A SWOT Analysis of Nike, Inc.

A SWOT Analysis of Nike, Inc. Internal: Strengths The first strength of Nike as a company is that is outsources all aspects of its production to overseas facilities. This is a strength as the company saves money on the labor costs and the helps the company focus on design and research with the additional capital they save. The next strength is that Nike is a globally recognized brand that has strong customer loyalty. Along with this, Nike has a reputation for quality and endurance which makes it the brand of choice for athletes and fitness fanatics. Another strength of Nike is that it is an extremely competitive company with a catchy slogan that summarizes the ideology of the company. â€Å"Just Do It† is globally known and contributes as to why Nike is one of the few dominating companies in the market. Weaknesses The first weakness of Nike as a company is it perceived by some people as too premium and expensive. This is a weakness as a lot of people are migrating to lower prices athletic wear which is primarily focused on quality. The next weakness is that Nike does its business through retailers who sell other competing brands. This kills the exclusivity of the brand as it is often competing against hundreds of other brands who beat Nike in some aspects including price or quality. As mentioned previously, Nike outsources all of its manufacturing to save money. A lot of companies who outsource overseas are faced with negative publicity due to the bad image of â€Å"Sweatshops†. This could turn people off shopping at Nike due to unfriendly conditions that are associated with sweatshops. Opportunities One of the biggest opportunities for Nike is the emerging markets in regards to athletes and sports teams. A lot of people purchase their favorite teams regardless of the brand. If Nike strategically gets access to the biggest sports teams their sale would increase. If Nike continues to diversify into new markets other than footwear they can begin to dominate different markets such as sporting accessories. Nike has the advantage of compromising price to attract new customers. They already have a loyal customer following so they already have large profit margins. If they take the chance of lowering prices they could increase revenue from new customers. Threats The main threat to Nike is competitors such as Adidas, Puma and Under-Armor. Companies in the same market as Nike are continuously growing, putting pressure on Nike as a company that needs to continue to grow. The price of competitors is a big threat to Nike. Consumers today are more price cautions and will often opt for the cheaper products. As Nike uses overseas outlets to manufacture there is a constant threat that they will be exposed for poor trade practices. If they are exposed it would damage the company’s image and consumers might want to purchase from other suppliers.  · Where do our internal strengths match with external opportunities? This represents the best fit between the companys resources and the options available in the external environment. Nike’s internal strengths matches their external opportunities in the sense that Nike is a globally recognized company that has strong customer loyalty. An external opportunity that Nike could take advantage is lowering their price to attract new customers. As of one Nike’s strengths is strong brand recognition, it makes Nike a desirable brand especially if the prices are lowered. There is a possibility that the increase of new customers could increase profit and get more life-long customers.  · Where do our internal weaknesses match up with external opportunities? What opportunities are we not able to capture? The first weakness of Nike that matches up with external opportunities is that Nike is viewed as a premium brand that is too expensive for some consumers to purchase. The opportunity that this matches up to is the chance Nike has to lower its prices and attract new customers. The reason as to why it is difficult for Nike to capture this opportunity is because Nike carries a certain prestige that they don’t want tainted with cheap prices of their merchandise. If everyone can afford to wear Nike the prestige element wouldn’t have as much of an effect and it could possibly lose customers.  · Where do our internal strengths match up with external threats? What resources do we have that might turn a threat into an opportunity? The internal strengths that match up with the external threats in Nike is the face that Nike outsources all of its production to overseas facilities to save money on the cost of production. The matches with the external threats as the conditions of these overseas facilities leave much to be desired. If a report of these conditions were to ever appear it could severely damage Nike’s reputation. The pressure of other companies such as Adidas and Puma could become an opportunity for Nike to continuously grow and slow down in a very competitive market.  · Where do our internal weaknesses match the external threats in the environment? These are the worst possible scenarios for an organization. The internal weaknesses that match the external threats is the fact that Nike do most of its business through retailers. This is a threat as many consumers can compare prices of Nike to other competitors in a retail store. This could introduce consumers to cheaper prices of rival brands.

Customer Service Representative Policy Assignment

Customer Service Representative Policy - Assignment Example Customer care representatives should ensure they offer clients beyond their anticipations if they intend to retain them in the business and continue to enjoy greater returns in the business. Therefore, customer care representatives should establish close ties with clients in order to promote customer loyalty to the company. Managers should establish a policy of providing training to the customer care representatives in order to ensure excellent services and products to their clients. The customer service representatives in the hospitality industry should promote unity at work in order to ensure excellent delivery of services to their clients (Kahle & Riley 2004). This is because when employees work together as a team, they will be able to solve any issue that may be affecting their clients, and also instil confidence in the visitors hence promoting customer loyalty. The business policy should ensure that all needs of the clients are giving priority to anything else. The management should train their customer care staff to take into consideration all the issues raised by the clients no matter how petty they seem to be. This will not only make clients feel appreciated but will also make them get more than what they anticipated. Failure to provide clients with products and services that suit their specifications will cause them to seek the same elsewhere (Kitchen & Pelsmacker 2004). In addition, customer care representatives should ensure that clients perceive the o rganization to be what it claims to be. They should inquire from the clients about the nature of services and products they expect to get from the company and also ask them to suggest what they would like to be included in the products and services in order to satisfy their needs. The customer service policy should state the objectives of the customer service. The customer care should offer excellent services to their clients and respond to their requests promptly (Barry 2007). The policy should offer an opportunity for training the customer care representatives and define the approach for rewarding them based on the effort they put to serve the clients.  

Trade unions should...have rights which empower them and their Essay

Trade unions should...have rights which empower them and their members. These rights should be clear and unequivocal, and they s - Essay Example Historically, there have been minimal official restrictions on freedom of association in the United Kingdom, even though there have been several, created by a variety of issues (Keith 2008). Mostly, and definitely in the recent decade, the primary concern is related to limitations on trade unions with regard to which several statutory limitations and other restrictions have been implemented (Wrigley 2002). These actions have raised several communications and grievances to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the administrative units of which have had opportunity to discover that the legal code under consideration fails international labour standards (Servais 2008). This subject matter is specifically related to the perspective of the International Covenant’s Article 22 taking into consideration the fact that the essence of these mechanisms is identified by paragraph 3, as this essay will discuss, the exact implication of this prerequisite is quite indefinite. As stated by Keith Ewing and Carolyn Jones (2006): â€Å"Trade unions should... have rights which empower them and their members. These rights should be clear and unequivocal, and they should properly equip trade unions... to act within the boundaries of international labour standards to protect the interests of their members. This means a right to organise, a right to bargain and a right to strike in a new legal settlement for British trade unions...(p. 35)† In view of this statement, this essay will critically analyse the industrial relations law in the United Kingdom. It will provide a brief historical discussion of the law relating to freedom of association and the right to strike and will identify which aspects of UK industrial relations law fail to meet international standards. The Right to Freedom of Association As stated in Article 22(1) (Jayawickrama 2003): Everyone shall have the right to freedom of association with others, including the right to form and join trade unions f or the protection of his interests (p. 735). What is quite ambiguous is the degree to which Article 22 safeguards the movement of individuals who are in association with others. A major problem, stressed by the constitutional courts on the one hand and European Court of Human Rights’ covenant on the other, is whether securities resembling those in Article 22(1) are valid only to safeguard the right to freedom of association, or whether they act further by safeguarding the freedom to act in association with others to advocate the fundamental objectives of the association under consideration (Blanpain 2010). The mechanism in constitutional and international law, by and large, has been to espouse the earlier, much restricted, and much less radical context of interpretation (Keith 2008). As stated by Lecher and Platzer (1997), it is the perspective of the Human Rights Committee as well. Taking into consideration the quite narrow statute it is challenging to determine with any lev el of accuracy whether and to what degree UK law and practice meet Article 22(1). Nevertheless, there are three primary concerns which emerge for analysis: (1) the right to join an association; (2) right of the association to manage its internal activities; and (3) the right of the asso