Week 7 - Differentiation Strategies

According to our latest chapter text, we have learned that implementing a product differentiation strategy is not as easy as one might think.  On first thought, one might think pick a product, make it different, slap a higher price tag on it and bam! you have product differentiation.  Well, turns out it is more complicated than that, and guess what else?  Nike has really cracked the nut on that....

First, yes of course Nike has easily (or presumably) replicated products.  Shoes, apparel and equipment can be made, and is made even in some of the very same factories, across several companies.  Very light soccer shoes, for example, are made both by Nike and Adidas.  Both have certain features that are of specific and unique to different football players.  However, that said, Nike has more than just a lightweight soccer boot, they have a special technology called Flywire built into their boot.  This is just an example of how slight differences in technologies can sway what or which type of cleat a soccer player might choose based solely on their own preferences.

What makes Nike even more unique is how they've cracked the code on how to manage through implementing a differentiation strategy.  As noted, there are some natural rubs in the organization when implementing or utilizing this type of strategy.

Beginning with coordination of teams, Nike does this exceedingly well.  There is a definite sense of individual idea creation and category success, but always an underlying sense of team success is utmost importance.  Next, there is some sense of chaos and at the end of the day, some groups (finance/accounting) might wonder how that just all happened, there is a major sense of collaboration pulling it all together.

Another aspect that Nike has down pat is respecting the past, but always looking at the future.  I've never experienced such a great value or presence of where it all started, but where it needed to go.  Employees take pride in their employee number, which the lower the number the longer the employee.

Nike is a great example to many of our texts call-out's to potential pitfalls from an organizational structure.  In my opinion, Nike is a great case study on how to go about setting up for success across those potential issues.