Nike in China

Nike was founded by a track athlete, Philip Knight (Philip), and a track coach at the University of Oregon, Bill Bowerman (Bill) in 1964. In 1957, Philip was studying at the University of Oregon and it was here that he met Bill who was the athletics coach. Philip and Bill realized the need for a low cost but good quality running shoe. At that time, leading track shoes were being produced by European companies. These shoes were made of leather, had very bad cushioning, and used steel spikes for traction. Philip and Bill started to design shoes that were lighter, better padded, and featured waffle like patterns in their rubber soles. These models didn’t see much commercial success. Later, when Philip was doing his MBA at Stanford University, he did a marketing research dissertation on the US shoe manufacturing industry.

He proposed in his dissertation that low cost, high quality running shoes could be imported from Asian countries like Japan, where labor was cheaper, and sold in markets like the US. Philip was confident that cheaper shoes that were of good quality would be highly successful in the US market and could end the domination of German companies in the industry...