耐克公司的国际化战略分析

耐克的国际化战略
 

耐克的国际劳动实践
 

耐克一直被称为是鞋子的唯一品牌。自上世纪七十年代早期成立以来，青少年就将“旋风”品牌当做是酷的标志。有人喜欢像老虎伍兹那样的名人代言，孩子们想要这样的鞋子，那样他们就可以像他们喜爱的体育明星那样了。耐克一直为最高层的运动鞋产业的领导者，直到上世纪九十年代，它遇到了麻烦，由于泄露关于海外工厂的劳动违法行为的消息。

 

执行摘要

 

耐克公司的经营战略是非常灵活的，一位创始人菲尔奈特虽然还在斯坦福上学的时候，他就认为建立海外工厂制造的地方是个更好的主意，像台湾和韩国这样的地方，劳动力比美国便宜得多，而不是将美国人的要买的耐克鞋全都放在一起制造。随着百分之八十六的产品都在这两个国家生产制造，耐克雇佣了一大批当地人民，这个国家变得越来越富裕了，直到奈特认为价格已经高的不能再进行生产制造了（碰壁3）。
 

Nike And International Strategy

 

Nike and International Labor Practices 

 

Nike has long been known as the only brand of shoes to wear. Since its inception in the early 1970s, teenagers have seen the brand’s "swoosh" as a mark of cool. With their celebrity endorsements with people like Tiger Woods, kids have wanted the shoes so that they could be like their sports star. Nike was headed to the top rung of the athletic shoe industry until it hit trouble in the 1990s with news leaking out about labor violations in its factories overseas. 

 

Executive Summary 
 

Nike’s company strategy is a clever one. One that founder Phil Knight thought of while still in school at Stanford. Instead of paying Americans to put together Nike’s shoes, Knight thought that it would be a better idea to take manufacturing plants overseas to places where labor is much cheaper than in the U.S., places like Taiwan and South Korea. With 86% of its products being produced in one of those two countries and Nike employing a large number of people who lived there, the countries became richer and richer until Knight decided prices were too high to manufacture there anymore (Hitting the Wall, 3). He decided to move the factories to places in China like Indonesia where countries were practically begging for foreign investment. Production was going well until the early 1990s when labor strikes rose to 112 in 1991 and news began to leak out about the terrible conditions Nike’s labor force was working in. The company was using underage workers and underpaying them to the point that a family couldn’t even survive off of the wages made at a Nike factory. From this point, Nike’s sales began to slip and returned into the media’s spotlight numerous times in the 90s for their bad labor practices. #p#分页标题#e#

 

Porter’s Five Forces 
 

Rivalry 
 

What kept Nike ahead of its competitors was its strategy, which it still employs today. Instead of manufacturing the shoes in the U.S., Nike moved all of its factories overseas where cheaper labor could be used to make the shoes. With the money it had saved by doing this, Nike decided to put it toward marketing to have huge names in sports Like Michael Jordan to promote its products. In 2003 alone Nike spent $153 million on advertising, more than four-and-a-half times more than Adidas spent on ads that same year (The FN List). 
 

There are many popular brands of athletic shoes in the U.S including Adidas, Saucony, Reebok, and New Balance. But none of these has the power that Nike has held for the past 30 years. The company’s sales reached a staggering $49 million within the first 15 years of Nike’s existence (Hitting the Wall, 8). Nike is not only seen as an athletic shoe company, but also a fashion brand. Not only has Nike had power over shoes made specifically for athletic purposes, but it has created a conglomerate over the shoe fashion industry. Not until the early 90s when Nike came under fire for bad labor practices in foreign countries did other companies start to gain real market share.
 

It is not easy to enter the shoe manufacturing industry. Large amounts of start up capital are required to buy materials, warehouses and a place to work, and people to do the labor. Although other companies have received flack in the past for using underage workers and underpaying them, Nike got the brunt of the heat because it was the industry leader at the time. So while Nike’s stock fell, other companies saw their chance to make a move and gain a larger share of the market. Many shoe companies took after Nike’s marketing strategy and began to spend large amounts of money on ad campaigns to get their name out to the public and to keep the company name out of the labor problems in the news. 

 

 

Threat of Substitutes 
 

There are plenty of other brands of athletic shoes out there. Adidas is second to Nike followed by Reebok in third. When Nike ran into trouble in the 90s, many customers decided to strike against Nike and not buy its products any more because of the labor practices the company used in overseas markets to create the shoes. When people saw Nike’s bad practices in 1998, the company’s revenue fell by 69%; not only was it a huge loss but it was also Nike’s first loss in sales in 13 years (Hitting the Wall, 11). 

 

Threat of New Entrants 
 

Up until 1997, Nike did not have to worry about new companies taking away much, if any, of its market share. With Nike’s clever marketing scheme to ingrain the brand name’s “swoosh” into every person in America with the use of huge sports stars, no company stood to make any dent in Nike’s market share. But when America found out that their beloved shoes were being made by 12-year-olds being paid $2.50 per day in Indonesia, many turned anti-Nike and no longer promoted the “swoosh” (Glenn). #p#分页标题#e#

This is when new symbols like Adidas’s three stripes logo came into public view. These other brands started to take away some of Nike’s market share and these new logos began to be seen all over America in place of Nike’s. 

 

Buyer Power 
 

The nineties were a time where Nike’s potential customers showed how much power they have over Nike. When word got out about Nike’s use of underage workers and the bad conditions they are forced to work in, its customers decided to not buy Nike’s products and consequently, the company’s revenues fell sharply. People discovered that a typical Nike shoe costs only $22.50 for Nike to make and they sell it for close to $100 while paying the laborers who made the shoes not even enough to live on. Stories of people being killed in Nike’s overseas factories and working in conditions where there were many harmful chemicals in the air and the workers having extraordinarily long work days forced people to realize that they did not want to help fuel on Nike’s slave-run company. 
 

Not only did Nike lose its individual customers, it also lost deals with large universities such as Duke and Brown, where student organized boycotts against the company. The University of Oregon, which is where Nike’s CEO Phil Knight had gone to school, also stopped providing its sports teams with Nike gear in protest of its labor laws. 

 

 

Supplier Power 
 

With Nike being such a huge company, its suppliers don’t have much bargaining power against them. Nike’s revenues rival most other large corporations and it has brand power to match other trendsetters such as Sony, Apple, and Target (Kahney). Nike is much like Wal-Mart: both are huge companies who can essentially set its own price on the goods it wants or needs to stay in business. So if one of its suppliers is unhappy with the price that Nike wants to pay for the items they need, Nike can easily find another company to manufacture the goods and the price it wants to pay. 

 

SWOT Analysis 
 

Strengths 
 

1. Nike has a lot of brand power. Even with the troubles in its past (and present), Nike has managed to slowly gain its popularity back among people. It has not gained back all of its power, which it probably will never do, but for now at least the labor troubles are out of many peoples’ minds and they are willing to purchase Nike’s products again. 

2. Nike still has the money to be able to buy almost any celebrity it wants to endorse its products. With that ability, Nike can grab its intended demographic and get them to buy Nike products. 

3. The company has made many reforms in recent years. It is now requiring that all apparel workers be 14 years-old and that those working in shoe manufacturing be of at least 18 years-of-age. #p#分页标题#e#
 

Weaknesses 
 

1. Even though the company has come back from the labor allegations, their reputation will forever be tarnished because of management’s bad decisions to not monitor their manufacturing factories. 

2. Nike’s reformations overseas did not have perfect reception from everyone. Many people believe that the company still uses underage labor and doesn’t pay their employees well enough. 

 

Opportunities 
 

The company can raise their market share again by assuring the public that its factories are safe and have acceptable wages for its workers. Nike has made significant progress and has plans by 2009 to raise minimum wages in all of their factories. In 1997 Nike hired GoodWorks International to go to any factory they wish and inspect anything and everything to assure the public that nothing fishy is going on (Hitting the Wall, 8). While the inspector did say that Nike is doing a good job overseas, he also gave suggestions on how to improve the factories. It also joined the Apparel Industry Partnership (AIP), a task forced created by President Clinton. With this group, Nike intended to hire third-party groups to do inspections of its factories to ensure safety. 

 

Threats 
 

If Nike does not continue its efforts toward good labor practices, 1997 will happen all over again. If that happens, other brands will gain more market share of the industry and Nike will have to climb its way back up yet again, which may not even be possible. By having another lapse in managerial judgment and not staying on top of this issue, people would probably give up on Nike and decide to look to other shoes to buy. There is also a good chance that Nike could lose its major endorsements from Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan, which would have a negative impact on Nike’s customer base. If the customer sees big stars pulling out of their contracts with Nike because of the labor problems, they will realize that the company is not trustworthy in keeping up its promises to make their factories a better and safer workplace. 

 

Glenn, Tim. "Nike's Cheap Labor." CLR. Campaign for Labor Rights. 31 Mar2008。