Recently, more and more Chinese enterprises, especially the private enterprise are shocked. More foreign clients are willing to give the order to them but without raising the price. However, producing according to the original price is impossible. It’s really a suffering thing to lose such opportunities. 

Many entrepreneurs get confused. Although many people know the trend of enterprises’ strategic development and global economic integration, when it does come, many entrepreneurs start to feel nothing can be done.

In fact, when we talk about self-owned brand, self-innovation, it’s really a long cause. As the Chinese private-owned enterprises, how to obtain balance between brand strategy and innovative living, as well as harmonious promoting?

The challenge of new strategic framework

Although the entrepreneurs are very hard working at the beginning, a speech ticket by a well-known economist with the value of thousand yuan will still hard to get. However, after hearing the speeches of so many economists, these entrepreneurs can’t help to worry about their own enterprises. On the one side, it needs lots of talents, capital and the soil for development, as well as the strategies that others can’t reach. On the other side, the traditional industry needs lots of labors, cheap raw materials and the orders to keep the normal operation of the enterprise. So, in face of the pressing need of transfer, the private enterprises with characteristics of loose, singleness and low-cost competition don’t know how to choose between them.

What is strategy? It is the important choice after a long and thoughtful preparation. Then, do our entrepreneurs have such kind of strategic thought and insight? Toshiba Company of Japan in 1980s put in TV ads by the singing of children, which confused many people. Why using children’s voice, children are not the clients of Toshiba Company. But people from Toshiba Company say, our products the children can’t afford, including the adults. However, when these children grow up, they become the clients who can afford it. That’s the strategic insight of the Japanese entrepreneurs.

Chinese enterprises lack of the habit of making normative strategy. Now under the global thoughts of carrying out enterprise strategic framework, they must change original thinking mode and accept new cultural ideas and management thoughts. In the new competitive era, new strategic framework is to overall planning the markets at home and abroad. It’s a big challenge for the chinese entrepreneurs who’re still growing.

The most active private enterprises in the present chinese market actually face the restriction of self capital capacity and managerial ability. Enterprises which want sustainable development must admit new capital and talents, and cultivate mechanism and culture which can continuously innovate. However, all of these put forward two strategic themes for chinese enterprises, that is, self-brand internationalization and self innovation industrialization.

In the global market competition, brand is the competitive weapon for an enterprise to reach a certain degree. Professor Zhang Weiying analyses in the past chinese enterprises how to survive and develop, putting forward five reasons: 1. Cheap resources. In the past why so many enterprises can make profits, one of its important reason is that the low payment can make use of good resources. Take the cost of human resources as an example, which is very cheap, so as other resources. 2. Government protectio. Some enterprises, especially the private enterprises, can develop rapidly in the regional economy, to a great extent depending on the protection of local government.Some enteprises fake commodities to imitate, then to change into itself. 3. Working hard. We have many private enterprises, from bosses to employees, all working hard to earn money. They work over ten hours a day in the whole week. The foreignes can’t compare with us from this point of view. However, in the market economy, this kind of advantage can’t be the element for keeping sustainable development of the enterprise. 4. Low cost management. Enterprise management like workshop style and family style strengthen the enterprises’ profitability. 5. Unique products. The development of products with chinese characteristics which some foreign enterprises are lack of, makes the enterprise itself having some advantage.

However, our enterprises must face a fact. With the aggravation of the integrated trend of global economy andcumture, all the competitive advantage mentioned above will gradually dispear. Facing the grave crisis, chinese enterprises much have strategic ideas and insights, forming the strategic planning belongs to chinese enterprise characteristics amd its culture. Besides, learning to realize innovative survival from the strategic thoughts is a must subject.

Brand development under new competition

As an enterprise, the elements that can most promote the enterprise strategy development mainly focus on brand, culture and innovation. In fact, it is proved by practice that the enterprise competition has three ways. The first one is price advantage. The second one is differentiate product advantage. The third one is brand advantage. To keep up with this, competition experiences three stages. One mainly rely on the cheap resources and scale economy to realize price advantage, including many enterprises like Guangbo. In the process of going to the world stage, this stage is the ultimate element to achieve industrial development.  The second one is to realize differentiate product advantage through certain technique innovation. In developing stationery industry, Guangbo achieves differentiate advantage from other brand products in the aspects of design and craftwork, by importing and developing the world class manufacturing technology and information development. Thirdly, to realize competitive advantage by lifting enterprise brands comprehensively. Chinese enterprise on the basis of making bigger and stronger, whether can be on the way from the cheap advantage to brand advantage, by comprehensively developing culture, brand and innovation, like Korean Samsung.

The origin of Guangbo brand generally is the typical case of the national stationery industry seeking for brand development. In 1994, on the happy occasion of processing notebooks, albums, these paper products stationery for the European clients, Guangbo was surprised to find these products produced by themselves affixing to other labels. And they were sold out by three times more. When come back, we immediately register “Guangbo” this brand symbolizing width and depth. And register successfully in over 30 overseas countries and regions, starting to implement the global development of Guangbo brand as the leaders of national stationery industry.

Referring to brand globalization, we only put the enterprise culture connotation into the global economic structure adjustment, adjusting the enterprise mechanism and industry structure to realize the brand globalization. KFC is not simply a restaurant, which is the restaurant culture advocating mainstream.

National stationery enterprises face lots of pressure, like low-price competition and the impact of continuous infiltration of international capital during these two years. The trend of brand globalization requires Chinese stationery enterprises to choose its position in the new economic pattern. At present, Guangbo has realized brand strategy from OEM to self-owned brand, then to ODM.

Survival innovation under new competition

What is the core motivation of developing self-owed brand? That’s self-innovation ability. It’s a self-evident answer. Without innovation, we will lose the existing rationality. However, for the starting late Chinese enterprises, under the internal-external competition, how to develop the continuous innovation ability? How to convert innovative results? Meanwhile, self-development needs talents, time, experience and capital. Chinese enterprises should how to develop self-innovation, and cultivate self-innovation competitive mechanism and culture within the enterprise itself?

To the chinese private enterprises, on the one side, it searches survival through innovation. On the other side, it gains innovayion through suivival. Wenzhou shoe industry represents this industry. From the very beginning of imitating learning, it now has its own intellectual property rights, which are used in manufacturing. Many scale enterprises in Wenzhou shoe industry, by setting up special research institutions, independent-innovation, integrated innovation and digestion innovation, now turn to be a magnificent scene. With 0.6 billion shoes and annual output value of over 35billion yuan, Wenzhou has become the most competitive shoe base in China and truly china shoes-city.

Guangbo as the largest paper products stationery production base in China is always doing things on technoligical innovation and industrial upgrade. Till now, it has owned world class printing management level and album production process and domestic-class volume producing ability. On the transformation of hi-tech industry such as digital electronic industry and nanometer materials, Guangbo steadily develops traditional stationery industry, which is the living premise of facing new competitive era. This premise is the fundamental of Guangbo’s ever developing self-owned brand and independent innovation.

Under the global economic integration and the restriction of domestic prodction elements, Guangbo lifts the producing ability of traditional industry. In the past, the production automation of Guangbo’s traditional industry is less than 21%. The output value of every employee per month is only over 10,000 yuan, mainly depending on human wavetactics to realize scale benefit. Production automation of the new established stationery workshop can reach 87%, The output value of every employee per month is 150,000. Guangbo is the national establishing unit of the album, which is the result of continuous innovation.

Strengthening traditional industry’s innovation should focus on the innovation of new technology and new industry with high added value. In recent three years, Guangbo puts 3 to 5% expenditure on independent innovation and brand development every year. It not only integrates favorable resources of the original digital engineering center and nanometer material engineering center, also invests huge fund in establishing Guangbo research institute, as well as developing center in Shenzhen. Through innovation, Guangbo tries to account for over 75% among 2010 high-tech industry.

Innovation is the most important motivation fot the success of enterprise. In the market competition, every enterprise will face the same challenge, either innovation or extinction. As the enterprises in new competitive era, how to merge innovation into the enterprise’s strategy, culture, leadership and operating process, can it provide us with more innovative new theory, innovative tools, innovative means and innovative thoughts.