How Did Nike CEO Mark Parker Succeed?

This is not a simple, counter attack story.

It is because of him that the world business school has more than one professional manager who can be included in the annals of history: he has taken the founder's mantle and then surpassed the founders.

With this close-up, we portray a real person, not a God.

There are too many gods in these years, and we hope that readers can see the charm and personality of his leader from an introverted sneaker designer, and find out the secret to shake off competitors in changing circumstances.

Another management aphorism Parke likes to quote is a metaphor for movement: "there is no finish line in Nike."

(At Nike, there is no finish line.) probably not.

However, it would be sweet to rush through his 50 billion dollar income target.

Before that, Parke had to run many miles before he could fall asleep.

In 2006, Parke took over the company's staff.

Since then, he has prompted Nike's sales to more than double.

Of course, when Parke became CEO, Nike was no longer the company that tried to survive in Adidas's aura.

What Parke is facing is a more difficult task: how to find new growth points for this very successful mature company.

The meticulous product development mode advocated by Parke, the so-called "design thinking", is becoming the fashion of the American company.

To this day, Parke is still working on his original craftsmanship: he is still involved in the design of two limited product lines with Nike's famous designer Tinker Hatfield.

One of the series is Nike spokesperson, Michael Jordan, the "God of basketball", and the other is the collaboration with "Japan's trend Godfather" Teng Yuan Hao.

Parke, whose height is 1 meters 95, still keeps the lean figure of the long-distance runner.

He likes to wear a dark blue shirt with no trousers in it, a pair of pressed jeans and a pair of black sneakers designed by himself.

He had some grizzled white beards that did not seem to be deliberately trimmed. His tone of voice was somewhat odd, and he did not seem to be quite sure what the sound effect would be.

When it comes to management style, Parke compares himself to an editor, concentrating on helping subordinates to temper their own ideas.

He even became his own editor.

In an exclusive interview, when he started a sentence with the word "honest", Parke suddenly stopped for a while, then went on, "I don't like to say" honestly "- this is not to imply that what I said just now is not true.

This is obviously an analytical mind; even when he expresses his thoughts, Parke is still commenting and honing these views.

In fact, for Nike, editing is a continuous process.

Parke often finds it difficult to control his impulse to collect works of art.

This fully demonstrates that it is difficult to achieve a balance between this editorial concept and the seemingly ambitious global ambitions of the company.

Through the pan sports brand Nike, the basketball focused Jordan brand, and the sportswear brand CONVERSE (Converse) and Hurley, the company hopes to provide all the products they need for anyone who is engaged in (watching) any sport.

In addition, Nike's most powerful products tend to spawn the next product.

Just like Google's search advertising business and Apple's iPhone mobile business, Nike has many "cash cows", and basketball shoes are the most obvious.

These cash cows are enough to help Nike explore new products.

To be fair, Parke has already left.

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Nowadays, Nike is leading the world in many sports shoes, especially running shoes, basketball shoes and football shoes.

The market research report released earlier this year shows that Nike has a 62% share in the American sports shoes market, far ahead of the second place and only 15% of the market share.

These brilliant achievements should first be attributed to Nike's strong operational capability, especially its clear inventory management system and its smart trading with retailers.

This company is known for its amazing sales ability, but Nike's leading edge is increasingly reflected in technology, whether it is product design, manufacturing or marketing.

We will soon see how Nike will increase its technological level in the retail sector.

Despite his proud design qualifications, Parke finally entered the company's management and achieved great success.

He once held the global footwear business, then became the co president of Nike brand, and the other co chief executive was Charlie Danson, sales director.

The two formed a classic two member group of "internal Sir / external man", who played the previous role.

However, Parke is not just concentrating on the internal affairs of the company.

As a lifelong devotion to the reputation of Nike, he is particularly good at describing the company's story as a committed journey of a designer, rather than simply describing Nike's brilliant achievements in sales of sports shoes.

When attending a panel discussion with Parke at the world economic forum in Davos, Switzerland, NBA honorary president David Stern once said: "he knows very well that the potential impact of a great brand is far beyond the scope of product sales."

The head of Nike has almost endless curiosity.

"Mark's problems are often guided," said Nike chief financial officer, Andy Campion.

"The miracle is that he will empower other leaders to find answers to these questions and take action."

In addition, Parke likes to manage the company by citing an aphorism.

Jan Singh, a former head of Nike global footwear business, recalls that when he talked about talent management, he was very wise to compare a member of the Singer team to an oak tree.

"He told me," try to turn it into a pine tree and help nobody.

It's our goal to make it the best oak tree.

Nurturing the entire Nike forest is Parke's terms of reference.

"Nike is very complicated," he said.

"Our business covers about 190 countries and involves 13 sports.

Putting all this together, we are actually talking about billions of products.

This is a very large, fast paced and complex enterprise.

So, you must constantly sum up and seriously consider a question: what is the most important thing to really push the company forward?

But from beginning to end, you have to put consumers first.

This helps us edit. "

Parke is said to be a very competitive person.

But no matter how tempted reporters are, he is reluctant to talk about any competitor by naming names.

"We are totally focused on what we can do," he declined to comment on the impact of sports equipment brand Under Armour on Nike.

For this topic, he simply said, "we like to compete quickly."

He also said, "I learned a lot from all my competitors."

One wrist of Mark Parker wore a black apple watch and stainless steel.

The other wrist wears a Nike FuelBand fitness tracker that has been shut down last year.

He is not keen on talking about the two products.

Parke said the watch was "a good start," but he mistakenly described the name of the apple product as iWatch.

This may make apple CEO Tim Cook unhappy.

Cook is a senior director of Nike company for 10 years and is currently chairman of the company's remuneration committee.

As for Nike's own wearable device, Parke claims it is not a core product.

He said, "we will work hard to get the wearable product experience of watches."

Parke pointed out that for now, Nike will continue to integrate the tracker products of apple, Google, Samsung and TomTom, and will continue to support FuelBand's R & D work.

Nike's board of directors recently approved.

The great success was awarded him a prize of up to 30 million dollars in return for CEO, who had just passed his 60 birthday in October, for 5 years.

Parke has not yet shown signs of gradual retreat.

Earlier this year, Phil Nate founded a company called Swoosh Inc. to hold its $22 billion stake in Nike and appointed Parke as its director.

(Nike also appointed Nate's son, 41 year old movie animation.

Travis became director of the company.

Parke said he still runs, but it's entertaining.

His current fitness methods include hiking, walking, weightlifting and cycling.

"My wife is a dynamic bicycle coach, so she often makes fun of me," Parke said.

"She was the 5000 meter world record holder.

We take a walk every night.

She always takes two steps. "

As knight was very happy that his successors were finally discovered by the media, Parke himself was searching for other creative talents.

"Every time I travel, I always like to talk and exchange ideas with creative people in all fields and disciplines," he said.

"I want to grasp the pulse of the latest trend.

I think this is very important.

I tend to have a liking for those who are a little eccentric.

I like to bring different kinds of creative talents together, even if they only share their views on a new direction.