Monday, September 27, 2010

Corporate irresponsibility

                                                                             Enron Corporation was an American energy company located in downtown Houston Texas. Before Enron went bankrupt in late 2001, they employed about 22,000 staff, and were one of the world’s leading electricity, natural gas, communications and pulp and paper companies, with claimed revenues of 101 billion in 2000. At the end of 2001, it was brought out that Enron's reported financial condition was altered institutionalized, systematic, and creatively planned accounting fraud. The scandal affected the wider business world causing the dissolution of the Arthur Anderson accounting firm. Enron filed for bankruptcy protection in late 2001, and in 2004 they emerged from it in 2004. Being one of the biggest and complexing bankruptcy cases in U.S history, a new board of directors changed the name of Enron to Enron creditor’s recovery crop, to focus on reorganizing and liquidating certain operations and assets of the pre bankruptcy of Enron.

Sunday, September 26, 2010

The marketing environment

                                                            Nikes management analyzes its internal environment by making decisions based on that analysis, seeing what customers would want in their products also called their target market, and how the external environment shapes and remolds that. Because of that Nike's marketing research, the company has decided to revamp its apparel division to be more fashion savvy, and there shoes to be more innovating. Nike creates designs for men, women, and children, running, basketball, and cross- training is some of its top selling product categories. Factors such as social that deals with people's values, demographic people’s age an race, economic technological all affects Nikes marketing environment with all these they learn what’s in, what could be change to improve current products and what should be best for future products keeping Nike ahead of competition where they like to be.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Who manufactured my clothes

Shirt - made in Mexico
Pants - made in China
Sneakers - made in Vietnam
Hat - made in China

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Ethics and Social Responsibility

                                              Over the years Nike has become the biggest leader in the athletic shoe industry and a global entity, but with it ethical issues has been brought up. One example is the Nike sweatshop labor case  that stirred up a big amount of controversy over ethical business practices. Nike being worth 15 billion or more outsourced its manufacturing  plants to different countries in order to lessen cost in making there products, and become more efficiently productive. The outcome of everything was far from what Nike expected , the company put children in hazardous condition for very low subsistence wages violating child labor laws. Nike took advantage of overseas workers an placed them in destructive working environments , putting some of them in departments with chemicals which led them to having skin or breathing problems. With all this going on the discovery became public knowledge instead of confidential bringing the government of other country's to get involved , making Nike take social responsibility for their actions. Nike joined a task force called fair job labor association to access whether companies are abiding by the code and banish sweatshops, in the athletic shoe and clothes industry. To better themselves Nike redeemed itself by slashing over time, improve safety and ventilation, and reduce the use of toxic chemicals. Its good to see Nike took steps to improve the accusations they were accused of  , but should have been taken care of as soon as it they were aware of them.

Saturday, September 11, 2010

Strategic planning & Ethics & Responsiblity

                               Nike's strategic planning consist of there mission statement, values statement, and visions statement. There mission statement for Nike is to surpass all competition in the athletic industry. Nike's values statement focuses its commitment to stock holders , and pushing forward to make strides to becoming a company that sets the bar for social responsibility. To end Nike's strategic planning  concludes with there visions statement is simple just remain the leader in there industry, by satisfying the customer with there ever changing needs. Nike shoe company ethics are based around intending to introduce corporate responsibility as a integral part of its business. The company is more leaning towards making sourcing  decisions based not only on prices, quality and delivery, but on management  environmental , health and safety programs. Nike's responsibility is focused on innovation , collaboration , transparency ,and advocacy to prepare the company to thrive in a sustainable economy.

Friday, September 3, 2010

Nike shoe company brief history

Nike's Corporate Mission Statement : 'To be the world's leading sports and fitness company

                                          Nike originated in 1962 by Philip H . Knight, a Stanford University business graduate. Knight who was a member of the University of Oregon track team traveled to japan after finishing business school got introduced to a Japanese firm that made athletic shoes, the Onitsuka  tiger company. Knight got into agreement with the Onitsuka tiger to import some of its shoes in America on a small scale. Knight believed that the Japanese running shoe can be a great competitor for the German products that dominated the American running shoe market. As Knight set up the agreement with Onitsuka tiger, Knight invented the blue ribbon sports to satisfy Onitsuka tiger's expectations that he represented an actual company.With this Knights hypothetical  firm grew to become Nike inc. Knight started off small working with 200 pairs of tiger athletic shoes then became a partnership with his  former  track coach ,William Bowerman , who chipped in 500 dollars to help Knights investment. Bowerman experimented modifying shoes for his team, and worked with runners to enhance the performance of the designs of the prototype blue ribbon sports shoes. Innovation by Bowerman to the shoes would be the corner stone to the company's success, and in 1968 it payed off with the the shoe Cortez being created which became a big seller. With the success of the cortez more shoes were being produced and in 1966 the company rented its first retail space in Santa Monica California then moved to the east coast to Boston. By the end of the decade Knights venture expanded to several stores and 20 employees and sales nearing 300,000. The company reached high levels of growth, but Knight was frustrated by a lack of capital to pay for expansion. In 1971 Knight using financing from the Japanese trading company Nissho  lwai corporation , blue ribbon shoes (BRS) , was able to manufacture its own line overseas, though independent contractors, for import to the United States. With this the company introduced its swoosh trademark and the brand name Nike, taken from the Greek goddess of victory. Founded as a importer Japanese shoes Nike inc., NIKE has grown to become the worlds biggest marketer in athletic shoes dominating there competition from there beginning in 1962 to the present.