Li Ning is at the crossroads of local brands where to go?

In the international market and the high-end market, Li Ning can only look up now. Local brands, Li Ning is the boss, but behind the Anta, 361 and other hot pursuit. Li Ning is both a chaser and a chaser - this kind of "sandwich" situation caught between the middle and high-end markets. Li Ning is not happy. One of its countermeasures is to go upwards—to set up a global shoe design center in Portland, the United States, and to differentiate the brand. It is no longer necessary for Nike to grab basketball and Adi to grab football.

Although there is still only one month to be officially put on the shelves, Li Ning’s newly designed boots for the NBA star Baron Davis have become the “I’m crazy for shoes”, “Tigers NBA”, “Li Ning interactive” and other shoe fan forums. Small focus, there are doubts about the pursuit, the most concentrated question is: "This is Li Ning?"

They also let the dealers who participated in Li Ning’s fourth-quarter trade fair in July open their eyes. Li Ning, general manager of Li Ning Shoes Products Division, exaggerated the appearance of a slight exaggeration, "from the distance of more than ten to twenty meters, looking far into the shoe wall, immediately saw that there are more than a dozen models are not the same, unlike Li Ning." These distribution Businessmen are holding Li Jiaming's question. Are they invited by foreign designers?

It is foreign, but it is still Li Ning. In January 2008, Li Ning Company went to the birthplace and headquarters of Nike, and Portland, USA established the first Global Design Center (GIC) for the Chinese sports brand. Those who kept shoe fans and dealers were quelled. Shoes come from this.

In the past 20 months, about 20 senior designers, engineers, etc. who have served international brands have completed a design season project in a small building that can be barbecued on a terrace on the second floor of Portland, Palanga and Davis. Isinbayeva's equipment, the new model of the core technology "bow", and several new models await the market inspection in the fourth quarter of this year.

What is Li Ning doing?

"Homemade sports brands are watching Li Ning." A shoe owner in Guangdong told the Southern Weekend reporter, "Li Ning is the first domestic sports brand, but also the most caught in the high-end and low-end brands. Li Ning encountered today. Problems, the way we walked, and we will all be unavoidable tomorrow."

Chinese sports brands are now at a crucial crossroads: the Olympics have brought unprecedented high growth, but what are they relying on? Design is the key driving force for sports brands. It can no longer rely on low prices. But when does it work? Can Chinese brands do a good job? How can I become an international brand? These are the questions they think day and night.

Li Ning has been the first to embark on this intersection. In the Chinese market, its market share gap with the second Adidas has been reduced from 3% to 2.6%, and some products incorporating east-west elements have also begun to gain recognition in the international design community. In early 2008, the Board of Directors approved Li Ning’s new five-year strategy. At the beginning of 2009, Zhang Zhiyong officially told employees that the goal of the next five years is to make Li Ning become one of China’s most respected brands and stick to the top three industries in China. And, most importantly, the Li Ning brand will be repositioned.

Obviously, the Global Design Center GIC is Li Ning's five-year strategy that has not yet been clearly disclosed in detail. The first batch is to be tested by the market; Li Ning’s ambition is obviously not limited to “inserting the red flag into Nike’s backyard”.

Time difference Iron Man's secret weapon

How much Li Ning company attaches importance to this global design center is easier to understand with a Li Ning employee's private jokes. "If our domestic design department is Tu Ba Road, they are Snow Leopard Commando in Portland."

In the organizational structure, the GIC is directly under the CEO, the former design department is only one of the regular departments; the amount of investment is 7-8 dollars; and Zhang Zhiyong spent seven or eight months to pick the person in charge Li Jiaming was also appointed to the position of General Manager of the Shoe Products Division to oversee all matters concerning Li Ning. For this reason, Li Jiaming's MSN signature file has also become a “jumping man” because it takes two weeks in the United States and three weeks in China to fly frequently.

Li Jiaming’s background is also quite meaningful. The Shanghai-born who went to study in the US when he was 15 years old has worked in the United States and China for a long time. He is familiar with Chinese and Western culture and work methods. The resumes are international consulting firms such as PricewaterhouseCoopers and Accenture. Business Strategy Consulting Position.

Even in the details of what kind of insurance is provided to US employees, Zhang Zhiyong, the chief financial officer of the company, did not follow the cost-driven principle, but instead achieved the local average.

All this, let the outside world think that Li Ning wants to enter Europe and the United States market, GIC is just a bridgehead, but Zhang Zhiyong said in an interview, did not set this timetable. "From an international perspective, the first is the internationalization of capabilities, and then the internationalization of the business. The GIC is currently preparing for the internationalization of capabilities."

"And the internationalization can't be anxious." Zhang Zhiyong, who graduated from the Peking University Guanghua EMBA, often read various management cases. From the few cases in which Chinese companies went out, he saw the fatal consequences of poor preparation. So, it is only international. It is positioned in the Southeast Asian market.

Making great efforts to do GIC is not only internationalization, but also because Zhang Zhiyong knows it must change. "When I was in the last five-year strategy, I had the idea of ​​going to the United States as a design center, but the financial resources at the time did not support it." Now that it has to be done, because Zhang judges that after the economic crisis, the driving force for the growth of Chinese sports goods has been "Pathway is king" becomes "in parallel with innovation". For sports brands, especially shoe products, innovation must go to the forefront of the world.

Portland is clearly the most suitable. It is one of the two largest footwear centers in the United States. It gathers the headquarters of Nike, Columbia and other international sports brands. Li Ning can recruit world-class designers and R&D engineers here. Collaborate with various institutions in the industry Chain. The team that designed the shoes for “Pole Vault Queen” Isinbayeva has an engineer Mark Thompson who specializes in improving the performance of shoes from a biomechanical perspective. He has been in this field for 20 years; he also brought the University of Calgary. Researching pole-jumping professors, Eva's shoes have achieved a lot of innovation - to extend the traditional hard bottom and increase the rebound of the heel.

The role of GIC is even reflected in some unexpected places. Nike has always been recognized by the industry as the most expected material. In fact, their material suppliers are Chinese, but they all belong to the export system. However, GIC can overcome this limitation because it can't be supplied to domestic brands.

Is this Li Ning?

Interestingly, these cool American designer pieces themselves have brought illusions to consumers. After seeing pictures of the upcoming Baron Davis boots, shoe fans are convinced that they are appealing to European and American consumer tastes and wanting to hit the European and American markets. "Using color, inverted logo is a design element of Nike, the end is often used by Adi, is sold to foreigners." Someone analyzed it on the forum. Coincidentally, Eric Miller, the designer of Baron Davis boots, used to be a senior designer of Nike and Converse.

“This series of shoes is still sold to Chinese consumers.” Tian Peng, a senior product manager of the Barang Davis project transferred from Beijing to Beijing, told reporters. Only the colors worn by Ballon on the field are dazzling, and there are several fans who combine the growth experience of the stars with fans. More money is for the average consumer, and it is for different people.

The question is, where is Li Ning? In the past two years, Li Ning’s local designers have won several international design awards for products such as “Banpo” and “Flying Ace.” There is also a series of “Shuai Shuai” series that have achieved great commercial success.

Obviously, Li Ning’s most prominent brand superiority over its competitors is that it represents the eastern element. Li Ning’s fans, “Lemons,” worried that the joining of American designers would take away the rather decent design spirit that Li Ning had just formed, directly into the Nike or Adidas version of the cottage.

Li Jiaming is very frank. He knows the seriousness of this issue and ranks it as the biggest challenge for GIC at present. Integrating American advanced design concepts with Chinese culture into Li Ning's brand spirit. "It's not about making 10 good shoes. It's about turning 10 models into 1,000 models, and has its own unique brand design language so that others can know without looking at the logo. This is Li Ning. This is a good way to go. It is a truly international brand."