subject: Do You Like Brand Nike Company [print this page] Phil Knight is a legendary figurePhil Knight is a legendary figure. In 1972 he founded Nike Company which was quickly molded to be a leading brand among global sporting goods industry. What is more important is that Knight carried out the mode of "asset-light strategy" in 1980s, which has became a mainstream business model in global sporting goods business these days. Even if those conventional sports brands which have a hundred years history have to select the "Nike style" survival mode so as to follow with the spreading rhythm of Nike Corporation. With regard to this, Phil Knight said "the solely way to defeat Nike is to simulate us comprehensively and precisely, and then try to look out differences to destroy".
In 1992, Chinese excellent gymnast, Lining founded a sports goods company with his own name, and Chinese sporting goods industry entered into "branding" developmental stage. However in the first ten years, most Chinese sporting goods manufacturers are just important OEM partners of Nike's "asset-light strategy" pattern, therefore, a batch of OEM type factories with good manufacturing skills were created. There are nearly 3000 footwear products manufacturing businesses in Jin Jiang, which is a costal city of Fujian province, and there are over 300000 employees, with a yearly output of 650 million pair of shoes With an area of just 38.8 square kilometers, Chen Dai town is the prime Chinese and even worldwide sneakers' production base. At present, Jin Jiang's brands including Anta, 361, Deer Way, Jordon, JINAK and so on have developed quickly to be the significant contestants in local Chinese sporting products market through the imitation of Nike}.Just as what Phil Knight said, the competition of global sporting goods industry is more and more assimilated to "Nike model". With Lining, Anta as representatives of China local sporting goods enterprises are also pursuing the mode of "asset-light strategy", which means it will be harder and harder to surpass Nike.
From the competition of Nike with Reebok and Nike with Adidas, we could draw a conclusion: to imitate Nike Company is really an effective strategy to catch up with it, but intending to surpass Nike Company should not be applying mechanically what Knight identified.
For example, Rebook surpassed Nike by springing up female sporting goods market, and Adidas is competing with Nike all over the world via merging strategy, and Nike beat back Rebook after finishing global operation, which all prove that those innovative companies that adopted effective strategies according to target market, could win the initiative status in competition.
One of Nike Company's soft ribs was revealed in 1998 Asian financial crisis. Because "asset-light strategy" pattern doesn't involve in the process of specific products manufacturing, and this process was produced by Asian OEM factories, which could cause two big managing problems, and one is the supply chain management, another is production quality control. With the economic environment's external fluctuation, Nike Company's overall operating performances are affected by Asian OEM factories' cost, delivery, logistics and so on.
