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Nike Jolt

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Nike Jolt

We are introducing a new division under the Nike brand, introducing “Jolt” from Nike Inc. Clothing that generates electricity through kinetic energy. This allows anyone to be able to wear the clothing, build up energy to connect and used to charge your cell phone, transmit a wireless signal, or power a medical implant. The article of clothing even has a USB cable to connect to an external, portable hub to ‘upload’ its remaining units of electric to.

An example for the commercial that advertises this new product, and essentially the division, could follow in footprints already established by Nike, but simply creating a new outlook. the "Just Do It" commercials have already paved the way for the Nike brand, but then "Do" can be changed to things like "Play" and "Call", etc., until the action ends on "Just Charge It." And from there, the advertising is limitless and would relate to devices that the articles of clothing could connect to and charge.

Nike's mission statement is "To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete* in the world” (Nike Inc., 2017). The legendary University of Oregon track and field coach, and Nike co-founder, Bill Bowerman said, "If you have a body, you are an athlete” (Nike Inc., 2017).

Continuing with the already created Mission statement, the Nike Jolt product clothing line will bring new innovative ways to move, while helping generate electricity through kinetic energy. This is appealing to customers because not only can they charge their electronic devices, but they can save the unused electrical units for later use. This can save thousands of dollars for each person in the long run, which can be most appealing to anyone that pays an electric bill or needs an electrical charge in any case, especially emergencies. The mission statement for the new division would be the following:

“To Develop, Manufacture, and Market high energy density supercapacitors through an athletic clothing line, establishing them as a main stream energy harvester. To create your own energy, connecting customers to their everyday needs, simply by moving, creating vibration to power mobile devices, life functioning and life saving devices, or just to store for later use.”

Nike, Inc. (NKE is the world’s leading sports footwear and apparel company (Soni, 2014). Nike’s high-performance athletic gear is mostly targeted at professional athletes. Nike’s innovations, products, and services seek to develop athletic potential, according to the company (Soni, 2014). However, the company also focuses on women customers (Soni, 2014). The current Women’s Training segment is faster growing than the Men’s Training segment. To ensure their continuing of the company’s name, line and future growth of the company, young athletes are a big part of its sales strategies in most all sport categories and themes, so this ensures that young athletes will also form Nike’s target market in the future (Soni, 2014).

The essential goal is to develop and manufacture a body motion energy harvester with the flexibility and elasticity to be applied to high flexion joints and suitable for integration with fabrics. This type of product is already being developed by researchers at Sogang University in Korea, where the designed is aimed at providing power for medical and consumer wearable devices (Phys.org, 2015). With the ever-growing interest in wearable electronic devices, there is also an ever-growing need to find different power sources, especially to alleviate the need for regular charging or regular battery changes (Phys.org, 2015). Fortunately, the human body provides several potential energy sources, including heat and motion, and is routinely exposed to other sources like friction and light. These can be exploited using energy harvesting technologies that will provide power for wearable devices for medical and sports body sensors and networks, to motion and mobile battery charge phone chargers (Phys.org, 2017). Motion or kinetic energy harvesters have the advantage of being less reliant on the external environment (i.e. light and humidity) (Phys.org, 2015). Shoe-based devices have already shown to be capable of producing significant power levels. The goal of the team at Sogang University's Micro & Nano Engineering Laboratory (MNELAB) is to create energy harvesting technologies that get useful energy from only wearing and moving, which can be applied to many other parts of the body (Phys.org, 2015).

Kinetic energy hervesters mounted on flexible substrates for application in clothing have been presented before, but have been limited in their range of flexibility and elasticity (Phys.org, 2015). This is a key problem as it prohibits their use where kinetic energy is potentially most abundant (Phys.org, 2015). An example would be around body joints with a large range of motion - the knee, the elbow, the hip, the shoulder – and around muscles with large dimension changes in expansion and contraction (Phys.org, 2015). “Existing flexible energy harvesters have little elasticity because they use plastic substrates that are flexible but not elastic,” said the MNELAB researcher Professor Kwang-Seok Yun (Phys.org, 2015). “Therefore, it can be difficult to harvest energy effectively in those areas. This may lead to degradation of the device performance or damaged due to excessive tensile force. Our suggested device, on the other hand, has high flexibility and elasticity from a helical spring structure and an elastic support material, which helps to harvest energy effectively” (Phys.org, 2015). For the longer term, the team is working to increase the power output through connecting multiple structures in parallel series and analyzing the energy conversion process is involved with the target of achieving hundreds of milliwatts output (Phys.org, 2015). This would allow applications as a main power source.

This team can effectively match with marketing sources of Nike, Inc., to produce the most effective charging equipment in clothing for athletes that have the passion and energy it takes to charge these types of harvesters. Energy harvesting - harvesting abundant energy from the environment to power small devices or assist larger devices - has secured a sure foot-hold in building and industrial markets, powering wireless sensors to improve efficiency, reduce costs and increase automation (Das, 2013). This could increase the target market for Nike, Inc., to not just shoes and apparel, but to consumer electronics, mobile phone charging, military and aerospace, etc., (Das, 2013).

Ambient energy harvesting has a lot of possible applications that just aren’t feasible for other types of renewable energy. One example is in the wake of a natural disaster, when rescue workers need quick access to power (Roller, 2013). Another is in developing countries without sophisticated power grids, where harvested human energy could be used to power anything from cell phones to coolers storing vaccines (Roller, 2013). This technology isn’t adults-only, either: The company Uncharted Play has invented an energy-harvesting soccer ball for children in developing countries to use (Roller, 2013). The ball stores the energy from getting kicked around during the day to power a built-in LED light at night (Roller, 2013). This opens the door for potential growth throughout not only Nike Inc. productions, but for its labor force as well. A new division for the company with this type of outlook has unlimited possibilities.

Harvesting the body’s energy isn’t a viable alternative to large-scale renewable energy options like wind and solar, but it has extremely useful applications in specific fields (Roller, 2013). What ambient energy harvesting can also do very effectively is show people how much we can rely on our own bodies to produce the energy we need. Capacitors can be charged and discharged many more times than batteries, which is an important feature for nodes powered by the widely varying motion energy (Gorlatova, M. et al., 2014). Additionally, capacitors are more environmentally friendly than batteries [20], and are therefore more suitable for human-facing IoT applications such as wearable computing (Gorlatova, M. et al., 2014).

When a phone runs out of energy and you are still going all day long, you don’t always have the time or patience even to wait for your phone to be connected to a wall and charge. Nike Jolt would bring an end to standing still charging, and create an open door to charging many different mobile devices, long-term. By building a strong relationship with companies already working in the science field regarding harvesting kinetic energy, and implementing an aggressive marketing plan, Nike Inc. already has a nationally recognized brand, that would expand further than it ever has before. Nike already is the leader in the industry, this would open new doors to new levels of marketing for the company.

Core values can be defined as the guiding principles that are valued among the shareholders of the business. The core values of an organization are those values we hold which form the foundation on which we perform work and conduct ourselves (NPS.gov, 2017). Core values are not descriptions of the work we do or the strategies we employ to accomplish our mission (NPS.gov, 2017). The values underlie our work, how interact with each other, and which strategies we employ to fulfill our mission. The core values are the basic elements of how we go about our work.

Nike’s core values can be summed up as dependable, quality, innovation, and community involvement. Dependability is an important value for the company because it allows Nike Inc. to deliver exceptional customer service. It is essential to provide a dependable service that will lead to a positive experience for everyone that buys the Nike brand. Innovation is crucial because it will lead to lower costs and provide the capital necessary for the company to grow and expand. Working towards an innovative service-based business model will lead to share-holder value while simultaneously continuing to build the competitive advantage dominating the market, as Nike does. Finally, community involvement will generate the interaction needed to uphold a positive relationship with customers. The success of this business is largely dependent on maintaining a string reputation that will promote consistent referrals from past customers. Nike, for instance, likes to promote the fact that it has represented nearly 80% of the final four men’s and women’s teams in the “March Madness” college basketball tournaments in the last decade, including all four for both tournaments in 2016 (Bain, 2017).

Clear communication of the vision, mission, and core values is required for the strategic plan to be implemented. Employees and managers should always have a clear understanding of the fundamental principles that make up the company's business model. At the top of the hierarchy, Corporate Executives must make high-level decisions that will allow core values to flourish. For example, it will be important to select new store locations that enables consumers to easily interact with the product, to see and experience its capabilities, such as densely populated Urban shopping centers that have displays and be physically shown to the customer. Choosing rural store locations will not provide the necessary exposure for employees to follow the core value of community involvement. In addition, continuous training of employees will be conducted to keep them focused on the strategic objectives of the company. Perpetual training programs will allow employees to offer exceptional customer service while also keeping a solid focus on the broad objective of brand growth.

Obtaining a competitive advantage over similar kinetic energy harvesting clothing lines can be achieved by adhering to the core values. Most important it will be critical for executives to make investments in assets that will promote innovation of the product. Technology is a rapidly changing industry and it will be important to maintain a strong understanding of the leading edge of technology. Maintaining a focus on innovation will allow the company to position itself appropriately as major changes to the industry occur, this is nothing that Nike is not used to. Unlike Nike's nature, companies that lag behind these trends will find themselves unable to offer an affordable comparison for this latest type of technology in wearable kinetic energy harvesting clothing and shoe lines.

By implementing a comprehensive strategic plan, Nike jolt seeks to achieve a leading position in the kinetic energy harvesting industry. The company can communicate its core values by summarizing them with the vision and mission statement, as seen above. These brief statements act as the guiding force for the decision-making among CEO’s, executives, managers, employees, and even the Owner. They are also a medium for describing the core values of all shareholders. The contents of the plan will remain the main driving force for the overall direction of the organization. Once implemented, the strategic plan will aid in the company's prospects for growth in this new division, increase value for shareholders, and provide an advantage over key competitors, as Nike always has.

Resources:

Bain, Marc. (2017) Nike Reigns, for Now. Quartz, Media LLC. Retreived from URL: https://qz.com/931118/under-armour-and-adidas-are-coming-after-nike-the-reigning-king-of-march-madness-sponsorships-ua-nke/

Das, Raghu. (2013) Energy Harvesting Comes to Market. IDTechEx. Retrieved from URL: https://www.idtechex.com/research/articles/energy-harvesting-comes-to-market-00005163.asp?donotredirect=true

Gorlatova, M., Sarik, J., Grebla, G., Cong, M., Kymissis, I., & Zussman, G. (2014). Movers and shakers: Kinetic energy harvesting for the internet of things. Paper presented at the 407-419. doi:10.1145/2591971.2591986

National Park Service. (2017) What are Core Values? Retrieved from URL: https://www.nps.gov/training/uc/whcv.htm

Nike, Inc. (2017) Nike Mission Statement. About Nike. Get Help. Retrieved from URL: https://help-en-us.nike.com/app/answer/a_id/113

Soni, Phalguni. (2014) Nike’s Target Market Today and Tomorrow. Yahoo Finance. Retrieved from URL: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/nike-target-market-today-tomorrow-210056686.html

Roller, Emma. (2013). The Body Electric. Alternative Energy. Published by the Slate Group LLC., a Graham Holdings Company. Retrieved from URL: http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/alternative_energy/2013/03/kinetic_energy_harvesting_technology_to_power_lights_cell_phones_medical.html