Phil Knights Success in the Sports Equipment Industry

Phil Knight is the founder and CEO of Nike. Phil was the 60th richest man in the world according to forbes list. Knight’s fortune estimated to about $12.7 billion. Philip Knight was born on February twenty-fourth nineteen thirty-eight. He has a bachelors degree in accounting from Stanford University. He wasn’t the best student at Stanford, he spent most of his time in athletics. He first began selling sneakers in partnership with Asics. In 1971, Phil created the name Nike (name of a Greek goddess, which symbolizes victory.) This was just the beginning of Phil Knights success. Phil started Nike all because of his interest in athletics. He wanted to improve the design of Tigers (Ribbon Sports, first shoes) and do more than sell shoes of other brands. Phil’s interest in athletics made him very successful. His small business of selling shoes in college turned into Nike one of the most popular sports brands today. In 1993 Phil Knight was voted â€Å"the most powerful person in sports†, what amazes me is that he isn’t even an athlete, or team manager, he is just a very popular icon for sports. It’s unbelieveable how an interest as simple as sports made Phil Knight the man he is today. Knight had some skill on starting a small business. He just kept building on his business and kept on improving his products. He outlined a plan for breaking the reputation Adidas had on the running-shoe. In Order to do this Knight used cheap Japanese labor to make a cheaper, better quality runningShow MoreRelatedCase Study - Nike: Spreading Out to Stay Together1343 Words   |  6 Pagesfootwear, apparel, equipment, accessories and services. The company is headquartered near  Beaverton, Oregon, in the  Portland metropolitan area. It is the world s leading supplier of  athletic shoes  and  apparel  and a major manufacturer of  sports equipment, with revenue in excess of US$24.1  billion in its fiscal year 2012 (ending May 31, 2012). As of 2012, it employed more than 44,000 people worldwide. The brand alone is valued at $10.7 Billion making it the most valuable brand among sports businesses. NikeRead MoreTarget Market of Bata1441 Words   |  6 PagesNike products inc luding shoes, apparel and lifestyle items in five of our top stores located in posh areas of capital Dhaka, said a senior Bata Shoe company official on condition of anonymity. There is a growing demand for high-end footwear and sport shoes among a fast-growing upper segment of the society. Our target is to grab the market with the worlds best footwear brand, Nike, he said. There is a craze for Nike keds among university students, athletes and joggers. They wouldnt care forRead MoreTaking a Look at Nike Inc.974 Words   |  4 Pagesdesigns, develops, markets, and sells athletic footwear, apparel, equipment, and accessories for a variety of sports and fitness activities. In 1964, it started its empire as a company that distributed Japanese running shoes, Tiger, in the United States with the name Blue Ribbon Sports in 1964. Nike founders—Bill Bowerman and Phil Knight—had a great coach-student relationship when both were still at University of Oregon; Bowerman was Knight’s coach seeking a better running shoe and Knight loved athleticsRead MoreNike: Blue Ribbon Sports by Bill Bowerman and Phil Knight in 1964974 Words   |  4 PagesTiger, in the United States with the name Blue Ribbon Sports by Bill Bowerman and Phil Knight in 1964. Its founders have a very good coach-student relationship back in the days where both were still at Un iversity of Oregon; Bowerman was Knight’s coach seeking a better running shoes and Knight loves athletics so much that he could not live without it. The good relationship continues to start a business together, Blue Ribbon Sports. After the success of Tiger shoes, Nike is invented in 1971. Nike is actuallyRead MoreNike Marketing Strategy5981 Words   |  24 Pagesfounded by college athlete and present Chairman, Phil Knight, and his former coach, Bill Bowerman, to create quality shoes that help athletes reach their full potential. Our company’s headquarters are near Beaverton, Oregon. We operate in more than 160 countries and have more than 44,000 employees worldwide. Our goal is to meet the needs of athletes and the everyday customer. We have expanded our product lines to include sports performance equipment, clothing and accessories. We have also pairedRead MoreCase Study9153 Words   |  37 PagesBinti Mohd Nizam (212360), Nur Adila Binti Husny (212372), Siti Jaliha Binti Ab Jalir (212373), Marcella Edmunt (212381), Nuraini Binti Ruslan (212385), Nurul Fatin Asyiqin Binti Roslan (212388) and Sara Nabila Binti Abd Malik.(212395) ] we were success in discussed all the cases and complete this assignment together. Lastly, we wish to thank to our colleagues and family members in giving us support to finish this assignment. Without their support, we definitely in a hard condition while finishingRead MoreEssay about Analysis of Nike3792 Words   |  16 Pagesjust about every sport, including baseball, volleyball, cheerleading, and wrestling. NIKE also sells Cole Haan dress and casual shoes and a line of athletic wear and equipment, such as hockey sticks, skates, and timepieces. In addition, it operates NIKETOWN shoe and sportswear stores and is opening JORDAN in store outlets in suburban markets. NIKE sells its product to about 19,000 US accountants, in about 140 other countries, and online. Chairman, CEO, and co-founder Phil Knight owns. NikeRead MoreEvaluate the impact of innovation on your selected organization. Discus the impact on strategy, process, product, and or service within each type of organization2029 Words   |  9 Pagesinfrastructures, financial management tools, networking, desktop platforms, mobility, web browser, programming, and the flagship product, the Windows Operating System (Microsoft). Just about every industry, private or public uses Microsoft products. Microsoft offers specialized products for industries such as the government, healthcare, manufacturing, entertainment and retail. At the same time Microsoft is able to offer the same services and products to small businesses and every day users with theRead MoreNike and Child Labor2109 Words   |  9 Pagesthe production of its soccer balls in Pakistan. This case study will examine the claims and describe the industry and its impact on laborers and their working conditions. While Pakistan has laws against ch ild labor and slavery, the government has taken very little action to combat it. Only a boycott by the United States and other nations will have any impact on slavery and child-based industries. Futhermore the U.S constitution states that child labor is an illegal and inhumane practice and any U.SRead MoreAnalysis of Nike Inc.9194 Words   |  37 Pagespropelled Nike to the top of its industry. However, not the entire of Nike’s story is ideal. In recent years, the company has faced criticism in connection with its use of contract labor in developing nations. The purpose of this case is to provide an understanding of the company’s background, its general business strategy, and its use of contract labor. The Athletic Apparel and Footwear Industry The athletic apparel and footwear industry experienced steady growth for more

An Object Relational Database Management System - 1371 Words

INTRODUCTION An object-relational database management system (ORDMS) is a DBMS that supports both relational and object-oriented functions. SQL:1999 seems like the most innovative update to the language since its induction, largely because of the adoption of object-oriented related upgrades. COLLECTION TYPES â€Å"A collection is an ordered group of elements, all of the same type.† (Oracle 2002) With this addition it became possible to use set operators which allows for a single result from two queries. Operator Returns UNION All distinct rows selected by either query UNION ALL All rows selected by either query, including all duplicates INTERSECT All distinct rows selected by both queries MINUS All distinct rows selected by the first query†¦show more content†¦3. Varrays – this also uses sequential numbering as the key which makes its use ideal when trying to access its contents in sequence. However, because varrays holds a fixed number of elements, the method should be used when the amount of elements is predetermined. USER-DEFINED DATA TYPES (UDT) UDTs have numerous ways of implementation. They act much like the typedefs in the C language and can be used as defining a table, element, or even column type. Distinct user-defined types of power allow the use of name equivalence instead of structural equivalence. Compatible operations can be achieved by using the CAST operation. Structured user-defined types allow for type inheritance which creates subtypes that inherit attributes and functions of their super types or references types. â€Å"There are several reasons why UDT s are useful within an object database† (Burleson Consulting 2014): 1. Encapsulation – The existence of a complete entity. This means once the data definitions, default values, and value constraints are defined uniformity and consistency are guaranteed. Because of this, once nested UDTs will retain uniformity throughout the database. 2. Reusability – Refers to the reuse of the hierarchy of common data structures which we learned in a previous course saves coding time and insures uniformity. 3. Flexibility – This is obvious in the name, User-Defined Data Type, as it allows great flexibility when creating

Quality Management Business Operations

Question: Write about theQuality Managementfor Business Operations. Answer: Introduction Quality management can be explained as a holistic approach for future growth and success by which there is continuous improvements in an organisations processes, approaches, business operations and all related activities. Quality management is a long-term process which involves the management functions and activities in regards with quality policy and its effective e implementation in an organisation through quality assurance, quality planning and quality control. There is a recognized transformation in an organisation by quality management through changes in systems, structures, practices and the attitudes (Goetsch and Davis, 2014). With the increasing globalisation, there are several identical changes which have taken place in the organisation and have impacted several functional areas including the quality management perspectives. The essay will have its primary focus on understanding the influence of globalisation of quality management and the role of the business partners, organ isational culture, employees, managers and customers. The Influence of Globalisation over the Changes to the Function of Quality Management in a Workplace Today Quality management is an essential part of the organisation which is linked with almost all the functions of the company. In earlier times, the scope of quality management was narrow and was restricted to the production and manufacturing of products and services. But with extensive researches and studies, the scope of quality management has widening that it touches the roots of the organisation (Klefsj, Bergquist and Garvare, 2008). Quality management or the total quality management are the fine approaches that helps the organisations in achieving the most desired and effective results. There are seven basic principles of quality management on the grounds of which, the quality management approach resolves. These principles include customer focus, relationship management, leadership, evidence-based decision making, and engagement of people, improvement and process approach (Mandal, 2009). Almost each and every organisation takes use of the quality management approach for efficient business operations and improved customer base. But in last few decades, there are significant impacts of globalisation on these organisations and theirs approaches and strategies. With the occurrence of globalisation, the organisations are now ranked and evaluate on the basis of global perspectives (Puig, Marques and Ghauri, 2009). There are no boundaries for performing business transactions and fetching the attention of the global overseas customers and global workforce. Earlier the organisations plan and incorporate strategies and approaches which can offer them domestic competitive advantages. But due to globalisation, there are enormous changes and modifications which have taken place in all these functions, approaches and strategies. One of those functions where such changes and influences have been observed due to globalisation is quality management function or approach. Globalisation can simply be explained as the integration of the different governments, organisations and the people across the world. There are number of changes and impacts posed on the organisations because of globalisation such as from the employees consideration, there has been observed increased cultural diversity in the organisations. With increased globalisations, the companies have to deal with the enhanced cultural diversity with the organisational workforce. These cultural changes require the business organisations to deal with the cultural diversity and to implement new guidelines and policies for the employees. The religious differences and the diversities on the work ethics are continuously argumentative topics across the world. There are both benefits and disadvantages of the increased cultural diversity in the organisations (Zadek, 2006). As per the quality management frameworks and the principles, for attaining quality results, it is essential to have higher engagement of the organisational people. Due to increased cultural diversity, it is not easy to have improved employee engagement because of several barricades such as ineffective communication, diverse behaviour etc. (Kannan and Tan, 2005). Therefore, it is essential to resolve the issues of cultural diversity for achieving complete quality management in the organisations. The employees themselves a key role in resolving those issues of cultural diversity on quality management function. The employees must work in teams where they can understand the diversities and can also take use of those diversities in competing with other organisations. There can be take use of the quality management tools i.e. check sheet for having adequate information and analysis of the strengths of the diverse employees and offering them, the job role according to their skills, competen ce and cultural diversities. Another influence of globalisation is the expanded markets and the extended customer reach. Earlier the organisations used to sell the products and services in the domestic markets only but with globalisation, the businesses used to sell their products to the overseas markets and the overseas customers. Increasing and expanding the reach not only up surge the sales but all the responsibilities of the organisation towards its customers to provide adequate quality, value and satisfaction to them. As per the quality management principles i.e. customer focus and relationship management, it is the primary aspect of quality management to have high emphasis upon the customers as well as develop an improved relationship with them so that they can be reliable customer base of the organisation. It has been observed in several areas, where the organisations transfer their primary emphasis and focus on the international markets for attracting the potential customers and because of this they depr ived in meeting the needs of the domestic customers. Therefore, it is a negative influence of globalisation on the quality management function (Barad and Raz, 2000). To overcome or cope up with this, the organisation and the mangers plays a vital role. The organisation and the mangers must have new and improved strategies by which they can pay equal emphasis on the domestic as well as overseas customers so that both the customer groups remain satisfied with the services of the organisation. The managers must take use of the organisational tool i.e. the scatter diagram for understanding the relationship among the variables. Here, the managers can identify and evaluate that whether and how much the customers are satisfied with the products or services or not with the help of the scatter diagram. The diagram will show the relationship between the quality of the product and the level of satisfaction of the consumers (Parker, 2005). Another influence or impact of globalisation is the improved technology. Before globalisation, the organisations used to incorporate technologies which can help them in attaining the competitive advantages in the domestic market. But due to overseas trade and globalisation, the organisations face a risk and threat of international competition. Thus, to overcome these risks, the organisations incorporate new and innovative technologies for managing the business operations (Parker, 2005). But implementation of the pioneering and complex technologies acts as a barricade for some employees as they do not possess much knowledge to work upon the new technologies and processes. As per the quality management principle, i.e. improvement, it is essential to have continuous improvement in the business processes and functions so that there can be achieved competitive advantages by the organisations. Therefore, taking use of innovative and high-tech processes and approaches is a vital step for th e attainment of the continuous improvement of business processes (Rigby and Bilodeau, 2011). To cope with the issues of resistance towards change and inconvenience of the workforce, the employees and the managers both must take initiatives. The organisational managers must offer adequate trainings to the employees so that they can have a deep understanding of the new processes. With the help of these trainings, the older or the less competent employees can learn to work upon these technologies. As well as the employees should also put their efforts in learning new technologies instead of restricting themselves from working on the newly incorporated technologies. For overcoming this issue, there can be taken use of a quality management tool i.e. cause and effect (fishbone) diagram. With this tool, first there is recognition of the issues arising, secondly there has been identify ways for solving those issues. Next there are analysed the causes of the issues. Then these causes are bifurcate into equipment, material, process and people. And by the means of brainstorming the iss ues are solved (Dale, 20150. Conclusion Globalisation has it key and significant impacts on the organisation as well as on the quality management functions. Globalisation has several positive impacts on the organisation but there are numerous negative implications too which restricts the effective functioning of the approaches of quality management. To cope up with the issues such as resistance towards change and use of technologies, distracted focus on domestic customers, increased cultural diversity, etc, the managers and the employees themselves are required to take initiatives. There can b e made improvements in the approaches and the functioning techniques so that such issues do not arise in future. There are several tools of quality management which are taken use for the achieving high quality standards and efficient organisational productivity. Hence, it can be concluded that there is vast impact of globalisation on the changes of functions in quality management but these influences can be easily cope up with effect ive management and appropriate measures by the employees, managers as well as the organisation. References Barad, M. and Raz, T., 2000. Contribution of quality management tools and practices to project management performance.International Journal of Quality Reliability Management,17(4/5), pp.571-583. Dale, B., 2015.Total quality management. John Wiley Sons, Ltd. Goetsch, D.L. and Davis, S.B., 2014.Quality management for organizational excellence. Upper Saddle River, NJ: pearson. Kannan, V.R. and Tan, K.C., 2005. Just in time, total quality management, and supply chain management: understanding their linkages and impact on business performance.Omega,33(2), pp.153-162. Klefsj, B., Bergquist, B. and Garvare, R., 2008. Quality management and business excellence, customers and stakeholders: do we agree on what we are talking about, and does it matter?.The TQM Journal,20(2), pp.120-129. Mandal, S.K., 2009.Total Quality Management-Principles And Practice, 1E. Vikas Publishing House Pvt Ltd. Parker, B., 2005.Introduction to globalization and business: relationships and responsibilities. Sage. Puig, F., Marques, H. and Ghauri, P.N., 2009. Globalization and its impact on operational decisions: The role of industrial districts in the textile industry.International Journal of Operations Production Management,29(7), pp.692-719. Rigby, D. and Bilodeau, B., 2011. Management tools trends 2011.Bain Company Inc. Zadek, S., 2006. Responsible competitiveness: Reshaping global markets through responsible business practices.Corporate Governance: The international journal of business in society,6(4), pp.334-348.

Michael Nostradamus Essays - Apocalypticists, Divination

Michael Nostradamus For centuries Nostradamus's prophecies have inspired fear and controversy. His followers say he predicted the French Revolution, the birth and rise of Hitler, and the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Did he, as his believers' claim, predict some of history's most monumental events - from the Great Fire of London to the launch disaster of the space shuttle Challenger? Nostradamus was typical of the Renaissance time period. He made many prophecies and was a major contributor to not only the Renaissance, but also the 'Spirit of the Renaissance'. Michael de Nostrodame (or his more used Latin name of Nostradamus) was born a Jew in the small town of St. Remy de Province in southern France on the 14th of December 1503. Little is known about Nostradamus's family apart from Jean, his youngest brother, became Procurer of the Parliament of Province. As a small boy Nostradamus underwent significant changes in his life. While Nostradamus was a child his family was forced to convert to Roman Catholicism. Around this time he was sent to live with his grandfather, Jean de Saint Remy, who taught him the basics of Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Mathematics and Astrology? A few years later Nostradamus's grandfather died and he went to Avignon to finish his schooling. Whilst at Avignon he also believed, as did Galileo, that the Earth was round and circled the sun. Nostradamus used his ability to help people through harsh times and did not even fear for his own life. In 1525 he received his Bachelor's degree for Medicine and went to help the fight against the 'Black Death' that was feared throughout the Renaissance period. After traveling for almost four years helping the sufferers of the Plague, he returned to Avignon and won fame for his eagerness for learning, which ties in with the spirit of the Renaissance. In 1532 he earned his Doctorate and became a Professor at the Montipellier University but resigned within the same year. He then moved to Agen, married and had a son and daughter. His life now seemed complete until an outbreak of the Plague in Agen that killed his wife and children. In 1538, he was accused of heresy because of a remark about a statue of the Virgin Mary being like a devil that he had made years before. The Inquisitors sent him to Toulouse to stand trial. Leoni, Edgar stated that in 1554 Nostradamus settled in Marseilles after wandering for six years keeping well clear of the church authorities. During this time legends started to appear about his foreseeing powers. It was not until later however that he received his fame with his prophetic visions of the future - nine hundred forty two cryptic poems called The Centuries - which have preoccupied generation after generation of readers. The Centuries (ten in total) were written in poem like form and contained hard-to-break codes that were use to stop attention being drawn to himself, as the church authorities could not arrest him for writing gibberish, because in that time prophecies were considered as witch craft or devil work. The Centuries were written by night as not to be seen in 1555. He eventually settled down in the town of Salon, France in 1554 where he married his second wife, Anne Ponsart Gemelle, with whom he rose six children -three boys and three girls. Do these writing actually predict the death of popes, rise of tyrants, and natural disasters to come? The code in which the prophecies were written could be comprehended to mean many things, but if the people who claim to be able to crack the code of Nostradamus' work are right then World War Three will reach its climax in the year 1999. Bio-warface will be used - which will virtually wipe out most of humanity with minimal survivors with the human race living until the year 3797. Nostradamus traveled to Paris and booked in at a hotel on the 15th for August 1556 and the queen at the time sent a message to Nostradamus asking him to see her. The queen talked to Nostradamus privately for two hours, nothing is known about what they talked about. Two weeks later Nostradamus was again summoned to speak with the queen. This time she asked