A 52 year old company is constantly changing the way sports apparel and footwear looks and feel – Nike. The US based company focuses on creating products that enhance athletic performance and motivates every person to excel. Here are ten things you should know about Nike –
10 Key Things about Nike
1. Nike Inc, better known worldwide as Nike, is a multinational company that produces athletic footwear, apparel and accessories. It designs, manufactures and markets these products worldwide through online and offline retail. It was started in 1968 in Oregon and has its headquarters in Washington County, Oregon. Founded by Bill Bowerman and Phil knight, Nike was named after the Greek Goddess for Victory. Today, the company is synonymous with athletic performance.
2.It focuses on improving athletic endeavors through its products which are mainly categorized under eight categories – Running, Basketball, Football (Soccer), Men’s Training, Women’s Training, Action Sports, Sportswear and Golf. These categories are produced under four different brands – Nike, Hurley, Jordan and Converse. Nike sells these through their retail stores and websites which are their Direct To Consumers (DTC) channels and also through distributors and licensees.
3.It has been consistently increasing revenues for the last five years; it raked in revenues of USD 30.7 B in FY15 from USD 20.89 B in FY11. It also had a corresponding rise in net income from USD 2.13 B in FY11 to USD 3.27 B in FY15. Its Earnings per Share also increased from USD 1.12 in FY11 to USD 3.80 in FY15. Not only did sales to wholesale customers increase 10% but Direct to Customer revenues increased a phenomenal 29%, with revenues pouring in from its 832 DTC stores.
4.The company has worldwide presence with international branch offices and subsidiaries in over 52 countries worldwide. While a majority of retail stores are in US, 322 stores in total across Nike, Converse and Hurley, the non US stores are 536 as of FY14. However, most of the manufacturing is done outside of USA with over 150 footwear factories located in 14 countries, with majority of manufacturing being done in Vietnam, China and Indonesia. There are also 430 apparel factories spread across 41 countries.
5.The iconic ‘Swoosh’ is a part of the Nike Brand Identity and athletes across the world identify the logo. The brand itself is among the top global brands and the No. 1 apparel brand worldwide as per 2015 Brand Finance Report. It has a cumulative brand value of USD 24, 138 M in FY15. It has the tagline, ‘Just Do it’ and that is also a part of the brand strategy where it pushes its consumers to use their products to achieve the best they can!
6.Worldwide people know Nike through its brand ambassadors and sponsorships of prominent athletes. It has sponsored well known football players like Ronaldinho, Ronaldo, Neymar, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and also several tennis players. It has paid tribute to Michael Jordan by creating shoes based on his designs and expanded it to the brand ‘Jordan’ which now sells the basketball shoe category. In India, it has been the official kit sponsor of the Indian Cricket Team, it also sponsors the NFL Kits and several football, basketball and baseball teams worldwide.
7.The company has embraced mobile technology and has created apps that monitor and help enhance the performance of sports persons. It has created Nike Running to monitor running fitness, Nike+ training Club which gives both personal training as well social motivations. Nike Fuelband which monitors your fitness activities, Nike Football for access to products and events related to soccer and football, and Nike Tech Book which provides information about its products.
8.Nike employs 62,600 employees across 6 continents in more than 53 countries. Nike is an equal opportunity employer and aims to create a safe working environment across all its offices and factory locations. Apart from its corporate and retail employees Nike employs more than 1.01 M workers through its contract factories and it is making an effort to make their lives better. 83% of the contracted factories have proper complaint grievance systems in place while 93% of the contracted factories reported no incidents of excessive overtime.
9.As a sports and fitness company, it works towards encouraging sports amongst children. It has partnered with schools in Brazil, China, Russia and Turkey to create school programs to nurture and introduce them to the benefits of staying fit and healthy. It has also created a global Marathon Kids program that encourages running as a sport. It has initiated the Nike Employee Grant Fund to promote sports culture, Nike School Innovation Fund to promote education while Converse actively engages with the art community to encourage creativity.
10.It is into manufacturing on a big scale and uses raw materials like rubber, cloth and leather that are recyclable as well as consume lot of resources in production. The company is working on reducing manufacturing waste with technologies like the Nike Flyknit and also works on using environmentally friendly materials. It also started a unique water free dyeing facility which uses recyclable CO2 instead of water saving up to 30 liters per T-Shirt!