Nike'S Internal And External Troubles: 9 Executives Left In A Month

Although it seems to be only a matter of internal personnel changes, the market of Nike group is being eaten up.

The topic of women's rights is spreading from the luxury fashion circle to the sports industry. For women working in Nike group, it seems that the internal despising of women is seriously unbearable.

Last Saturday, New York Times revealed for the first time that a survey report by the Nike group of its own employees, which made the problem of the Group officially exposed to the public, brought people back to the sports giant who had been popular with the slogan "Do the Right thing" and "Just Do It".

In the report, Nike group is described as a place full of female discrimination. The ability and status of female employees are seriously underestimated and devalued. Even female sports shoes are considered second-class products in the group.

The report shows that the Nike male executives' dinner is often held at the strip club, and some executives will show off the condoms that they are ready to pack in their backpacks. It is reported that another executive tried to kiss a female subordinate, while another executive sent sexual harassment mail to female employees.

In the process of Nike group's promotion and salary increase, female employees were also marginalized, not only with promotion opportunities, but also excluded from key parts such as basketball.

When a female employee who has been violated or ill treated has complained to the personnel department of the Nike group, she will be rejected for lack of evidence.

After realizing that the Nike group could not attach importance to related issues through normal procedures and channels, the female employees of the Nike group began to secretly investigate and collect information on current and former female employees who had been treated unfairly.

In March 5th, the report was finally put on the table of Mark Parker, chairman and CEO of Nike group.

In the next month, Mark Parker fired 9 executives, including Trevor Edwards, the Nike brand president who was once regarded as her successor.

The picture is Nike brand original president and vice president Trevors Edwards, Jayme Martin, and current CEO Mark Parker.

According to statistics, the Group executives who have left the company in the past month include Nike Jayme vice president, Martin Antoine, Antoine Andrews, Nike Vikrant brand director, Vikrant Singh, vice president of global brand digital marketing, Daniel Tawiah and vice president of shoes department, Greg Greg.

Some analysts believe that the difference between men and women in their sports industry is one of the key reasons for the Nike group's internal ambience and the formation of a "Boys Club" culture.

As the world's only sportswear group with a market value of 100 billion, Nike group is undoubtedly one of the textbook models of global sports.

Nike group formerly known as Blue Ribbon Sports, after 30 in May 1971 officially renamed Nike Inc., the founder of Phil Knight.

Since the main target consumer groups are teenagers who love sports, Nike group has been signing up with popular sports stars since its inception. Most of them are male athletes, such as soccer players such as Ronaldinho, Drogba, Ronaldinho, Fabregas, Ibrahimovic and Aguero, as well as basketball star Michael Jordan, the key figure in the birth of Air Jordan series.

Under such a premise, the Nike group has always attributed its success to the male sports consumers, and the male sports department is also one of the most important sectors, and gradually formed a stronger atmosphere of men than women in the group.

According to a data released by the times in April 4th, although half of Nike Group employees are women, the proportion of women in directors and other executives is only 38%, and the proportion of women at the vice president level is 29%.

Another rumor revealed that if an employee was promoted quickly, he would probably come from Trevor Edward's "friend circle", or "FOT".

And the key figure to support this trend is the David Ayre, the former executive vice president of Human Resources Department of Nike group. He was investigated for unreasonably devaluing others and deliberately creating hostile working environments inside.

Due to serious circumstances, Mark Parker dismissed it last July and announced the successor to Monique Matheson.

The Wall Street journal also pointed out earlier that one of the designers of Nike, Marc Dolce, after jumping to the rival Adidas, the two vice presidents of the Nike group Brian Zappitello Zappitello and Dirk-Jan van Hameren had made malicious comments on her postscript on a postscript on the sports shoes, while the group not only turned a deaf ear to this matter, but also promoted the company to chief marketing officer in January.

As a result of similar situations, the departure of several female executives from last spring has become the trigger for the Nike group's female employees to resist.

The first to leave is Patty Ross, who is the vice president of Nike group's workplace design, followed by Kerri Hoyt-Pack, an old employee who has joined the group for 15 years. She is one of the leading women in Nike's business. Next is Nikki Neuburger, vice president of global brand marketing. She helped the Nike brand create and launch Nike + applications.

Although they did not disclose the specific reasons after leaving office, Nikki Neuburger mentioned in the letter to Mark Parker that it was related to the behavior and unfair treatment of Group executives who did not respect women.

Although the above situation seems to be related to the problem of internal personnel changes, it is hardly known that the market of Nike group is being eaten up.

The view is that the departure of digital executives is related to the recent sluggish performance of Nike group, the stagnation of market share and gross margin growth. It may even be scapegoating. The fundamentals and growth prospects of the group do not well support the current stock price valuation.

Nike Group recorded a loss of $921 million in the third quarter, a profit of $1 billion 100 million over the same period last year, and revenue grew 7% to $8 billion 980 million over the same period, compared with 8 billion 400 million US dollars in the same period last year, with a gross margin of 43.8%.

The group said the US tax reform resulted in a one-time temporary expenditure, reducing earnings per share by 1.25 US dollars.

In fact, from 2014 to 2017, the increase in earnings per share of Nike group was caused by rising product prices, reduced tax burden and massive stock repurchases. Tax relief has become an important driving factor for the group's profit growth, and the profit margin has dropped from 46% to around 44%.

During the period, the Nike group has fallen for three consecutive quarters in the original North America.

Contrary to the Nike group, the revenue of adidas Group in the 2017 fiscal year increased to 27.4% in the North American region to 4 billion 275 million euros, accounting for 20.1% of the total revenue, and is expected to be in North America this year.

The share will increase from 15% to 20% now.

The picture shows Paige Azavedo, one of Nike female executives who had been harassed by male executives.

In the 12 months of 2017, Adidas was more than Nike in Instagram channels or mail channels.

In order to reverse the decline, Nike has begun to reconsider a series of measures.

From the perspective of products, Nike group's neglect of the female group due to its internal culture is also one of the reasons for Adidas's opportunity.

Although Nike executives have emphasized to investors that women's products are an important part of the group's revenue growth strategy, the former employees of the group said that the marketing budget of women's category was very limited, especially basketball category, and sometimes even the approved marketing funds would be withdrawn, resulting in women's products being unable to get the proper exposure in the market.

The imbalance of the proportion of male and female executives has indirectly led to the weakness of Nike group.

According to fashion headline statistics, the number of men's sports shoes on Nike's official website is 683, while the women's sportswear shoes are only 433. The number of men's sportswear is 1260, while the number of women's wear is 850. The average female product is about 20% less than that of male products. The group's early Jordan Brand is also frequently criticized by female consumers for lack of female products.

To make up for this short board, Jordan Brand admitted at the beginning of this year that the female consumer market has not yet been fully developed and has great potential for development. It will provide more choices for female consumers in the future.

Jordan Brand women's clothing vice president and general manager Andrea Perez said that female consumers are now on sports.

With the increasing interest, the spring series of Jordan Brand will increase many women's clothing products.

Nike group internal staff revealed that Trevor Edwards invited British female singer FKA Twigs last year to shoot a group of advertising blockbusters for Nike Vapor Max shoes, but the final piece was cut out of recognition. The footage of shoes was only a few seconds. Most of the pictures were a girl dancing around the male pole dancing pole. Eventually, the film failed to pass the examination, so the group wasted millions of dollars.

What it means is that when Nike group was in a state of anxiety due to the imbalance between executive men and women, Adidas announced at the beginning of last month that it would do its best to enhance the competitiveness of women in the workplace, and launched a campaign called #20PercentCounts with the public welfare organization Lean In, founded by Facebook Sheryl Sandberg, to denounce the average salary of women employees in the industry, which is 20% lower than that of men, and advocate equal pay for equal work.

Adidas stressed that the group attached great importance to the balance of pay for male and female employees, and has been adjusting the internal problems. At present, 98% of men and women in the group have achieved equal pay for equal work, but the group's target is 100%.

Although Mark Parker launched an internal investigation immediately after the opening of the window, and stressed that the future will advocate a more open and active corporate culture to create a gender equality working environment, some people doubt whether it can eradicate the problem completely. After all, the total number of employees in the Nike group is 74 thousand, and the complexity of the problem can be imagined.

At the same time, the brand image of Nike has been greatly reduced in the minds of consumers.

According to the Brand Finance report of the business strategic advisory body, Nike ranked No. 1 in the world's most valuable list of clothing brands, but the continuing decline in sales in North America and the negative impact of managerial misconduct made its brand value down to $28 billion from $32 billion last year.

The agency also pointed out that Nike failed to effectively solve these problems, which could lead to further decline in brand value, while Adidas jumped to fourth with the value of $19 billion, followed by fast fashion H&M.

There are people in the industry who say that limited hunger marketing has dominated the shoe market in the past year, giving Adidas an opportunity to expose the brand to the Jedi counter Nike.

In order to further highlight the group's determination to change its "Boys Club" image, Nike group promoted two female employees to the Group executives on Friday and Monday. Among them, female employees Amy Montage was promoted to vice president of the global category business department, and will take over the position of Jayme Martin. Kellie Leonard was promoted to chief diversity and inclusive officer. This is the newly established executive position of the group.

For the recent experience of Nike group, Us Venture Capital Firm Susquehanna believes that the group will leave more senior executives in the future, and the resumption of growth of Nike group in North America will be challenged further.

Another analyst expects that in view of sports

The contribution to Nike third revenue is about 66%, while Nike has been in the leading position in the global sports apparel industry, and there will be limited room for growth in the future.

Therefore, the Nike group will also postpone its original target of $50 billion in 2020 to 2022.

Up to now, Nike group has not responded to the contents of the survey report and personnel changes. On Monday, the stock price of Nike group fell 1.68% to $68.39 per share, and its market value is about 110 billion 200 million dollars.