Located in the northwest of Portland, Oregon, to design and other creative industries and passion for sports and famous, the famous headquarters of Nike and Columbia Sportswear Company that is entrenched here. On January 1, 2008, Li Ning , the Chinese sports brand boss, extended his tentacles to Portland - establishing the first overseas shoe product R & D center in the area. Since then, Li Ning's "Portland Journey" kicked off.
"Lenovo, BYD, Li-Ning ..." SAN FRANCISCO At 10 o'clock on the morning of August 24, when it is boasting about the sustainability of Portland and hope more Chinese companies come in Portland Mayor - Sam - Adams (Sam Adams) was asked about the current Chinese brands have been deeply rooted in thought, lost in thought.
"And ... everything on the phone." After a long pause, Sam took his cellphone. The audience laughter, here is the Portland City Hall Sam - Adams office.
Located in the northwestern part of Oregon, USA, Portland is famous for its creative industries and design-friendly sports such as design, where the prestigious Nike headquarters and Colombian sportswear companies are entrenched. On the very day, the awkwardness of Mayor Sam was an embarrassment of the impulse of internationalization of Chinese enterprises and the lack of international influence of Chinese brands.
As the first large-scale Chinese company to "absorb" in Portland, on January 1, 2008, Chinese sports brand boss Li Ning (02331.HK) extended its tentacles to Portland - establishing the first local Overseas shoes product research and development center. Prior to this, Li Ning set up the first fashion design center in Hong Kong in 2004.
Interestingly, and Li Ning brand culture "everything is possible," the courage to behave differently, more than a year, Li Ning Portland gesture can be described as cautious, low profile. Earlier, foreign media has been highly praised the move - "China put the" red flag "into the backyard of Nike, but they have few interviews with any opportunity, or even in the town can not find traces of Li Ning office.
However, Li Ning infiltration in Portland and the United States, but in real truth is increasing.
According to this newspaper reporter exclusive learned, October 9, at the "China Design Now" exhibition held in the Portland Museum, Li Ning designer fencing three pairs of concept shoes - "Lei Feng", "motherland is a red" And "Banpo" will be assigned to them, Guangzhao global public; and January 1, 2010, Li Ning, the first overseas concept stores will also officially landed in Portland, began a small-scale marketing activities.
One side is silent "internal strength" practice, one side is carefully measured overseas markets. Behind the growth of Portland footwear industry, Li Ning is a case study of the internationalization of Chinese enterprises. At the same time, it also shows Portland as a famous creative industry city with unique and quirky guiding logic and ideas.
Why Portland
The latest interim report released by Li Ning shows that in the first half of 2009, the company's revenue increased by 32.4% to 4.052 billion yuan and its net profit increased 41.6% to 473 million yuan. In terms of profit, Li Ning has overtake the world's second-largest sports goods business Adidas.
Li Ning Company revealed that the company actually already had the idea of ​​oversea layout very early and that the footwear industry, as one of its most technology (sports function) content products, is not as fashion-oriented as the fashion industry and is strongly influenced by local culture , Thus becoming the first overseas distributor of Li Ning who bear the brunt.
"For overseas markets, only the costs and the supply chain that Chinese enterprises can usually control are actually unnaturally going to the bottom of the industry chain. You do not know what is going on in the outside market. What is the difference between the U.S. market and the European market? , So go directly to the brand of internationalization is a terrible thing. "August 25, Li Ning Sports (United States) chief representative told reporters.
Based on this understanding, Li Ning's strategic intentions of the overseas layout of the company reached an unexpected agreement from the very beginning: as the internationalization of Li Ning, it is necessary to realize the goal of "internationalizing one's own capabilities" Own product design ability and sports function.
In mid-2007, when the time was up, Li Ning started the first stage of its overseas layout: site selection.
Li Ning people must make a choice between two options - the R & D center located in Boston as the center of the East Coast (the traditional New Zealand Footwear Center), or landing the West Coast of Portland.
First of all, from the geographical location, Portland is located in the Columbia River tributary Willamette River, near the confluence of the two rivers, water, land and air traffic; Second, Portland cost of living is low; again, due to waves Portland government role, Portland in the United States with a good public transport system is known, a short bus, between the urban and suburban light rail links.
And most importantly, the Portland love sports, Nike two founders Phil - Knight and his track and field coach at the University of Oregon - Bill Ballmer is in a garage in Portland started Nike's business plan .
"To develop the brand in the United States, it is very important to choose which city to cut in. From this perspective, the combination of Li Ning and Portland is a kind of 'powerful alliance.'" On the 24th, Sam told reporters that " Many of the green economy-related businesses will choose Portland as the starting point for the product, with Portland as the first American city to plunge into Li Ning and will also help Li Ning to penetrate the nationwide brand. "
In addition, he also disclosed: "The Portland government does have a deliberate emphasis on creative industries and oppression of heavy industry because our strengths are not production-intensive industries, but high value-added industries. But this is complementary and a large influx of talent As well as the various systems that serve the creative industries, finally formed an intensive economic system with economic growth. "
In early 2007, Li Ning CEO Zhang Zhiyong made the final decision - Portland won.
But this victory not only resulted from Portland's geography, cultural environment and talent pool, but also its advantage with Asian time lag - a difference of 15 hours from Beijing and a 12-hour difference between Boston and Beijing.
I've seen how the Chinese executives in 2006 after their acquisition of IBM first participated in the international management of how to work more than ten hours a day, full of bloodshot eyes, chaotic time lag, the frequent cold frequent tragedies, each Chinese business will not ignore This three-hour weight.
For Li Ning, love affirms Portland also means - when Beijing at 12 noon, Portland is 9 pm, the company may open a meeting; and at this moment of Boston, has entered the night dreams .
PDC service
As the general manager of the preparatory work for the Li design center in the United States, recalling the hardships more than two years ago, Li Jiaming still quite feeling.
"At that time, I was the only one commander in chief," Li said. "PDC has helped me a lot so that resources can be scrolled faster."