FREE ESSAY ON NIKE WEB PAGE

NIKE WEB PAGE

Companies and other organizations use internet/web sites for different purposes. In
general, a web site provides an interface while the Internet provides cost-effective
communication capabilities. For this project assignment, the Nike Corporation was chosen
and will be dissected for information technology analysis. The Nike Corporation is
engaged in the design, development, and worldwide marketing of high quality footwear,
apparel, equipment, and accessory products. It is the largest seller of athletic footwear
and athletic apparel in the world. The web site that will be examined will be that of
www.nike.com. This analysis will be construed into five separate sections that are
chronologically as follows: Company Information, Web Site Description, Web Site Analysis,
Completing A System, Web Site/Internet Expansion. 
Company Information:
Searching and finding company information on the web-site was quite easy and user
friendly (as will be discussed later). Nike's mission statement reads as follows: "Nike's
mission for corporate responsibility is to lead in corporate citizenship through programs
that reflect caring for the world family of Nike, our teammates, our consumers, and those
who provide services to Nike." Nike has more than 500 contract factories around the world
in about 45 countries. Their factories are spread across Europe, Asia, North, Central,
and South America, and just recently, Australia. In fact, this area of the web site goes
into very thorough detail as Nike deliberates on what exactly it is doing to further
achieve its mission statement up to the current day. They address current problems such
as age limits in factories, environmental health and safety, independent monitoring,
education, research, and community affairs and discuss the new changes that they have
implemented to further achieve their mission statement and please all of their current
and potential customers. 
Although outside information besides the company's web site was used to obtain financial
records and reports, it was discovered that the web site also had an annual report,
earnings releases, historical revenue, live stock quotes, and dividend and stock
information (which is another plus for the web site that will be discussed later on).
Nike is in the Textile-Apparel/Footwear/Accessories Industry. As far as size, customer,
and market are concerned, the 1999 and 2000 fiscal statistics need only to be glanced at
and discussed in order to comprehend all of those subtitles. Nike Corporation had total
revenues at about roughly 9 billion dollars last year worldwide. It did not exactly state
how many customers actually purchased Nike products last year but considering that
enormous revenue, it probably was a significantly large number of customers. That's a
considerable amount of money considering they lost their prime endorsee, Michael Jordan,
to retirement. The NBA was forced to shorten its season due to labor disputes, which also
greatly affected sales. That information was also available courtesy of the web site and
was located under their fiscal year in review. To further put into context the size and
power of Nike Corp., one only need look at Market Cap comparisons on the NYSE (New York
Stock Exchange). Market Cap is approximately what a company is worth to investors in the
stock market. It is determined by multiplying the number of common shares outstanding by
the price per share of that company. The Market Cap for Nike in million dollar increments
was approximately $10, 664.63. They dwarfed most of their competition from their industry
in this area. Their nearest competitor was Gucci Group, Inc. which was about one-half
million below them. The rest of their industry competition was not even close. They
embarrassed such well-known competitors as Timberland, Reebok, Kenneth Cole, Justin
Industries, Sketchers, Wolverine, and Velcro (to name a few). Another interesting tidbit
that was provided by means of their fiscal report on their web site was their total
shareholder returns data. This basically stated that one hundred dollars invested in Nike
Corporation ten years ago would have been worth $1, 432 dollars on May 31 of this year.
That completely usurped that of the S&P (Standard and Poor's) 500, which would have been
only worth a measly $527 on the same date. After reviewing all of this financial
information that was provided by the web site, it was easily determined just in fact how
large the Nike Corporation actually is. 
Web Site Description:
In a brief description of this web site, the primary purpose of this web site is that of
electronic commerce. Electronic commerce is the process of buying and selling goods and
services electronically involving transactions using the Internet, networks, and other
digital technologies. As the web site puts it, "This site offers you the chance to get
direct delivery of the world's best sports and fitness products through nike.com or help
you find your local Nike dealer through our Store Locator. In that essence, Nike nicely
performs the art of disintermediation, as the text refers to it. Disintermediation is the
removal of organizations or business process layers responsible for certain intermediary
steps in the value chain. In other words, through their web site they have eliminated the
middleman (wholesaler or retailer) from consumer purchase and further made newer shoes
available earlier which in turn has increased customer compliance and satisfaction and in
turn increased sales. That is another positive point for their web site since it is
significantly accomplishing its goal of electronic commerce. They further follow up that
statement with the following: "Either way, you will experience the superior design and
performance of Nike products. 
Besides its primary purpose, there are other features that are interesting to the web
site. They do have a retailer locator as mentioned previously. They have additional sites
such as sport sites (football, soccer, etc.) for footwear, apparel, and accessories to be
bought at. They have a product finder where their web site will locate any product that
the possible consumer desires and tell them information such as price, sizes available,
and if and when that particular product is available. There are three very interesting
parts to the web site though. The first is that of nikebiz, or a place to research and
discover all of Nike's business recollections, transactions, and business dealings, past
and present. Nikebiz includes information such as history of the company, important
chronological dates in Nike Corp. history, corporate responsibility news and bylaws,
global community news, environment news, financial reports, and job listings and
overviews for every region that contains Nike factories. The second interesting feature
to the web site is that of the ask nike section. In this area of the web site, someone
online in the nike web site can ask any question and ask nike will do its best to
research and answer the question regarding the any aspect of the company as a whole that
someone may wish to know (very similar to www.askjeeves.com in that area). The final
feature and most interesting and fun part to Nike's web site is that of the area where a
potential consumer can go and personally design their shoes that Nike will not only
develop but ship out to them. This is a giant step in information technology progress as
Nike has encompassed the needs and wants of all consumers. They have not only taken a
giant step in customer compliance but also in customer satisfaction as they have brought
the consumers to the shoes instead of the shoes to the consumer. In other words,
consumers can now pay to be picky and particular with their shoes (in all aspects too
from colors to size to fit to texture, etc.). In the end giant revenues will be reaped
from this information systems decision. 
Web Site Analysis:
In a brief analysis of this web site, one word comes to mind-thorough. It is so suitable
and user friendly to the occasional browser and permanent consumer. There is not much
missing in this web site as it is very in depth (as discussed previously). The web site
even includes financial and historical information about the company, which makes for
extreme convenience when research is taken into consideration. The ask nike and product
finder functions also make for further convenience as the browser doesn't find himself
frustrated looking for particulars. But the customizing of building one's own shoes makes
this web site great. Many consumers just do not like what is offered in the market
sometimes by Nike, yet wish to purchase Nike shoes because of customer loyalty. With this
giant step to incorporate the making and purchasing of one's own shoes, Nike has totally
empowered the consumer in this decision and hence will reap the benefits from significant
increases in revenue and sales. To make it even better and more thorough, Nike has
developed a chat room where people can discuss the ins and outs of custom building shoes
online with employees to make the process that less cumbersome and burdensome. 
Activities Required to Complete the System:
As stated previously, this web site is not missing very much at all when it is placed
under the microscope of analysis. But I do have a possible suggestion that would
potentially complete Nike's initial step of custom building one's own shoe. One
significant problem does arise. If a browser/customer is having several problems
customizing and building the shoe, they have to call a 1-800-number. The problem occurs
that they have to get offline to do so thus negating any progress that they made while
developing their potential shoe. My suggestion to accompany that possible problem is
this, which would, in the end, totally complete Nike's system and succeed in achieving
all of the company's objectives in the process. I believe that they should implement a
means of state of the art or cutting edge technology to accompany the customization of
the shoe as a means of further customer support. I suggest that Nike incorporate the
link, www.zapdata.com to their home web site. There, customers can contact Nike in real
time via text-chat software hosted by www.liveperson.com. Customers who need a question
answered can just click on a text-chat button and the site launches a new window.
Customers can continue to browse Nike while a support rep answers their question(s). Also
with LivePerson, your service reps can push pages to you as a customer. If after asking
the question and still having difficulty finding the information, the representative from
Nike online can simply send you the page with regards to the information that you were
seeking. This might be a costly decision at first for Nike, but I guarantee, in the end,
they will increase sales even further because they paid for the efficiency early on in
their customization shoe site and further increased customer support and satisfaction. 
Internet/Web Site Expansion:
Lastly, Nike can expand their web site with additional activities to make the web site
not only more appeasing and interesting but also increase business from the web site in
the process. Nike Corporation prides itself on the sale of sports/athletic apparel,
footwear, and accessories. Also, Nike's image has been pushed to the consumer by means of
such great athletes as Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, Barry Sanders, Kobe Bryant, and Ken
Griffey, Jr. Since Nike is incorporating the idea of sports towards its athletic apparel,
footwear, and accessories, it only makes sense to me that they should use their web site
to further enhance the customers' ideas and perspectives of sports' athletes with Nike
gear. I suggest that they incorporate two additional activities into their web site to
increase customer satisfaction and in the end to increase the number of customers that
would actually buy directly from the web site. First, I believe that they should place a
constant sports ticker on the web page so that consumers can see how their favorite teams
are doing while they are potentially shopping at the web site. This convenience and
interesting "side dish" will definitely increase sales as the consumer has sports to
reflect upon while buying Nike gear. Lastly, I believe that they should place additional
links on their web site to particular places like www.espn.go.com or www.cnnsi.com that
stress sports at the core. The addition of several of these "sports" web sites will
increase the number of hits by people per day and in the end will increase the number of
new customers to Nike Corporation as they will have completely incorporated the image of
sports going hand in hand with Nike apparel, footwear, and accessories and in the end
further pleased and increased their consumer base.