Nike, Operational Strategy Essay

An example of an operational strategy I found was within the Nike organization. Nike was created in 1972, by co-founder Bill Bowerman & his University of Oregon runner Phil Knight. Together, with the people they hired, the company was able to grow and expand from a U. S. based footwear distributor to a global marketer of athletic footwear, apparel & equipment that is unrivaled in the world today (www. nikeinc. com).

Operations strategy is the development of a long term plan for using the major resources of the firm for a high degree of compatibility between these resources & the firm’s long term corporate strategy (Schroeder & Rungusanatham, 2011).

On May 5, 2010 Nike unveiled one of its strategies & key initiatives to achieve sustainable, long term growth across its global portfolio of brands & businesses (www. nikemedia. com) their plan consists of a revenue target of 27 billion by the end of 2015 and over 12 billion of free cash flow from operations through 2015.

Nike  also uses an outsourcing strategy, where they have subcontractors scattered throughout the globe.

The cross functional decisions associated with a company of this magnitude is enormous & would involve a multitude of people and departments. Nike main cross functional decision making process involved that of Dennis Dwyer, Senior Manager Footwear Division; Vice President & CFO, Donald W. Blair; President, Mark G. Parker; Divisional V. P. & General Manager, Craig Zanon; V. P. of New Business Development, Clare L. Hamill; GM, Kirk Richardson and Director of Communications, Jack Gould (www. ifestagingblog. com).

There are two types of strategies involved with the supply chain strategy and they are imitative and innovative (Schroeder & Rungusanatham, 2011). Imitative strategies generally relies on following or imitating other companies, while having predictable demand, are efficient and have a low cost supply chain. The Innovative strategy is different from other companies but may still have a sort of “sameness” imitation, whereas there is unpredictable demand, are flexible and have a fast supply chain.