Nike: A Case Study Of Nike's Expansion Strategy

In its 45 years of existence, Nike has developed from a small operation to a household name, present on all continents. However, in the 1990s Nike came under scrutiny for various unethical practices.

• Explain how Nike came to that situation through its expansion strategy.

Nike is a renowned sports brand, recognise all around the world for its products and for its fantastic collaborations with star figures. Their marketing’s campaigns are also remarkable and their message gets further beyond places that we could imagine. Originally designed in the US and manufactured in Japan, the fluctuations in the Japanese economy will make Nike’s founders, P. Knight and B. Bowerman, think about other countries as potential suppliers.

But in 1990, the

On the other hand, the possibilities of outsourcing their manufacturing work and keeping good relations with its suppliers, Nike has been able to work together with suppliers in Asia until present days. Thanks to technology, the design process is fully online followed up until approval. At the same time, they follow a very interesting business model in which all the different steps of productions (from the design until the finishing) are segmented in very small production units. Nike managed to focus on the design, marketing and sales and to outsource most of the manufacturing steps to the subcontractors in the Asian countries, and only taking ownership of the product when it was completely finished. In this way, Nike was somehow aside of the production

With their method of subcontractors, they could pass the problem to the latter and exempt themselves from any responsibility.

Globalization has allowed companies to carry out this sort of unethical behaviour thanks to the freedom of movement and the lack of control and regularisation in the welcoming countries. But Globalization brought with it also the internet and telecommunications era. Suddenly, we were all connected and we could communicate with random people all around the world. In a way, this new method of across-borders communication made possible to spread rapidly the word.

To some extent, I believe that Globalization is exposing the population to new threats and aggressive changes but it has given us the right tools to protect us simultaneously.

If we look at the case of Nike, when the bad practices were discovered, the message started to spread. And it was certainly easy to let everybody know what was happening thanks to the internet. It is certainly frightening to imagine what could have happened if we would leave in a disconnected world, remaining completely ignorant of those