Brand Shoe Enterprises Lining'S International Journey

Lining was able to win the award of the "best internationalized enterprise in ten years", which was somewhat surprising. It had no overseas sales like HUAWEI.

In recent two years, the pace of internationalization of Lining has begun to accelerate.

In 2008, it set up the first global design center of Chinese sports brand in Portland, USA, which was called "putting the red flag into Nike's backyard" by foreign media.

Lining opened the first store in the United States at the beginning of this year, opening up the latest basketball, badminton and Chinese Kung Fu products.

Last year, when Lining bought the brand of the badminton brand, he began to enter the Southeast Asian market in a big way, and set up dozens of stores in Singapore and Hongkong to sell badminton clothes.

In fact, as early as 1999, Lining had attempted internationalization. In August 1999, Lining first organized a group to participate in the ISPO Sporting Goods Fair held in Munich, Germany. One of the aims was to contact overseas distributors in order to fight for the European market.

In 2001, Lining's first overseas brand image shop opened in Spain.

Just as Li Ning Co was trying to sell its products to the whole world, Anta, 361 and other local sporting goods enterprises developed rapidly, and international brands such as Nike and Adidas began to exert their strength in China and occupy the first tier cities.

Lining lost the first place in the market.

Before and after the attack, Lining adjusted the direction in time and refocused on the domestic market.

In 2004, Lining reformulated the strategic plan: 2005~2008, focusing on the domestic market and striving to break through in the internal and external markets. In 2009~2013, the international preparatory stage was focused on strengthening the internationalization capability; 2014~2018 was the stage of full internationalization.

"At that time, Li Ning Co is expected to become the world's top 5 Sports Brand Company, and the international market share will account for more than 20% of the total sales."

Li Ning Co's CEO Zhang Zhiyong said.

In order to achieve this goal, Ning Company is going through an international route from inside to outside, that is to say, before achieving the international market, we should first realize the internationalization of our capability and enhance our innovative capability and brand marketing capability.

In addition to research and development centers in Portland, Lining has a clothing research and development center in Hongkong and a sports science research center in Beijing.

The establishment of these research centers made Lining's products reach the international standard from design to technology, such as breathability of clothing materials and rebound of shoes.

Lining has also attracted a large number of international talents.

Lining has created a management team almost all from the top 500 of the world, chief product officer from Nike, CFO from DELL, and fabric development from Adidas.

The company nearly 1/3 management is a foreigner, and in Lining's design team, there are Nike former senior designers, CONVERSE's former global creative director Alan (Hardy), and the Warner Brothers film design prop Matt Rix (Matt Rask).

Internationalized talents have become the most solid foundation for Lining to go global.

In international marketing, Li Ning Co is highly praised and impressed.

Lining's spokesperson has been an international sports superstar, including shark O'neal, the 26 time to break the world record of Russian female athlete Isinbayeva.

Lining is also a partner of Spain and Argentina national basketball team. In 2008 Olympic Games, the ATP and globrand.com were Lining's long-term partners.

The problem that any enterprise can not get around in the process of internationalization is how to create a distinctive brand image. Lining's answer is Oriental.

This year, Li Ning Co carried out the brand remolding, taking "sensitivity, balance, endurance and precision" as its brand characteristics. Zhang Zhiyong said: "these are things that no one can take from us, and can also make Lining brand distinguish from other international brands."

To the product level, the design of Lining's products is not only in line with the standards of globalization, but also closely related to the popular elements of the world, but at the same time, it has Chinese characteristics and embodies the spirit of the East.

For example, the "Banpo" shoes, which once won the industrial design award, were inspired by Banpo pottery in China; while professional sports shoes and costumes for Isinbayeva, while respecting the ideas of American designers, they also adopted the phoenix pattern represented by domestic designers.

In order to better use the international perspective to excavate the Oriental connotation of Lining brand, Lining has started the training plan for mainland, Hongkong and American designers since last year.

For the internationalization of Lining, Liu Chuanzhi, chairman of Lenovo Group's board of directors, once said: "the road to go will be very difficult.

But the international road is Hirohiro. "

For Lining, this is just the beginning.