Chapter 22 Chapter 8 The world is flat (7)

In the World Universiade in August 2001, Li Ning Company sponsored the entire Russian delegation.At the World Gymnastics Championships in November of the same year, in addition to the Chinese delegation, Li Ning also sponsored all the sports equipment of the French, Spanish, and Bulgarian delegations, including professional competition uniforms and award-winning uniforms.In addition, Li Ning also sponsored countries such as Italy and the Czech Republic, covering football, basketball, gymnastics and other sports. Driven by the above-mentioned sponsorship activities, "Li Ning" began to enter the international market.According to the website of Li Ning Company, in 2000, "Li Ning" has expanded its franchised dealers in 9 European countries including Spain, Greece and France. In October 2001, Li Ning's first overseas brand image store opened in Santander, Spain.The dream of selling products to the whole world is being realized step by step.

At that time, "Li Ning" did a good job in internationalization.But the better, the farther the slide. The internationalization of Jianlibao Group did not succeed, because the domestic market was occupied by Coca-Cola and Pepsi, Li Jingwei finally had to control the battlefield in the country and "fight against the enemy" with all his strength. Similarly, the high expectations of internationalization efforts did not allow Li Ning to gain enough momentum to pass the "sales mark of 1 billion yuan". The company's performance has been hovering below 1 billion yuan for the next three years.

If the above-mentioned active internationalization stage of about 2 to 3 years is defined as the first stage of "Li Ning" internationalization, this is not a successful internationalization stage. In the two years when Li Ning's internationalization was progressing rapidly, Anta and other local sporting goods companies began to develop rapidly.Since Anta launched Kong Linghui's advertisement "I choose, I like" in 1999, it has achieved good market results. Afterwards, this Fujian company took advantage of the victory and continued to double its sales in the next two years. In 2001, Li Ning When the company participated in the Ninth China Sporting Goods Expo held in Beijing that year, it was unexpectedly discovered that a manufacturer called Fujian Sanxing Group rented several booths in order to promote its Xtep brand, and spent nearly 2 million yuan on the exhibition. A huge sum of 5 million yuan was spent to invite Hong Kong singer Nicholas Tse to come to help out and promote the healthy and beautiful image of the Jinjiang brand.The initiatives of these local companies have been expanding their local market.

This internationalization behavior, including large-scale investment in overseas market expansion, publicity, and dealer development, has caused a certain degree of waste of human and material resources for Li Ning Company.The enterprise resources scattered by internationalization have become the price for ambitious Chinese enterprises to make naive and courageous internationalization attempts. However, it is gratifying that this premature internationalization is not without benefits. Li Ning has cooperated with Germany's SAP company to establish standardized management such as advanced ERP and internal equity consolidation that are synchronized with the world.This behavior left Li Ning with a more standardized management framework, and the idea of ​​internationalization later allowed "Li Ning" to obtain a group of smart and capable paratroopers from multinational companies.

After the stage of market internationalization with clear goals was almost over, Li Ning Company did not give up its internationalization efforts, and soon entered a stage of indecision about internationalization. Three years later, in 2004, the press release provided by Li Ning Company still showed traces of internationalization, saying that "at present the Li Ning brand has entered 23 countries and regions, and has received unanimous praise from consumers at home and abroad." In fact, under the background of the internationalization of Chinese enterprises, Li Ning's internationalization efforts have only been postponed, and have not been explicitly given up.It is still relying on inertia to expand the international market, and is actively and actively looking for international spokespersons.

Until 2004 and 2005, the industry was still quite critical of the internationalization of the "Li Ning" market.Hou Junwei, senior project manager and senior marketing consultant of Jingrui Zongheng Marketing Consulting (Guangzhou) Co., Ltd., expressed the opinions of some analysts in the media's questioning of "Li Ning": "China has become the most influential market in the world, and only the local market Stability requires internationalization. In the current domestic market, Li-Ning is facing a lot of competitive pressure. First-tier cities in the domestic market are already obstacles that Li-Ning cannot overcome. Then why not internationalize after establishing an advantage in the first-tier market In this way, your backyard will not catch fire, and you can proceed with internationalization with peace of mind." Under such harsh market competition conditions, Li Ning Company clearly changed its international development thinking for the first time, and put forward the company's new short-term development Goal: "Keep the top three, and the gap between the market share and the first place cannot exceed 4 percentage points."In other words, the goal of Li Ning Company is no longer to surpass its opponents, but not to be left too far behind.Li Ning Company has gradually understood that it is not going to attack foreign markets, but to regain lost ground in the Chinese market.Plus, it needs to stand out from a sea of ​​catch-up brands.