Part 2 – Nike
Technology
For Nike, technology refers to product technology; new innovations in footwear, apparel, and equipment. As fitness evolves, Nike’s products are planned to give consumers a competitive edge and help athletes perform better. Each part of the manufacturing process is designed to accomplishing the goal of providing the world’s best athletic gear. When Nike Air was introduced, it made a revolutionary impact on the sports world for its versatility. Beyond its basic function of impact protection, it can be shaped and tuned to meet the specific demands of contemporary athletes. As Nike monitored athletes’ needs, changes were implemented to make their footwear even better. For example, in 2001, Nike Shox was introduced, made with unique columns of engineered foam. This new product technology began a new revolution in footwear cushioning.
Ethics
Companies that specialize in business ethics training and corporate social responsibility instil workplace ethics among staff by creating a business ethics policy. In 1996, the ethical issue of child labour came to the surface regarding the hiring of young employees by Nike’s Asian and Latin subcontractors whose ages ranged from very young to teenagers. The teen workers would have not been so controversial; however, there were no regulations or work permits issued. For the last decade, Nike’s managers have had to plan and organize a world-wide public relations campaign to redeem their name and reputation related to this ethical controversy. Without proper management leading and planning in the Nike Corporation, the company would have suffered from the child labour issue. Nike has made a true bounce-back from the negative media attention, and continues to be successful due to their strong business ethic philosophy.
Competitors
The competition in the industry is current rivalry among existing firms like: Reebok, Adidas, Timberland and Puma among others. They are differentiating using marketing, fashion and technology to get the market, including the new potential competitors. It is not so easy to enter in this footwear industry due to a few entrance barriers to attempt brand loyal customers. The power of suppliers is unique due to the cost of manufacturing the final product and to integrate forward into the industry’s business and become a rival to the industry. Power of customers is very low, it only represents a small percentage compare to the retailers.
Quality
NIKE work with contract manufacturers to apply lean manufacturing, an approach that delivers the highest-quality product while eliminating all types of waste including lost time and material. Also, their approach to lean includes work empowerment giving factory workers the skills and abilities needed to manage production and immediately address issues as they rise, such as quality or process improvements. These changes put decisions closer to the worker and require a high level of support to ensure they have the skills and confidence to consistently quality products.
NIKE’s policy involves the Memorandum and Code of Conduct with over 800 employees, whom of these are U.S citizens who live and work at the factories worldwide. They must agree to Nike’s labour standards in order for production assistance and quality control. These people are only dedicated because it is the only way to produce high quality products to assure that factory employees are treated well.
Speed
NIKE’s main focus is ensuring efficient transport, security and safety of its own products throughout the supply chain. In addition, they use policies to ensure that their supply from factory to consumer operates in a manner that considers both people and the environment of each step of the way. Also, they use prudent planning as planning tools to scope and test tools that will enable them to analyse factors including the number of miles, type of transport (e.g. air, rail, sea) and number of containers, of all these they track now. Therefore, this allows them to find out solutions that measure these impacts of process changes such as consolidation and location of distribution centres.
Dependability
NIKE is heavily dependent on information technology systems across our supply chain, including product design, production, forecasting, ordering, manufacturing, transportation, sales and distribution. Their ability to manage effectively and maintain their inventory to ship products to consumers on a timely basis depends significantly on the reliability of these supply chain systems.
Cost
Nike’s strategy of sourcing shoes from low-wage countries in Asia has been one of the fundamentals of the company strategy. Nike had looked into Asia to find the cheapest sources of production for its shoes. The manufacture of an athletic shoe consists at a number of steps: designing, model and pattern making, moulding of soles, material cutting, stitching, lasting, finishing, final inspection and packaging. These basic steps in practice fragment into several hundred operations which are performed manually and required little skill. Access to a large unskilled workforce and low labour costs are thus essential to producing shoes competitively.
Breakdown of an athletic Nike shoe from Indonesia
Flexibility
The finished products reach the market through retail stores, Internet stores or NIKE Towns. As a result, the supply chain that NIKE has to manage is really complex, with many-to-many relations between suppliers, retailers, carriers and distribution centres that have to be coordinated in order for the whole chain to be efficient and achieve the goal of 5 inventories per year. In order for NIKE to move along the supply chain, they use a diversified set of logistics providers.
APL Logistics and Maersk Logistics are the two consolidators that are responsible for handling the cargo from the factory, receiving the freight, loading the containers, communicating to destinations in planning shipment deliveries, collecting documents from the factory and forwarding them to the destination. Supply chain management is done in-house as there is the expertise needed to perform such operations. Congestion created by large volume and narrow handling capacity, along with labour based problems and forced shippers to explore solutions that would allow for a flexible supply chain to be in place.