Nike; Global Women’s Fitness

Nike; Global Women’s Fitness

I. Introduction

Bill Bowerman and Phil Knight met while coaching on a track team at the University of Oregon and they would eventually be the original founders of Nike. They both wanted to bring a low cost but high tech athletic shoe to the U.S. shoe market. Knight had the idea of manufacturing these shoes in Japan to compete in the shoe business. According to The Harvard Business Review, They invested five hundred dollars and created the company “Blue Ribbon Sports” in 1964. The shoe business at the time was dominated by the German companies Reebok and Adidas. In 1978 Blue Ribbon Sports became known as Nike from the Greek goddess of victory. Marketing became the key for growing into new markets in the U.S. They began to sponsor high profile sports teams and athletes and branded them with the trademarks swoosh and “Just do it” logos. The company has grown tremendously over the decades and now has a net income of 1.9 billon dollars. Nike’s headquarters is in Beaverton, Oregon and employs over thirty five thousand employees worldwide.

“Behind a great company are strong leaders,” according to nikebiz.com. There are key components to any business staying on top and those are its prominent managers. Currently, Philip Knight is Chairmen of the Board of Directors and Mark Parker is the President and CEO. Nike outlined its continuous effort to the growth of the global business with all of Nike’s affiliate brands. The goal of the reorganization was to be more consumers focused. Nike plans on the company being consumer category focused and dig deeper into the global market as it accounts for sixty-one percent of Nikes brand revenue. There is a strong opportunity in Nike’s branding in premium consumer experiences across footwear, apparel and equipment in six categories with women’s fitness being one of them.

Nike brand President named Jodie Sittig as the head of global woman’s fitness. For fourteen years she was instrumental in...