Nike retails its products under its own brand, as well as Nike Golf, Nike Pro, Nike+, Air Jordan, Nike Blazers, Air Force 1, Nike Dunk, Air Max, Foamposite, Nike Skateboarding, and other branches such as Brand Jordan, Hurley International and Converse.
In addition to manufacturing …show more content…
The brand name was inspired by the Greek Goddess of Vicory, namely « Nike ». The company takes its name from Nike, the Greek goddess of victory.
Moving to Japan after his degree, Knight worked with a Japanese company specialized in the manufacture of sport-shoes, the Onitsuka Tiger Co., and managed to import some of their shoes to the United States in the form of a joint venture.
The latter was persuaded that Japanese sport shoes could efficiently compete with German athletic apparel that were running the American market at that time. In order to present a « decent » company name to its new joint venture Onitsuka Tiger - a company that was yet still inexistent- the young businessman created Blue Ribbon Sports that he presented as an actual firm, and this hypothetical company grew in the course of the time to become Nike, Inc.
BRS traded 1,300 pairs of running shoes from Japan in 1964, its first year, to gross $8,000. By 1965 the start-up company had engaged a full-time employee and sales had attained $20,000. In 1967 with rapid and extensive sales, BRS expanded its operations to the East Coast, opening a distribution office in Wellesley, …show more content…
In fact, behind this success is an incredibly well-organized and complex operations and supply management strategy.
Nike relies on the offshore outsource manufacturing strategy which means that the firm contracts other companies to take care its foreign manufacturing operations. In addition, It relies on lean manufacturing -limiting wastes during the production phase- and has a vertically integrated supply chain.
Offshore outsource manufacturing
In 2015, Nike made 365 million pairs of running shoes. All of them in factories outside of the US. In fact, NIKE is one of the pioneers of the manufacturing outsourcing strategy.
Nike relies on an offshore outsource manufacturing strategy. This means that Nike makes agreements with other companies outside of the US to take care its manufacturing operations, and so in order to reduce its COGS - with a cheaper labor. The manufacturers are usually independent firms in various Asian countries. Nike today contracts with more than 50 independent apparel companies in the Asia Pacific region, providing approximately 250,000 jobs to local