Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Nike As A Manufacturing Company

Nike is one of the biggest Manufacturing Company’s. Nike currently enjoys a 47% market share of the domestic footwear industry, with sales of $3.77 billion. Nike has been manufacturing throughout the Asian region for over twenty-five years, and there are over 500,000 people today directly engaged in the production of their products. They utilize an outsourcing strategy, using only subcontractors throughout the globe. Their majority of their output today is produced in factories in China , Indonesia , and Vietnam , but they also have factories in Italy , the Philippines , Taiwan , and South Korea . These factories are 100% owned by subcontractors, with the majority of their output consisting solely of Nike products. However, Nike does employ teams of four expatriates per each of the big three countries ( China , Indonesia , Vietnam ), that focus on both quality of product and quality of working conditions, visiting the factories weekly. They also developed their code of conduct in 1992 and have implemented it across the globe, as its goal is to set the standard for subcontractors to follow if they wish to do business with Nike. However, due to a manufacturing network of this magnitude, they have faced numerous violations involving factory conditions and human rights issues, which have been widely publicized. They have responded to these issues through the Andrew Young report, the Dartmouth Study, and Ernst & Young’s continual monitoring, but are still approximately two years away from completely addressing these problems throughout the globe.

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