OPS 908: Nike Supply Chain Management Case Study Report

This report provides a critical analysis of Nike's supply chain management, examining its performance and operational strategies. The paper begins with a company background, highlighting Nike's position in the sporting industry and its diverse product offerings. The core of the report focuses on analyzing Nike's supply chain, differentiating between upstream and downstream operations, and assessing the company's performance. It explores the upstream supply chain, encompassing production and material sourcing, and the downstream supply chain, which includes distribution and customer engagement. The report investigates activity integration, particularly inventory management, and the use of ERP solutions to improve efficiency. The analysis highlights the importance of effective supply chain management for Nike's success and provides recommendations for further optimization, such as leveraging ERP for enhanced information exchange. The report concludes by emphasizing the significance of a well-managed supply chain in sustaining Nike's operations and meeting customer expectations. The study also highlights the importance of supply chain management in ensuring the smooth logistics of the company.

Running head: SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT
Supply Chain Management
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Notes.

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Company Background................................................................................................................2
Supply Chain Management Performance Analysis of Nike......................................................3
Upstream supply chain...........................................................................................................4
Downstream supply chain......................................................................................................5
Activity integration at Nike....................................................................................................6
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES...........................................................................................................................8

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Introduction
There a various functional department that help in sustaining the operations of a
company. Functional departments such as Marketing, Human Resources, Financial
Management, Operations management and Supply chain management help in sustaining the
activities that are carried out by a company (Lambert and Enz, 2017). All functional
departments might not be always present in a company, however, regardless of the fact that
whether a company is product of service or experience based, huge importance must be
invested in the supply chain management of a company. Nike has been recognized as
company that offers sporting products throughout the word (Sokolowski 2019). Apart from
various factors that have contributed to the success of the company. The effectiveness of the
supply chain is deemed to be the factor that is responsible for the success of the company.
The aim of the paper is the is to critically evaluate the scope of operation of Nike in terms of
the supply chain management. The paper will critically evaluate the upstream and
downstream of supply chain management of the process.
Company Background
Nike is a company that has been recognized for the position that they have in the
sporting industry (Vos 2019). The company offers a range of sporting products such as shoes,
apparel, gear and sporting equipment. The company was founded in 1964 by Bill Bowerman
and Phil Knight (Knight 2016). The company that is head quartered in Beaverton; United
States has been bale to develop a business model with the help of which it has been able to
gain an international stature (Cattoglio et al. 2019). The company is effectively positioned in
the market as a provider or top-quality products that are of utmost quality. Not only in terms
of production, but in accordance with the nature of relationships that the company has been

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able to develop in the market, they have been able to secure a top position in the sports
accessories, apparel and the sports equipment’s industry.
Supply Chain Management Performance Analysis of Nike
Being a brand with a strong brand image, Nike has been able to develop a well
managed system that is characterized by effective distribution. As a result of the same, the
company has been able to gain favorable notions from the consumers across different
markets. At Nike, innovation is a mainstay, as a result of this they have been able to develop
a diverse range of products (Rindfleischet et al. 2020). With rising competitors the company
has been able to increase the awareness in terms of effective management of the supply chain
as the latter has been recognized as the activity that determines the effectiveness of the
company in management of operational activities such as supply of diverse range of products
in the markets that they are operating in. Furthermore, the company has realized importance
in management of the supply chain as that would help the company in ensuring smooth
logistics which would further ensure that the company is able to gain effectiveness in meeting
the new age customer expectations, providing enough supply to satiate the demands that
exists in the market.
Supply chain refers to a network of suppliers, manufacturers, distribution partners and
logistics partners (Korpela, Hallikas and Dahlberg 2017). The latter parties assimilate or
integrate their efforts in order to ensure that the company they are associated to is able to
deliver or transfer ownership of the products to the end users. The integration of efforts of all
the members of the supply chain is important to sustain the operations of a company in a
business environment that is deemed to be challenging in nature (Korpela, Hallikas and
Dahlberg 2017). Hence, importance must be realized in the effective and efficient
management of operations of the company in terms of operations of the company in terms of

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transferring the goods to the end users of the company. In company as large scale as Nike,
factors such as precision in delivery determines the effectiveness of the company in terms of
multi-production and multi jurisdiction. This offers the company a chance to reduce the stock
holdings, reduction of the price margins and minimization of the markdown prices. If the
latter activities are ensured, it can be said that that the company can effectively satiate the
needs of the customers with the help of delivery in the right time.
Figure: Nike Supply Chain
Upstream supply chain
The business supply chains can be classified into upstream postdocs of the supply
chain and the downstream persons of the supply chain. The activities in the upstream of the
supply chain determine the factors by complaint with which the company can gain
effectiveness in developing strategies with the help of which the transfer materials upstream
or for the purpose of manufacturing (Dubey et al. 2017). It involves consideration of factors
such as where the products should be produced, whether there are materials for production,

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whether the company had enough captivity to produce in order to meet demands (Dubey et
al. 2017). Also, factors such as the delivery time, determination of the cost price of the
products and destination is the delivery address determined in the stage.
Nike operates in 40 countries worldwide and has approximately 525 factories along
with uncountable distribution or retail units (Knight 2016). Even though there exist so many
manufacturing units owned by the company, the company has not developed manufacturing
facilities for the footwear and apparel songs of the brand. Regardless of this, 96% of the
revenue earned by the band as a whole is contributed by the footwear and apparel wing of the
company (Sokolowski 2019). importance must be realized in the effective and efficient
management of operations of the company in terms of operations of the company in terms of
transferring the goods to the end users of the company (Knight 2016). As a result of the same,
the company has been able to achieve a state in which the company experiences an effective
cost advantage. The advantage that is experienced by the company is due to the effective
strategy that has been adopted by the company. The rare materials that are used for
production are sourced from domestic market in which the contacted manufacturer is
established in. Thus, implies that that there would be efficiency in production and it also
implies that the company would need to comply with the production requirements by not
having to depend on one supplier or manufacturer.
Downstream supply chain
While upstream incomes the development of the products, downstream is concerned
with transfer of ownership of the products to the customers (Salmani, Partovi and Banerjee,
2018). It concerns with activities such as decision that involve the transfer of ownership from
the company to the customer, the number of locations in which the goods will be offered,
three warehousing facilities and the medium though which the products aim be offered to the
end users or customers.

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Nike carries our licensing agreements with various manufacturers who are smaller to
sell products based on the licensing operations (Bengale and Jadhav 2017). The nature of
products and services that are offered by the company area trademarks owned by the
company, digital services, sporting equipment and apparel. There are six primary distribution
centers owned by the company in the United States (Sokolowski 2019). The production units
that are not owned by Nike carry out production on the behalf of the company. Licensing is a
strategy that has been used by the company with the help of which the company can earn
royalties (Bengale and Jadhav 2017). It is a strategy with the help of which the exposure
quotient of the company can be highlighted, thus, increasing the chances of conversion of
prospective consumers to actual customers. Furthermore, Nike has introduced operations
such as Nike direct, such is a measure with the help of which the company eliminated from
the middle of the process of the transactions, hence, minimizing the lead times and increasing
the margins. Nike has established exclusive retail outlets and direct digital services. It is with
the help of the same that the company offers its products and services downstream.
Activity integration at Nike
Inventory management refers to the effective management of the stick inflow and
outflow of the company (Zhu et al. 2017). It is with them help of effective inventory
management that consists can reduce the lead times during the manufacturing facilities and
the sorting facilities and others. Thus, these are issues with the help of which the companies
are able to increase the efficiency of the lead time between demand for products and offering
the same to the consumers (Zhu et al. 2017). At Nike, booking or orders are taken without
taking into consideration, the lead times. Furthermore, the long lead times between the
Operations of the supply chain of the company minimizes the capability of the company to
maximize the efficiency with which the products are offered to by the company (Ebrahimi
and Hosseini 2018). Thus, being able to mitigate the issues in management of the inventories

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of the company can help in ensuring effectiveness of the company. The company can use
solutions such as ERP or Enterprise Resources Planning in order to establish clarity in
information interchange between supply chain members, thus providing prospective solutions
to the high lead times.
Conclusion
On a concluding note it can be said, Nike is a company that has been recognized as a
company that offers a range of sporting products such as shoes, apparel, gear and sporting
equipment. Nike is effectively positioned in the market as a provider or top-quality products
that are of utmost quality. Nike has been able to develop a well-managed system that is
characterized by effective distribution and innovation is a mainstay, as a result of this they
have been able to develop a diverse range of products. The importance must be realized in the
effective and efficient management of operations of the company in terms of operations of
the company in terms of transferring the goods to the end users of the company. importance
must be realized in the effective and efficient management of operations of the company in
terms of operations of the company in terms of transferring the goods to the end users. There
are six primary distribution centers owned by the company in the United States. The
production units that are not owned by Nike carry out production on the behalf of the
company. The licensing is a strategy that has been used by the company with the help of
which the company can earn royalties. It has been recommended that the company can use
solutions such as ERP or Enterprise Resources Planning in order to establish clarity in
information interchange between supply chain members, thus providing prospective solutions
to the high lead times that minimize the capability of the company to maximize the
efficiency.

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REFERENCES
Baumgartner, R.J., Damert, M., Fritz, M.M.C. and Schöggl, J.P., 2017. IP Sustainability in
Global Supply Chains.
Bengale, G.K. and Jadhav, T.D., 2017. PROSPECTS MORE THAN PROBLEMS FOR
ENTERING OF THE FDI IN INDIAN RETAIL SECTOR-A STUDY. International
Research Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies, 3(6).
Cattoglio, C., Pustova, I., Walther, N., Ho, J.J., Hantsche-Grininger, M., Inouye, C.J.,
Hossain, M.J., Dailey, G.M., Ellenberg, J., Darzacq, X. and Tjian, R., 2019. Determining
cellular CTCF and cohesin abundances to constrain 3D genome models. Elife, 8, p.e40164.
Dubey, R., Gunasekaran, A., Childe, S.J., Papadopoulos, T., Luo, Z. and Roubaud, D., 2017.
Upstream supply chain visibility and complexity effect on focal company’s sustainable
performance: Indian manufacturers’ perspective. Annals of Operations Research, pp.1-25.
Ebrahimi, S. and Hosseini-Motlagh, S.M., 2018. Coordination of a green supply chain with
one manufacturer and two duopolistic retailers through an environmental and social cost
sharing contract. Journal of Industrial and Systems Engineering, 11(Special issue on game
theory applications' in industrial engineering), pp.108-126.
Knight, P., 2016. Shoe dog: A memoir by the creator of Nike. Simon and Schuster.
Korpela, K., Hallikas, J. and Dahlberg, T., 2017, January. Digital supply chain transformation
toward blockchain integration. In proceedings of the 50th Hawaii international conference
on system sciences.
Lambert, D.M. and Enz, M.G., 2017. Issues in supply chain management: Progress and
potential. Industrial Marketing Management, 62, pp.1-16.

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Rindfleisch, A., Mehta, R., Sachdev, V. and Danienta, N., 2020. Innovation research themes
for our changing environment: insights from the 2019 PDMA doctoral consortium. Journal
of Product Innovation Management, 37(2), pp.126-137.
Salmani, Y., Partovi, F.Y. and Banerjee, A., 2018. Customer-driven investment decisions in
existing multiple sales channels: A downstream supply chain analysis. International Journal
of Production Economics, 204, pp.44-58.
Sokolowski, S.L., 2019. Sports Industry Meets Academia: The Pedagogical Development of
an Ms Degree Program in Sports Product Design. Technology & Innovation, 20(3), pp.165-
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Vos, M.S., 2019. Competing in Cedar: Nike, Superstar Athletes, and the Unseen Strangers
Who Make our Shoes. Journal of Sociology and Christianity, 9(2), pp.7-28.
Zhu, C., Zhu, Q., Liu, S. and Luo, G., 2017. Quality Evaluation of Air Material Inventory
Management Based on Extenics Theory.