Strategic proposal

Recommended decision
Nike would like to increase its revenues by 10 billion in one year. This paper is an
analysis of the strategies that Nike can use to grow its strategies. Nike is a major player in the
sports apparel industry, and this paper considers this niche as the one that Nike should
consolidate efforts to generate revenues. In a highly competitive and fast-moving technological
world, Nike needs to develop strategies that set it apart from its competitor. The recommended
strategy, therefore, is to use to leverage new technology to create efficiency in operations and
influence key performance areas. Support for a decision has been provided through an analysis
of the literature review. A critique of options has been provided, and the major disadvantages of
the recommended strategies have been provided.
Decision criteria
The 5 reasons selected for decision criteria are the following:
 The existence of technological infrastructure to implement the strategy.
 Applicability of technology in multiple business processes
 Recent developments in technology.
 Technology and corporate social responsibility.
Existence of infrastructure
Nike has made significant investments in technology (Angeles 2014). The recommended
strategy is the use of technology to streamline operations and develop a competitive advantage.
Many corporations the size of Nike use big data solutions to increase efficiency, reduce risks,

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develop marketing strategies, analyze customer metrics, streamline the supply chain and make
strategic workforce and talent management decisions.
Applicability of technology in business processes
Secondly, the use of technology is applicable in all areas of business operations (Zhu et
al., 2012). Technology is applicable in manufacturing to identify efficiently and control direct
and indirect overheads. In the supply chain, technology is applicable to ensure continuity of
activities in the supply chain to create utility for the customers. In marketing, technology is used
to collect market data, market segmentation, and predict changes in customer preferences.
Technology is used in human resource management for staffing, performance management, and
employee development.
Technological development
The use of technology is further supported by technological advancements such as the
Internet of Things (IoT), cloud computing, and artificial intelligence (Gill et al., 2019). Such
advancements make it easy for Nike to collect, analyze, store, process, and retrieve data as and
when needed. Such advancements also ensure that Nike provides integrity and security to ensure
no downtime and minimal operational interruptions. The development of 5G internet speeds
enables Nike systems to share real-time data.
Technology and CSR
This paper also considers the impact of technology on Corporate Social Responsibility
CSR initiatives (Bernal-Conesa et al., 2017). This decision is supported by the idea that profits
and CSR cannot be separated. Organizations grow revenues by investing in their customers,
employees, suppliers, and the environment it operates. The strategy has been considered in the

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context of the COVID-19 pandemic, which continues to pose unique challenges and
uncertainties to global business operations.
Proof of recommendation
One of Nike’s notable competitors is Adidas. Adidas has leveraged technology to create
performance material specific to athlete data (F2F,2020). This technology considers the athlete’s
unique features, such as foot anatomy and movement. This is an example of how technology
applies to achieving a highly specialized product and creating a competitive advantage. This
innovation is the first of its kind that uses athlete-specific data.
Nike’s use of technology will allow it to achieve better customer place and time utility. In
the delivery of products, Nike can integrate technology to actualize e-commerce. Nike has
specialized in Nike stores as their primary retail method through their e-commerce platform has
little activity. Amazon is a global retailer that has created a niche in the market by delivering
products to customers promptly. This has been made possible by using drones and unmanned
aerial vehicles (UAV) (Jung et al., 2017). Nike can use such technologies to provide more
options where customers can shop for products available in the most convenient Nike store, and
drones or UAVs can deliver the products to the most convenient point to the customer.
Nike is already an industry leader in recycled material, sustainability, and environmental
responsibility. Therefore, Nike needs to market its sustainability products better to ensure that
information is out there. For example, Nike Flyknit and Flyleather use 50% recycled fabrics and
recycled plastic bottles to reduce climate change impact (Nike News, 2018). Nike can benefit
from marketing its initiatives in upcoming events such as the World Cup, scheduled in Qatar in
December of 2022.

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Critique of options
One of the options considered was to focus on social media marketing. Social media
marketing is a reasonable consideration because it is relatively easy to implement and requires
few resources. However, this option was disregarded as a primary strategy because Nike already
has a significant online presence. Additionally, it is more prudent to focus on leveraging
technology to create a product that will market itself through the organization’s normal social
media activities.
Another option was the implementation of integrated marketing communications (IMC).
IMCs are implemented when organizations indulge in primary communication tools such as sales
promotions, public relations, internet marketing, direct marketing, and advertising. The major
disadvantage of this strategy is that it is expensive to implement, especially for an organization
with a global outlook such as Nike (Skiltere et al., 2018). Additionally, determining key
performance indicators and measuring Return on Investment can be challenging. IMC can create
information overload for the intended target, and the IMC may not effectively achieve the task of
driving up revenues.
Significant disadvantages of the recommendation
Nike operates in a hypercompetitive environment (Purkayastha & Dao 2014). Some of
the notable competitors for Nike in the sports industry are Adidas, Puma, Joma, Under Armour,
Asics, and New Balance. One feature of a hypercompetitive environment is that firms may
achieve a competitive advantage; it is often short-lived as competitors come up with new
strategies to dilute each other’s competitive advantage.

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The strategy is heavily reliant on technology which provides the unique challenge of
durability. While the technology itself provides benefits in monumental proportions, it requires
constant upgrades. Without such upgrades, the technology could become obsolete and not help
Nike achieve its intended goals. Considering the above disadvantages, Nike can benefit more
from implementing the strategy than not implementing it.
Strategic Implementation

Action plan
This section comprises the specific resources and activities that Nike can perform to
implement the strategy. The strategy will be implemented by the research and development
department. Over the years, Nike has increased its budgetary allocation to research and
development to remain competitive. The research and development will be instrumental in
developing models for collecting data recommending technologies for analyzing the data. The
data collected will be customer demographics such as their age, gender, and history of purchases.
This will be enabled through the Nike app. This data will guide Nike in determining customer
preferences. R&D will also recommend the most modern cloud computing technologies to store
and retrieve the collected data. This is expected to take at least 3 months.
The research and development team will be required to analyze Nike’s business processes
in relation to the data collected and determine inefficiencies. IBM provides significant data
analytics software. The process of collecting and analyzing data is expected to be implemented
continuously. The short-term goals will be to provide data on the current systems to evaluate
how they can be improved to increase efficiency, reduce costs and increase innovation for
customer satisfaction. In the long term, this data model will ensure data shareability across all

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Nike systems to achieve a seamless, autonomous process from sourcing materials to delivering
the final product to the customer (Ghaderi 2018). Through this model, Nike hopes to achieve a
system that can achieve traceability of the product across all levels. For instance, Nike should
determine every single unit of Flyknit shoe they have sold and, from the source of raw materials,
manufacturing process, all costs involved (direct and indirect), advertising, sale, and delivery
method.
Major risks and responses
After 12 months, all Nike staff, regardless of their department, should be able to simulate
the process using other data and visualize the whole process. The strategy is heavily dependent
on technology and cloud computing and is therefore susceptible to attacks by cybercriminals
(Corallo et al., 2020). To mitigate against this risk, Nike will invest in cybersecurity and
firewalls. In addition, Nike will invest in cloud storage which provides more security than
physical servers and data centers.
The strategy is further dependent on autonomy and real-time data sharing. Another risk
with this is downtime. Nike will ensure that it runs a backup system set up concurrent to the
other system to provide a fallback plan in case of downtime. This will ensure the system’s
resilience and reduce the time it would usually take for recovery.

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References

Angeles, R. (2014). Using the technology-organization-environment framework for analyzing
Nike’s Considered Index green initiative, a decision support system-driven system. J.
Mgmt. & Sustainability, 4, 96.
Bernal-Conesa, J. A., de Nieves Nieto, C., & Briones-Peñalver, A. J. (2017). CSR Strategy in
Technology Companies: Its Influence on Performance, Competitiveness and
Sustainability. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, 24(2),
96–107. https://doi.org/10.1002/csr.1393
Corallo, A., Lazoi, M., & Lezzi, M. (2020). Cybersecurity in the context of industry 4.0: A
structured classification of critical assets and business impacts. Computers in Industry,
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Fibre2Fashion (F2F). (2020, October 20). Adidas develops new technology that uses athlete data.
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Jung, Sunghun, & Kim Hyunsu. (2017). Analysis of Amazon Prime Air UAV Delivery Service.
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