Anta Founder Ding Shizhong: Striving To Build An International Brand

Jinjiang businessmen seem to be born with an entrepreneurial temperament. Despite their uneven educational backgrounds, they have a keen sense of smell, daring to forge ahead and diligent and progressive. This has created the vitality of the Jinjiang brand in the past ten years, and has gradually brought them to the capital level from the beginning stage. Nike , Adidas and Puma Challenge.

As a representative of the Jinjiang department, Ding Shizhong, founder of Anta, is often regarded as a poor talker and understated. But like all Jinjiang businessmen who are passionate about entrepreneurship, Ding is never satisfied with the status quo, and strives to dominate everything: big companies, big brands, and the "evergreen" that can be truly realized.

After graduating from junior high school, Ding Shizhong, who "made his own way out", led Anta to grow from a shoe factory with only a few million turnover to a listed company with annual sales of 6 billion yuan in less than twenty years. He has spoken more than once. The goal of Anta is to surpass Lining.

In a business story similar to a miracle, everything is unbelievable in retrospect. In 1994, when Chinese sports fans were proud of having a pair of Adidas or Nike shoes, Anta brand was just created. In the first few years, Ding Shizhong still worked hard to earn money for other enterprises. The Anta trademark was only a simple pinyin or even registered. The turnover was only a few million a year.

Ding Shizhong, who was seen in his father's shoe workshop from his childhood, watched helplessly as a OEM order for the semi hand-made shoes at home at a very low price and sold to all corners of the world at a high price. In his mind, he began to see the idea of "making his own brand and selling the domestic market", which was regarded as a bold and crazy attempt at that time.

In 1999, Ding Shizhong took the lead in winning the world's champion Kong Linghui as the spokesman for Anta brand. He gambled on the annual profit in the 800 thousand big advertisements of CCTV. At that time, Anta's sales volume was only 50 million yuan, and its profit was only 4 million. Surprisingly, that bet has been an unprecedented success, and other brands in Jinjiang are starting to emulate. This tiny place also quickly gathered advertisers and star brokers who came to gold rush.

Since then, Anta has completed the construction from production to self marketing system, and has focused on two or three line cities. "We need to become a leader in the value chain." Ding Shizhong said that in the face of more and more imitators, he kept thinking about how to run faster, and took the lead in the increasingly competitive Jinjiang.

But after some time, the high-speed running began to make Ding Shizhong feel stressed. The rapid growth of turnover and the expanding team made him understand that relying solely on experience is no longer beyond the limits of management. Anta can not keep pace with the growth of its own talents. "De familial" has become a barrier for Anta.

From 2006 onwards, the consultants of the suit became very frequent in various departments of Anta: kirney Gang planned the strategy, Hao Teng acted as a media agent, KPMG acted as an accountant, and JW had outsourced brand management. Anta executives have spent a lot of time finding and solving problems with consultants.

After finishing the internal combing, Anta went public in Hongkong in 2007, which can be seen as a sign that the company moves from family control to systematic operation. At the same time, professional managers were invited by Ding Shizhong to Anta, and the management team is becoming more and more diversified.

Enough talent reserves also let Ding Shizhong more emboldened to take new risks. Last year, two major events took place in Anta's history. One was the successful bid for the 2009-2012 year's COC, and the two was the Chinese trademark ownership and Hong Kong and Macao retail business, which took HK $400 million to acquire Italy brand FILA. For Ding Shi Zhong, the acquisition of international high-end brands makes the company go further in the race with Adidas. Of course, FILA has only been 11 months since its formal takeover, and the benefits of integration have not yet been reflected.

Under the impulsive high-end impulse, "Anta's future positioning must be a multi brand management company", Ding Shizhong stressed again. After the competitive level of capital competition, what he has to do is to continue to grasp the balance between change and stability.