Case Study: Nike eCommerce Team Makes Fast Online Service Even Faster

By: Leigh Shevchik | Posted in: Case Study, Top Post, May. 7th, 2012

“Using New Relic has helped change our internal business partners’ perception of IT.”

Nike is one of the most recognized brands in the world. Founded in 1964 by University of Oregon track athlete and his coach Bill Bowerman, it has grown to be a leading global developer and retails sales company of athletic footwear, apparel and sports equipment. The company now operates in more than 160 countries and has employees on six continents.

Nike’s online business is a significant and growing part of its revenue portfolio. In 2011, Nike.com and its associated eCommerce applications brought in over $650 Million in revenue worldwide. Since Nike knows web performance directly correlates to revenue generation, it has made fixing and correcting any performance issues a high priority.

Initially incident notification, performance triage and management were significant challenges for Nike.com’s eCommerce team. Although the team was using a variety of tools, it had little insight into production application server health. As its eCommerce platform grew rapidly, the team searched for a better way to ensure application performance and reliability.

“Our main challenge was insufficient insight into our eCommerce applications – no single pane of glass we could look at to see what was going on under the covers,” says Kevin Bartholomew, Nike Web Support Production Manager. “One tool told us the network was down. Another told us the site was slow. We didn’t have anything to see where the problems were, and definitely not what was causing potential issues.”

Nike’s eCommerce team found New Relic in 2011 and was quickly impressed by what it found. “We chose New Relic based on the features available, its ease of installation and its quick results,” adds Kevin. “Overall cost was important to us so the fact that New Relic was a SaaS offering was helpful. We really liked its simple intuitive interface and shallow learning curve, and best of all, we really appreciated its almost instant value.”

Today, the Nike web support team can identify and fix performance issues quickly. New Relic enables them to be much more proactive than reactive and the team is delighted. “Using New Relic has helped change our internal business partners’ perception of IT,” summarizes Kevin.“We have the data and the reports to know when we have fixed a problem. Everyone is more confident and more cooperative. Even within our organization, communication and cooperation have improved.” The result is that the team knows there is an issue before Nike’s customers know it – and that’s exactly what it wants.

See the full Nike case study to see how New Relic helps the Nike eCommerce team make fast online service even faster. And try New Relic for free today and get a free Data Nerd tshirt.