Nike , or as they were known at the time of founding Blue Ribbon Sports , was the brainchild of Bill Bowerman and his former student Phil Knight. Bowerman was, at the time, a track-and-field coach for the University of Oregon. The company that would become Nike was created in and they would open their first retail outlet in The company initially served as the U.
After a few successful years, Knight and Bowerman decided to develop and manufacture their own shoes. To this end, the now-famous Nike brand shoe hit the shelves in In , the company officially changed its name to Nike and later went public in By the turn of the Millenium, Nike had grown to be one of the world's most valuable brands.
The company's name, Nike, is derived from the Greek Goddess of Victory. Today it has retail outlets and distributors in more than countries.
Its logo, the now widely recognized curved checkmark or "swoosh", it one of the most famous in the world. It was, originally set up to be the official U. With no official sales premises, the founding members were forced to sell their shoes out of the trunks of their cars.
They could continue to see excellent sales of shoes, and by they had enough revenue to hire their first full-time employee. In the lates sales had continued to grow, and they further expanded operations into the East Coast of America in Wellesley, Massachusetts. Nike lab, for more than 30 years, delivers proven scientific insight which helps drive performance innovations across the Nike brand. The lab team consists of more than 40 researchers in different scientific disciplines such as biomechanics, physiology, physics, math, kinesiology, biomedical engineering and mechanical engineering,.
The mission of Nike Inc. Countless ideas are tested in pursuit of aiding performance, injury risk reduction, enhancing perception and feel, and delivery of innovative products to athletes. You are commenting using your WordPress. You are commenting using your Google account. You are commenting using your Twitter account.
You are commenting using your Facebook account. Notify me of new comments via email. But Nike's marketing executives saw it as part of a campaign to create an image of Nike not just as a product l ine but as a lifestyle, a "Nike attitude.
Nearly everyone agreed, however, that Nike was the dominant force in athletic footwear in the early to mids. The company held about 3 0 percent of the U. Not content with its leading position in athletic shoes and its growing sales of athletic apparel, which accounted for more than 30 percent of revenues in , Nike branched out into spo rts equipment in the mids. In the company acquired Canstar Sports Inc. Canstar was renamed Bauer Nike Hockey In c.
Two years lat er Bauer Nike became part of the newly formed Nike equipment division , which aimed to extend the company into the marketing of sport balls , protective gear, eyewear, and watches.
Also during this period, Nik e signed its next superstar spokesperson, Tiger Woods. The golf phenom went on to win an inordinate number of tourn aments, often shattering course records, and was on pace to eclipse g olf legend Jack Nicklaus's illustrious lifetime record of winning 18 majors, more than validating the blockbuster contract.
Overseas sales pl ayed a large role in the 42 percent increase in revenues from to Back home, Nike's share of the U. The picture at Nike soon turned sour, however, as the Asian financial crisis that erupted in the summer of sent sneaker sale s in that region plunging. Compounding the company's troubles was a concurrent s tagnation of sales in its domestic market, where the fickle tastes of teenagers began turning away from athletic shoes to hiking boots and other casual "brown shoes.
Nike was also dogged throughout the late s by protests and boycot ts over allegations regarding the treatment of workers at the contrac t factories in Asia that employed nearly , people and that made the bulk of Nike shoes and much of its apparel.
Charges included abu se of workers, poor working conditions, low wages, and use of child l abor. Nike's initial reaction, which was highlighted by Knight's insi stence that the company had little control over its suppliers, result ed in waves of negative publicity.
Protesters included church groups, students at universities that had apparel and footwear contracts wit h Nike, and socially conscious investment funds. Nike finally announc ed in mid a series of changes affecting its contract workforce i n Asia, including an increase in the minimum age, a tightening of air quality standards, and a pledge to allow independent inspections of factories.
Nike nonetheless remained under pressure from activists in to the 21st century. Nike, along with McDonald's Corporation, the Coc a-Cola Company, and Starbucks Corporation, among others, also became an object of protest from those who were attacking multinational comp anies that pushed global brands. This undercurrent of hostility burst into the spotlight in late when some of the more aggressive pro testers against a World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle attempt ed to storm a NikeTown outlet.
Seeking to recapture the growth of the early to mids, Nike pursu ed a number of new initiatives in the late s. Having initially mi ssed out on the trend toward extreme sports such as skateboarding, m ountain biking, and snowboarding , Nike attempted to rectify this mis cue by establishing a unit called ACG, short for "all-conditions gear ," in Two years later, the company created a new division calle d Techlab to market a line of sports-technology accessories, such as a digital audio player, a high-altitude wrist compass, and a portable heart-rate monitor.
Both of these initiatives were aimed at capturin g sales from the emerging Generation Y demographic group. In early 19 99 Nike began selling its shoes and other products directly to consum ers via the company web site. The company finally earned some good pu blicity in when it sponsored the U.
In December Nike cofounder Bo werman died, and the company later introduced a line of running shoes in his honor. Nike's struggles continued into the early s, but by the comp any appeared to have turned a corner. Surprisingly, the turnaround st emmed in large part not from clever marketing or new high-tech sneake rs but from concentrating more attention on the more mundane aspects of running a business, such as investing in start-of-the-art informat ion systems, logistics, and supply-chain management.
Equally importan t was Knight's willingness to cede more control of the company to a n umber of underlings, some recruited from the outside. Donald W. Blair was brought onboard from PepsiCo, Inc. In Knight named two longtime company insiders, Mark G. Par ker and Charles D. Denson, as copresidents with responsibility for da y-to-day operations. On the product side, Nike successfully overhaule d its apparel operations, garnered surging sales of its golf equipmen t after Woods began using Nike golf balls in , and made a big pus h in the soccer shoe market, where it gained the top spot among Europ ean soccer shoe buyers, leapfrogging over Adidas, by The Nike comeback also centered around a commitment to lessen its dep endence on the volatile market for high-performance shoes by owning a portfolio of brands covering different market sectors and price poin ts.
Based in Costa Mesa, Califo rnia, Hurley was a designer and distributor of action sports apparel and footwear for surfing, skateboarding, and snowboarding. Nike next bought Converse Inc. The y ear-old Converse of North Andover, Massachusetts, was best known for its retro, low-tech Chuck Taylor All-Star sneakers, a product that fo r many teenagers and young adults had come to be viewed as the very a ntithesis of everything Nike. Converse's management team remained in place following the takeover, with the company operating as an autono mous subsidiary.
These brands were placed within a new wholly owned subsidiary, Exeter Brands Group LLC, focus ing on developing products for value-conscious consumers. While these acquisitions were unfolding in the United States, Nike wa s pushing hard into overseas markets, and by international sales exceeded domestic sales for the first time. Starting in the com pany also concentrated on building an extensive program to address th e perennial charges of labor exploitation. Nike began allowing a moni toring organization it had cofounded, the Fair Labor Association, to conduct random factory inspections.
It also built an in-house staff o f approximately employees to inspect hundreds of factories and gr ade them on labor standards. In early Nike took an unprecedented step toward greater transparency by issuing a list of its more than contract factories. Such moves provided the basis for an improvin g relationship between Nike and its critics. There were even a few ca ses in which activists worked with the company to resolve specific is sues at certain factories.
Late in Knight stepped aside from his executive positio n, while remaining chairman, to bring William D. Perez onboard as pre sident and CEO. Perez, a marathon runner and avid golfer, was hired a way from S.
His vast international experience was expected to hel p Nike as it continued its expansion abroad, and Perez was known as a n excellent marketer with a stellar reputation of acquiring and manag ing well-known brands. Within months of Perez's appointment, Nike's n eed for such an experienced hand appeared to grow when adidas-Salomon AG agreed to buy Reebok International Ltd. The deal, announced in August , promised to combine tw o of Nike's biggest rivals, giving the newly enlarged company about 3 0 percent of the worldwide athletic footwear market, compared to Nike 's 37 percent.
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