Identify the SWOT analysis for the NIKE acquired Zodiac in 2018

Nike is one of the most well-known athlete-wear brands in the world with a history of 58 years. The two founders, Phil Knight and Bill Bowerman found Blue Ribbon Sports - the precursor of Nike in 1964. Their first product was the shoes that quickly raised high demand because of the cheaper price but still high-quality alternatives to the Adidas and Pumas that dominated the market. In 1971, after the lawsuit with Tiger Cortez (Japan), the brand “Blue Ribbon Sports” was changed into “Nike” - a name of the Greek goddess of victory. In 2018, Nike, Inc. was worth approximately $31 million dollars and they decided to acquire Zodiac data analytics firm as a huge step to make their plans come true. Zodiac is based in New York city and Philadelphia whose aim is to “proven data models, customer analytics, and behavioral analysis to predict the future behaviors of individuals, rather than simply assuming past trends and averages will continue across the board. " The athletic shoe and apparel maker sunk its teeth into the Zodiac firm to achieve two main goals: go global and go digital. To explain further, by acquiring Zodiac - a leader in data analytics field, Nike can predict consumer’s preferences for product styles, purchase time and the purchase channels more accurately including the data from both online and offline stores. Moreover, by analyzing the data, Nike is also able to set the strategy to wide-spread their online stores as they aim to go digital. The SWOT analysis is credited by Albert Humphrey, who tested the approach in the 1960s and 1970s at the Stanford Research Institute. Albert Humphrey’s team developed the SWOT analysis based on the data of the companies in the Fortune 500 at that time. The 4 letters S-W-O-T are the abbreviated form of 4 words Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. The firms or organizations could see SWOT as the effective tool to create the strategic business planning template or to perform the plan in front of partners or employers. In this research, we would use the SWOT analysis to figure out the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats of the big deal between Nike and Zodiac. To be clear about this deal, we need to go through the meaning of two words: “Merge” and “Acquisition”. In Cambridge dictionary the word “Merge” means “to combine or join together” while “acquisition” means “something that someone buys”. In this case, Nike, Inc. just acquired the data analytics firm and did not merge it. To clarify, the acquired firm can operate independently under the management of the owner’s company without merging with the mother company.