The apparel industry has been busy with a brand that is familiar to us, Nike. Nike's presence in fact made the apparel industry competition map increasingly heated because Nike managed to become a sponsor of several world-level sports clubs. Not only that, Nike is even said to have succeeded in becoming a sports support device throughout the world.
Behind the success of Nike's name, in fact, was inseparable from the hard work of developing a brand that is famous for the Air Max series shoes. One of the most credible people behind Nike's big name is Phil Knight who is none other than the owner of the Nike brand. Nike's success throughout the world made Phil one of the richest people in America.
For those of you who want to know more about how Phil developed the Nike brand, our article this time will discuss further. Here's the full review:
Beginning of Establishing Nike
The idea of establishing the Nike brand was originally not from Phil Knight but from his colleague who worked as a coach at Freshman Football at Stanford University, namely Bill. Seeing a pretty good business prospect made Phil agree to the invitation and start making business concepts.One of the interesting things from the founding of this Nike brand is that its founders still have their own expertise where one has the ability in the field of business and the other understands the target market that this brand is aiming for, namely the sports sector. Collaboration of both makes the establishment of this business increasingly has considerable potential in controlling the market.
Nike's initial name was not Nike like what we currently know, but Blue Ribbon Sport. The main purpose of establishing this sport shoes business is to present sports shoes for athletic fields with good quality but still offer prices that are relatively cheaper than shoes on the market.
Initially the athletic shoes market has been dominated by German brands. Even though it has good quality, in fact the price is quite high at the time so that not many people can enjoy the product.
Responding to the challenge, Bill imported sports shoes from Japan where he is currently cooperating with Japanese Onitsuke Tiger (Asics) to present quality sports shoes but at affordable prices for American consumers.
Business Becomes Evolving and Getting Known to American Society
The presence of the Blue Ribbon Sport in fact was able to attract a lot of attention from American consumers. This is because Phil was able to produce experiments by creating innovative products mainly from the side of anti-mainstream design.The high public interest in products issued by the Blue Ribbon can be seen from its official retail store which opened in the Pico Boulevard area, Santa Monica, California. Interestingly this store is the forerunner to the birth of the Nike brand that we currently know.
The Blue Ribbon Sport business trip is getting bigger when working with an entrepreneur named Jeff Johnson. The collaboration succeeded in producing sports shoes with the name "Cortez" training shoe. Again, this one brand reaps success with the marking of this product on the American market.
Do not stop there, Phil again developed a product with a waffle patterned soles that eventually was widely applied in modern shoes today. Until now, the waffle outsole has produced several well-known series, namely Waffle Racer, Air Force One, Air Max 93, Air Max 95 and Air Max 97.
Birth of the Nike Brand
The birth of the Nike brand is quite unique where Jess, as one of the founders of Nike, had a dream and told the two founders of Blue Ribbon Sport. Jeff asked to change the name of the Blue Ribbon Sport to Nike and present a simple logo with the slogan "Just Do It".Nike's big name at that time managed to boom after producing special shoes used by US Olympic Trials athletes in Eunege, Oregon. Shoes with the name "Moon Shoes" managed to attract a lot of attention from athletes to the general public. From here Nike has a stepping stone where less than 3 years the Nike brand is able to control 50% market share in America.
Not stopped there, Nike expanded its wings by expanding to several countries in Asia and Europe. The expansion turned out to be warmly welcomed by the customer to finally put Nike into a shoe brand that was quite successful in its time.
Nike Brand Travel in Asia
Original Nike shoe manufacturing failed when it was made in the United States until finally Nike made shoes made in Asia where it was originally made in Japan and then moved to South Korea and Taiwan and recently Nike products were made in China and Southeast Asia.The Nike brand approach in Asia began in South Korea and Taiwan in 1972 due to the cheap labor there and joined the Adidas and Reebok brands. Thanks to the expanding market interest, Nike finally started a step further. However, instead of having its own factory, Nike was contracted by local producers in Korea and Taiwan.
Because of this, Nike eventually moved its production in China in the 1980s by cooperating with a state-owned company. But unfortunately this big step actually brought disaster when Nike moved its production back to Taiwan because of the much cheaper labor costs.
Had been hampered by economic upheaval
In fact, Nike's journey did not always run smoothly, where at the end of the 1980s there was an upheaval by workers in South Korea which caused an increase in wage rates and a loss of quality control by the Korean government at that time.The steps taken by these workers made many investors flee from the country of ginseng. Seeing this, Nike finally moved production to Southern Thailand and Indonesia to get cheaper and less troublesome labor.
By transferring production to Indonesia and Thailand, Nike has cut a large part of its production costs paid in South Korea. With the establishment of production in the Southeast Asian region this was also followed by the establishment of several associations based in Taiwan in Southeast Asian countries.
Another reason for moving the production of Nike shoes in 1988 from South Korea to Taiwan was the loss of special US market access that had previously been enjoyed as a developing country. Which at that time was still under the General Preference System or known as the United States GPS. Some investors eventually moved to the Southeast Asia region, mainly Thailand, Indonesia and China.
Of the total three suppliers of Nike shoes in 1992, three of them are companies that taste from Taiwan that have production in China and the rest operate in South Korea, and Indonesia.
Nike developments in Indonesia
The production of Nike shoes has been operating since 1988 where almost one third of Nike's total collection was produced in Indonesia. Tony Band, the coordinator of the Nike Indonesia brand, explained that at his press conference in November 1994, there were 11 contractors. 11 of them are companies that were originally associated with Nike South Korea and Taiwan.The production base also produces other brands such as Reebok, Adidas and Puma. Nike and its Indonesian-based contractors also have a fairly close relationship where each employee carries out quality control on the quality of products that are in line with Nike brand standards.
Until now, the Nike shoe production base is spread in several regions in Indonesia, some of which are located in Tangerang and Serang, which are located not too far from Jakarta.
The factories that produce Nike shoes in Indonesia are generally managed by Korea. While middle level managers, to supervisors also come from Korea and Indonesia. While the production comes from Indonesia, mainly female with ages ranging from 16 to 22 years.