Introduction Nike is a multinational company that deals with worldwide production of athletics footwear. Its mother country is America but it has branches all over the world with the headquarters being in Oregon, Portland. This organization was founded in 1962 by the partnership between Bill Bowerman and Phil Knight and was initially known as the Blue Ribbon Sports. Its main aim was to distribute sporting equipment at a cheap cost with the aim of bringing to an end Germany’s monopoly in the local market (Hague, 2006). Research and development This company has a special crew that tirelessly conducts research on sports and its equipment. This may lead to either long or short term benefits such as the introduction of new product varieties into the market. Applied research is heavily used here since it is a short term activity and it is less expensive and not characterized by heavy risks to the organization Management The management of this organization is in the form of teamwork with top management consisting of a committee of experts working together with diversified roles. Each of the unit components have their own leaders and operate independently. The board of directors is made up of managing directors alongside other directors who are independent. Marketing research In the year 1998, Nike’s market share was a fascinating 30.4%. Nike has overcome several challenges ever since then to maintain its position as one of the organizations with the best market shares throughout the United States. The companies that offer competition to this Company include among others Adidas, Reebok, Timberland and Fila. Statistics show that by the year 1998, the largest competitors which are Adidas and Reebok were holding 15.5% and 11.2% of the market share respectively. E-commerce has been heavily employed by this company’s marketing strategy. They even have an e-commerce website where the customers can carry out transaction processes online. This has been a very effective method of boosting the marketing process as a whole. Advertisement has been made advanced as a way of persuading customers to purchase these products. During advertisements, brand images bearing Nike’s name and trademarks are used since they are very popular and easily recognizable to customers. The products of Nike are expensive in relation to their competitors. Hence, this is a problem as it makes customers to shy away. However, there are plans underway to produce high quality goods at fair prices (Sage, 2008). Production research In order to fulfill its goal of being an effective global company, Nike has spread out its facilities all over the world including Asia, and South America. Plants for production are located near the sources of raw materials and manpower. When locating the production facilities, care is taken to locate it a little far away from most customers in order to achieve highly distributed costs. The strategic location next to the sources of the primary requirements facilitates the production of commodities at low prices even though transportation costs are incurred (Brettman, 2002). Human Resources After experiencing harsh publicity which led to reduced sales turnovers due to poor human resource policies, Nike has in place several ini