China'S Luxury Brand In The West

Where are the talents?

Over the past few years, the principles of the major luxury brands are to open more stores in more cities. From the front end, we need more salesmen. From the matching point of view, we need more relevant personnel, such as shop display personnel, goods management, logistics finance and so on.

The problem now is that it is hard for brands to find enough suitable people to manage the business.

In the recent interview with WWD, Helen Willerton, Asia Pacific managing director of Chlo, said that there were too many jobs that needed people. Finding employees in China is an important job on every timetable of luxury companies. Chlo is preparing to double the number of offices in Shanghai, promoting from the current manager level and looking for headhunters.

She said that companies will recruit some people from their agents.

Demand is great, but few people are suitable, and loyalty to the company is not high. People often hear job hopping in the industry.

The root of this problem may be that the education system in China can not cultivate talents with relevant skills for foreign brands. Although some schools have already offered training courses for luxury majors, they are far from enough.

Because Chinese students learn from memory instead of thinking freely, which is not particularly suitable for training sales skills.

Compared with those who have overseas learning experience, they will be able to keep pace with them in this regard.

From the top level, the brand has realized that it is not only necessary but also necessary to find Chinese locals to enter management in the past two years, which has produced a 180 degree turn with the previous attitude.

Because Chinese employees know more about the local market, even managers from the West need many years of work experience in Asia, such as in Japan and Korea, so that they will be more easily united with Chinese managers.

Of course, many companies will also employ Hongkong and Taiwanese, but the cultural differences are still huge. Most Hongkong and Taiwanese do not have the experience of managing Chinese business. Even if they have, the price of settling them in Shanghai will be very expensive.

In addition, on the one hand, as more and more brands take back their retail business from their own control channels, many new job demands are beginning to emerge, such as creative director, senior product director, China regional manager and so on.

On the other hand, most of the original brands were from Hongkong as the headquarters of the Greater China region, and the mainland reported to Hongkong and Hongkong reported to the headquarters of Europe or the United States. Now it may be reported directly to the headquarters from the mainland, so there will also be a higher level of management in China.

Godwin Lam, managing director of Trinity, which runs several high-end men's clothing brands in China, says that regional brand managers are particularly hard to find. They need not only to be Chinese, but also to have a deep understanding of cultural differences in different regions, such as Chongqing or Urumqi, as well as zero sales management experience.

People who often have these abilities have put their homes in Shanghai or Beijing. They are unwilling to return to work in the two or three tier cities.

Product: is the origin enough for production?

Growth is so fast that products are in time for production. Luxury is not a popular garment, but rather a factory order.

Faced with the rapid growth of demand, how luxury brands provide enough products to sell is a problem. We need to know that Herm s's workers need two years of training.

In June, Louis Vuitton opened twelfth factories in France, and last year LV kept Paris shops closed for an hour to maintain inventory levels.

So, is it possible to maintain production in the country of origin and meet market demand?

According to the prospectus of Prada, 20% of Prada's products are produced outside Italy. Besides China, it also includes countries with lower labor costs, such as Vietnam, Romania and Turkey.

Miuccia Prada said in an interview with WSJ that other luxury brands will also produce some products in China sooner or later, and she mentioned that Chinese shoes are doing well.

But many people do not agree that Versace family member Santo Versace is also a senator from Italy. He is proposing a decree to make the Made in Italy "Italy origin" more pparent. This proposal is awaiting approval from the European Commission.

If the law is passed, only Made in Italy label can be affixed to the products that are produced in most of the production cost in Italy, so that there will be no loopholes for the fake products of the one-day tour in the bonded area.

{page_break}