What it is
Fiscal 2015 ran from June 2014 to May 2015. The category had new leadership and Khounlavong had his first direct report, a manager for core performance footwear. The year's launches were the KD 7, the LeBron XII, the Kobe X and the first Kyrie.
The market moved during the year. Under Armour grew with Stephen Curry. Signature prices had climbed, and the category's own review recorded signature sell-through for the year at 47%, against 60% to 68% in the three years before. In his year end review Khounlavong wrote: "The marketplace has shifted greatly in the past year and Nike Basketball's footwear growth trajectory has slowed."
What Khounlavong did
- Ran the footwear line plan and forecast for the year and beat the seasonal plan target in every season.
- Onboarded the category's first core performance footwear manager and handed over parts of the business. His review records the aim of having the manager seen as the leader of the core business.
- Evolved the three year line plan for fiscal 2016 to 2018 and drove its adoption across functions.
- Wrote the sporting goods strategy after the Dallas market trip, and set the segmentation strategy for spring 2016 across athletic specialty, Dick's, strategic sporting goods and department stores.
- Pioneered the Net Collectors Society pack for March Madness.
- Organized market travel to Las Vegas and Los Angeles, with athlete and influencer focus groups, and captained the footwear team on the Dallas trip.
- Put the Signature Launch visual line plan into use to keep the functions aligned, and coached the Jordan brand team on one of his planning tools.
- Worked with Nike Factory Store partners on buy plans and on a clean exit for each model.
- Worked across categories on shared product, with the fall 2015 Air Max 95 pack as the example in his review.
- Volunteered for the geography's launch task force.
Results
- The footwear business on the plan measure in his review finished at $643.7M against $610.1M the year before, up $33.6M or 5.5%.
- Fall 2014: $197.1M against a target of $189.4M, plus $7.7M.
- Holiday 2014: $187.1M against $177.0M, plus $10.1M.
- Spring 2015: $141.2M against $132.6M, plus $8.6M.
- Summer 2015: $118.3M against $111.1M, plus $7.2M. The seasonal figures are actuals or forecasts as of the May 2015 reconciliation.
- Wholesale shipments at mid-year ran ahead of budget in both reported quarters: $204M against $196M, and $196M against $182M.
- His review records that the North America Basketball footwear business passed $500M for the first time in fiscal 2015.
- Style count fell 11%, from 639 to 569, on the count used in his career profile.
- The cancel rate forecast rose to 7.2%. His review ties the rise to the LeBron line and puts the rate without it under 5%.
- He closed the review with the reset ahead: "with a proper reset for FY'16, the business will be in a healthy position for FY'17."
At a glance
| Project type | Annual business results |
|---|---|
| Industry | Athletic footwear |
| Seat | North America Footwear Merchandising Director, Basketball |
| Ran through | Nike |
| Dates | June 2014 to May 2015 |
| Related pages | Jimmy Khounlavong, Nike Basketball North America footwear, Signature 2.0, Sporting Goods strategy, Net Collectors Society |
| Principal | Jimmy Khounlavong |