Essay Example on Successful Work Strategies

Introduction

Nike is a successful franchise from the United States worth billions of dollars. Nike deals in sports apparel and its primary operations include distribution, marketing, and design. Despite the success of the company, it is from a humble beginning from 1972 and is currently the most dominant in the sports apparel sector (Zhang, 2018). The Nike Company deals in all sorts of apparel, from shoes to eyewear, with diversity and top-notch innovation, and currently has a minimum of 700 official stores worldwide with constant expansion (Zhang, 2018). The main reason for the tremendous success of Nike Company is its aggressive marketing tactics (Zhang, 2018). Apart from the United States, Nike is mainly successful in the United Kingdom and China with unique reasons.

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Nike Work Strategies

Nike aims to complement business growth with the sustainability of the company, and it reaps the rewards. Sustainability refers to sales and production as a marketing strategy to avoid affecting the environment, for example, pollution (Zhang, 2018). It is the company's main selling point with a combination of innovation to create the best products. Nike focuses on minimizing carbon dioxide emissions for emissions in production in consumer brands, including clothing wear. Innovation drives the company, and because it maintains a talented pool of employees, Nike fights off competitions from other giants, including Adidas and Puma (Zhang, 2018). However, they cannot match Nike's differentiation strategy, and the company deals in almost any sport worldwide.

Nike focuses on customer satisfaction, and no other company in the industry seems to match its levels. Through sponsoring athletes and sports, Nike can reach many consumers. An example of the success of the strategy is in the Rio 2016 Olympics, where the majority of the winners were Nike athletes with 79 medals (Zhang, 2018). The second company did not match even a quarter of the awards that Nike athletes won. It shows its aggressiveness to sign up as many athletes as possible, and they also attract the top ones, for example, Cristiano Ronaldo, who is a global icon in soccer alongside Lionel Messi, who is signed to Adidas (Zhang, 2018). In technology, no company matches Nike. For example, in e-commerce, one of its main rivals, Adidas, launched its online shop seven years after Nike. It has a technology to automatically tie shoelaces in HyperAdapt 1.0 to which they have exclusive rights (Zhang, 2018).

Nike also has unique ways of fighting off the competition, for example, by buying off their rivals. In the past two decades, Nike purchased Converse and Canstar in 2003 and 1994, respectively, in deals worth millions of dollars (Zhang, 2018). However, it is worth it as the company gets access to more consumers and diversify their portfolio. Nike invests heavily in advertising, and it is a crucial factor in its success. It sponsors athletes and celebrities with substantial social media followings, and the company is also famous. They advertise Nike's products, and it is a way of attracting and reaching more consumers (Zhang, 2018). Global success is usually a big hurdle for many companies because of cultural and diversity issues, but Nike finds methods to adapt. The company designs its advertisement campaigns to fit major markets with varying socio-cultural views, especially social media (Zhang, 2018). Nike, therefore, continues to grow, and it is inarguably the most significant apparel and sportswear across the globe with its major success in the United Kingdom and China.

Nike in the United Kingdom

When the United States basketball authorities initially banned the shoe collaboration between Michael Jordan and Nike, it became a challenge that set the company for outstanding achievements (Kornum et al., 2017). Immediately, the shoe went up in value, and even imitations sold at high rates beating the projected retail prices. The success of the marketing model became the beginning of global expansion. Nike sought to capitalize on the United Kingdom's market, especially with soccer and sports in the country. Nike then expanded to the United Kingdom and gave sponsorship deals to famous athletes in the late 20th century, including Eric Cantona of Manchester United Football Club and Ian Wright of Arsenal Football Club (Kornum et al., 2017). The results were overwhelming, as Nike's operations in the country grew by up to six times with the establishment of Nike Official Stores across the country and the first one in London (Kornum et al., 2017).

Marketing through athletes and celebrities and the enormous gross domestic product in the United Kingdom are the main reasons for the massive success of Nike in the country. The 'Just Do It' campaign is an enormous hit in almost every country globally, and the United Kingdom is proving to be one of the biggest markets yet (Kornum et al., 2017). Nike does not focus a lot on data from batteries or marketing third party sources, but its products sell within hours of launching in almost every country.

Soccer is the main contributor to the economy of the United Kingdom, and Nike seeks to maximize it. It is because of the tremendous success of the English Premier League, across all continents as it is the most-viewed soccer league in the world and racks in billions of dollars in revenue (Kornum et al., 2017). Nike sponsors the England National soccer team and a host of premier league clubs, including; Liverpool Football Club, Tottenham Hotspurs, Chelsea Football Club, and Brighton and Hove Albion (Kornum et al., 2017). However, the company is losing ground to Adidas in the number of teams it sponsors, but it remains the leader because of the high consumer reach across the globe (Kornum et al., 2017).

Nike specializes in its marketing campaigns for different markets in the United Kingdom. However, the company has controversies from the past, including the 'Parklife' and 'Condolence' advertisements (Kornum et al., 2017). They caused reactions, but they served to bring attention to Nike's products. 'Parklife' advertisement was to celebrate the development of Wimbledon 1997's tennis court from a Tube station and the Sunday League Football. The 'condolence' advertisement seemed to mock the exit of England's National Soccer Team from the World Cup in 1998, which was saddening to the majority of the country's citizens who had high hopes for the tournament (Kornum et al., 2017).

Nike in China

China is proving to be a thriving global market for most international companies, and Nike is a major player. China's market is one of the most challenging in the world because of the strong cultural incorporation in the country (Llorente Barroso et al., 2018). However, Nike is taking a bold approach through digitization, and its success is vast. Nike is maximizing the huge digital environment in China with a boost from machine learning, artificial intelligence, and 5G technology. Nike first started its operations in 1981 in the country, and it has been growing exponentially since its inception (Llorente Barroso et al., 2018). China forms approximately 15% of Nike's total global revenue, which is a massive percentage as Nike is present in many countries across all continents (Llorente Barroso et al., 2018).

The blueprint of China's digitization strategy began with its partnership with T-Mall, one of the biggest e-commerce shops in the country after Alibaba. Nike has other online stores with other partners like WeChat and SNKRS applications (Llorente Barroso et al., 2018). Nike recently launched its official mobile store application in 2019 to cover more of the vast digital market in China. With the digital platforms and the physical Nike shops across the country, the company connects directly with the customers, either online or offline. The emphasis on consumer connection attributes heavily to the success of Nike in China because of the complicated and flooded market, which has many native and international sportswear and apparel companies (Llorente Barroso et al., 2018).

WeChat, for example, has more than a billion active users, and Nike has its online store in the application (Llorente Barroso et al., 2018). Customers can access all Nike products through the program at any time. WeChat is the biggest social media platform in China, and Nike seeks to maximize the potential that the application brings. WeChat also has its payment platform; therefore, there is no need to integrate other modes of money transfer, and it is fast and secure (Llorente Barroso et al., 2018). Through WeChat, Nike links up with other third-party sellers on the application, which expands the connection that the company has with its consumers. The Nike Official Chinese Application is also a massive plus to the success of the company in the country. The Nike Official Website gets many visitors each day, and the customers can easily download and purchase the company's products after redirection to the application (Llorente Barroso et al., 2018). The Nike Official Chinese Application enables the company to collect more revenue as it does not need to pay any commissions.

Social Inequality

The United Kingdom, like most of the countries, faces the issue of inequality either in race, class, or gender. However, it has measures in place to address the problem as follows. The country is seeking consistency in policymaking in issues relating to inequalities. It is a measure that aims to incorporate minority groups and alienated regions in the country in policymaking (Thomas & Cooper, 2020). The lawmakers can also adopt policies from other nations and modifying to fit the existing ones in the country. The United Kingdom also has a centralized funding method so that all sectors of the government collaborate to address issues on inequality (Thomas & Cooper, 2020).

The United Kingdom annually creates a report on the gender pay gap. The government invests in the information so they can understand more about the issue of social gender inequality (Thomas & Cooper, 2020). The United Kingdom's government also encourages big corporations to create similar reports with more details about employees. It is so that they can understand more about their background and the social class, which is essential to know how inequalities affect them. The United Kingdom's government encourages its citizens to make independent choices on their companies and regions of work (Thomas & Cooper, 2020). The country focuses on changing the labor market, which has many cultural perceptions. If the citizens can make bold decisions, it can unravel more inequalities, especially with the current global 'Black Lives Matter' campaign (Thomas & Cooper, 2020).

Conclusion

However, it is proving difficult to capture the full picture of inequalities in the United Kingdom with shifting dynamics in the labor market. Therefore, it is challenging to capture all issues of inequality of various groups in the country (Thomas & Cooper, 2020). An example of the situation is where most workers are part of different companies and operate in alternating shifts on additional days or hours in a week. It makes it difficult to collect statistics, for example, on one person working that way (Thomas & Cooper, 2020). Therefore, the United States seeks to address the issue by researching on all citizens rather than targeting individual groups facing discrimination.