Seven Wolves Plunge Into "Midlife Crisis"

"What has been the most frustrating thing for me in the past two years?"

In the past two years, Zhou Shaoxiong is like a painter who can not find a good tool. His fresh picture is full of endless ideas. He always shows no satisfaction to him.

When he is in a hurry, he will shout to his subordinates: "you must have ideas in your mind, not only do I have you!" Zhou Shaoxiong admits that sometimes he will be radical. "The most impressive advice I have had in recent years is: don't be anxious to get what you want. It's not that you think you can do it right away."

Since 2007, Zhou Shaoxiong has been annoyed by the seven wolves falling into the "midlife crisis".

Brand aging, low value-added, competitive brands emerge in an endless stream. Foreign famous brands take huge profits with high premium capability and drive China's low-end brands out of shopping malls one by one.

At the same time, the seven wolves rely on agents and franchisees to sell goods, and the days are no longer easy. The lack of understanding of the market directly leads to loss of feeling when making brand.

Without change, it will take a few years before the seven wolves will become "granddad" clothes and enter the "antique brand club".

Zhou Shaoxiong could not bear the decline of the seven wolves. He decided to fight back.

He reckons that POLO, GAP and other foreign men's clothing brands have achieved nearly 20 billion, while China's good men's clothing enterprises are only 2 billion, 3 billion, and the space is very large.

Moreover, fashion and quality will become the new growth point of Chinese men's wear.

"This is not improvement, it is revolution."

Seven wolves employees described this.

The company is not in the forefront of fashion in Guangdong, Shanghai or Beijing. It is known in Jinjiang, a medium-sized city in Fujian, by making a number of popular brands in two or three line cities.

Most of the enterprises here are ambitious, but they don't have enough understanding of brand upgrading. They are good at marketing spokesmen and exaggerated advertisements.

For example, the impressive slogan: "for the first time, the brand name of Le Louvre museum is" strong man's men's clothing. "

Zhou Shaoxiong's subversion begins with breaking the three ceiling.

"The first thing to break is the entrepreneur's own ceiling."

Zhou Shaoxiong first took his own operation.

Zhou is very clear about his short board.

When formulating a pformation strategy, he draws nourishment from other enterprises, consultants and books, and lacks anything to supplement anything.

Most of the entrepreneurs in Jinjiang are weak in cultural foundation and lack deep understanding of culture. Due to long-term extensive management, they are not familiar with the modern enterprise system.

He went to read EMBA.

"The impact of thought gave me a lot of emotional inspiration.

Unfortunately, my learning base is not good enough. My computer and English are not familiar. Unlike Tsingtao Brewery, Jin Zhiguo can learn and use it now. "

He made a mockery of Chinese entrepreneurs.

Through exploration, Zhou Shaoxiong finally had a preliminary strategy - seven wolves to pform into a retail management mode, on the one hand will further enhance the image of the seven wolves brand, enhance the brand premium capability, on the other hand, expand the number of shops and increase sales.

At the same time, we should constantly improve the proportion of proprietary stores, improve franchisees, and pass the standardized terminal management to convey the brand idea and image of the seven wolves.

After the strategy, Zhou Shaoxiong tried to break the second ceiling system and system.

A Jinjiang man with a sense of loyalty is the first thing to do when he changes.

Zhou Shaoxiong said frankly "very helpless".

"I can't help either. Their thinking or ability has not kept up with the development of the seven wolves.

For example, before we do wholesale is relatively simple, manage a dozen regional general agent on the line.

What is needed now is to be a retail and branding talent. "

As a result, including brand names,

Next, the change is beyond the imagination of the staff.

Zhou employs a number of consultants to help reset business departments from all angles.

On the recommendation of all parties, he began to organize his knife.

According to the words of the seven wolves, almost all departments are changing.

In 2009, the seven wolves had the first "strategic Department" in history, which was ridiculed as "very empty" in the extensive management of the past.

But at this point, Zhou Shaoxiong no longer wants to make decisions by beating his head. He needs a "think tank" and needs more rational and more detailed data and analysis to reduce the risk of decision-making.

Soon, seven wolves added the new commodity planning department, and set up the channel director to manage the channels.

In the past, the seven wolves responsible for sales department called Expansion Department, the task is to open shop.

After the reform, the seven wolves re classified the channels, and designed different investment schemes according to different channels.

Outside the headquarters, the seven wolves also set up a regional branch, giving the general manager of the branch a greater power and carrying out the regional management.

In addition to the organizational structure, the seven wolves are adjusting their performance management, salary system, information system, financial reimbursement system and other aspects. The core goal is to establish a standardized modern enterprise system.

However, after all, Zhou Shaoxiong crossed the river by feeling the stones.

Many problems are often more difficult than he imagined.

Behind the great changes is the concentrated outbreak of contradictions.

{page_break}

For example, many departments are not used to the strategy department. In the past, departments did their own planning, budgeting, assessment, and then waited for leadership instructions.

Today, all must be led by the strategy department, according to the market situation to make the plan, and then to the business departments.

This makes many people feel "bad", and communication is not harmonious.

More importantly, the strategy department itself has problems. The information of the strategy department mainly comes from the market, but the seven wolves have no market department at all.

No way, Zhou Shaoxiong had to set up a brand center to try to understand the market.

But this is also a problem.

He found that brand centers focus on brand building, not on the market.

So he set up an independent marketing department and let the marketing department take the lead in brand upgrading.

"In this way, there are more and more departments."

Zhou Shaoxiong smiled bitterly and said seriously, "I can't think clearly at once. I have to adjust and make adjustments at the same time."

Moreover, the Department's cooperation has also made Zhou Shaoxiong headache.

"The biggest problem is the formation of information islands, and communication between departments is not smooth."

Because the management structure is not perfect and most of the personnel are just in place, there is friction between people, departments and departments.

In this regard, Zhou Shaoxiong often emphasized to his subordinates that he should communicate more positively and not to speculate on others' ideas.

If we always guess whether the other side has opinions on ourselves, then we will show our attitude from the usual tone, but increase the contradiction.

At the same time, he encourages everyone to organize various kinds of parties and activities to enhance understanding.

Besides, the affiliate system is also a severe impact on the seven year old wolf's agent system.

This makes veteran dealers reluctant.

In their view, they are simply "laymen in charge" and have frequent conflicts.

At the very beginning, the branch company was virtually useless, and it did not command the distributor at all.

Zhou Shaoxiong is also distressed, lack of retail talent, the existing staff is very difficult to become a professional talent in a short time, and even for staff training, it is difficult to find.

"First of all, I don't know what to train, even the content is not clear."

In order to solve some problems, Zhou insisted on improving the professionalism of the staff of the branch, and using the systematic process and professional competence to make the dealer feel convinced.

"Communication has been much better in recent years, and conflicts are slowly easing."

A seven wolves franchisee told reporters.

While Zhou Shaoxiong tried to break the ceiling of the system, another invisible ceiling was placed in front of him, culture.

In the "great turbulence" of enterprises, it is usually a critical period for the alternation of new and old cultures.

If the old culture is destroyed, no new culture that meets the requirements of the enterprise is likely to become a loose sand.

The culture of the seven wolves has also reached such a juncture.

Every new person brings different cultures. How to integrate them?

Some people say that the seven wolves have been changing horses in the past few years.

Some people were even removed shortly after taking office.

The reasons are not excluded from cultural integration.

Zhou Shaoxiong is not shy about this. "I will judge whether stability is more important in a certain stage.

In that case, I would prefer to use trust and tacit understanding to protect orderly operation.

Of course, some people have to change because they are not suitable.

Of course, he is also considering how to retain talent.

For example, material incentives, millions of high salaries, good cars.

In March 2010, seven wolves announced the equity incentive plan, with an incentive target of 22 people.

The total number of shares involved in the stock options granted is 3 million 700 thousand shares, representing 1.31% of the total share capital, of which 300 thousand shares are reserved for the reserved incentive target, accounting for 8.11% of the total option plan, and the exercise price is set at 24.83 yuan.

But in his view, the most important thing is to unify the values and unify the corporate culture.

"As long as we share the same values, contradictions can be easily solved."

"When the internal adjustment is good, we can push it out on a large scale."

After Zhou Shaoxiong's office, he went all out to expand the channel and pull the brand.

In order to enhance the control of the terminal, the seven wolves have vigorously expanded their own stores. The current number has accounted for 20%, and is expected to exceed 30% in 2011.

At the same time, we should speed up the pformation of franchised stores.

"I ask for another two years, all stores will be unified."

He said.

In raising brand image, the seven wolves are also making frequent moves.

In October 2010, Honglei Sun, Hu Dong, Zhang Hanyu, Lu Chuan and so on five popular male stars gather seven wolves new advertisements to let many people bright.

This shows that the seven wolves are trying hard to create the image of a high-end brand.

It chooses to follow the brand appeal before, and interprets men's life style and spiritual world by "men are more than one side".

At the same time, the five men were invited to join the newly created "Hall of fame", hoping to form a circle of elite men of all walks of life through the "fame hall" platform.

In addition, the seven wolves also sponsor elite elite movements such as sailing competitions and golf.

The industry has different opinions on the evaluation of seven wolves pformation.

Li Kailuo, President of Guangdong fashion industry economics research institute, thinks that the seven wolves have not done enough in designing, researching and distributing the interests of distributors.

The product style is not prominent, and there are many conflicts between franchisees and proprietary stores.

Zhou Shaoxiong's long march is just beginning. The ceiling has not yet been completely broken, and new problems emerge one after another.

He was full of questions: how could he find the right person? He summed up most of the failed projects because he did not find the right people.

How can we link the brand with the terminal sales, instead of letting hundreds of millions of brand promotion go out of the blue? So far, many things still need to be done.

"Slow down."

Zhou Shaoxiong sighed.