Nike Case Analysis

Political Analysis With the increased monitoring and enforcement of labour practices; Nike being in the public spotlight and subject to negative publicity on their subcontracted factories is forced to readjust the working conditions of their cross ocean factory workers to abide with proper regulations. This has caused Nike to modify their factory standards and employee working conditions by; limiting the maximum hours worked a week, implementing proper ventilation systems to filter out toxic fumes, increase worker access to protective equipment, and increase the capacity of medical facilities and medical staff for their workers. Another area of concern is the discrepancy of differences in East Asian worker regulations and wages compared to the North American standards. Much speculation has gone toward attacking Nike for their blatant disregard of American labour ethics, but Nike is having difficulty explaining their justification of meeting offshore requirements. For example, the legal age in Indonesia was 14, an age at which compulsory Schooling has ended. Nike was criticized for apparently having girls at this age working in their factories (which wasn’t true), and was shunned for inhuman labour practices according to American standards.
Economical Analysis Nike’s Asian operations had previously continued to soar generating US$300 million in 1994 in revenues to a whopping US$1.2 billion in 1997. However based on the Asian economic crisis, this had adversely affected revenues, while regional layoffs were inevitable. Nike also performed well in the European market generating about US$2 billion in sales and a good growth momentum was expected, however, some parts of Europe were only slowly recovering from an economic downturn. In the Americas (Canada and the U.S.A.), Nike experienced a growth rate for several quarters. The U.S. alone generated approximately US$5 billion in sales. The Latin American market at this point was exposed to economic