Who Is Anta? What Is Anta Going To Do?

Let Anta Group Chairman Ding Zhizhong patiently sit down, follow your train of thought for 2.5 hours, is not an easy thing.

People close to him know that Ding Zhizhong is a quick thinking person. He likes to think about problems. When he gets information from outside, he uses snap collection method. Then he will pform the information captured by "snapshot" into a theoretical tool for running a fast growth firms.

For example, after consulting Anta AT's development strategy, Ding Zhizhong began to habitually ask, "who is Anta? What is Anta going to do? Is it a departure from the above positioning?"

In July this year, Ding Zhizhong and his father-in-law and father-in-law, a sports apparel brand Anta group, was listed in Hongkong. The public offering was partially oversubscribed by 183 times, and the international placement was also 135 times oversubscribed.

In Hurun's "mainland China rich list" for the first time in 2007, the Ding Zhizhong family ranked second in the clothing industry with 14 billion 500 million yuan of wealth, second only to Boston's Gao Dekang.

After the listing, in the Anta office building in Jinjiang, speaking of the next development plan of Anta, Ding Zhizhong still habitually asked himself and said in reply, "who is Anta? What does Anta want to do?"

Such a habit can not help thinking of the late administrator Peter Drucker's warning to managers. In Drucker's view, the most important prerequisite for sustainable growth is that the company's decision-makers should be able to ask questions.

Business habits, however, are not so systematic thinking about these strategies before 2003.

In Ding Zhizhong's words, "when Anta is small, how to go, I am confident that I am sure that I am right."

"In Ding Zhizhong's view, the most effective means of operation is to rely on businessmen's" business habits "when all companies have not yet come up.

In 1987, Ding Zhizhong, 17, went north alone. He sold himself 600 pairs of sneakers from his hometown of Jinjiang in Beijing's Wangfujing.

In 1994, Ding Zhizhong's father-in-law Ding Siren founded Anta company in Hongkong. In the same year, Anta set up Anta Fujian company in Jinjiang, Fujian, to build and sell sports shoes in 500 thousand.

In the next few years, Ding Zhizhong, who was good at running, was also responsible for Anta Fujian and the development of Jinjiang World Development Company (also engaged in shoemaking business) jointly established by his father and his brother.

During this period, although in 1999, unexpectedly signed the 1 million 600 thousand endorser of Kong Linghui as an image spokesperson and put up an advertising campaign in CCTV, Anta stood out in a dry Jinjiang company and gained new gains in sales. But strictly speaking, Anta is still a production oriented enterprise.

However, the sale of the Jinjiang company began to approach the threshold of 100 million yuan by signing a famous name and began to establish a sales channel network nationwide.

In order to expand more smoothly in Beijing, Chengdu and Shenyang, Anta's management supported several distributors through interest free loans and capital injection, while the members of the Ding family participated directly in Guangzhou, Quanzhou and Zhengzhou.

The most direct effect of channel expansion is the expansion of scale.

In 2003, Ding Zhizhong gradually realized that he could not use Anta's "business habits" to control the growing up of the company.

This year, the members of the Ding family first started to clarify the stock relations in the family.

"Before, I held a large number of other members (Ding family), and it would be more difficult if they were not put into legal documents.

"Ding Zhizhong said.

In fact, before that, Ding Zhizhong, one of the main operators, did not have a large share of the company, most of whom were members of the trusteeship family.

After signing the equity pfer agreement, by the end of 2003, Ding Zhizhong had held a 34.5% stake in the company and became a major shareholder of the company.

His father and father hold 7% and 34% shares respectively, while Ding Zhizhong's sister Ding Yali holds 9.75% of the shares, and the remaining 9.5% stake is held by Ding Zhizhong's cousin Wang Wenmo.

After thinking about the scale and straightening out all rights and interests, Ding Zhizhong, a big shareholder, began to think about the problem of "further big". "When the enterprise is big, many things are managed by a set of scientific systems.

"He believes that there must be a clear and scientific basis to judge what the company is going to do next.

In order to find this basis, in 2004, Anta hired AT corney, a consulting firm, to jointly confirm Anta's DNA and make clear its market position.

The problems that need to be solved at the time were: first, where is the target market of Anta? Second, how to form a strategy of differentiation with competitors? After investigation, the analysis of Anta's market position is that Anta's dominance is in the control of the low and middle market, while in the middle and low end market, "about 500 million Chinese consumers can't afford Anta yet, but with the increase of income, they will become the target customers of Anta."

"After a clear positioning, Anta repressed the temptation to" increase the price ";" at retail prices, we are 20%-30% lower than Lining's products. "

"Anta's chief operating officer, Lai Shixian, said that taking into account Nike, ADI's sports stars and Li Ning Co's" gold medal aura "," grassroots "has finally become the core term to describe Anta's DNA, and has begun to strategically look for athletes who have not yet been famous but have been fighting for them as spokesmen.

Such a brand strategy will not bring too much financial pressure to Anta, who can't do whatever it wants to do.

At the same time, Ding Zhizhong found that the market began to split up: "some companies are gradually moving to the fashion apparel route, and some companies are beginning to focus on some professional markets, such as basketball and tennis.

"In the past brand movement, like many other Jinjiang companies, Anta has been swaying, showing both entertainment and fashion style (looking for Elva Hsiao as spokesperson) and professional sports posture (Kong Linghui endorsement, sponsorship CBA)." Elva Hsiao's endorsement of the product actually sold well and distributors all booked it up, but Ding Zhizhong said it was a mistake, and soon returned to professional sports.

"Anta brand center director Xu Yang said.

Obviously, through the demand of professional sports to create a clear sports brand, no money is impracticable. On the one hand, it is necessary to have the ability to carry out sports product research, on the other hand, it is necessary to have capital to sponsor suitable competitions and sign seed athletes.

After completing the market positioning, Ding Zhizhong began to reconsider the "listing" problem mentioned by some organizations before him. "We need more funds to achieve the above goals.

"At the end of 2005, the listing of companies began to enter the agenda of Anta management.

"These two directions have been determined, and we find that the above strategy can not be implemented under the company's original organizational structure.

Previous architectures are applicable to production oriented enterprises.

"Ding Zhizhong recalls.

In 2006, in order to completely pform the marketing orientation, Anta hired Mercer consulting company to design the organizational structure and the whole assessment system for Anta.

"The current assessment is basically 360 degrees, and the performance of the company, department and individual will affect your salary.

"Xu Yang, who arrived in Anta from JW in 2006, felt that Anta's assessment was very" foreign companies ", more and more accustomed to stay in Anta.

After Xu Yang, many foreign professional managers from the industry joined Anta.

At the same time, Anta began to incorporate outstanding people in the sales system into the management of the company. Before 2006, Jin Wei, the head of distributor in the Northeast market of Anta, was hired as the general manager of the Shanghai frontline company, a channel management company that was established later.

After contacting a large number of foreign intermediaries and carrying out management "mixed blood", Ding Zhizhong began to get used to thinking and referring to all kinds of KPI (key performance indicators) when he thought about the development of the company. "Our inventory turnover rate is about 24 days. Accounts receivable account for 20 days, and many domestic brands need about 50 days. To the upstream, our accounts payable period is equal to that of the industry, about 60 days.

In addition to making good use of KPI, he also gradually "precipitated" the company's "self reflection", which is not necessarily good. It should be noted that the scale is not economical; the scale will increase again and the marginal benefit will decrease.

With the increase of management cost, the effect of scale economy will be greatly reduced.

"In his view, production and sales need to be noted that the scale is not economic", so he feels that Anta will be more flexible than those who rely on big OEM or big distributors.

The specific performance of flexibility is the above KPI value. These KPI bring "cash is abundant".

With ample cash and support from the capital market, Anta is also considering more operations.

In addition to further investment in channel network expansion, investors Ding Zhizhong began to consider investment in Anta.

In fact, when it was ready to go public in 2006, the company which was used to manufacture established Xiamen investment company.

In the same year, Xiamen investment company invested in the establishment of frontline sporting goods Development Co., Ltd., which is used for the retail business of Adidas, Reebok and Kappa. "Frontline establishment" is mainly to accumulate some experience of high-end brand. This year, the front line will also invest in building Anta's flagship store.

We need a team with international retail management experience.

"Ding Zhizhong said he was very interested in the construction of this channel.

Since then, after the Shanghai forward line was established, Anta also quickly established the Suzhou front line, Beijing forward line and Guangzhou front line.

On the support of capital, Anta will use about 5.5 billion to build channels for the sale of international sportswear brands, and to build Anta flagship store.

The investment of a flagship store is about 1 million 400 thousand -280 million.

Ding Zhizhong did not elaborate on the greater investment in Xiamen, but he was very sure that "Xiamen investment is responsible for the acquisition business and high-end market. We will only do it through acquisitions."

"In Xu Yang's view, boss Ding Zhizhong is better at seizing opportunities than others. In November, when Ding Zhizhong signed a strategic cooperation agreement with the Rockets in the US Houston, one day, in the Rockets home game, the performance of Scola, who had just been signed by Scola, was mediocre. After stepping out of the arena, Ding Zhizhong asked Xu Yang," when you fall, what do you do? "Xu Yang answered like most people, and fell down and got up." in November,

Ding Zhizhong told Xu Yang, "when you fall and climb up, you have to catch a handful of sand, so that you earn at least.

"