The office lights burn later and the car parks are fuller in the evenings at Nike's headquarters in Portland, Oregon. The explanation lies half a world away. Since the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), the world's biggest sports-goods group has cut by over half its number of business trips to Asia, where some 300,000 people in four countries (China, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam) make more than four-fifths of its footwear. These days most of Nike's staff keep in touch with Asia by e-mail, the telephone or video conferencing. New shoe designs are no longer being brought back to head office from buying trips in Asia. Instead, they are displayed on computer-aided-design software, with samples sent back and forth across the Pacific via Fedex.
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