Nike takes over Celect to improve customer engagements & experience

• Financial terms of the deal are yet to be announced.
• The agreement is the latest in the series of acquisitions to strengthen Nike’s customer strategy.

US based Nike Incorporation reportedly announced its acquisition of Boston headquartered predictive analytics company Celect. This acquisition is marked to be the company’s latest takeover to boost its direct-to-customer approach.

Reportedly, the financial terms of the agreement have not yet been disclosed.

As per trusted sources, Celect’s technological integrations into Nike’s mobile application and website will allow the footwear and apparel company to predict the requirements of styles and locations of the consumers.

Eric Sprunk, the Chief Operating Officer, Nike was reportedly quoted stating that the company aims to serve the customers at a more personal scale. It has been difficult for the company to predict the shopping patterns of the consumers and delivering them what they require. With the inclusion of Celect’s AI technology at Nike, the company can accelerate its work and provide the best to its customers.

It has been reported that the Celect platform will instantly be unified into Nike’s global operations team with the company’s co-founders continuing to work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and consult with the team at Nike on a daily basis as agreed in the deal.

Reportedly, Nike looks forward to Celect helping it lessen the out-of-stock charges and reduce the instances of situations where request for footwear and apparel comes unintended. This is expected to provide less pressure on profit margins, if the company controls the records better and not have goods that people aren’t buying in abundant amounts in the warehouses.

Post the announcement of the deal, the shares of Nike went up about 8 per cent year to date, bringing the company’s market capital to USD 127 billion.

For the uninitiated, Nike Incorporation, established in the year 1964, is a multinational corporation headquartered in the United States which is engaged in the designing, developing, manufacturing and global marketing of footwear, apparels, equipment, and accessories.

Source credit: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/06/nike-acquires-ai-platform-celect-hoping-to-predict-shopping-behavior.html