use of technology to reduces inefficiencies and ensure uniformity and quality in all its design. SWOT Analysis Nikes markets show significant strength in competing against other giants such as Adidas. The SWOT analysis outlines the strength, weakness, opportunities and also the threat that Nike faces in its operations. With this, a negative image is portrayed of the brand which may affect its profit margins as people might start boycotting their products again, the product mix of Nike continues to be limited and this limit its effort to capture a wider market (Knight & Greenberg 2002). Therefore, more expansion in the product offering is still needed. The company also suffers from limited coverage in developing markets majorly because of patent protection, imitation and pricing issues.

Therefore, improvements are needed in the product mix, labor and employment and penetration in developing markets Despite the weakness Nike have, there are still opportunities for growth in the athletic footwear market which they serve. These opportunities are external strategic factors and include, Opportunity to improve o the product mix Improve on the employment policies Opportunity to increase presence in developing markets Nike has the opportunity to improve its employment policies to better its public image among its consumers. Childs, Michelle, and Byoungho Jin. "Nike: An Innovation Journey. " Product Innovation in the Global Fashion Industry. Palgrave Pivot, New York, 2018. Daft, Richard L. Knight, Graham, and Josh Greenberg. "Promotionalism and subpolitics: Nike and its labor critics. " Management Communication Quarterly 15. Locke, Richard M.