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Blog post week commencing 21st October (CSFs)

Last week we distinguished the different TOWS factors of our company and began looking at the critical success factors (CSFs) we found by comparing these points. We all created our own TOWS matrix table in our own time and met on the 22^nd to create a combined table of the best points we found so we can use the information for our final infographic. This is a screenshot of our completed TOWS matrix after discussion.

This week we are focusing on prioritising our CSFs, putting them in order of importance as a group. We thought that e-commerce is critical for the future of Nike and the following CSF is highly important. ‘They can increase revenue by introducing package deals and discounts online, this could draw in more consumers who are looking for cheaper goods’. Nowadays technology is a huge part of society and more and more crucial to big sporting equipment brands like Nike. One of our CSFs included gaining more shareholders; this is less likely to improve competitiveness though.

We have also been gathering additional information about Nike’s target segmentation after learning about it in our Marketing lecture on Tuesday. Farah and Carmel have been using library resources and databases to gather information. Whereas Alex, Abigail and Emily-Anne have been looking at Nike’s website and other sources on the internet.

We have now completed the majority of our research leading to our infographic. In our coming tutorial on the 31^st of October we will be gathering magazines and newspapers to build a concept board on the demographic, geographic, psychographic, geo-demographic and behavioural markets of our brand. This will then help us differentiate between a concept board and an infographic and further our progress.

Blog post week commencing 14th October (SWOT/TOWS)

In the week leading up to this blog post our group have been exploring the threats, opportunities, weaknesses and strengths of our company, Nike. We all attended a lecture on 15^th of October which gave us the chance to learn more about the TOWS matrix so we could construct our own. Our research from last week helped us with this because it looked at the factors affecting Nike’s macro and micro environment, from this we could identify the points we needed. To do this we split into two groups; Carmel, Emily-Anne and Alex focused on threats and opportunities while Abigail and Farah focused on strengths and weaknesses. Our aim was to list at least three for each category.

An example of group one’s findings was the triple dip recession as a threat however the rise in online shopping as an opportunity for Nike. Group two found various points too, one being the political and social instability in the countries when Nike manufactures as an internal weakness. An internal strength they found was Nike’s impressive market share in the sports equipment industry.

On the 17th of October we met as a group to combine all the information we had found and put it together in the appropriate boxes of a TOWS matrix which will help us with our infographic. From here we matched our factors from different boxes in the matrix to show how they can be combined to help the business. For example we matched a weakness - ‘Nike has higher prices than competitors’ with an opportunity – ‘Significant increases in online shopping’. This showed Nike can increase revenue by introducing package deals and discounts online which could draw in more consumers who are looking for cheaper goods.

By completing these tasks within the time asked, it meant that we could individually work on exploring the TOWS further in our own time. On Tuesday the 22^nd after our marketing in context lecture we have planned to meet to discuss these points and start on our infographic.

Blog post week commencing 7th October (Micro/Macro)

On the 3^rd of October we were put into a group in our workshop, after discussion we decided to focus on the sports equipment market looking specifically at the brand Nike. We decided as a group to focus on Nike because of its strong brand image and its high quality product range in this industry. Our group is made up of five members; Carmel, Alex, Abigail, Farah and Emily-Anne and in this session we discussed the allocation of tasks amongst the group.

Our first group task was to research the micro and macro factors of Nike’s sports equipment market. Our lecture on the 8^th of October on the micro/macro environment gave us structure for our research so that we could allocate the different factors to different members of the group. Each group member was given one micro factor and one macro factor to research and gather evidence for, this was our allocation:

Carmel – Economic and company. She looked at the general growth in the sports equipment industry and the effects of the recession. For the company aspect she looked at Nike and how much of the output is made up of sports equipment products.

Alex – Social and publics. Alex researched government campaigns for healthy living and wellbeing following increases in obesity. For publics he looked into Nike’s sponsorship deals and its shareholders.

Abigail - Political/Legal and suppliers. Abigail found that national minimum wages in emerging economies could affect Nike’s international competitiveness. She also found information on the many factories Nike own and analysed statistics for their website.

Farah – Technological and competitors. She looked at online shopping and how it has changed the way companies market their products. When looking at competitors Farah identified several different brands and compared product ranges and their success.

Emily-Anne – Environmental and market intermediaries. Emily-Anne looked closely at the growing recycling culture and how Nike could benefit from this. When looking at marketing intermediaries she found that Nike had many. 

We have planned to meet as a group twice a week to carry out our marketing audit effectively.