Business Analysis Experience at Nike
Name
Institutional Affiliation
Business Analysis Experience at Nike
Nike, an American multinational corporation, is among the topmost brands worldwide for both apparel and sportswear. Founded back in 1964 by Phil Knight and Bill Bower man, Nike has grown to become a very competitive shoe company, even sponsoring athletes like Michael Jordan and Manny Pacquiao. However, over time, the company has faced a lot of business challenges that needed the intervention of business analysts. This paper will outline my business analysis experience when I visited a Nike factory during the vacation and will also discuss the differences between the role and responsibilities described in theory from what I experienced.
My visit to Nike came when Manny Pacquiao, a boxer that Nike was sponsoring then, had publicly made some anti-gay comments on a television interview. The organization, from the CEO to the employees, identified this as a problem that would affect Nike’s image and sales. The Public Relations and Marketing departments had their hands full trying to control the situation. In the end, Nike made a big decision to solve the lousy publicity stunt by Manny. They dissolved their partnership with him the following day and labeled his comments as “abhorrent.” The story trended on the media and their social media platforms, such as Twitter gaining the confidence of their consumers back. In fact, at the moment, Nike is in the list of the top ten Fortune Most Admired Companies and is a success story of corporate integrity.
According to Section 1 of the Business Analysis for Practitioners: A Practice Guide (2015), business analysts have several roles when it comes to solving problems of their firms. These include determining and identifying business’s needs and challenges, recommending and getting viable solutions for those needs, eliciting and documenting stakeholders’ requirements to meet objectives, and facilitating the implementation of a product or project at hand. Business analysts play the role of an investigator of their organizations, evaluator, strategist, architect, and IT systems analysts. In my experience at Nike, I would say the difference was the fact that there was no specific department given the role of business analysis. Instead, their business analysis was more of a team effort. They all participated in identifying the problem and getting a solution, but they handled the issue at hand as the Practice Guide prescribes. Nike determined the issue, and got a viable solution, and implemented it hence gaining back the confidence of its consumers and investors.
References
Project Management Institute, Inc. [PMI]. (2015). Business analysis for practitioners: A practice guide. Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute