Zoom Meetings to Blame For Lack of Innovation at Nike?
It’s no secret that haven’t been on their game across innovation over the past few years, but the apparent root cause of the problem might surprise you. According to Nike’s CEO John Donahoe, it all comes down to Zoom. Not Zoom, the bouncy Air unit you’ll find in many of the brand’s running and basketball footwear, but Zoom Meetings. Yes, you read right.
For a global brand like Nike, having employees who are able to work from anywhere should be advantageous, allowing them to tap into trends and innovations from all over the world. However, Donahoe recently shared concerns, claiming that the company’s abilities to create ambitious products suffered when people were working remotely. Though he admitted that some issues stemmed from supply chain problems and the pandemic, he went on to say in an interview with that ‘even more importantly, our employees were working from home for two and a half years. And in hindsight, it turns out, it’s really hard to do bold, disruptive innovation, to develop a boldly disruptive shoe, on Zoom.’
He continued: ‘Our teams came back together 18 months ago in person, and we recognise this. So we realigned our company, and over the last year we have been ruthlessly focused on rebuilding our disruptive innovation pipeline along with our iterative innovation pipeline.’
The brand showcased their latest innovations at their Nike ‘On Air’ event in Paris last week. Among them were conceptual that athletes, designers and AI had imagined, and the Nike Pegasus Premium, which features a full-length, visible Zoom Air unit and is scheduled to touch down in 2025. But the Swoosh still have a lot to prove. Back in February 2024, they laid off 2 per cent of their talent to save $2 billion over three years. Shake-ups are inevitable, but with cost-cutting measures seeming to take precedence, the question around whether remote working has had such an effect on innovation and productivity is questionable.
Word on the track is that there are more layoffs yet to come.
All eyes are on what comes out of Beaverton.