When Will Ningbo Become A "International Brand Dream"?

YOUNGOR Group acquired new Malaysia group and won 6 International

What is the difficulty of overseas independent brands? When will Ningbo, a big foreign trade city, win the "international brand dream"?

Status quo: OEM products account for 80% of exports.

Today, with the gradual loss of labor cost advantages, the sharp rise in prices of raw materials, the appreciation of the renminbi and the increasingly small profits of exports, enhancing the value added of exports and changing the mode of development of foreign trade have become the consensus of the competent government departments and many foreign trade enterprises.

Among them, the establishment of independent export brands is considered to be a "breakthrough" to enhance the value added and the initiative of foreign trade development.

Reporters learned from the Ningbo export brand and quality working conference held last month, that Ningbo has been guiding enterprises to build independent export brands since 1999. Now it has become one of the famous export brand economic cities in the world. By the end of 2010, the registered trademarks of Ningbo had totaled 6845 pieces, including 669 NEW products in 2010. At the same time, Ningbo had 20 "famous export brands" which were mainly cultivated and developed by the Ministry of Commerce, accounting for 10.53% of the total 190 in the country, ranking first in all cities in the country, 104 export brands in Zhejiang, 125 Ningbo famous brands, and 133 export brands at the county level.

Despite the large number of famous export brands in Ningbo, the fact is that Ningbo lacks a heavyweight export brand, and the popularity of most export brands is limited to the industry itself.

"There are only stars, no moon". This is the description of Ningbo's export brands by some people in the industry.

In terms of the key index of export brand influence, the export rate of private brand, less than 20% of Ningbo's export volume is imported into the overseas market in the name of its own brand, while more than 80% of the products are exported through OEM to overseas markets.

From the point of view of the industry, the proportion of independent brand exports of some industrial intermediate goods is relatively high, such as the export rate of independent brands of bearings and sewing thread is over 90%; however, in some areas such as textiles, clothing, household appliances and other consumer goods, the export rate of independent brands is less than 10%, and the gap with international brands is very large.

Daily consumer goods are the largest and most traditional competitive advantages of Ningbo's exports.

Obviously, although there are many export brands in Ningbo, the export of independent brands is still at the initial stage.

Reasons: four difficult problems become a stumbling block for building independent brands

Ding Haibin, deputy director of the Ningbo Municipal Bureau of foreign trade and economic cooperation, believes that the current Ningbo enterprises' own export brands mainly encounter four difficulties: the strength of export enterprises is small and the outlet of independent brands relies on traditional buyers, the brand awareness and reputation of enterprises are low, and the added value of their products is low.

These difficulties make most of Ningbo's export enterprises rely on OEM exports to earn meager profits, and are unwilling to invest a lot of energy and risk a lot to build their own brands.

"We are now asking our buyers to fight for their own brands, which is 5% to 10% cheaper than the OEM export. Some guests have not agreed to do so, and we can only do the OEM business."

HUAYU electric group company official said, "we and foreign buyers in the negotiations on their own brands are more disadvantageous, do not have their own channels, visibility is not high abroad, nor have their own after-sales service system.

In this way, customers in developed countries are generally reluctant to play our brand.

It is understood that Europe, Japan, the United States and other countries have already formed a number of widely recognized strong brands, have a mature reputation and marketing system, importers are strong in distribution, only hope that Chinese enterprises can provide products at low prices and label the dealers so as to make huge profits.

The self brand experience of Taiping bird in garment enterprises is probably a typical example of many export enterprises.

Taiping bird company opened 2 stores in Singapore and Morocco around 2005, which are operated by overseas buyers.

But because of the lack of targeted research on the local market, the speed of introducing new products abroad is not fast, and there are also problems in information communication and market regulation, so the store's performance is not ideal.

"The key is that we are in the fierce competition of the Red Sea. There are too many manufacturers of small appliances and clothing in China. It is hard to rely on foreign customers to hit our brands."

Wang Dingying, general manager of Taiping bird import and export company, said, "we need to fight our own brand, but our brand is not well-known abroad, and its financial strength is not strong enough. There are no sales channels abroad, nor do we have enough talents who are familiar with the multinational operation of the brand.

So our independent brand can only be said to be exploring, and we should explore our own team to operate our own brand rather than rely on foreign businessmen.

Weapon: acquiring overseas mature brands is a shortcut.

Faced with the difficulties of building independent export brands, some powerful enterprises in Ningbo have chosen overseas mergers and acquisitions so as to achieve the goal of quickly acquiring their own brands and mastering market pricing power and sales channels.

In recent years, some export enterprises in Ningbo have developed brand management through cross-border mergers and acquisitions through the opportunity of financial crisis.

For example, YOUNGOR acquired the new Malaysia group in early 2008, and suddenly owned the management rights of its 6 major brands. In 2008, Ningbo Xinhai electrical appliance Limited by Share Ltd successfully acquired the UNILITE brand of Holland; in 2009, Ningbo Yongfa import and Export Co., Ltd. successfully acquired the ALGOLS brand of France; Ningbo Shenglong (Group) Co., Ltd. acquired the BORGWARNER brand of the United States; Ningbo Jinhui photographic equipment Co., Ltd. acquired Germany's COURTENAY, INTERFIT brand and so on.

In recent years, Yongfa group has acquired many internationally renowned insurance brands in the United States, Germany, France and other countries. Recently, the company launched a takeover negotiation with a Holland safe company.

After its acquisition of the US brand Safewell, the company carried out the re cultivation of its brand, so that it was full of vitality.

Safewell brand has opened up the market in Vietnam, India and other parts of China and Hongkong, China, and has become a well-known brand in the international safe box industry. Its market value has reached about 13000000000 US dollars.

Xu Punan, general manager of Yongfa import and Export Corporation, said that overseas M & A is a relatively effective and inexpensive way, which allows enterprises to quickly import brand management stage instead of sticking to OEM production.

But for overseas acquisitions to build their own brands, we need to consider carefully in the implementation.

Xu Punan, general manager of Yongfa import and export company, who has handled many overseas acquisition cases, said that generally speaking, the overseas brands to be purchased must have a wide range of influence and reputation, independent and controllable sales channels and mature business teams in the region, so that the acquired brands can be successfully developed and nurtured.

Reminder: excellent quality and controllable sales channel is the key.

Reporters also found in the interview that in fact, some successful brand enterprises in Ningbo have good quality and support from overseas sales channels.

Whether Yongfa and Shenglong rely on overseas acquisitions to build their own brands, or BEIFA and Haitian rely on themselves to build sales channels and promote the construction of their own brands, the most important thing is the quality of products and controllable sales channels.

The export rate of BEIFA's own brand has reached over 70%.

BEIFA has 1177 patents, of which 554 are international patents. The quality of its products has been recognized by the world's top companies and has entered its mainstream sales channels, such as BEIFA has become the world's best supplier of Tesco (Tesco) and the top supplier of Global Sources (global resources), and the US Staples (Staples) has awarded its global product innovation award.

Qiu Zhiming, President of BEIFA group, said that Bei has already found more than 800 stable customer groups. The partners of the most mainstream marketing channels all recognize the quality of BEIFA, which is the most critical factor for BEIFA's own brand success.

Ding Haibin, deputy director of Ningbo foreign trade and Economic Cooperation Bureau, pointed out that in the future brand cultivation program, Ningbo foreign trade and Economic Cooperation Bureau also requires that enterprises not only actively register their trademarks abroad, but also actively apply for various international quality certification, which is very helpful for brands to go abroad.