Nine Driving Forces Behind Nike's Innovation

When the American business circles worshipped the innovative rules of Peter Deruk's (Peter F. Drucker) professor's painstaking efforts, Nike seemed to be indifferent to it and put on a disdain. Professor Drucker believes that most innovations, especially successful ones, are the result of consciously and purposefully seeking opportunities for innovation. Opportunities exist only in a few cases. There are 4 kinds of innovation opportunities within a company or an industry: one is accidents, two is inconsistency, three is process needs, and four is industry and market changes. In addition, there are 3 other opportunities for innovation in the external, social and intellectual circles of enterprises: first, demographic changes, two is the change of ideas, and three is new knowledge. When Professor Anita Magen, a professor at Boston University's management school, an outstanding Everett.Lord scholar and a senior fellow of the Harvard University's Institute of strategic and competitiveness studies, suggested that Nike was sniffing when the industry changed its trajectory. Because Nike, the world's sporting goods supremacy, is the chief portrayed by the industry. Professor McGahan's theory is of little significance to Nike. Although professor Drucker's innovation rules are more or less the same in the trajectory of Nike's product innovation, Nike seems to be obsessed with Professor Drucker's Innovation Kitchen design studio in the elaboration of innovation rules, so he thinks Drucker is just summarizing Nike's innovation rule. The headquarters of Nike is located in Beaverton, Oregon. The headquarters building is a building called Mia Hamm. The incubator of Nike sports product innovation is located on the first floor of the building. The Nike sports shoes that really made hundreds of millions of dollars in Nike brand value are the legendary stories in this kitchen. For most visitors and even the majority of Nike employees, innovative kitchen is a mysterious virgin land. Because the design studio is filled with thousands of new sports shoes, sportswear and other design sketches, which is a sharp weapon for Nike in the sports market. Although Nike is famous for its rebellious spirit, it does not turn a blind eye to all academic theories. Tom Peters, the master of management, has a clang saying: "Do what you do best and outsource the rest" is what you do best, but it is regarded as the golden rule by Nike, and has been pursued so far. As we all know, the dumbbell type enterprise structure adopted by Nike, one end of dumbbell is product research and development innovation, the other end is brand integrated marketing, and the middle slender part is the production of products. This structure is dubbed the devil figure of beautiful woman in China. Here, this article will focus on exploring all kinds of power sources of Nike from its establishment to product development and technological innovation, hoping to enlighten Chinese local enterprises in product innovation. As Gary Hamel, a senior researcher at Fortune magazine, analyzed the conclusions of Nike research, such as: taking risks, breaking the rules and making innovations are important reasons for Nike to create miracles. In the process of exploring the power source of Nike's product innovation, the author also found that no rule is the biggest law of Nike's product innovation. First Olympic Games: the Olympic Games were frustrated and worked hard. In 1976 Olympic Games, Nike's two founders, Phil knight and Ballman, were hit by the company's biggest setback in 12 years. The reason is that due to the limited financial strength of the company, the only athlete they have ever strives to take off Nike shoes in the first minute before entering the stadium. When playing the triumphant song on the sports ground, Nike company is filled with unspeakable elegy. Most of the employees, including knight, are depressed and depressed. It is not the end of the day that is doomsday, which engulf the fighting spirit of Nike employees. When the fighting spirit of the staff almost dropped to freezing point, Ballman rose to his feet and made an inspiring speech for all the colleagues of the company in the enterprise concept of "all for athletes". After that, I devoted myself to the research and improvement of sports shoes. Since then, Bowerman has been shuttling around every sports field in the United States. He grasped every sports opportunity and collected as many opinions as possible from every athlete. Continuous trial production, continuous improvement, and constantly invite all kinds of athletes with different feet to try on, until the athletes are satisfied, Nike shoes new products come out in succession, the voice on the sports ground is also higher and higher, and word of mouth is also getting better and better. Perhaps the heavy blow and humiliation of that time stimulated Nike's endless fighting spirit and laid the tone for Nike's future development: product R & D and innovation will always be the top priority of the company's development strategy. Three years later, Nike launched its first pair of Tailwind running shoes equipped with advanced Nike-Air shockproof technology. It also opened the curtain on the marketing of NIKE sportswear brand. Driving force two: Home bullied, recovery of lost ground in 1980 2 million shares of NIKE shares publicly listed, NIKE sports research and development laboratory in the New Hampshire city of ekester city. In that year, the number of employees increased to 2700, with a revenue of $269 million. In 1981, NIKE player Alberto Salazary New York marathon rewrote the world record. Nissho and NIKE jointly established NIKE Japan company in Japan. Just when Nike was advancing vigorously at home and abroad, in the same year, Paul Fairmont founded a Reebok sports shoe company in the United States. Reebok emerged from the dark horse posture and launched a sneaker with novel design and strong momentum, which has successfully swept some markets. In 1987, Reebok took the 991 million dollar sales and 30% share of the sports shoes market to the throne of the sports shoes market, and Nike took the place of 597 million US $18%. In order to counter Reebok's provocation, Nike has invested in huge sums of money in the research and development of new products at the expense of its original products. The most popular classic product is the The Nike Air Shoe at the end of 80s. Nike gas shoes were not officially launched until the early 90s, and have been unprecedentedly successful. At the end of the 80s, Reebok had learned a lot about Nike's overshoes under the eyes of Nike, which made Nike once again suffer from the humiliation of the market. At the same time, it once again strengthened the core strategy of the product's continuous R & D innovation. The driving force three: consistent words and deeds, all in all, Nike attaches great importance to the research and development of products and technological innovation. In order to find more competitive market running shoes, the number of R & D personnel hired by Nike has exceeded 3000 by 2005. Many of them have degrees in biomechanics, experimental physiology, engineering technology, industrial design, chemistry and related fields. In the process of product innovation, Nike attaches great importance to the combination of design and practice. In particular, it has hired research committees and customer committees, including coaches, athletes, equipment operators, foot doctors and plastic surgeon. They regularly meet with companies to review various design plans, materials and ideas for improving athletic shoes. On the investment of R & D funds, Nike is enough to make Chinese sporting goods enterprises feel ashamed. It is estimated that even in 2005, many Chinese sports shoe manufacturers spent less than 4 million dollars on R & D investment in 2005. Zhang Wei, general manager of Deng Ya Ping (Quanzhou) footwear industry limited, said that even Anta and Sanxing, who claimed to be the best developers, had to admit "weak technological strength". And most of the research and development of enterprises are in the stage of "inclusive" imitation. "Buy a pair of good brand shoes, study them and make them become products after a slight change." Zhang Wei said, "the level of competition in China is still relatively low." The position of personnel and capital has become the escort power of Nike's R & D innovation. Driving force four: actively imitate, shortcut, forge ahead, what is innovation, new combination of old elements. When it is temporarily unable to find a new combination, learn from it. Nike did not hesitate to talk about its learning and imitation of Adidas brand in the course of enterprise development. As far as the running shoe market is concerned, the market strategy that Adidas has implemented for a long time is to produce shoes of various styles and styles. Let athletes wear products with company logo in major sports competitions and constantly upgrade their products. Nike moved the German method of operation in a large way, which is a shortcut to justify the company's rapid development. However, Nike did not follow Germany in the design of its products. Nike believed that its own R & D products were worth learning from German Adidas. Driving force five: corporate culture, inspiring inspiration from Nike's two founders, Nate and Bowerman, as early as the "sports, free and easy, free spirit" as Nike's unique core corporate culture, and spare no effort to promote and implement. Knight advocated that behavior should be standardized within the system, and thought should be free from management. Nike's business is like a peach orchard outside the world. There are forests and lakes, and there are birds and flowers. There are also winding streets and bridges. There are also jogging paths and super soccer fields. Knight thinks that work should be as free as home. Especially in the product design seminars, you can have your own opinions, and you can also make a lot of noise and even tit for tat. Nike also encourages designers to find creative inspiration from various fields, and arranges designers to travel around the world to draw inspiration from time to time according to their needs. From Irish style architecture to the circular arc of violin on the Viola family. Martin Lotti was designed for Nike after the holiday on the south coast of Miami, the first sports shoes series that looks like sandals, Air Max Craze. Similarly, Nike's first pair of Yoga shoes (Air Kyoto Series) was also inspired by Lotti in Japan. Driving force six: bionic philosophy, brilliant, nature is the largest inspiration storehouse, nature is full of mystery and fantasy. The designers of Nike have found exciting surprises in the natural world. One of the designers of Jordan's sneakers: Tate Kuerbis is most proud of the successful design of the Air Jordan XIX of the 19 generation of Jordan. The 19 generation of Jordan took the design concept from the most poisonous snake in Africa. This is the black mamba snake, which is the most virulent and fastest snake in the world. It can chase prey at speeds of up to 19 kilometers per hour. Once people bite them, the mortality rate is almost 100%. It is worth mentioning that the 13 generation of Jordan's design concept is also from animals. It completely integrates the speed and dexterity of the Panthers into the design of the 13 generation.