Making Shoes King'S Dream Of The Times

Ding Zhizhong, President of Anta: "learning" out of shoe king Wang in a small town near the sea in Jinjiang, Fujian Province, Ding Zhizhong was initially driven by a simple desire to become rich, and became a master of shoe industry who had not graduated from junior high school.

But when he changed faster than others to become a modern business manager and took the lead in exploring the domestic market, he quickly emerged from more than 3000 local shoe companies and moved to the throne of the town shoe king.

In a conference room in Anta, a department manager, in conjunction with the projection slides, gave a detailed account of the progress of a training program.

A young man with a baby face sat at the end of a long conference table. After listening to it for about 10 minutes, he suddenly interrupted him. "Don't tell me the details, tell me, what kind of benefits will you get if you put so much into it?"

Ding Zhizhong, the 37 year old Anta (China) president, is a native of Jinjiang, Fujian.

Just half a month ago, he led the company into the main board of Hongkong, raising funds amounting to HK $3 billion 168 million.

On the first day of July 10th, the company's share price rose by 44%, which made Ding Zhizhong and his family members worth more than HK $13 billion, with a 75% stake in the company.

It took less than 10 years. Ding Zhizhong has thrown thousands of competitors around the town of Anta behind him.

"Anta is bigger now, and Ding Zhizhong is not good at it now."

A stone lion businessman who began making sportswear in 1983 said.

His annual sales volume of "Ho Kin" brand sportswear is about 1 hundred million.

Ding Zhizhong became the shoe king in the name of the place, but he did not become the president of the local Footwear Association.

"He has a kind of domineering in his bones, and he can't deal with it."

A local media reporter said.

He also did not want to compromise with others. According to local people, if a thing that he did not want to do and could not do, another XTEP shoe owner, XTEP founder Ding Shui Bo, would choose to do it, while Ding Zhizhong would simply refuse it.

Perhaps because of this, in 2006, when Quanzhou (Jinjiang affiliated to Quanzhou) elected president of the footwear association, Ding Zhizhong, who was the boss of Jinjiang footwear industry, was the best candidate for the presidents. However, she attracted a lot of objections. Finally, Ding Shui Bo finally took the seat.

"Ding Zhizhong is a closed heart from personality. Only a few good friends can understand his inner thoughts. Most people, even the directors of his company, may not know what he is thinking."

A person who worked for Ding Zhizhong for many years said.

Why can this "bad deal" businessman surpass more than 3000 Jinjiang shoe companies and become a fortune star in this labor-intensive industry?

Ding Zhizhong, who grew up in a shoemaking workshop, was interested in doing business.

Later, he recalled that he hoped to live better and hope that he would have the money to buy Motorcycles like others.

He is located in Jinjiang, Fujian, Chen Dai town is an easy place to generate commercial cells.

Local people have a tradition of making a living out of the sea. Overseas nationals earn money, send capital back and bring market information and orders, thus giving birth to local manufacturing.

In the early 1980s, a group of shoe factories had sprung up in Chen Dai Town, Jinjiang.

Overseas Jinjiang residents brought initial orders for these workshops.

Ding Hemu, a local farmer, participated in the establishment of a village shoe factory in Chen Dai town in the middle of 1980s.

Before and after 1991, he sold his family's grain, chickens, ducks and other things that could be exchanged for money, and raised fifty thousand or sixty thousand yuan under the assistance of his relatives. He set up a shoe making workshop alone, which is the predecessor of Anta.

According to the information provided by Anta, as early as 1987, Ding and Mu gave his son Ding Zhizhong 10 thousand yuan, and 600 pairs of shoes bought from the shoe factories of Chen Dai to let him ship to Beijing for sale.

At this time, Ding Zhizhong was only 17 years old, and he had not graduated from junior high school.

Ding Zhizhong became one of the hundreds of Jinjiang people who sold shoes in Beijing in the 80s and 90s of last century.

He has set up a shoe counter in Beijing's most important shopping malls, such as Wangfujing shopping center, which is very popular in Jinjiang.

It is said that Ding Zhizhong has been marketing consciousness since then. He has learned to study the types of consumers and pay more attention to what kind of shoes have a bigger market.

According to a person familiar with Anta, Ding Zhizhong returned to Jinjiang in 1994 with a profit of 200 thousand yuan from Beijing, when the shoe factory was opened by Ding's father and brother.

When Ding Zhizhong returned to Jinjiang, he became deputy general manager in charge of marketing.

In 1994, after changing several factory names, Ding Jia and his son decided to unite the factory name and product brand as "Anta".

According to Ding Hemu, this brand contains "peace of mind, entrepreneurship and down-to-earth" means.

Two years later, Ding Zhizhong gained the lead of family business.

He became the general manager of Anta, and his father Ding Hemu formally retired to the second line; his brother Ding Shih had a mild personality and "did not like to be in the lead", specializing in production affairs; Ding Yali, a secondary school graduate and a financial school girl, took charge of the company's pocketbook.

"Very luckily, Ding Zhizhong had a very good father who gave him power early, and his brother and sister formed a very good complementary relationship with him, without fighting for power or fighting."

A person familiar with Anta said.

The success of Anta's celebrity endorsement has sparked the imitation of the brothers in the city. The Jinjiang municipal government has also promoted Anta's experience in other enterprises' "duplication" and rewarded the rising brand.

For a time, there was a "brand making" movement in the area. CCTV-5 appeared dozens of advertisements for all kinds of celebrities to speak for Jinjiang shoe enterprises. CCTV-5 was also nicknamed "Chen Dai channel" (chedai town is the birthplace of Jinjiang footwear industry, where most Jinjiang shoe companies gather).

A group of well-known shoe enterprises, such as XTEP, Jordan, del Hui and Hongxing Erke, began to emerge from numerous shoe companies.

The homogenization of advertising strategy and the intensification of competition make Anta have to find a new way to find a new living space.

In the advertising strategy, Anta began to get rid of the celebrity endorsement model that was famous, instead of sponsoring sports events, such as Anta's annual sponsorship fee for the Chinese Basketball League (CBA) was 40 million yuan.

Ding Zhizhong believes that compared with the cost of tens of millions of dollars by other companies to hire international stars, "we are also a cost-effective business".

After having brand recognition, Anta began to break the identity limit of professional sportswear manufacturers, and began to set foot in the field of sportswear in 2002.

Anta's move was quite smooth. Four or five years later, sportswear made the same income as sports shoes.

According to a former Anta executive, Anta broke through two "tens of millions" in 2006: 10 million pairs of sports shoes and 10 million sales of sportswear.

What is worth mentioning is that the concept of brand retail shop, which is a retail terminal, has also been introduced into the clothing industry at the same time. This is an important step in the development of Anta.

Previously, Anta only had specialized sports shoes sales counters in major shopping malls. With the increase of clothing and other varieties, Anta became an independent brand store.

Ding Zhizhong, who is good at marketing, believes that brand building not only relies on advertising, but also relies on strong sales channels.

By 2004, Anta's national stores had grown to more than 2000.

This year, in order to further expand the number of stores, Anta took the policy of making profits to dealers.

In just two years, Anta stores have grown to more than 4000 stores, and Anta's retail network has covered the main streets of all three cities in the country.

For Anta to lay the foundation of the clothing industry and introduce the concept of exclusive stores, it is a professional manager named Ye Qi.

He was a senior manager of Li Ning Co's sportswear, and was later poached by Ding Zhizhong.

In 2002, Ding Zhizhong set up a New Oriental sporting goods company in Beijing, specializing in sportswear marketing. Ye Qiren, managing director of the company, all employed professional manager management team. After a year, Anta left Anta with Anta's strategy adjustment, but he has made a useful attempt for Anta in the field of clothing and specialty stores.

"Let professional people do professional things" in Jinjiang, Fujian, where the top executives of former multinational companies are most likely to be Anta headquarters.

The director or deputy director of Anta 60% comes from multinational corporations like WAL-MART and Procter & Gamble.

Anta is undoubtedly a place where multinational organizations can often meet.

Ding Zhizhong hired JW to advertise for him, hired corney to make strategic consultation, and hired Morgan Stanley to do the underwriting service for him.

Giving full authority to professional people to do professional work is what Ding Zhizhong is strongly advocating now.

During the contact with Thomas, Ding Zhizhong met Zhu Zhengzhong, then China's chief representative, Thomas.

Zhu is a Chinese American who once served as vice president of Coca-Cola China and a member of the Morgan Stanley expert advisory group. He has provided management advice to Morgan Stanley investing in Mengniu and South Fu.

Shortly after, Zhu was appointed as Anta's strategic adviser by Ding Zhizhong.

Under the recommendation of Zhu, Morgan Stanley contacted Ding Zhizhong in 2003, intending to inject capital into Anta.

But at that time, Ding Zhizhong thought Anta did not need money for the time being.

Before 2004, Ding Zhizhong was not a man willing to give up his power.

But now, Ding has set the power as a company's system.

"Decentralization and encouragement are the most prominent management characteristics of Wang Liangxing. Ding's thought comes directly from Wang Liangxing's influence."

Wang Liangxing is Ding Zhizhong's childhood companion.

In Ding Zhizhong's not wide circle of friends, Wang Liangxing is the most iron confidant.

Wang's founder is also a strong force in the casual clothing industry.

Since the beginning of two years ago, the director of each division of Anta has been authorized to report to Ding Zhizhong.

Ding did not let the matter of authorization become empty talk.

A company executive came to his office and told him a situation: because the number of sports shoes distributed to American customers was wrong, the other side claimed $30 thousand.

The supervisor asked Ding Zhizhong what to do.

Ding said, "don't ask me what I should do.

You decide whether you should pay for it or not, and find out who should be responsible for the mistake. "

The director had to withdraw from Ding Zhizhong's office.

With the authority and responsibility mechanism, Ding is not afraid of making mistakes.

On one occasion, a shipment of goods that Anta promised to the distributor was not delivered on time.

Although the other party did not claim compensation, Dante knew that he offered compensation 3 million.

"Compensation is paid by the company.

The responsible person was criticized.

After that, there was no similar mistake.

Because of the real compensation, they knew that such a mistake could not be repeated. "

Ding Zhizhong told the Southern Weekend reporter.

After he praised the new management method, Ding Zhizhong also liberated himself from the company's affairs. It is said that he now signed less than 5 documents a day and only attended 3 internal meetings every month.

He will spend a lot of time absorbing effective information, communicating with company staff, and soberly thinking about the strategic problems of the company.

Anan, feel secure and start a business.

Anta: a brand name believer looks at the brand growth of Anta in fifteen years (in 1991 and Anta in 1994). It is easy to see that Anta's only constant is to constantly create new brand value elements.

This value not only promotes Anta's differentiation strategy actively, realizes brand individuality and visibility, and surmounts competition, but also opens up a convenient door for enterprises to enhance resource integration.

Specifically, branding is deeply rooted in the details of the brand.

When all links contribute to value, there will be brand.

The details include six aspects: brand characteristics, brand interests, brand value, brand culture, brand personality and brand objects. The purpose is to satisfy three needs of customers' emotional needs, experience needs and economic needs, and create value for customers by taking customers as the center.

That is, to establish contacts with customers, such as trust relationships, customers will return their attention, loyalty and money to the value engineering of the brand.

In 1999, Anta first put forward the brand idea of "I like my choice", and the excellent performance of image endorsement by Kong Linghui, jumping out of the circle of brothers fighting in the same city, and upgrading their brand awareness nationwide, and began the milestone of Anta.

In 2005, with the strong interception of brothers in the same city, the consumer psychology of leading consumers has changed quietly, and the brute force of international brands has made Anta brand aging rapidly and hollowing out.

The great changes in the market have prompted Anta to reshape its brand awareness.

In the spring of 2006, Anta took a new strategy in time to give the brand management project to the brand.