Nike's 'Sports Knowledge Underground' E-learning Initiative

The problem facing Nike was that the rate of employee turnover at the stores was very high. This meant that the company always had new associates who needed to be trained on selling skills as well as on the products. The fact that most of the sales associates were in their late teens or early 20s posed another challenge as this group brought their own unique characteristics to the workplace and was not very receptive to the traditional forms of training.

Keeping this demographic segment in mind, Nike came out with the SKU program, which was then used to train thousands of sales associates in Nike's own stores and that of other retailers that kept Nike inventory.