NIKE Shoes Touch The International Dream Of Foreign Trade Enterprises

The three carriages of product R & D, brand building and sales network have become the engines of enterprises to enhance their competitiveness. More than 3000 export commodities have been run in 90 countries and regions.

Last year, the total sales amount was 2 billion 200 million yuan, which ranked the first place of the city's foreign trade export. The "Andstar" brand now has four overseas R & D centers in the United States, Germany, France and the United Kingdom. It has 12 national trademark registrations and more than 4000 customers worldwide. The new products of creative design have become the "hot commodities" in the European market. In the afternoon of October 24th, in the office of Zhang Weimin, chairman of Hangzhou light industry craft textiles import and Export Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Hangzhou light industry"), we slowly enjoy the coffee and chat lightly and leisurely.

Unconsciously, the reporter almost forgot to sit around the head of a foreign trade enterprise under the great pressure of global financial crisis and economic slowdown.

Since the end of last year, the global financial turmoil triggered by the subprime mortgage crisis has become the focus of attention all over the world.

Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve, judged that the crisis could be "one hundred years in a year" and had a great impact on the global trend.

At the same time, China's economy has been affected to some extent in the increasingly close global economic relationship. Export oriented enterprises such as export enterprises are the first to bear the brunt.

It is understood that in the Pearl River Delta region, many enterprises have gone bankrupt and bankrupt, and some enterprises in the Yangtze River Delta region are facing the same predicament. The problem of sewing machine manufacturers' capital chain appears.

"Facing this situation, confidence is very important."

During the interview, Zhang Weimin was cautious in his determination.

"We feel the pressure is greatest now," he said.

Many foreign trade enterprises boss told reporters.

The pressure on foreign trade enterprises is the global financial crisis.

In September 15, 2008, Lehman brothers, the fourth largest investment bank in the United States, filed for bankruptcy protection. The third largest investment bank, Merrill Lynch, was bought by Bank of America.

On that day, the three major stock indexes of the New York stock market fell sharply, hitting the biggest one-day drop since the "9. 11 incident".

Soon after, the financial tsunami spread rapidly in Europe. Iceland took the lead in heavy blow. Its national currency krona has been reduced by 30% a day, and the government is facing the bankruptcy crisis.

Under this background, the purchasing power of foreign customers has declined. As a world processing plant, China's export business and corresponding enterprises have also been affected.

At the same time, since the end of last year, besides the subprime mortgage crisis and the drop in purchasing power, export enterprises are also affected by factors such as tax rates, interest rates, rising raw material prices and rising labor costs. The Hangzhou Municipal Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation Bureau has attributed it to "Three Rates, two rises and one crisis".

In the six factors, "three rates, two rises and one crisis", the three major factors of exchange rate, tax rate and subprime mortgage crisis are unique to export enterprises, or even more significant to export enterprises. Therefore, export enterprises are facing greater pressure of survival than ordinary enterprises. Some enterprises are approaching the breakeven point and wandering on the edge of "protecting the market" or "making profits".

Nevertheless, many enterprises, in their own unique competitive power, are "independent" in the crisis.

Hangzhou light industry, founded in 1992, is one of them.

According to our understanding, Hangzhou light industry is a large foreign trade company which mainly sells more than 3000 kinds of export commodities, such as tourist products, daily necessities, household appliances, special crafts, bags and hardware, textiles and garments, and its trade network is spread over 90 countries and regions.

Last year, its total sales amounted to 2 billion 200 million yuan, accounting for first of the city's foreign trade exports.

In fact, our enterprises are also deeply aware of the pressure and chill.

In recent days, the Canton Fair held in Guangzhou has reduced the number of people who have made an appointment with us by 30%.

Zhang Weimin said.

Reporters learned that in such a grim situation, the company overcame all kinds of difficulties and expects total export volume to remain unchanged from last year.

Moreover, the profit is expected to increase by 1 times compared with the same period last year.

There are two main reasons for the "NIKE" shoes. First, in recent years, enterprises have improved their competitiveness by establishing brands and increasing product research and development.

On the other hand, we made some risk-free arbitrage on the RMB exchange rate by using financial derivatives, reducing the pressure brought by the appreciation of the renminbi.

Speaking of the reasons for the sharp rise in profits, Zhang Weimin revealed.

It is understood that many years ago, Hangzhou light industry was also an export enterprise with no independent brand, no research and development capability, and OEM based manufacturing.

Zhang Weimin liked to wear NIKE sports shoes very much, and whenever he went abroad for business, he would take the time to visit the local "NIKE" shoe store.

Over the past few years, he has found that the production label of "NIKE" shoes is constantly changing, from "Made in American (made in USA)", "Made in Korea (made in Korea)" to "Made in China (made in China)".

Zhang Weimin noted that as long as NIKE does a good job in brand research, development and sales, enterprises can develop very well, and the changes in the manufacturing or manufacturing plants of shoes do not affect their sales and customer recognition.

"From" NIKE "shoes, we can see that enhancing the competitiveness of products is mainly to grasp the most critical" two sides ", that is, product development (including brand building) and sales.

As for the production process, we must do a good job in product quality monitoring. "

For this reason, Hangzhou light industry has opened their own product R & D road.

However, independent research and development in those days was not smooth sailing.

In the early days, Hangzhou light industry invited some professors and designers from famous universities in China to research and develop products.

But after the launch of those new products, sales are not ideal.

They found that because of cultural differences, the products developed by Chinese designers had no market in Europe.

Later, Hangzhou light industry began to invite internationally renowned designers to launch some ideas and themes into the production of products according to the trend of every year in Europe and America.

Of course, hiring foreign designers is also a good price.

Reporters learned that Hangzhou light industry R & D investment of 15 million yuan, and some international designers annual salary needs millions of dollars.

Every time these designers come to China, they need to offer five star hotels and first class round-trip air tickets, and hire professional Western-style chef for them.

If the products are sold well, they should be paid dividends.

Fortunately, these efforts have brought rewards to the light industry in Hangzhou.

The "Andstar" brand of Hangzhou light industry currently has four overseas R & D centers in the United States, Germany, France and the United Kingdom. It has 9 major commodities in the country and 12 national trademark registrations in the world, and has obtained 70 series of new products, including utility models and design patents, and 299 rights to the design version.

The "Andstar" brand has marketing organizations in the United States and Hongkong. There are more than 4000 customers in the world, and 20 to 30 creative designs are launched annually, including the design of original themes, patterns, colors, shapes, structures, etc., and these ideas are applied to products. Once launched, they become the "hot commodities" of the European market.

"While designing products are favored by the market, we also pay more and more attention to our design copyright.

In recent years, in the annual Canton Fair and other activities, we will send special personnel to various booths to see if any of the enterprises infringe our patents.

Zhang Weimin said proudly.

After several years of development, Hangzhou light industry has achieved independent research and development, independent brand, independent intellectual property rights, sales and services.

Exports, economic returns and tax payments continued to grow rapidly.

From 2005 to 2007, the total volume of import and export trade reached 251 million US dollars, 265 million US dollars and 310 million US dollars respectively, representing an increase of 15.18%, 9.44% and 18.8% respectively over the previous year.

In the 1-7 months of this year, China's private enterprises exported 207 billion 700 million US dollars, up 30.6% from the same period last year, and the growth rate dropped 13.8 percentage points, which is 8.8 and 9.8 percentage points higher than that of China's state-owned enterprises and foreign investment enterprises in the same period, accounting for 25.9% of the total value of China's foreign trade exports over the same period.

"At present, the global economic and financial adjustment is the inevitable result of the final release of the long-term imbalance and the impact on China's economy can not be underestimated."

Recently, a person in charge of the people's Bank of China pointed out.

Reporters learned that many domestic enterprises are also worried about the economic situation in the next two years.

"This year many enterprises can still walk past. Next year is probably the most solemn and stirring year."

Jiang Ling Feng, general manager of Zhejiang Katy Clothing Co., Ltd. always put this phrase on the lips.

"Unlike the rapid appreciation of the US dollar in the early stage, the recent rise of the renminbi to the euro is worth faster. Our export market is mainly in Europe, so the pressure next year may be even greater."

Zhang Weimin also said so.

In order to maintain domestic economic stability, our government has also promulgated a series of policies in recent years.

For example, we should raise the export tax rebate rate for many commodities, reduce the deposit benchmark interest rate, reduce the deposit reserve ratio, and introduce the "new property market" policy. In Zhejiang, Shanghai and other places, some small loan companies have appeared, providing more financing platforms for enterprises.

At the same time, Hangzhou has also launched 24 new "real estate policies" and 21 new policies of business and service enterprises.

However, whether or not we can survive this "cold winter" depends on the enterprise itself.

"Longevity enterprises must be healthy enterprises. They must be good at risk control enterprises."

Cai Zhangsheng, director of the office of Zhejiang small and medium enterprises administration, looks at enterprise risk control in this way.

"For export enterprises, Hangzhou light industry is worthy of using for reference by increasing product development and enhancing competitiveness.

Of course, business management is a science and an art.

The scale, the industry and the development stage of each enterprise are different. The ways to enhance the competitiveness of enterprises and the ways to deal with crises are also different. Therefore, it is the way to win the business to analyze the situation and the internal and external environment in depth and find a suitable blueprint for their development.

During the interview, Chen Ying, a doctor at Zhejiang University of Finance and Economics, told reporters.

To avoid exchange rate risk with financial instruments, "in addition to product research and development, it is also the reason why our profit has increased substantially by using financial instruments to hedge risks without risk arbitrage."

During the interview, Zhang Weimin, chairman of Hangzhou light industry, told reporters that in order to avoid exchange rate risks, the company also excavated several professionals from banks.

According to the sample survey results from a financial media, when it comes to the expectation that the RMB will continue to appreciate, enterprises will choose the option of "financial instruments such as forward settlement, foreign exchange, futures, options and swaps", accounting for only 5.41% of the total survey sample.

The survey also shows that the proportion of enterprises adopting financial derivatives to hedge the risk of exchange rate volatility is far lower than that of enterprises that choose to increase export prices (25.68%) and "collect foreign exchange as soon as possible, advance settlement and advance payment" (25%).

In view of the fact that the use of financial instruments to avoid exchange rate risk is very practical, there are very few enterprises in use.

To this end, this newspaper tries to give readers a relatively detailed description.

According to our understanding, for foreign trade enterprises, there is a time lag from product production, shipment to payment to account.

Because of the time lag, enterprises often face exchange rate risk.

As a matter of fact, if an exporters anticipate that the appreciation of the RMB will be too fast, there will be a better way for enterprises to do so, in addition to collecting the foreign exchange or raising quotations as soon as possible. That is to say, after receiving the order, they will go to the bank to handle the forward settlement and remittance business (and the bank's remittance rate at a certain time in the future), so as to lock in the exchange rate and avoid risks.

Some enterprises may be worried about how to avoid the risk of the judgment of the RMB appreciation rate after determining the long-term exchange rate.

According to industry sources, in order to circumvent such risks, enterprises can also participate in the RMB non payment abroad.