Nike
Nike (NKE) In the 1950’s, Bill Bowerman, a track and field coach at the University of Oregon, began cobbling shoes for his runners. Bowerman and one of his runners Phil Knight formed Blue Ribbon Sports and sold shoes for Tiger shoes in 1964. While Knight was selling the shoes, Bowerman was ripping them apart to see how he could make them lighter and made his runners test his improved shoes. Their first full-time employee, Jeff Johnson, was an early designer of shoes and came up with the name Nike in 1971. In 1972, the BRS broke business with Tiger shoes and Nike, along with its brand marked “Swoosh”, debuted its new line of footwear. Their first endorsed athlete, Steve Prefontaine, wore Nike’s light weight shoes with an outsole that had waffle-type nubs for traction ("Nike inc.," 2011). In 1989, shortly after becoming a publicly traded company, Nike came out with the tagline “Just Do It” to endorse its new cross-training business, which drastically increased sales. During that decade, Nike lost and regained its position as the industry leader; the only time an athletic footwear/apparel company has done so and has not lost its position since. During the 90’s, Nike mostly focused on endorsing athletes, such as, the World Cup winning Brazil team, Lance Armstrong, and Tiger Woods ("Nike inc.," 2011). Today, Nike has witnessed growth in China and currently operates in 160 countries. A future goal of the company is to reach revenue of $28-30 billion in 2015. The Nike portfolio of brands currently consists of Cole Haan, Converse, Hurley International, Nike Golf, Jordan Brand and Umbro; these affiliate businesses contributed $2.7 billion to the company’s total $20.9 billion in revenue at the end of 2011 ("Nike inc.," 2011). As of May 31, 2012, Nike employed around 44,000 employees worldwide. Nike has a competitive advantage over adidas because of its American dominance, where the company made 42% of its total revenues in 2012 ("Nike fy2012 annual," 2012). Nike
Cited: Encyclopedia of global industries. (2012, January 1). Retrieved from http://bi.galegroup.com.ezproxy.strose.edu/essentials/article/GALE|I2501600083/41563f07934e0d5866133efe9449f931 Nike. (2012). Retrieved from http://nikeplus.nike.com/plus/products/gps_app/ Nike inc. (2012). Nike . Retrieved from http://www.nike.com/us/en_us/ Nike fy2012 annual report. (2012). Retrieved from http://investors.nikeinc.com/files/doc_financials/AnnualReports/2012/index.html Sacks, T. (n.d.). Reebok international, ltd. (1995): The nike challenge. Retrieved from http://www.primesmoked.com/tim/writing/reebok.html Schwartz, P. (2010, mar 02). Forbes.com. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/2010/02/03/most-powerful-sports-names-tiger-woods-nike-cmo-network-sports-brands.html