Don Blair: That was probably about seven years ago and the business was a different structure then. We are leveraging a lot of our wholesale overhead. One of the things is focusing resources. We have been focused on making sure we are investing in strategic initiatives and that is things like emerging markets and development of retail and those things have had a tangible impact on revenues and gross margins. What I would say to you is we still believe that it is important for us to make sure that we are driving productivity in overhead type functions so that we can invest in our strategic priorities and so we are going to continue to do that. As I called out in the script, we are seeing much slower growth than revenue in our core wholesale businesses but we are investing heavily in some other parts of the business.
Virginia Genereux (Merrill Lynch): Are the areas that require more SG&A investment direct to consumer?
Don Blair: Yes. It is emerging markets as well as the other businesses that we reported. We think that business still has tremendous growth opportunity and we are investing heavily in it. That is another example.
Brian McGoth (Morgan Stanley): The companies that are going to do best in a rising China cost environment are those that ultimately have a sales organization that is greater than a sourcing organization. China is less than 1/3 of sourcing for Nike overall. The industry is closer to 85%. China is growing for you at a rate of 3 or 4 times the rate of your sourcing organization. Is this the right way to look at it and as time goes by and as you see your local sales organization in China continue to ramp that spread will just continue to compress?
Mark Parker: There are a couple of pieces that are the best and accurate analogy. One of them is currency. The RMB strengthens that makes product more costly but it also means that sales in China are more valuable. There definitely is a benefit as we get a natural hedge. The second thing is the economic growth in China not only drives labor costs but also fuels the growth of our business. Yes, the bigger footprint we have in China that certainly helps offset the pressure that comes out of the sourcing side. At the same time we are going to continue to work a diversified sourcing base and work the gross margin levers.
Charlie Denson: When we talk about our business in China we usually talk about the NIKE brand. We have a significantly larger footprint there with Converse, and now Umbro added, in addition to NIKE Golf. The footprint we have in China is large so we can leverage that on both sides in both sourcing and the revenue potential.
|