Potential Approaches to Change and Life Cycle Stage of Nike

Nike Case Study

Nike are undergoing change, after initial difficulties adapting to a changing environment, a strategy of acquisition, combined with decentralisation was implemented, facilitating specialised focus on different product lines. However, there is still the potential to increase the overall level of efficiency within the companies design processes.

One approach may be the development of an intrepreneurship, a model that supports innovation and development associated with entrepreneurial processes in large organisations (Cowles, 2013). Within this approach, not only would there be the division of the various researchers, there will also be placed in divisions with the aim of emulating small organisations where entrepreneurial stretch would be required. The aim of this is to increase original thought and innovation stimulated by their environment (Cowles, 2013).

The organisation could also adopt a Blue Ocean Strategy. This the company would need to examine the current marketplace, and identify markets which are currently not served (Kim & Mauborgne, 2015), this may be geographical sectors, but can also be consumer sectors. By identifying new markets, the organisation could gain a first mover advantage, which is a significant source of differentiation are able to leveraged advantage (Porter, 2014), as well as benefit from a market where there is no effective competition. With a wide range of different specialised shoes are ready on the market, the organisation may look for new gaps in the market which have not yet been satisfied.

The organisation could also implement strategies such as the use of brainstorming, mind mapping, or the utilisation of systematic inventive thinking, all of which provide a framework to support creative thinking, allowing the organisation to come up with new ideas for new products and markets (Mintzberg, Ahlstrand, & Lampel, 2008), which may support both intra-pollution, as well as the Blue Ocean strategy.

Question 2

Within a traditional organisational life cycle the company will go through five stages, these are birth, growth, maturity, decline, and death (Mintzberg et al., 2008). Nike appears to be at the maturity stage, the history indicates the birth was in 1964, as Blue Ribbon Sports, adopting the name Nike Inc. in 1971 (O'Reilly, 2014). The growth stage is where the organisation undertakes rapid growth, whereas maturity is seen where the organisation has become established, there is a relatively stable level of sales, with little internal conflict, in a market that is customer driven due to the majority of the products (Mintzberg et al., 2008). Decline is seen following maturity stage, and occurs when the organisation sees a decrease in sales, possibly the result of a myopic approach towards marketing the belief the company knows best, resulting in a lack of attention being paid to changes in the marketplace (Mintzberg et al., 2008). The space between maturity and decline is a danger zone, as organisations and maturity will naturally move towards decline, and need to continually refresh their strategies in order to maintain market share, and key pressures. If decline is not prevented, the organisation moves towards death. Nike are currently at the maturity stage, they moved towards decline as the market change, but have now moved back to the maturity stage as a result of the refreshments that have been undertaken to the strategy.