Can Local Sports Brands Get Together With High-Tech Local Enterprises?

In the past, the technical attributes of products were mentioned. Sports brand Basically in the state of imitation. However, as the domestic sports industry gets warmer this year, the local sports brands begin to label the technology after making the market with the price advantage. Reporter statistics found that recently, the domestic Sports brand It not only strengthened cooperation with hi-tech companies, but also increased investment in R & D. However, compared with the number of domestic and international brands, the R & D cost of domestic enterprises still has a large gap. Compared with the concept, domestic enterprises are more focused on the research and development of single products, and the development of international brands has extended to the change of concepts and lifestyles.

　 Local enterprises get high tech

Recently, Anta Announced to cooperate with a high-tech material company called Noble Biomaterials to produce anti odor shoes. It is understood that Anta's Noble Biomaterials technology company's main business is research and development, production can be used in clothing, medical care and other high-tech materials. Its brands include X-Static, XT2 and Circuitex. Anta's cooperation with the company is launched around the brand XT2. The two have jointly developed a new type of fiber fabric using XT2 odor management technology, and claim that the material contains silver, which can inhibit the propagation of bacteria and fungi in the fabric and keep the fabric fresh for a long time. It is understood that this fabric will be applied to all of Anta's sub brands including Anta, Fila, Desanto (Descente) and Anta children and so on. It is expected that these products will enter Anta's 7500 stores this autumn. Adidas has also worked with CircuiteX, a company owned by the company.

And XTEP, one of Anta's competitors, does not want to lag behind in terms of the technical nature of its products. stay Gym shoes In addition to the "power nests", "shock absorption" and "gas ring" running series, XTEP also developed "soft cushion", "aromatic technology" and "XTEP ice technology". In terms of clothing, the introduction of "ice technology" and "cool dry technology" are introduced. In addition, cooperation with Qihoo 360 to develop children's smart shoes has a location tracking function.

The emphasis on R & D and the adoption of some new technologies is, in essence, one of the means by which these sports brands enhance their competitiveness. Combing reporters found that in the past year, XTEP's R & D costs rose 12.8% to 121 million yuan over the same period, accounting for 2.3% of the total revenue of the year. Its partners also included the Japanese Dongli company and Dow Chemical Corporation, which had researched and developed technical fabrics for UNIQLO. According to Anta's 2015 earnings report, the cost of research and development is also increasing, accounting for 5.2% of the cost of sales. R & D accounts for an increase of 0.9% over the previous year. In addition, the R & D costs of 361 degrees and PEAK are also increasing compared with the past few years. Last year, the R & D expenses of the two enterprises accounted for 3.1% and 2% of the turnover respectively.

In the industry's view, local sporting goods companies are trying to get rid of the state of "hard money" earned in the past, and feel the same sense of technology and compete with foreign brands. With the continuous improvement of mainstream consumer group sports level, the performance requirements of sports equipment are higher and higher. Secondly, generally speaking, the higher the price and the higher the price of sporting goods, the higher the price of sporting goods. If enterprises want to be in the high-end market of sporting goods and get higher value-added products, they must pay attention to the pursuit of technological innovation.

　　 Absence of high-end products

Looking at the proportion of R & D investment of local sporting goods companies a few years ago, we can see that local enterprises have really worked hard in product R & D. Taking 361 degrees as an example, in 2012, the group's research expenditure accounted for only 2.1% of the turnover. In 2013 and 2014, the figure rose to 2.4%. Last year, 361 degrees of R & D cost rose to 3.1%. 361 degree also plans to invest in this year's overseas research and development of overseas products Sensation series back to China.

However, compared with foreign-funded enterprises, there is still a gap between R & D investment of local enterprises. In the last fiscal year, Nike, a foreign sports brand, spent $3 billion 200 million on product R & D innovation. R & D investment accounted for 10.46% of the cost of sales. In 2010, when domestic sporting goods enterprises accounted for about 2% of R & D investment, Nike had invested 4% of its sales revenue in product R & D. "From the international experience, enterprises with R & D investment accounted for less than 1% of sales revenue are hard to maintain, and enterprises that account for 2% of sales revenue can barely maintain, and enterprises that account for 5%-10% of sales will be competitive." Clothing industry expert Zhao Pei interpreted this.

Is there a big gap between the domestic brand and the international brand in terms of technology content? Because of this, Zhao Pei has explained that the difference between foreign brands and domestic brands is not very large for middle and low end product lines. "Technology in the whole industry can be divided into two types of technology, one is material technology, the other is structural technology. Nike, Adidas and other brands also have mass product line shoes, and the technological content of such products is not significantly different from that of domestic brands.

Zhao Peijin pointed out that although the research strength of China's local sports brands is being strengthened, more power is needed for high quality sporting goods. For example, Anta Challenge100 professional function running shoes are priced at 499 yuan, while Adidas's professional running shoes are over 1000 yuan. In terms of technology and technology, we can not judge the two party better or worse. However, in the current consumption environment, the competitive strategy of domestic brands will not only win some consumers, but also lower the technological content of the brand, and hinder the enterprises from further enhancing their brand influence. It is difficult to win the favor of consumers who care about the quality in the first-line market. In addition, Zhao Pei pointed out that domestic brands generally exert their strength in the research and development of their single category, and they are mostly in the field of running shoes. Foreign brands are more blooming, and R & D strength affects all kinds of products. This is also the difference between domestic and foreign investment in the distribution of research forces.

　　 R & D concept still lags behind

After two years of adjustment, the domestic sporting goods industry is getting warmer and warmer. Even some voices say that the domestic sporting goods enterprises will usher in the next golden ten years. Data from the CIC Industry Research Center show that in 2015, the scale of China's sporting goods market was about 149 billion yuan. With the rapid development of the sports industry chain, by 2020, the scale of sporting goods market is expected to reach 240 billion yuan, and the compound growth rate in the next five years will be 10%. This has also made the key sporting goods enterprises headed by Anta have the determination to catch up with foreign brands such as Nike, and has increased investment in product research and development.

However, in the pursuit of a technological breakthrough in the shoe industry, Nike and other foreign-funded enterprises pay more attention to the idea and start to build themselves into a high-tech service company from concept to lifestyle and supporting products. At this point, the gap between domestic and foreign enterprises is still very large. Zhao Pei pointed out that, for example, Nike, Andrew, Adidas and other enterprises have begun to acquire technology companies with large numbers of users and technology talents through internal resources or acquisition methods. At the same time, they have taken some of the most mainstream sports applications on the market, increasing investment in the numeral platform, but no domestic enterprise has such a "vision" and embarked on the layout.

Zhao Pei believes that in addition to lack of foresight, local brands also lack the "lethality" in marketing. Almost all local sporting goods enterprises have so-called marketing centers, but in essence they only have sales functions such as logistics, distribution, and store management. The marketing center is reduced to a sales center. However, the important marketing functions such as the sales plan, strategic market entry strategy and product promotion strategy that should be undertaken by the marketing center can not be effectively established. "The lack of marketing functions is the root cause of the backwardness of local enterprises, and the leading position of foreign brands lies in the strong marketing function, which can continuously identify the market changes and make accurate responses through the overall strategy. Local enterprises should think carefully, do not try to solve the problem of "soil" externally, and return to the internal marketing function construction.