Key Words for Chinese Garment

Jul 02, 2013  |  by
Efficiency: Management & Information Technology
Efficiency determines competitiveness and plays a decisive role in maintaining the steady growth of enterprises. The integrated application and integrated coordination of modern information technology becomes the important strength to promote the improvement of efficiency, which strongly improves enterprises’ production efficiency, management efficiency and market reaction ability while optimizing the industry resource allocation system.
 
 
Professor Han Yongsheng from Graduate School of Management, GUCAS, said: “Why is efficiency in such an important position? Because for us today, there is still large space for efficiency improvement within the industry, and we can provide effective means for better efficiency to strengthen China’s garment industry competitiveness through management innovation and information support.”
 
Mr. Liu Weiwen, President of Jeanswest, shared success experience in improving the efficiency of enterprises owing to precise management through information technology as well as constant improvement of garment industry supply chain integration. “Our management philosophy is very simple, hoping that common customers can afford famous brands. Our management pattern includes two aspects. Firstly, the company’s source of power is improved through resource management and operation; secondly, the benefits enterprises demand are produced through information technology and strengthened management of human resources.”
 
Under such a not too optimistic economic situation, Jeanswest always adheres to precise management and accurate inventory, believing that information is much more important now. “It is to use information technology to support every decision we make to improve the accuracy, which requires a lot of data to support. To achieve accurate management needs a good grasp of data in the four aspects: data from customers, channels, marketing, and products.”
 
Mr. Zhang Daili from Red Collar Group tells the development of Red Collar from manufacturing of common to personalized customization. “The case I present today is the only thing I spent ten years to do. What is it? It is customization, which is then made a global digital engineering,” said Mr. Zhang.
 
Mr. Zhang introduced that MTM digital engineering is derived from the integration of informatization and industrialization during the brand development of Red Collar. A week is enough now for completing personalized customization by sending information to the data center through digital and information network.
 
Ms. Cai Dongdong, GM of Zhejiang Tedelon, shared a case about integrated supply chain which was built through the combination of management and information technology as well as industrialization and informatization. According to Ms. Cai, the first characteristic of information is efficiency. Through data collection of the information technology, the headquarter can easily know the data changes of the products, and the forms of reporting statistics will come along with the changes, thus a very fast response is possible. 
 
Mr. Wang Angeng from Advisory Committee for State Informatization summed up the above cases that the three enterprises improved efficiency through strengthening integration of management and information technology.
 
“What is industrialization? It means how to develop the enterprises, how to take shares of the market, how to improve the efficiency; however enterprise informatization does need technology, if an enterprise wants to reach the goal, it must put these two things together.” Mr. Wang Angeng believes that to enhance the efficiency of enterprises depends on the effective integration of industrialization and informatization.
 
Finally, Mr. Li Rugang from Ningbo Youngor made a concluding statement by saying “the scientific significance of management and information technology lies in reducing costs and increasing benefits to eventually establish a highly efficient system through scientific management tools.”
 
As for the enterprises, the integration of informatization and industrialization is at a high level with the goal to develop a modern industrial system. Specifically, it is to realize the high additional value of the products.
 
 
Value: Integration & Benefit Chain
China textile and garment supply chain management has in recent years received more and more attention from domestic enterprises. The cooperation between good upstream suppliers and quality brands can achieve a multiplier effect, and vice versa. However, what will finally determine the core competitiveness of enterprises in a coherent and smooth industry chain is how to make optimized designs and logical connections based on the existing upstream and downstream resources to help each link of the chain achieve benefit and ration maximization, which will ensure the competitive advantages in the strategic link and furthermore an orderly and efficient value chain.
 
 
Che Ketao, Vice Chairman and CEO of Esquel Group, stated that the competitiveness elements of the entire supply chain are classified into integration, cost control, creativity and innovation, environmental protection as well as staff and the local community care. He said: “‘Integration’ means a large-scale integration of global textile and garment industry for the stability of each country’s policy in terms of export quotas and cotton. And cost control is the most important link in the supply chain. At present, the domestic manufacturing enterprises are suffering too high costs, and cost reduction is not to cut down wages but to improve efficiency through process, management, science and technology, and this is the real cost control. Innovation is particularly important in the supply chain integration, because today everybody attach more attention to green production, the idea of environmental protection, and energy saving and emission reduction. It needs our joint efforts to uphold the innovative ideas from upstream supply chain to the downstream for environmental protection.”    
 
Lu Shan, Vice Chairman of Raidy Boer, expressed his approval towards Che Ketao, saying that: “It becomes more and more difficult for Chinese manufacturers, especially those international luxury OEMs for the reason that the increased costs has deprived their competitive advantages; however, such countries as Vietnam, Cambodia, Bangladesh are enjoying much lower labor costs than China.” He stated frankly that Raidy Boer, as a China-Italy mixed blood, has begun to split supply chain because of the growing cost pressures of Chinese manufacturing enterprises. “Now the high-end brands of Raidy Boer are produced in Italy where the production cost may not be necessarily higher than China. While the basic and high-sale-volume styles are being transferred to Southeast Asian countries, and we still hope that the main products are produced in China, but the premise is we can find domestic manufacturers who have good reputation with moderate production costs.”
 
Lin Zhiying, Vice President of Li & Fung (China) said: “Network integration is very important in supply chain integration, and Li & Fung has its own network of suppliers which would be started immediately to seek the most suitable cooperator once receiving an order. Therefore, every enterprise should build a perfect supplier network to cope with the upstream and downstream supply chain changes.”  
 
Although there are still many problems in the domestic supply chain integration, it is still deeply loved by a lot of brands, which is just as Che Ketao said that “we’re not going out again, and we would be looking for new models, new methods, and new channels in china. We will stay here in China for further development.”
 
 
Spread: What New Media Brings to Us?
In the past few years, China’s media environment has undergone great changes. New media make the audience actively involved in specific marketing activities because of its wide audience and deep released information. It is the way to realize the enterprises’ business strategy in the new media, a soft marketing penetration.
 
 
As Wang Yijing, the marketing general manager of YouKu Potato Group said that the appearance of new media provides the way for consumers to get information changed. And all these changes brought unexpected results for the brand communication; brands like Dior, Lancome and etc have taken new marketing attempt in new media.
 
The senior vice president of Vancl (Beijing) Technology Co., Ltd., Wang Chunhuan shared their new media marketing practice. As a network brand, Vancl always pay special attention to finding fresh channels and new marketing modes.
 
Vancl is the first enterprise to enter into the Sina Weibo. Vancl is a network clothing brand, and it believes in the Weibo, so the staff in all the management or in a certain level must open the Weibo, and must pass the assessment. He emphasized that new marketing is a necessary job as long as you choose the e-commerce and the Internet.
 
Zhang Tao, the vice president of Anta (China) Co., LTD., showed the marketing story of Anta sports. He thought that the sports marketing can get more attention for the brand in the media, which can also help enterprises to enter into a new market.
 
“Besides, sports marketing can help the enterprise to enter into the outside area. For an example, when the sports marketing activities are held during a grand-scaled sports event, actually a wide range of industries will be involved. When a consumer contacts a product not only in the retail terminal, instead, he will contact with the brand in all aspects, and that’s the reason why it is the right time to share the meaning of sports marketing.”
 
Anta also made some try in the digital marketing. For an example, during the Olympic Games, Anta did the marketing through Weibo and the Internet, and gained over 40 thousand PV hits. He said: “the active participation and positive guidance of fans played a very good role in our Weibo. After signing the contract in the year of 2009, the total turnover reached 3.6 billion yuan, and the turnover of last year realized 9 million yuan.”
 
Chen Yizhan, the chairman and CEO of the We Marketing Group believed that it is not just a brand image age. “We have the new media, so you can connect with your consumers directly. In the past, we paid attention to the visibility, reputation and loyalty of the brand. But now, I think besides the three aspects, the associate, resonance, sensitivity and immune degrees of brand are also very important, which can be realized by the new media.”
 
As a service organization, in addition to the traditional promotion way, HK TDC also tried to use Weibo to release information and communicate with fans about the latest situation. “Sometimes there are a few problems can not be solved well and clear during exhibitions, so we can convenient some customers to write down their questions by Weibo, and after our colleagues see it in time, we will give them a more detailed reply.” The chief representative of HK TDC, Huang Tianwei said, “We believe and hope that this platform can help us to contact with our customers closely.”
 
Tang Xingtong, the marketing CEO of Hand in Hand and the digital marketing expert, suggested that clothing enterprises should not run too fast or too slow in the new media marketing, instead, they should develop along with the entire environment of Weibo, e-commerce and the new media.
 
Qian Feng, the chairman of Zhejiang Lesies Company finally concluded that the content of social media should be matched and interacted, so that the brand spread can get better marketing effect under the Internet environment.
 
 
Service: Consciousness & Operation System
Many clothing enterprises are thinking about the same question: how to establish a set of scientific and reasonable service operation system to build the brand reputation and image, in order to increase product added value and to realize the brand differentiation management.
 
 
A famous economic columnist expressed his opinion in a calm but humor way:Enterprises’ mission is to serve the RMB through serving humanity. It is a shame to those enterprises without profits. ” He said, “It is the mission for both of the garment industry and China’s manufacturing industry to improve the service.”
 
Zhao Pu, the chairman of Shanghai UKI Co., Ltd., shared their marketing strategy of the Oct Mami. The Oct Mami brand not only pays attention to the product promotion, but also deeply research the demand of maternity dress consumer groups. They used the vivid books as the medium to popularize the pregnancy knowledge to consumers. In addition, they also set up the virtual fitting mirror in the shop to make the fitting convenient for pregnant women.
 
As the most representative designer brand in China’s garment industry, EACHWAY always conveys the brand culture and spirit through service. “Your Temperament Can Be Read” — the fashion declaration of EACHWAY within the unique cultural connotation, which not only gives the optimistic pursuit to the brand spirit level, but also promotes the EACHWAY to transform from a single product to a brand.
 
Procter & Gamble with 175 years of history has been in China for nearly 25 years. There is no denying the fact that it is a very good brand. The sales manager of Procter & Gamble, Su Gefei showed that service is not only a kind of attitude, but also a science.
 
In the Procter & Gamble Company, the sales department has a lot of work. The first is the product distribution. It is the important principle to make sure that consumers can buy the Procter & Gamble products in the first time, which must have the support of a sales network.
 
“Except for the products, goods shelves are the important resources in stores. We need to be in the best position, no matter in big shelves, electronic commerce or the website, because all of our products, achievements, goals and etc are on that.” Sun Gefei said, “Third is the pricing. We are fast pin products, and the price is more transparent. We must make the price at a proper level to ensure our profits.”
 
In addition, Procter & Gamble has an efficient operation system called Mike Operation Mode, which is actually learned from McDonald. He said: “McDonald has ten thousands of stores over the world with the same taste and the same service language, so the standard of Procter & Gamble is consistent. In order to realize the standardization operation, Procter & Gamble summarized ten sales work contents, including the salesman visit work. According to the visit, we regulate different times to different types of stores, reflecting the high efficiency. The nationwide 6 million Procter & Gamble stores are realized by our standardization work.”
 
Xia Hua, the chairman of EVE Group Company concluded that service is the very thing worth considering for all enterprises. Service is the best hope to make China’s brand better in the future, and even to realize the real added value of brands. He said: “Facing with the global economic change, we must give the most meticulous and considerate service to make China’s enterprises blossom colorfully on the world stage.”
 
 
Channels: Innovation & Cross-border Cooperation
There is no denying the fact that a business operation, successful or not, depends on whether entrepreneurs can fundamentally grasp the changes of consumers’ shopping needs and behavior. Cross-border cooperation has become the best choice to meet the diversity and compoundity of consumers’ behavior. The innovation of commercial channels and retail terminal will become the decisive power in the market structure reform.
 
 
During the meeting, the president of NC.STYLE international brand, Chen Peng stressed: “In the market, enterprises can not rely on industrial intuition to make the judgment without any scientific decisions and means.” She said, “The accurate way is the start of success and brand. From many international brands’ implement failure cases in China, we can find such reasons that they find neither the right agent, nor the right way for marketing and promoting, or failure to understand the consumers’ demand in Chinese market and etc.”
 
In combination with NC.STYLE cases, she said: “NC.STYLE was founded in the Hutong of Beijing commercial zone, and many very cultural brands in Tokyo, New York and etc were all founded in backstreets, and I hope when people talk about the NC.STYL, they are talking about a brand founded in a Hutong of Beijing. So we can see how important the brand image is. Our business goal is to create a complete system, which is applicable to all kinds of brands. Since the marketization is going too fast, we have to perfect it by constantly improvement, so as to promote the development of China’s clothing culture.”
 
Nowadays, the development of the sales channel is full of exploration and research, and we need to think about how to develop the diversity of channels in concerted growth. Ying Chunguang, the chairman of Tonline shared their experience. “First, we will make a division of the product image, then do some adjustments in the design, R&D, production and procurement, and finally complete production. In the second half of 2011, we put the values, life form, needs and the dressing positioning into different classifications. Innovation is the key point to grasp consumers’ needs, which comes from the creation of consumers and channels. So we always want to comply with the changes of market demand, and all the traditional part retained before should be innovated.”
 
In the perspective of the cross-border cooperation between the commercial real estate and clothing industry, Chen Chun, the deputy general manager of Ryan Real Estate gave an analysis: “Shanghai New World is the pioneer of culture and innovation. During the process of operation, the East New World was combined with culture constantly, which is the basis of a long life.” He said, “Whether building or culture, in fact, both of them focus on doing some efforts for people’s life quality.”
 
Wang Yao, the vice president of the CGCC pointed that with the constant change of the market, now the consumers pay more attention to their own brand. In other words, the brand value is determined by the value of the brand itself and the help of external forces. In addition, the consumers in Chinese market have risen the pursuit to the brand culture and idea level instead of one type of clothing, so the entity stores should reflect the idea and culture. “I hope clothing enterprises could dig out themselves to show their culture.” He said.
 
Zhou Yan, the president of Dalian Sunfed Co., Ltd said: “The fundamental prerequisite of enterprises is to improve their own intrinsic value constantly. Innovation should be based on the brand connotation and the meaning of brand spread. In short, in the current situation, we can get the senior brand success in the brand production only by constant innovation, cross-border cooperation and fast terminal productivity.”
 
 
Culture: Confidence & Brand Value
The traditional culture which had been forgotten, ignored and lost by people is exactly the primitive culture base of China’s clothing brand. The continuous innovation, accumulation and precipitation of the Chinese culture will become the gene and core of China’s clothing brand, and will ultimately make a permanent vitality brand value in the inheritance. How to build the culture spirit and value of the brand and keep the right of a decisive say in the fashion and its market initiative calls for a high degree of cultural consciousness and confidence, which poses a difficult problem in China’s fashion brand.
 
To improve this right in global area, China garment industry is encouraged to dig out the national culture treasure and renovate the Chinese traditional culture with modern fashion language is the way for China’s garment industry to improve the national international fashion discourse power, which gives designers the historical mission. The broken chain of cultural ecology is in urgent need to be relinked and integrated, and some enterprises are working hard on it.
 
 
Deng Li, the deputy publisher and executive editor of the “Maire Claire” thought that clothing is the design aesthetics expressing the cultural multivariate, which represents the national image, temperament, quality and weather. Now China’s clothing brand has a comprehensive competition with fashion brand in various fields, not only in the market and design, but also in all the related aspects. He said: “I think the China’s clothing brand should depend on the self-confidence of this land in a great extent to stand on the stage in a unique attitude. We know many top world brands because of their process design and technology, and long history, but the more important thing is the classic image reflected by the brand connotation and information.”
 
Zheng Zheng, the deputy general manager of Shanghai Broadcast Industrial co., LTD., shows their journey. In the initial period of the development, the slogan of the Broadcast was to create boutique clothing and spread clothing culture. The cultural attribute has affected the enterprises culture level till now. During the transformation period, the brand is becoming popular, but the company leaders finally recognized that differentiation and originality should be insisted, so the slogan became design, innovation and life. 
 
“In the development stage, we realized that what we insist is the spirit of innovation, which is a kind of perennial innovation, and this culture includes dreams, values, operating mechanism and process.” Zheng Zheng said.
 
When releasing the enterprises case, Ye Shouzeng said that ICTCLE has three key words: natural, comfortable and environmental protection. The company has been in deep thinking about how to put the environmental protection ideal and business into a better combination and has basically found some feasible way. “The pursuit of personnel’s development, the whole nature and the harmony of society is the core value that we are looking for.” Therefore, the ICECLE brand gives a person very comfortable feeling in the product design. Ye Shouzeng hoped that the fast-rhythm life, comfortable and the environmental protection can be integrated through the efforts.
 
Silk, is the material with Chinese characteristics. Li Jianhua, the leader of Wensli Company, has been giving unique cultural connotation to this material. “We are dedicated to moving the world silk center to China, because silk itself belonged to China a long time ago. We hope that the silk can come back home, becoming the important luxury decoration material in the world’s luxuries, so in addition to the silk clothing, we let it become a kind of new material, advocating a silk way of life.”
 
Chen Fuguo, the CEO of INTERBRAND in China, thought that culture and brand are born dependent and inseparable, and any culture in modern civilization must be affected and established by brand. While this can only rely on some key operations to influence and educate consumers, making consumers build a positive, stable, and consistent consumption concept.
 
He said: “The differentiation is a must for the clothing enterprises who want to develop; clothing itself is a brand to create meaning. If you cannot create meaning of words, you cannot have a seat in the consumers’ mind. So if you want to build a brand, you have to understand where the source of the brand is.”
 
Zhang Rongming, the chairman of the Beijing Aimer Underwear Co., LTD., said: “the brand value is the own work for everyone who built a brand, and brand creators have been trying hard to do this work because we all deeply know that the brand can be reflected only if we constantly use the brand and its orientation, and put the brand culture value into it with a unique way. The clothing industrial personage should start from their own enterprise practice and brand practice, pursuing their own cultural confidence consciously, in order to do the best in yourself, products, design and brand. With all these we can constitute our confidence, and then influence consumers. We all have the responsibility to make China’s traditional culture much stronger, and this is our task of heavy responsibility.”
 
 
Human Resource: Talents Training and Selection Is the Key
For apparel and textile industry, how to achieve a long-term advancement and development, as well as right strategic direction and healthy operational system? Human resource is the key.
 
 
Hu Chengchu, executive director and vice president of Lilanz Group, emphasized: “recently, Chinese garment industry is experiencing an important period of industrial upgrading. However, the whole industry confronts challenges and risks both from home and abroad. In order to better cope with the challenges, our garment enterprises in China should enhance the self-independent inner strengths, and human resource would be considered as one of the essential inner drives for us.”
 
CEO of Ningbo PEACEBIRD Women’s wear Branch Company, Ou Limin pointed out that on one hand, professional, honest, passionate are three main elements for apparel companies to choose their qualified talents; on the other hand, enterprises should establish reasonable human resource selection system, which stresses the importance of internal training, of course the external introduction of talents is also needed. Meanwhile, the company should guarantee a fair welfare system for each employee.   
 
On talent training and selection, Xu Bo, director as well as executive vice president of Zhejiang Semir Company, expressed his own views: “we set up a specialized training system for undergraduate students. Talent training could be beneficial for the job rotation between new and old employees, and also could effectively prevent the company from inner institutional rigidities.”
 
“In our company, the rate of brain drain is as always below 3 percent. Frankly speaking, there are basically two fundamentals contributing for this result: from one aspect, a comparatively fair and competitive welfare strategy could provide more opportunities to attract professional external talents and enhance the enthusiasm of the internal talent; from the other aspect, a company not only should possess incentive operational mechanism, but also should establish a system that could promote the communication between employees,” added Xu Bo.
 
For Shandong Show Long Garment Co., Ltd., it has seven branch brands. Wu Jianmin, board Chairman of Show Long, divides its Shandong headquarters into Yantai HQ, Shanghai HQ and Beijing HQ, and authorized the talents in Company to manage and operate the businesses by themselves, endowing them with completely trust and responsibility. 
 
“In our Show Long industrial park, you could find that the working environment is tidy and clean; besides, we establish a district especially for sports and entertainment, so that our employees could find a place to release their pressure and then devote fully to their daily works. In my opinion, each garment enterprise in China should, according to the unique Chinese development mode and market demand, develop its own talent training and cultivation methods,” remarked Wu Jianmin.
 
Chen Guoqiang, Director of Industrial Economic Research Institution of China National Garment Association, summarized: “along with the economic transformation, the categories, structures and mechanisms of talent will encounter changes, which require the garment enterprises in China to adjust their human resource management system.”
 
“Firstly, the company should realize the necessary role of talent. Secondly, talents in enterprises should actively well perform their functions; thirdly, each company should have its own characteristics and differentiation. No matter what kinds of talents, enterprise should create a new mechanism with new ideas and concepts, in order to find the right person at the right position,” concluded Chen.
 
 
Orientation: Restructure of Manufacturing Advantages
Each company should have a clear brand orientation. And this is a basically requirement for manufacturing advantages restructuring, which could be considered as one important basis for Chinese garment branding system.
 
 
Zhang Yong, director of Marketing Research Center of Beijing Technology and Business University, said: “Orientation is a very important task for apparel industrial enterprises in China.”
 
“Traditional advantages of Chinese apparel manufacture industry is no longer competitive, particularly comparing with that in ten or twenty years ago. In order to preserve and further enhance the comprehensively advantages of Chinese apparel manufacturing enterprises and some other companies in the garment industrial chain, the whole industry need a transformation. How to achieve an effective transformation? Strategically speaking, each company should be repositioning according to the new competition environment and market demand. This is the Core,” explained Zhang.
 
Lin Weijian, board chairman and GM from Guangzhou LIGUO Garment Company brought their experience. “Orientation is the development basis for branding construction. The R&D is the essential competitiveness of a company, and the products with creativity and innovation could find a better market response,” said Lin.
 
With the key of R&D, LIGUO also have its own manufacturing mill. According to Lin, for a brand, it would be better to master the whole procedure ranging from self-independent research and development of products to terminal supply chain. Only possessing the high-efficiency supply chain management, can the brand produce qualified products with strong competitiveness.
 
Huang Shali, GM of GaiQi Group also shared her feelings on orientation. “How to do re-orientation?” said She, “In my opinion, at first, the orientation should base upon the company’s self-advantages, and then, the company should innovate the modern business operational mode.”
   
“During recent years, GaiQi continuously strengthen the innovation in fields of products, technology, marketing promotion and so on, which could be helpful to enhance the brand orientation of ‘the T-Shirt Expert’. If you do not try any changes or transformation and upgrading, one day, a new T-Shirt expert would replace your place,” added Huang. 
 
Ruan Jixiang, president of Jack Group talked about his understanding of “Orientation”. He said: “the orientation of the company is the strategically development direction for future.”
 
Furthermore, according to Ruan, each company should establish their own orientation identifying the integration of its target clients and own advantages. “Nowadays, more and more same-like products emerged in markets. And we should establish our own innovation development strategy with obviously characteristics, so that to build up the brand strengths among fierce market competition,” added Ruan.
 
Guo Guoqing, professor from School of Business of REMIN University of China, made a conclusion. He said: “Facing the new development environment both home and abroad, in order to better perform the industrial advantages, Chinese manufacturing industry should restructure and adjust the overall arrangement, which requires the enterprises to pay more attention to technological and scientific innovation, emphasize products differentiations, as well as improve and enhance the service to gain more customers and profits. This is the key.”
 

2024.12   

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