Lining'S Brand Sports Kingdom Ambitions

According to the world clothing and shoe net, in October 28th, Yao Ming opened the first season of the CBA tournament in the first year of reform.

The company has once again become the official strategic partner of the league, and players are wearing Lining's basketball shoes to enter the arena.

Meanwhile, in the NBA arena on the other side of the ocean, following the signing of Wade for 100 million years in ten years, Lining has just signed CJ- Mackler M, and the Bucks' alphabet brother is also on Lining's pursuit list.

All signs indicate that the familiar Li Ning Co is back.

The past three years' loss of 3 billion 100 million yuan has been like clouds and smoke. With the return of founder Lining in late 2014, this family was the largest in China.

Companies are accelerating recovery.

In the first half of 2017, Li Ning Co's revenue was nearly 4 billion yuan, making a profit of 189 million yuan.

Lining, who appeared in the reporter's lens, maintained a good figure. The muscles on his arm were faint, but the temples were already white.

Compared with Lining, who is active and keen on selling self timer on micro-blog, Lining in real life is a little serious. He doesn't talk much, he will give detailed explanations and responses on key issues.

This year, Lining is 54 years old, and has been in the past more than 20 years since he founded Lining brand.

This local sports company has so far experienced three senior professional managers of Chen Yihong, Zhang Zhiyong and Jin Zhenjun.

Lining, the founder, has been living behind the scenes for many times, and has been reappearing for many times because of the changes in the company's operating conditions.

"The company needs me, I will come back. After all, I am the founder and the big shareholder."

After the departure of Jin Zhenjun, the manager appointed by investor team TPG, Lining returned to the mountain.

Lining has almost never explained to the outside world what he has experienced in the past three years. He is not the kind of person who can easily show his feelings.

After the defeat of the Seoul Olympic Games in 1998, Lining suffered from public opinion.

While Li Ning Co is in deep mire of losses, history repeats itself.

Now, the Li Ning Co has been releasing the resurgence signal, but the questioning voice has never subsided. Lining seems to be quite fond of this: "now Lining sells 8 billion yuan a year, but some people still think Lining will go bankrupt in second days."

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At noon, the interview will be over.

In the company dining room, when asked by reporters team is too tired for three years, Li Ningcai, who was buried in the meal, said without hesitation: "tired is sure."

He did not hesitate to say that the company will still be delivered to professional managers in the future.

When Lining was in danger, he returned.

At the end of 2014, Li Ning Co suddenly announced that CEO Kim Chun Jun resigned.

The professional manager who helped Daphne out of the loss predicament failed to replicate the business miracle.

Meanwhile, founder Lining announced that he would temporarily serve as CEO.

There are many interpretations of this job change.

In public opinion, this personnel adjustment means that Lining, who has been hiding behind the scenes, will return to the management line of the company.

However, in early 1990, Hong Yuru, vice president of Li Ning Co, had different views.

"Return? We do not have this concept, because Li always has been with us, from meetings to specific business discussions, it is difficult to have the feeling of" return ", but no surprises and accidents.

Hong Yuru also believes that at the end of 2014, when Lining returned to the line of management, a new turning point came.

At that time, Jin Zhenjun, the TPG partner holding high the banner of reform, began to implement the "channel revival plan" for Li Ning Co.

Specific measures include spending 1 billion 400 million to 1 billion 800 million yuan to help dealers clean up and repurchase inventory, focus on Lining's main brand, shrink international market operations and drastically adjust the original management team.

However, the three years' operation of the investor team did not lead Li Ning Co out of the mire, and then Kim Chun Jun left behind.

For Kim Chun Jun and TPG, Lining used the word "regret" to sum up two words.

In his view, when the international management team entered China's local companies, it was hard to escape the curse of "acclimatized".

"In our domestic enterprises, each post needs stronger driving force to make this business more fruitful. The new top management teams may not be able to adapt to such a link quickly, so efficiency is also limited."

Lining told reporters that when the new team reformed the company, they did not receive good financial returns in terms of product, channel and operational level.

Data show that during the three years of Jin Zhenjun's revival of the new deal (from 2012 to 2014), Li Ning Co's revenues were 6 billion 730 million yuan, 5 billion 820 million yuan and 6 billion 720 million yuan respectively, with a loss of 1 billion 970 million yuan, 390 million yuan and 780 million yuan respectively.

However, Lining also affirmed the achievements of Jin Zhenjun's reform.

He said that Jin Zhenjun still brought many help, such as how to shift from the traditional wholesale mode to the retail guided mode.

Today, Li Ning Co is still using these ideas.

Recover lost territory

After bathing the Olympic Games in Beijing, after three years of barbaric growth, China

Industry is facing crisis.

The performance of Li Ning Co, the industry's big brother, is particularly attracting attention.

Since the end of 2011, the sports brand has suffered the biggest inventory crisis in China in 10 years.

In 2012 alone, the six sporting goods giants closed nearly 5000 stores. At that time, Anta chairman and CEO Ding Shizhong said with emotion, "the era of making money with eyes closed is over, and the era of deep ploughing is coming."

As a leader in the industry, Li Ning Co's performance decline has attracted more attention: in 2012, the number of stores decreased by 1821, with a loss of nearly 1 billion 980 million yuan, and the group's revenue dropped by 2 to 6 billion 700 million yuan.

When it comes to losses, Lining has repeatedly stressed that this is a loss that the company has made because of its active adjustment and is not a loss arising from its operation. "So I will adjust it after coming back, which is not a particularly big problem."

Lining's answer seems to be understatement, but the "adjustment" behind this obviously exerting a lot of force.

In July 2015, Li Ning Co announced that the strategic direction will be shifted from sports equipment providers to "Internet + sports life experience" providers. Behind this new strategy, it means to build a "digital business platform" in products, channels, O2O mode, consumer interaction mode and the construction of digital business platform.

Lining has said before that, "the main reason for the company's turnaround is to make strategic adjustments in the past few years based on big data, cut down the life oriented products, and strengthen the research and development of sports more powerful products, including running supplies".

In the category of products, running, basketball and badminton are the most important products of Li Ning Co.

About the concept of products, Lining's "harsh words" 20 years ago impressed Hong Yuru deeply. "The quality of Lining's products is also my quality and the quality of Lining people."

Recalling this sentence, Hong Yuru sighed, "I always remember this sentence until now, and I am very touched. This sentence is too harsh. The most different thing from other companies is that Li Ning Co is named after him. Some companies are just tools and platforms for making money, and others can sell and do whatever they want, but Lining can't."

At the brand marketing level, the company reused the "everything is possible" Slogan, Lining believes that the slogan "more in line with the brand gene".

He himself practiced himself. At the beginning of his return, he opened micro-blog and sold himself with the Internet. He spared no effort to publicize his products, trying to reach young consumers.

The financial data of the electricity supplier channel also prove that the company is changing younger and data.

In the first half of this year, electricity providers accounted for Lining's main brand revenue from 12.8% to 18.2%, reaching 720 million yuan, an increase of 58% compared with the same period last year, while the number of stores decreased by 111.

At present, Lining is reinventing the glory of the past. For the theory of Lining's collapse, which is very popular in the outside world, we can see that Lining has some concerns. "We sell 8 billion now, and find a 8 billion company in China is not so casual, but now many people think Lining seems to be ready to go bankrupt in second days."

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Leading the company to make profits is far from Lining's goal. He said he hopes to make the company bigger and stronger. The products will be more competitive and professional, and more people will use Lining's products.

Sports Kingdom ambitions

The sports goods industry is one of the 46 important sports products in the 5 trillion major sports industries planned by the State Council (the State Council on accelerating the development of sports industry to promote sports consumption).

Under the policy encouragement, Chinese sporting goods companies, which have gradually got rid of the stock crisis, are speeding up.

Of course, the competition between them is more and more tragic.

Take Anta, the first to break through the 10 billion revenue mark, for example, after taking the lead of the domestic leader, we are making a comprehensive attack.

Not long ago, they announced that they had completed the acquisition of KingKow, a children's clothing brand, and continued their multi brand business strategy.

In the aspect of sports marketing, Anta has signed the top sports marketing resources of Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games.

Li Ning Co, which is recovering its lost territory, is also reluctant to step down and renew the CBA's sponsorship rights in the next five years.

Last year, they also completed the first overseas acquisition of the company in the past eight years, and bought the exclusive agency management rights of the US professional dance sportswear brand Danskin in China.

However, Lining himself is very cautious about internationalization. "I do not have the plan of internationalization and international market."

It can not be overlooked that apart from the main business of sports equipment, 08032.HK, another listed company, has assumed the ambition of Lining to lay out the sports industry.

The main business of extraordinary China includes sports brokers, sports communities and sports brand.

Although China lost HK $130 million in the first half of this year, its sports community business revenue reached HK $81 million 400 thousand.

Now, the extraordinary China is in the whole country, hoping to copy Lining sports park and sports community mode.

In June this year, China signed a strategic cooperation agreement with China Construction International Investment (China) limited to develop sports parks, sports towns and sports community projects in cooperation with Hongkong, Shenzhen, Anhui, Hefei and Ma'anshan.

In September, it set up a sports cultural industry fund with a scale of 1 billion 500 million yuan to invest in Lining sports park and other community development projects.

At present, Lining's sports park has been opened in Guangxi, Nanning, Henan Nanyang and Jiangsu Yangzhou.

In response, Lining said, "we are not a stadium, but a park, where city people spend 8 hours in sports consumption."

Sports Park covers badminton, swimming, basketball, football, table tennis and other sports venues, professional operation team provides daily services, including event organization, sports training, etc., "these sports parks have achieved profitability."

Reporters visited Lining on the same day, when the company's autumn order meeting, replaced with a casual dress Li Ninggang into the dining hall, the former Prince of gymnastics was surrounded by ordering companies from all over the country, asked for a self time group photo, Lining did not refuse, smiling face, patiently together.

During lunch, the reporter talked to Lining about his status at the press conference in the past year: "when the annual earnings report will see you, it feels like..."

The words have not yet come to the floor.

Lining, who was in the table, answered directly, "not awake, absent-minded."

"Tiredness is affirmative. (company) must operate and manage this manager. My idea initially was that the company would be run by a manager."

Although this is a governance strategy that Lining has never changed, it remains a mystery how the fourth senior professional managers are and who will fill the vacancies.

At the beginning of this month, Zhang Zhiyong, the second professional manager who had led Li Ning Co to achieve nearly 10 billion yuan in revenue, went to China formally (03818.HK) to take the post of CEO, and perhaps one less person on Lining's list.

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