Interview With Gao Jiali, General Manager Of Adidas Greater China

In China

In this interview, he talked about how the company responded to these challenges through unique change and innovation.

He explained, "in the past, Adidas dealers were fighting against each other, alone and without confidence in their long-term career.

Adidas needs to rebuild its partnership with distributors -- a business model that goes hand in hand and win win. "

Therefore, Adidas launched an all-around "win-win" project within the company, changing the traditional practice of selling products to dealers in the past.

To this end, the company set up a special team to help distributors truly realize the final purchase of consumers.

The core purpose of this project is to solve the common difficulties faced by China's sports industry, which is a vicious cycle of overstock and lack of motivation for sales terminals.

Adidas has built up a new internal management database system, sharing the sales data of distributor terminals, planning products, distribution channels, making sales decisions in different regions through detailed data analysis, and even changing the assessment indicators of teams and distributors, and stipulating that the percentage of new products sold by licensed dealers in one month or three months.

These measures greatly enhance the efficiency of the terminal.

In the first nine months of 2011, Adidas created a 28% high growth rate in China (the average growth rate of the industry was 13%).

In 2011, it released the "2015 strategy" plan, and set sail with the brand image of "all-out effort".

The man behind Malaysia is Gao Jiali, the steering wheel behind this business change.

He encouraged employees to integrate innovation and passion into work and embrace change with vigorous enthusiasm and tireless attitude.

"Self preservation means stagnation."

He said.

Gao Jiali was full of energy, and the conversation was flashed with "old man" meticulous thinking and profound commercial operation.

Before joining Adidas, he had been pferred to six different industries in Hongkong, Australia and Taiwan with rich experience in cross-border management.

The following is an excerpt from the interview.

Reporter: in 2010, Adidas changed the downturn in the Chinese market in the past two years. What is the key reason?

Gao Jiali: in 2010, we launched the "2015 strategy" in the Chinese market, and ensured that Adidas became the leading brand in the sports market by 2015.

Based on this, we conducted an in-depth investigation of the Chinese market, including the industry scale, market share and the market potential of the sports industry in 2015.

The key is that we conduct behavioral analysis of consumers, understand purchase intention, discover purchase interest, and analyze the determinants of purchase.

These studies determine ADI's future sales targets and distribution of channels, thereby affecting future revenues.

To achieve our goals, we plan five growth strategies.

The first is to win the big cities, to ensure our share in the first tier market, to take measures to compete with the competitors for consumers. Strategy two, occupy four to six lines of emerging markets, although Adidas has no layout here, but there is infinite potential; strategy three, grasp the characteristics of market segmentation, and how to make the breakdown of franchised stores (such as female stores, children or basketball stores) will decide whether we can win the first line market; the last growth strategy is to grasp the opportunities brought by lifestyle changes.

The lifestyle of young consumers is becoming more and more fashionable. We are concentrating on creating two brands to serve them.

Take Originals as an example, we hope that the brand can grow rapidly in the market from one to three.

To build NEO brand is to occupy the market segments of sports fashion series and serve consumers in four to six line markets at a more competitive price.

Q: how can employees' abilities match the "2015 strategies"?

A: the first challenge in strategy implementation is how to communicate with employees, so that everyone has a common goal and action guide, and how to communicate with our distributors so that they can understand what we do and change with our marketing strategy.

Within the company, we have promoted seven kinds of capacity building.

For example, we changed the policy of "one size fits all" which used to regard China as a whole, and vigorously expanded regional offices.

In April 2011, the western district headquarters was set up in Chengdu.

As a result, the mainland of China is divided into four regions (North China, East China, West China, Southern China + Hongkong), headed by four regional general managers.

It is hoped that the above measures will be closer to consumers, distributors and markets, and provide the best products for distributors and consumers through our channels at the most appropriate time.

Another measure is to make the brand resplendence and integrate life and passion into the brand of Adidas.

Since the 2008 Olympic Games, our brand has been slightly silent.

After the financial crisis, we hope to revitalize the brand.

In three and April of 2011, we launched the "full tilt" project to revitalize the brand and make it more closely related to consumers.

In addition, enhance the management capability of "scientific product category planning".

Every day, we collect consumer data from all parts of the country, put them in a database, conduct trend analysis, and provide suggestions for distributors, including purchases of goods and shop displays.

For example, the north is likely to sell winter jacket in winter in October, but in Guangzhou and Shenzhen, it may be December.

Therefore, we decide product planning, channel allocation and shop display based on the trend analysis of sales data.

On the other hand, we have restructured our organizational structure to establish business partnerships with distributors (including BELLE and Baosheng), integrating their business into our operation system, studying consumer buying behavior and purchasing intention together, providing training for dealers, ensuring their inventory optimization, achieving better profits, and ensuring that franchised stores are in the best operation state.

Q: can you talk more about how to use database management to support distributors and enhance the ability of channels?

A: after the financial crisis, consumers began to cut costs. This experience has made our business operation and management team feel deeply.

We have never realized that it is very important to understand distributors, penetrate the market and develop ideas.

We must work side by side with distributors so as to provide consumers with the best products and best services.

In other words, 90% of our business is facilitated through distributors' channels, and only 10% come from proprietary stores.

The business of distributors will be integrated into our business system, so that both sides can work together to create more value.

For example, when choosing a shop location, dealers usually set up shop location according to their own business resources.

Now, according to Adidas's overall planning for the Chinese market and the experience accumulated in the company's "site selection and opening up", combined with the census data of 2010, we set up a market priority for opening shops, inspecting local government plans (schools, government offices, business districts, etc.) to help distributors choose the most appropriate locations to open stores, ensure the healthy development of stores, and implement long-term business plans for dealers.

When it comes to databases, we are working hard to improve our ability to analyze sales data so as to identify future market releases.

For both partners, we are better at improving operation through database management, optimizing inventory and increasing productivity, so that we can choose more suitable products to put on the market so as to achieve win-win results.

In any case, we are not alone heroes in the market. The success of dealers is also our success.

Q: how to digest inventory? It seems that the discount is always difficult to balance with the new products.

A: we must admit that during the 2008 Olympic Games, everyone was very enthusiastic. Our industry usually had six months ahead of time.

But before the 2008 August Olympic Games, we had already shipped the products in January 2009.

After the Olympic Games ended, the financial crisis broke out in October, and the products entering the market were overstocking, and unhealthy stocks appeared on the market.

This is not the difficulty faced by the Adidas family.

We immediately took steps to recover the over supplied products.

In 2010, we again decided to help dealers reduce backlog and clean up inventory.

In order to ensure healthy inventory, we must run faster than the market.

The most direct way to digest inventory is to stimulate consumer purchase.

To this end, we formulated specific sales targets and incorporated KPI (key performance indicators) assessment data. Sales growth of existing stores plus sales growth of newly opened shops together constitute a sales growth target, that is, the actual sales growth generated by consumers rather than the growth of distributors.

This is the most important assessment index.

Rapid growth is the goal of all brands, but the number and frequency of consumers' actual purchases is a huge challenge, which is an important basis for determining whether stocks are healthy.

Fortunately, after the launch of new products in 2010, with the marketing of Adidas's strong brands, consumers are increasingly coming back to buy our products.

Q: how can we synchronize the rhythm of Adidas dealers?

Answer: there are many consumers who aspire to Adidas's high quality brand in the market.

In the "2015 strategy" plan, the main task is to enhance the dealer's ability and ensure the joint efforts of both sides to ensure the normal operation of new product sales and inventory digestion.

We have taken the following three measures: first, in any case, to ensure that the products sold can be digested by the market; secondly, to cultivate distributors, to help them understand the knowledge and sales strategies of new products, and guide consumers through them; again, it is KPI.

In the contract, we have to sell a certain quantity and proportion of new products within three months. After three months, these products will be sold to the factory store (Oteri J).

We carefully manage this process to ensure that there is no unreasonable stock.

Q: how to maintain sales growth of a city store while opening new stores in four and six tier cities? What are your plans for new cities?

A: according to research, 2/3 of business growth will be concentrated in four and six line cities in the next five years.

We plan to open 2500 stores in the next three years.

Adidas brand will expand its business with distributors in accordance with the order of cities from north to South and from west to East.

Through sports fashion series Originals, NEO brand to provide consumers with Adidas products, to achieve growth and business expansion.

The key factor to revitalize Adidas's brand lies in how to maintain a balance between the growth of first tier cities and second tier cities, and the growth of four and six tier cities, so as to achieve a synchronous growth trend.

China is like the two world. The first tier and second tier cities are almost the same as the rest of the world, and the competition is fierce. Consumers are very picky and choose more.

Therefore, we must maintain a high level of competitiveness to operate the brand.

However, in the four to six tier cities, it is more like an emerging market, with insufficient brand awareness and low consumption ability. How to make them accept Adidas brand at affordable prices and pay a premium for the brand is a great test.

In the specific implementation process, we focus on how to make franchised stores more attractive and attract sellers to patronize and buy in the first tier cities.

How can we integrate vitality and innovation into products and integrate passion into brands? As long as consumers in first tier cities maintain the enthusiasm to buy products, we can maintain leadership positions, which is the most basic guarantee for new stores.

For example, we have opened a brand center in Beijing Sanlitun and Huaihai middle road in Shanghai, where the store is large and has a wide range of products, including all Originals, NEO and other products.

We have opened smaller brand centers in other cities, such as Chengdu and Wuhan.

We believe that through this brand center, people can feel and experience the brand and help us in the leading position.

In the four and six tier cities, we plan to open 1000 stores this year, almost three homes a day.

This requires excellent process control capabilities, including selecting locations, decorating shops, and displaying the right products in the best image to customers.

Q: how can we gain speed and flexibility within the organization?

A: opportunities are fleeting. We must emphasize speed. Challenges always exist. We need to be more flexible.

In the eyes of dealers, these two abilities are the biggest competitive advantages that we distinguish from competitors.

Over the past two years, our team has been constantly improving its speed and flexibility in self pformation, attracting talents through other industries, absorbing knowledge and experience from other global markets, and sharing best practices to help us improve our capabilities.

In any case, in the rapidly changing Chinese market, the fittest will keep pace with the times.

Workplace crossover Secrets

I have been fortunate to work in six industries: Bank, credit card, aviation, mobile phone, music and Adidas.

I have some luck and opportunity to talk about how managers can successfully pform between different industries.

But what is common is that all industries have to face and understand consumers, tap demand, develop products and services, and ultimately meet demand.

Experience in different industries will be a valuable asset. I even bring music and mobile phone market experience to Adidas.

Even in Adidas, I worked in Taiwan and Hongkong markets.

Hongkong is a very diverse and mature market. Many retailers compete fiercely and rent is expensive. The experience of them is very useful for the first and second tier cities in the mainland.

In Taiwan, it is more like an emerging market to be developed.

The change in China in the past 10 years is equivalent to that of 30 years in Europe.

No matter in any industry, opportunities and challenges coexist.

Managers should not be complacent and refuse to change and adjust.

Where does ascension come from? This requires us to have broader vision, diversified thinking and super learning ability.

Changes in the industry require us to keep pace with the times and pform ourselves. Managers must always be in the process of rapid learning and readjustment.

Don't be bound by past experience, but embrace the challenge bravely.