Yang Xun: From Cowboy Factory To Leisure Suit Kingdom

In the early 70s of last century, when the door of reform and opening had not been pushed away, Yang Xun and his brother Yang Zhao went through Hongkong with bare hands. It is the first time to rely on American orders to do three to one processing business, and then enter the quota era to make them manufacture. factory Transfer overseas. With the further escalation of people's lives, they also think that from OEM to autonomy. brand The era of retail is coming... Looking back on the past, every step of the sunrise group is stepping on the drum of history.

The four transformation has created the character of the group. And the fourth choice has made a two or three line city familiar with the clothing brand - "JEANSWEST" (JeansWest). Founded in 1974, it has been developed into clothing retailing. Trade With the manufacturing as the core, and has been involved in the real estate business of the comprehensive group, sales in 2009 reached 4 billion yuan. Yang Xun, now vice president and general manager of the group, is responsible for the clothing business which occupies 83% of the sunrise group's turnover.

The rising sun is very difficult to start. Then, a pair of jeans orders helped them to accumulate the first capital. With the increase of orders, the sunrise completed the total of one hundred thousand dozen jeans orders and completed the initial capital accumulation. The number of workers has increased from 100 to 1000, and the factory area has expanded from 600 square meters to 10000 square meters.

Perhaps it is a sense of crisis at all times. In Yang Xun's view, he judged at that time that the processing trade was not sustainable growth. He and his elder brother did some groping until they completed the four transformation.

According to introducing, the first transformation is to transfer the manufacturing base from Hongkong to overseas. "At that time, it was based on the consideration of reducing labor costs and avoiding quota restrictions"; the second transformation was in 1980, from a single manufacturing industry to a "industry and trade combination" enterprise; the third transformation was from manpower intensive to capital intensive enterprises; the fourth was transformation to retail. "At that time, we thought that the problem of food and clothing in China was solved, and then the problem of dressing was solved. Therefore, we decided to enter China to make the brand and bring the brand JeansWest acquired in Australia to China.

In 1990, sunrise purchased the brand JeansWest and established JEANSWEST International (Hongkong) Limited, a subsidiary of sunrise group. In 1993, JEANSWEST officially entered the Chinese market, the first store opened in Shanghai.

During this period, Yang Xun also made two real estate investments while the market was in the doldrums. The first time was in 1986. "We bought a 24000 square meter office in Tsim Sha Tsui for $208 million, and we sold 1 billion in 1995." The second is the year after the financial turmoil in 1997. The sunrise spent another 1 billion 240 million yuan to buy a piece of land, then invested in the construction cost of 700 million yuan, and finally spent less than 2 billion of its investment. But now it is claimed that the value of the land has exceeded 6 billion. "At that time, we could only buy 1 billion of the land value. But big conglomerates are busy dealing with assets after Hongkong's financial crisis, so our two investments were successful.

It was actually an adventure for Yang Xun to take out 12 billion investment from 1 billion 400 million cash at that time. But Yang Xun said lightly, "we judge that prices will rise sooner or later."

Although the two investments of real estate business have received high returns, Yang Xun seems most concerned about retail business. However, contrary to the spirit of adventure in real estate, JEANSWEST's expansion is slow and does not pursue radical strategies at speed. In the casual wear market's average growth rate of 30%, in the past five years, the average growth rate of JEANSWEST is only around 15%. However, Yang Xun's response is, "I am very satisfied that an enterprise can keep pace with this development."

For JEANSWEST, which is located in parity clothing, it gives people the impression that "looks are not amazing." Yang Xun said that he wanted to do "popularity of famous brands" and "keep abreast of the trend" instead of "guiding the trend". Because only follow the strategy can be consistent with the needs of the populace, "the product that guides the trend is very good, but they are too personalized, only to a few people".

Recalling the mistakes made in the past, Yang Xun said, "we had problems in 1997 and 1998, and did not grow for two or three years, because the positioning at the beginning was the trend of leadership, but later we found that we should not be too popular to make popular brands, and the prices should not be too high."

Compared with Hongkong's "parity fast fashion" brand, Yang Xun said that JEANSWEST's characteristics are not aggressive. "We have not yet opened stores in Hongkong, and the new brand has also been launched in recent years." Yang Xun said that the differentiation of JEANSWEST development is, "they are promoting the expansion with several brands at the same time, and we are stabilizing JEANSWEST before we can develop other brands." For example, the "Phil" brand is JEANSWEST's new brand, with 16-23 year old young people as its target customers, more than 300 chain stores have been opened in the whole country.

At present, JEANSWEST has more than 80 Direct companies in the world, and more than 2500 stores in more than 20 provinces and cities in China. The plan to achieve annual sales of China's market exceeded 10 billion yuan in 2014.

In addition to focusing on the business and development of the company and brand, Yang Xun is also keen on charity. It is understood that since 1998, JEANSWEST has donated 36 JEANSWEST hope primary schools in 29 provinces and regions in China, with a total donation of over 90 million yuan. Yang Xun said, "economic benefits can only sustain the survival of enterprises, and social benefits can make enterprises develop continuously. For JEANSWEST, various activities in public welfare activities are good carriers, which can do something for the society and develop enterprises. "