Running head: TRAINING & DECVELOPMENT PROGRAM 1
TRAINING & DECVELOPMENT PROGRAM 19
Signature Assignment
Prepare a Training & Development Program
by
Dominique Wells
National University
ODV 606
June 2019
Signature Assignment: Prepare a Training & Development Program
Organization and Position Summary
Nike Inc. is an organization that was founded by Bill Bowerman and Phil Knight in 1964 as Blue Ribbon Sports (BRS). The organization’s primary focus has always been discovery and innovation, aiming at the provision of both experiences and products for athletes. Initially, BRS served as a distributor for Onitsuka Tiger, a Japanese shoemaker, a relationship that ended in 1971 when BRS introduced its line of footwear. Consequently, Nike Inc. built itself to become a renowned brand in the United States, dominating about half the athlete market share. Furthermore, through diversified communication to reach as many customers as possible, by the 1980s, Nike had made associations with games and directly introduced its product to its target market. The organization’s mission is to inspire athletes all over the world through its innovations, defining athletes as anyone that has a body. Nike’s vision is to maintain the creativity legacy it has already established as well as to develop business opportunities that offer it a competitive advantage and add value to the organization’s shareholders (Brohi et al., 2016). Thus, innovation is Nike’s vantage point in the industry, which the corporation seeks to exploit to retain its market dominance.
The job that the paper will focus on is the converse sales associate position. The role of the position holders at Nike Inc. is to ensure that the organization can maintain high sales from converse shoes, which have now become part of the company’s production line owing to their increased demand for use in the court, on the stage and in the streets. The position holder is expected to be highly adaptable to change to fit into the organization. They must also be alert and aware of the shoe trends in the market among a range of consumer groups including thinkers, rappers and ordinary individuals to keep Nike Inc. updated on what consumers want and enable the organization to better fulfill the needs of its customers ("Converse Sales Associate at NIKE INC," 2019). Therefore, the converse sales associate position at Nike Inc. requires the holder to be capable of controlling sales efforts as well as consumer relations. It is also their responsibility to ensure that Nike stores selling converse shoes, deliver excellent customer service, and employ top-notch selling techniques to facilitate product flow and support merchandising.
Needs Assessment
Short-term and Long-term and Goals
Nike’s short-term goals focus on increasing the sales that the organization makes and maintaining its market share. First, the company seeks to maximize sales to increase its profit margin and maintain profitability. Secondly, the organization aims to support high-quality production to continue to retain its status as a choice brand among consumers within the market. Thirdly, Nike is determined to keep up with market trends to ensure that it meets the changing consumer needs and remains relevant to their tastes and preferences. All the efforts described above collectively seek to fulfill the short-term goal of facilitating organizational growth through the exploitation of a Direct to Consumer (DTC) approach that allows the distribution of products straight to the consumers through walk-in stores across the globe and online sales (Brohi et al., 2016). Thus, Nike’s short term goals not only seek to better organizational outcomes but also consumer satisfaction.
Moreover, the organization is looking to widen its profit margin by penetrating new markets, through the maintenance and exploitation of the excellent wholesaler relations available to Nike. Furthermore, the corporation is also looking to expand the independent monitoring programs that are available to it to include both educational institutions and government agencies to increase the publicity of its operations. Moreover, Nike aims at adopting the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) United States law in the implementation of quality standards in its footwear factory. The corporation is also looking to fund open forums and university research projects to explore matters surrounding business responsibility and global manufacturing practices like air quality standards and independent monitoring (Mahdi et al., 2015). Hence, Nike’s goals in the short run seek to cover organizational, consumer and workforce needs to make it both an employer and brand of choice.
In the long run, Nike seeks to achieve a variety of goals, including increasing the availability of its products to consumers by building new stores in top locations like Japan, North America, and West Europe. The corporation also intends to expand the parameters of its wholesale market to make it a key driver for developing retail business and increasing its percentage contribution to annual company sales. Moreover, Nike seeks to elicit higher levels of customer satisfaction by increasing consumer awareness about the benefits of its products and developing new technologies that will further enhance product quality and usability. Increased consumer awareness about the organization’s products is expected to positively impact sales and strengthen Nike’s direct impact through the regulation of consumer business and the enhanced effectiveness of both retail and wholesale market strategies. Furthermore, the organization hopes that in the future it will be able to increase product pricing owing to brand superiority and increased product demand especially in luxury and specialized product markets (Brohi et al., 2016). All of the mentioned long-term goals that Nike seeks to realize aim at eliciting financial benefits, including increasing annual profits, heightening share growth, and return on investment (ROI) as well as growing shareholder dividends.