Lining Saves Lining: A Long March Without End

In January 10th, rainy and rainy in Hangzhou, Lining, 56, took the core team leader from Beijing to Hangzhou. He would attend a closed door meeting held by Alibaba CEO Zhang Yong.

On the second day, Alibaba released Ali business operation system and launched the "A100" plan. Li Ning Co is one of the first strategic partners.

This means that Lining hopes to bring Li Ning Co into a new upsurge again. Through Ali's help, we can finish the online and digitalization of 11 major business elements such as brand, commodity, sale, marketing, channel and manufacturing.

Time went back to more than 30 years ago.

On 1988, the Olympic Games in Seoul, pommel horse project, the 25 year old Lining made a mistake, landing on the ground, and fell heavily on the mat.

When the camera is advancing, people can see that Lining has a smile on his face.

More than 20 years later, when Lining saw the video again, he could not help but say, "laughter is my own habit.

Character is like this. How much pressure, success or failure is the expression. "

After that year's Seoul Olympic Games, Lining announced his retirement.

Two years later, the sports brand "Lining" was born.

Like Lining, the Li Ning Co, Li Ning Co to the peak, also fell to the bottom.

As a result of the collapse of the performance, in the 4 years, the resignation of the two CEO resigned, and experienced two waves of executives leaving the company. At the moment, the public shouted: Lining was defeated.

It was not until 2015 when the founder of Lining returned to the Li Ning Co that he gradually got rid of turbulence and gradually returned to the blood, turning losses into profits.

Lining saves Lining: a long march A100 plan with no end

Source of data: Lining's financial reports over the years

In 2018, by the two shows of New York fashion week and Paris fashion week, Lining launched a "national tide wind" and spread to the mainland from the other side of the ocean. Many "post-90s" suddenly discovered that Lining, who accompanied their childhood, has changed.

As of September 2018, Lining's orders had increased year by year for 20 consecutive quarters.

In the first half of 2018, revenue was more than 4 billion 700 million yuan, and annual revenue is expected to return to its peak, that is, 9 billion 480 million in 2010.

After 8 years, Lining once again came to the door of billions of revenue.

"One bite, one stamp, and decided to play something different."

At 8 in the morning, the new product of cat China day on New York fashion Sunday has just started. The Tmall apparel industry is staring at the cell phone for nine weeks.

New York fashion Sunday cat China Japan's exclusive page, Lining, Taiping bird, Chen Peng, Clot four brands lined up, he opened Lining's page, but in a few seconds, the word "sold out" jumped out.

The meeting with the customer is still in progress, but Zhou nine can't attend to it. Stand up and call the Li Ning Co's electricity supplier outside the door.

"They are all sold out. Hurry up to replenish the goods!"

Lining, general manager of electricity supplier Feng Ye did not expect to sell so much.

The "more than 1000 series" running shoes of the "enlightened Dao" series of the same show are gone in 1 minutes.

Another week is the Spring Festival, which is the middle of the winter, but even short sleeves have been robbed by the enthusiastic "chopped hands party".

As a result, the goods can be fully loaded, really no goods had to be changed to "pre-sale".

Beijing time on February 8, 2018, the first day of New York Fashion Week show has ended, the national, sports, brand elements of the integration of the "tide" of Lining amazing, many netizens shouted in social media: Lining changed!

Lining saves Lining: a long march A100 plan with no end

Lining debuts in New York Fashion Week

Feng Ye said, this is an inflection point.

"(before) they recognized the" Lining "logo, but did not know how much tide it had.

Before Lining, no Chinese sports brand had ever been in fashion week.

The show cost a lot of money. Feng Ye once said: Lining decided to participate in the time is also thinking twice, and finally, "one bite and a stamp, decided to play something different."

Four months after the fashion week in New York, Lining appeared in Paris fashion week with a wave of products.

In January 12, 2019, Li Ning Co announced that "China Lining" will also appear in the 2019 autumn and winter fashion week in New York.

The cooperation with Tmall made Lining touch the pulse of consumers.

Zhou Jiu introduced that in 2018, under the guidance of Tmall platform's consumer data, Lining accelerated the research and development of the Oriental style T-shirt product, and with the help of Tmall, the "Guofeng" product was integrated into the "retrospective" series to create a burst payment.

Not only Lining brand but also Lining himself.

In a micro-blog for the New York fashion week, he said, "I also called the tide man more than 20 years ago."

After the reunification in 2015, Lining opened micro-blog, a more than 50 year old man, who was also crazy about learning Internet language.

He and Lei Jun and Pan Shiyi interact with each other, self timer and sell Meng are not to be told, from time to time, from the black, live off a "tide uncle".

Lining saves Lining: a long march A100 plan with no end

Lining part of micro-blog

After the fashion week in New York, Li Ning Co shares rose and the market value soared nearly HK $6 billion in 40 days.

Zhou nine revealed: Tmall platform 2018 data show that through the big data accurate touch consumers, Lining overall fans group is more young, after 90, 95 growth significantly.

Even many fans of Nike and Adidas have bought Lining's products.

The failed brand reform in 2010 was a crucial step in a fashion show 8 years later.

The leader made a mistake and was frustrated.

Lining, who has been depressed for a long time, needs a victory to prove himself.

The company, founded in 1990, was founded by the most famous athlete in China. It once won the first brand of Chinese sports for more than 10 years, and for a series of reasons, it once fell to the altar and lost about 3000000000 in 3 years.

The "Lining" brand was "prosperous" at birth, and became a sponsor of the Chinese Olympic Committee two years later. It became the leader of Chinese sports brand in four years.

At that time, the three sons and sons of Ding Shizhong in Jinjiang, Fujian, had just hung the brand of "Anta" for their factories, and later, Jinjiang shoes enterprises, which dominated the half of the Chinese sports brand, were mostly family workshops.

At the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, Lining, the athlete, hovered over the bird's nest for a week, the scene of "flying in the sky", the peak time of his personal and company.

In 2009, Lining sold for the first time in the Chinese market than Adidas, ranking second, second only to Nike. In 2010, the annual revenue reached nearly 9 billion 500 million, and the number of stores exceeded 8000.

Lining saves Lining: a long march A100 plan with no end

Lining lit the main torch at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

After the millennium, the scale of China's sports industry has been growing for two consecutive years.

Most of China's sports brands start with wholesale sales. They focus on the rapid expansion of shops under the line, and lack of retail and brand operation experience.

At that time there was still a large market gap, so as long as the production can be sold, as long as the shop can expand.

Ding Shizhong, founder and chairman of Anta, once described this as an era of "making money with closed eyes".

However, the blindfolded Chinese sports brand has mistaken the east wind for its wings.

According to "finance and economics" magazine, by the end of 2008, Nike and Adidas, which had mastered terminal data, began to find that the expected quantity of orders in the Chinese market did not match the actual sales volume, which is an early warning for high inventories.

By contrast, it was not until around 2012 that Chinese sports brands perceived the cold winter coming from the cooling down order meeting.

By the time of recovery growth, Lining's number of stores has dropped by 2629 compared with its peak, while Anta has reduced by 1044.

To the darkest hour, fight again and again.

In 2010, when Li Ning Co CEO Zhang Zhiyong opened the "brand remodeling" and "channel change", changed the bid, raised the price, changed the slogan to "Make the Change" (let the change happen), hit the banner of "90 after Lining", and even signed Lin Chiling as spokesperson.

On the channel, it is proposed to pform from wholesalers to retailers.

Lining saves Lining: a long march A100 plan with no end

Post 90 Lining Poster

Lining's logic of change is not wrong.

Lining, sandwiched between Nike, Adidas and Jinjiang department, is considered awkward.

On the price, we can not win the big international card, but we will encounter the "Jinjiang Department" headed by Anta, and we must guard against it.

It has been struggling to recapture the market that has been robbed by international brands. Brand upgrading is the only way to go.

But Lining chose the path of brand remodeling.

Its target audience is "less than 20 years old", which is less than the age of 70, and the consumption power is limited. However, many post-80s and even post-80s customers are estranged because of the fixed location.

In addition, the past inventory has not yet been digested, where do dealers have the power to buy new products?

Sure enough, in the 2011 quarter of, at the second quarter product orders meeting, the total value of orders calculated according to the retail tag price was the same as that of the previous year. However, the order quantity dropped by more than 7% and 8% respectively when the average price rose more than 8%.

The failure of the "brand remolding" plan directly led to Zhang Zhiyong's "class closing" and the reform was also stopped.

In hindsight, the key to this failure is "goods". If the product can not reverse the user's mind, the slogans will be useless, and at that time, Lining's product positioning has been vacillating between sports and fashion.

In fact, Lining's designer team is not strong enough.

After opening up an internationalized and young brand strategy, Zhang Zhiyong has also dug up many product managers and brand managers from international companies.

However, most of the airborne executives are western cultural backgrounds, limited understanding of Lining's brand genes, and copying the process of large companies such as Nike on product development, but instead, Lining has lost its characteristics.

According to the Global Entrepreneur, the design of the Chinese wind was left out because the executives who were responsible for the products at the time favored American style and had no sense of eastern elements.

For example, a professional basketball series named "Eighteen Wu Yi" has not been paid much attention even if the quantity of the order is higher than 30% of the quantity of the basketball order.

In 2012, Lining came to Private Equity Investment Firm TPG partner Jin Zhenjun, invited him to be the executive vice chairman and deputy CEO of Li Ning Co, but the problem of air force executives' acclimatization was once again exposed.

Jin Zhenjun, a Korean American student and a top student at Harvard University, has led Daphne out of the predicament and set up a rapid retail business mode.

He brought a brand new top management team to take charge of Lining's business. Most of them have an international background and a brilliant resume.

Lining saves Lining: a long march A100 plan with no end

Jin Zhenjun brought a group of top management teams with international background.

Under the leadership of Jin Zhenjun, Lining focused on sports again, set up a big data center, completed data collection for 80% stores, greatly increased the proportion of Direct stores, and invested 14 to 1 billion 800 million yuan to start the channel revival plan to help dealers clean up inventory.

Kim Chun Jun's series of changes in product, channel and operation structure really hit Lining's pain point, but he failed. One of the reasons is that resistance from the middle level of the company has hindered the process of reform.

In the 2012-2014 year, Lining's revenue declined continuously, and the loss in 3 billion 150 million consecutive years in three years, while Anta, 31st degree and so on resumed growth.

When Lining was still battered by the deteriorating financial situation, the old Anta had already taken the opportunity to climb the position of the boss and gradually cast off the distance.

At the end of 2014, Kim Chun Jun was left behind because of the failure of the business figures.

Whether Zhang Zhiyong or Jin Zhenjun, before and after they left, accompanied by a wave of resignation of the top management team, it is difficult to talk about stability under the turbulence of personnel.

"It doesn't mean that TPG's operation team is not doing well."

Later, in an interview with "finance you", Lining said that although the new executive team has experience in large companies and large groups, it may not be able to adapt quickly to the environment of localization companies.

Lining returns, reversing the situation

In 2015, Li Ning Co restarted the slogan "anything is possible", which is the symbol of the return of founder Lining.

Unlike many of the founders of enterprises, since 1998, Lining has handed over the company to CEO, and he has only been the executive chairman of the board of directors.

This time, he could not sit idly by.

Lining saves Lining: a long march A100 plan with no end

Lining Board Executive Chairman and acting CEO Lining

After returning, Lining began to go all out.

Lining claimed that one important change is to focus on the field of professional sports and make the product well.

He also adjusted the company's organizational structure and reorganized into three major business sectors, basketball and badminton, sports, life and training, and running. They were responsible for their business performance and financial indicators. At the same time, they also set up a creative center to support three business teams.

"The world online merchants" once recorded a detail: Lining often "rushes" into the design department's product seminar, looks for a chair to listen quietly.

Lining will also discuss the details of basketball products with NBA star Dwyne Wade, who has signed a contract with the company.

Lining promoted a group of veteran employees into the top management team, such as Hong Yuru, Zhang Xiang Du, whose work numbers were 002 and 003 respectively. They followed Lining for 25 years.

Li Ning Co has been trying to change its channel, and has made great progress after the efforts of the three CEO.

Lining adopted the following measures: raising the proportion of self run, promoting the ordering management of single stores, and delivering goods to stores by national logistics centers.

At the same time, the status of e-commerce business is becoming more and more important in Li Ning Co.

After Lining's return, Feng Ye, who has been responsible for the electricity business, has been promoted to the general manager of the electrical business department, reporting directly to him.

The remarkable growth of the electricity supplier has also promoted the overall revenue of the company.

Lining himself went to the Alibaba park many times, not only meeting, but also to the front line staff of Alibaba dress line.

It is said that he will take notes seriously during the exchange, and ask questions from Tmall Xiao 2 from time to time to understand what is "return rate" and "conversion rate".

Under a series of adjustments, by the end of 2015, the Li Ning Co turned a profit into a profit and made a profit of 14 million 210 thousand yuan. The net profit in the following two years was 600 million and 500 million respectively, and the average growth rate of revenue was also kept at two figures.

At present, Li Ning Co accounts for more than 20% of its revenue.

In the third quarter of 2018, e-commerce revenue will also grow by 30%-40%.

After 3 years of blood return, Lining has begun to get close to its revenue scale at its peak.

In the first half of 2018, its revenue reached 4 billion 713 million yuan, which means that after 8 years, Lining once again stood at the door of billions of revenue.

At this time, the competition pattern of Chinese sports brands has changed.

Anta's revenue in the first half of 2018 has exceeded 10 billion, more than two times that of Lining.

Its market value of HK $94 billion 374 million is nearly 5 times that of Lining.

With Anta's acquisition of the parent parent of the first parent bird, it has formed a multi brand matrix such as Fei Le, Desanto, Xiao Xiao Niu and so on. It involves many fields such as sports, children's clothing, outdoor and so on.

Anta also made efforts on the electricity supplier. Last year, double 11 and Lining Tmall flagship store sold 360 million.

And Anta's turnover reached 1 billion 130 million, ranking third, behind Nike and Adidas.

Lining's pformation logic is that from the wholesaler mode to the consumer centered retail mode, the key factor is the data -- how to quickly and comprehensively grasp the consumer data and produce products that are more popular with the target customers.

Therefore, when Ali released the commercial operation system of Ali, Lining responded positively and became the first strategic partner of the "A100" plan, seeking comprehensive digitalization from brand, merchandise, sales, marketing and manufacturing.

In many public occasions, Lining could not help saying, "tired."

He has refused to remove the word "agent" in the "chief executive officer", and has said that he has been looking for the right candidate for long-term CEO.

Lining saves Lining: a long march A100 plan with no end

Li Qilin, Lining's new executive director

In the latest round of personnel changes, Lining's nephew, Li Qilin, was pferred from a non-executive director to an executive director.

Li Qilin, 31, has extensive experience in the financial services industry and has been an analyst at Hengsheng Asset Management Limited.

How far will Lining lead Lining?