&Nbsp Dongguan Footwear Industry Regenerates

December 6th is difficult to recruit workers.

Today, Dongguan shoe industry has encountered a series of development bottlenecks, and the pformation and upgrading of the Dongguan government, enterprises and the academic circle of the consistent voice.

Since 2006, the Dongguan Houjie Town, known as the "world shoe capital", has begun a long and difficult process of butterfly change, which has been highly affirmed by Wang Yang, the Secretary of the provincial Party committee.

Recently, he made instructions on the pformation and upgrading of Dongguan's processing trade enterprises: "we have achieved positive results and accumulated valuable experience, and we hope Dongguan will continue to work hard and really get out of a new way of competitiveness and sustainable development."

The shoe industry in Dongguan has gone to the crossroads of pformation and upgrading. Where is the shoe industry in Dongguan? From its own perspective, to rebuild a "world shoe capital" needs to upgrade the "manufacturing" into "intelligent manufacturing" and change from OEM to brand.

The shoe industry of Dongguan is a battle of life and death. Reform itself is a revolution.

From the external conditions, the Jiangsu and Zhejiang footwear industry, represented by Jinjiang, has built up a number of benchmarking brands, and Dongguan shoe industry has been left behind by its domestic counterparts.

The continued downturn in European and American markets and the rapid rise in costs are a fatal blow to Dongguan footwear industry, which is typical of the foundry industry.

Reform is a systematic project, and the pformation and upgrading of the footwear industry in Dongguan is also true.

With the profound changes in the environment at home and abroad, the pformation and upgrading of the footwear industry in Dongguan has become the consensus of all parties. It has already been attached importance to by the high level. However, the direction of the pformation will lead to the other side.

Carefully studying the history and current situation of footwear industry in Dongguan, analyzing the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of Dongguan footwear industry from five angles, such as government, production, marketing, learning and research, may be helpful for exploring the future pformation and upgrading of Dongguan footwear industry.

Official: Dongfeng policy

In August 14th, Secretary Wang Yang gave instructions in Dongguan's "report on the instructions made by Comrade Wang Yang on the pilot work of industrial pformation and upgrading".

Liu Zhigeng, Secretary of the Dongguan Municipal Committee, also made an instruction: "unswervingly strive to explore and move out of a road of pformation and upgrading in line with reality".

Other leading bodies in Dongguan have expressed their good intentions and strong determination on Dongguan's industrial pformation and upgrading on various occasions.

It can be seen that the strong determination and leadership of the government attaches great importance to the official advantage of the footwear industry in Dongguan.

In November 3, 2010, the policy support scheme of pformation and upgrading of Dongguan footwear industry and cluster development, which was led by Houjie town government, has been submitted to the Dongguan municipal government for examination and approval to strive to build Dongguan into the world footwear industry by 2015.

No doubt, this is another shot in the arm for Dongguan's industrial pformation and upgrading.

The protagonist of pformation and upgrading is the enterprise, the grass-roots government is an indispensable backstage promoter, or "a lot of supporting roles."

Only when the grass-roots government is willing and friendly to push hands and supporting roles can we achieve the goal of "when we sell our hands".

In promoting the pformation and upgrading of enterprises, the grass-roots government needs to do at least three things. First, the government should provide fast and efficient services; second, the government should implement preferential policies; third, the government should further improve the environment.

In this quiet industrial revolution, the government should do something for nothing, do not interfere too much in the internal affairs of enterprises, but do well in service work.

From the perspective of the existing policy measures, the government has more slogans than practical actions, and the vision is more than specific measures.

Production: strong industrial clusters

Industrial clusters have always been the strength of Dongguan's footwear industry.

Looking at the history of the development of footwear industry in Dongguan, it has probably gone through five stages: the introduction stage (1978~1980 years) of the Hong Kong people returning to their own factories, and the absorption stage (three years) of the shoe factories at the three level of the town village group, and the scale expansion stage (1988~1992 years) of the Southeast Asian footwear industry, which is dominated by Taiwan (1988~1992 years). The footwear industry deepens the integrated development stage of the internal division of labor (1992~2006 years), and the upgrading stage of the footwear industry and footwear industry pformation (2006 to present).

After more than thirty years of continuous development, Dongguan seems to have established its status and reputation as "world shoe capital" which is hard to shake.

Dongguan footwear industry has a solid foundation for manufacturing, a standardized market operation and complete industrial support. The basic elements suitable for the development of shoemaking industry are still widespread. At present, though faced with difficulties in anti dumping and cost raising, "Dongguan Houjie and Guangzhou as high-end footwear manufacturing centers and R & D and trade platform will become the best regional interactive mode to guide the future development of China's footwear industry."

At present, the industrial cluster of Houjie in Dongguan has a large scale, no matter the number of enterprises, output value or export volume has occupied an important position.

In addition, the shoe industry chain of Houjie is complete, from production enterprises, service enterprises, raw material suppliers, shoe maker enterprises to permanent buyers and professional markets.

{page_break}

Sales: weak brand channel

With the declining trend of foreign trade orders, the domestic sales path of Dongguan footwear industry has been put on the agenda and has been partially practiced.

A year ago, the Dongguan footwear brand alliance, led by Huarui world shoe headquarters, was established in Houjie, which is intended to create the brand image of Dongguan footwear industry, and has more negotiating capital in the process of domestic sales.

There are two stumbling blocks on the domestic sale of Dongguan footwear industry. One brand is missing, and the two sales channels are sluggish.

Compared with the footwear industry in Jinjiang, Dongguan footwear industry is famous for its "world shoe capital", but there are few brands that are influential in China.

For example, the famous Anta, XTEP, AOKANG, 361 degree, seven wolves and so on are all the flagship brands of the Jinjiang department.

Especially 361 degrees, as the only footwear senior partner of the Guangzhou Asian Games, its brand influence is hard to match.

Looking at the shoe industry in Dongguan, there are few brands that can be heard in China.

Take Huajian as an example. As early as October 1996, it invested and established Huajian Shoes Co., Ltd. in Houjie. After many years of pioneering work, it has grown into a world-renowned manufacturer of women's shoes and has been a foundry for NINEWEST, ESPIRIT and other world-renowned brands.

After 2006, Huajian began to create its own brand COLCO, Alan Delon, Chan long and other brands, but it was only famous in the province.

To rush out of Guangdong and move towards the world, Dongguan footwear industry has a long way to go.

The shoe industry in Dongguan is moving from OEM to brand.

One of the difficulties is the cost of pformation.

For a large scale industrial base with 30 years of development, to change its development mode, its opportunity cost, reserve funds, equipment renewal, brand promotion and so on need to consume a lot of resources.

If it is not necessary, the parties concerned will not rush into pformation.

The second difficulty of pformation and upgrading of footwear industry in Dongguan is the lack of experience.

"We all know this, but we don't know how to operate it."

Said the boss of a shoe factory in Houjie.

In the shoemaking industry, many bosses started from stalls and family workshops, and under the bathing of reform and opening up, with a hard drive, their origins were mostly farmers who washed their feet on the fields.

There is not much difference between business owners and outsiders. In the face of enterprise upgrading, they are also at a loss.

Like the external evaluation, the owners have complained about Dongguan's upgrading for many years and think the local government is not doing enough.

"The government only says on its lips that there is no concrete concrete action.

Many officials of the town government do not know how to upgrade, let alone us.

"We haven't given us any training for domestic sales and how to make brand, nor have we given us any information about what market development we are going to develop".

The footwear industry in Dongguan started by foundry and enlarged by OEM. Now, it has been in trouble because of foundry work. Xiao He is defeated by Xiao He.

The biggest problem of OEM is that both sides are out there - Design and marketing abroad, leading to the big profits falling into the hands of foreign investors.

The footwear industry in Dongguan is located in the upper and middle reaches of the whole industrial chain, and the high value-added part of the downstream industry has been hard to reach. Once the export is not smooth, domestic producers will have to fall into a passive position.

Under the subcontracting system, the shoe industry in Dongguan basically does not need to consider the problem of establishing a sales network, because many foreign direct purchases can be completed, and the exhibition economy is thriving.

Under the great pformation of export to domestic sales, whether the channel foundation or marketing experience and talents are extremely scarce, this is an aspect that the industry needs to pay close attention to.

Science: lack of personnel training

The talent crisis in Dongguan is first shown in recruitment difficulties.

The shortage of workers is bound to greatly raise the price of labour. Taking Foxconn as an example, it is really the best way to retain and attract talents. The most important thing is to raise salaries. Recently, Foxconn's labor price has nearly doubled.

Labor costs continue to climb, coupled with the pressure of inflation, business owners have reached the point where no money can be made, and the foundry system has come to an end.

China is a country with large population, but it is also a country with a great shortage of talents.

The shoe industry in Dongguan has long used a large number of cheap domestic labor force to obtain meager profits, which is its fatal weakness.

In recent years, great changes have taken place in China's population structure. China has entered the aging society ahead of schedule. The proportion of young and middle-aged labor force in the total population is getting lower and lower, and the new generation after 90 is mostly the only child. Their ideas are obviously different from those of the 70 and the 80's.

With the inter provincial pfer of domestic manufacturing industry and the gradual strengthening of internal provinces, more and more migrant workers are willing to work nearby. The salary advantages of the Pearl River Delta are gradually disappearing, and their attractiveness to migrant workers in the mainland is rapidly weakening.

Shortage of migrant workers is no longer a short-term problem. It is likely to become a short board that will impede the development of Dongguan's manufacturing industry.

The causes of recruitment difficulties come from many aspects, many of which are caused by changes in the environment. How to solve them? There are people in the industry who believe that only reducing the amount of workers' use is the fundamental way out. Therefore, machine replacing workers has become a hot topic.

At the twelfth China Dongguan international footwear exhibition held at the shoe machine exhibition recently, it revealed the hot information of shoemaking business. Wang Wei, chairman of the Hong Kong entrepreneur and chairman of the shoe industry, pointed out that "the comparison of the shoe machine is mainly due to the fact that the production enterprises hope to find some new equipment and technology here to reduce the cost".

Can a lot of machines solve the problem of recruitment in Dongguan? Everything is never once and for all. The widespread use of machines can, of course, reduce the number of workers, but it will inevitably lead to complex new problems.

In addition to increasing the burden of enterprises and wasting the original resources of enterprises, the increase of fixed assets will also increase the difficulty of enterprises' re pformation and reduce the flexibility of enterprises. More importantly, the use of machines has put forward higher requirements for the quality of workers, so that the existing human resources in Dongguan can hardly meet the needs.

{page_break}

To solve the bottleneck of talents in Dongguan, we must rely on introduction and two training.

The introduction of high-end talents and generous salaries is an important part. Good growth environment and a series of supporting services are more important, such as children's enrollment, household migration, and research projects.

Talent training has always been a very weak link in Dongguan.

At present, the training of the shoe industry is mainly in the middle of the street, and is still in the lower stage.

It is still unknown whether the establishment of training center in Career Academy in Dongguan or the construction of a special shoe academy is still in the process of planning.

The application of high technology requires a large number of skilled workers, not ordinary workers. If we do not solve these problems effectively, Dongguan's industrial upgrading will be faced with no one available, especially if it is not available.

Research: Design Research decline

For a long time, the consumption of shoes has always met people's basic needs. But with the development of society and the improvement of people's living standard, shoes are no longer just representing food and clothing, but gradually become a fashion. Therefore, footwear industry has become a creative industry in a sense.

China is a big shoe industry, but not a powerful shoe industry.

In the crown of the world, the world shoe capital, Dongguan occupies the most part of the world in terms of the number of shoes, but now it is facing the test of life and death.

In the tide of global industrial pfer, Dongguan has been given a share of the shoe industry, but it is only a small cup.

Just like kite flying, although kites are placed in Dongguan, China, the line is still firmly controlled by foreign businessmen. There are two lines for kite traction, one is sales, the other is design.

Dongguan has not yet had its own high-level designers and advanced design and creative factories, which is another obstacle to Dongguan's pformation and upgrading.

The level of design directly determines the quality and location of products, and is also related to the strength of brand competitiveness.

France and Italy always lead the world in fashion industry, but their leadership is not overnight, but has gone through a long period of precipitation process.

Policymakers in Dongguan should clearly realize that the level of design is the key to winning the future for the footwear industry in Dongguan.

The shoe industry in Dongguan is weaker in scientific research.

In the era of foundry, finished shoes were produced almost exclusively according to the requirements made by foreign merchants. The sales of the finished products by the designated testing companies are not necessary to build their own research teams.

OEM shoes are like flowers in greenhouses, though they can grow quickly in the short term. Once they encounter big storms, they will be uprooted.

This point also needs attention.