Chapter 26 Dazhuang: the helplessness of an industry champion

Until today, I am afraid that many people still don’t know that in addition to its ornamental and edible properties, bamboo can also be used to make building materials for home decoration—flooring. If the time is pushed back to 1992 In 2010, few people probably knew about the idea of ​​using bamboo as a floor, and it was precisely in this year that Lin Hai, who was then the deputy director of the Forestry Bureau of a county in a remote mountainous area in Zhejiang Province, and his subordinates graduated from the Xu Xufeng from Zhejiang Provincial Forestry College, by chance, saw a piece of exquisite paint-free floor tiles processed from bamboo from a Taiwanese. His sensitivity to this new thing and his own professional knowledge As a result, Lin Hai and Xu Xufeng made a decision: produce bamboo flooring by themselves.

In November 1992, with 500,000 yuan borrowed in their pockets, Lin Hai and Xu Xufeng left public office and started their own business in Chongren, Jiangxi Province. In June 1993, half a year later, in June 1993, today's "Hangzhou Dazhuang Floor Co., Ltd." produced its own product in Xiaoshan, Zhejiang: paint-free bamboo floor tiles.Not long after the product was produced, they held an exhibition in Hangzhou. At that time, the domestically produced wooden floor was relatively rough, and the product needed to be painted by the user at home, which was very troublesome. Dazhuang floor was different, it was made of bamboo, and the workmanship Exquisite, paint-free, few people believe that such beautiful floor tiles can be produced in China, and the product has been highly praised.

According to Xu Xufeng, who is now the general manager of Dazhuang Flooring, Dazhuang Bamboo Flooring was only sold abroad at the beginning. The reason seems to be very simple. Few people in China know this kind of decorative material, and compared with other flooring materials, the price of bamboo flooring is much higher. It is more suitable to be sold to overseas developed countries and regions.At the beginning, their products were exported in the form of entrusting agents in Taiwan, but the turnover of funds that lasted for 6 months was undoubtedly unrealistic for a manufacturer that was just established and relatively lacking in funds. .Fortunately, later, they finally had their own real overseas customers. Their first overseas order was a Japanese businessman, who bought only one container from Dazhuang, worth 20,000 US dollars of bamboo flooring.Xu Xufeng said that it was the customer resources of this container that gave them more confidence in insisting on exporting.According to Xu Xufeng's account, they soon had the Netherlands, as well as some other overseas customers in Europe and America, and their export business went smoothly, and their profits increased rapidly.

Excluding the non-wooden flooring with a huge market space in the entire flooring market, such as marble and porcelain floor tiles, in the entire wooden flooring market with limited market space, the demand for bamboo flooring only accounts for less than 5%. It can be said that Bamboo flooring is an industry with a strong niche, and in this niche market of less than 5%, Dazhuang’s market share was as high as 15% in 2003. At this point, Dazhuang is a real industry Champion, this number dropped to 10% in 2004, and Dazhuang still occupies the first position in the industry, but on the contrary, in 2004, Dazhuang’s profit increased by 20% compared with 2003. On the one hand, other peers are tight Afterwards, due to the massive attack on overseas markets, Dazhuang’s market share decreased. However, as more people choose bamboo flooring, in fact, the market space for bamboo flooring is increasing, and the increase in demand has led to Dazhuang’s profit. Still on the rise.Xu Xufeng said that he never regards his peers as competitors. He hopes that everyone can make the bamboo flooring industry bigger and let more people accept and use bamboo flooring. From this perspective, Dazhuang The actual competitors are those floor tiles other than bamboo flooring, to be exact, the fairly large non-wood floor tile market.

Although there is already a part of the domestic market and plans to open up the domestic market, the current export volume of Dazhuang still accounts for more than 90% of the total sales revenue, with sales of more than 100 million yuan. It seems that Dazhuang's enthusiasm for focusing on export sales has never diminished. Like many invisible champion companies, Dazhuang is a pioneer in the same industry and a leader in the market. In 2000, as the only enterprise representative in the same industry in China, Dazhuang participated in the formulation of the "National Flooring Quality Standard". In 2002, together with Nanjing Forestry College, it participated in the formulation of national bamboo flooring standards; in 2003, Dazhuang undertook the formulation of national bamboo glulam standards.The fact is that as early as 1997, Dazhuang had formulated a fairly complete production standard for bamboo floor tiles within its own enterprise in order to meet the needs of production and the market. In 1999, they also participated in the formulation of industry standards for bamboo floor tiles in Zhejiang Province.

As the setter of industry standards, this should be something that Dazhuang people are proud of, but among the interviewed Dazhuang people, they are quite low-key, and they don’t think they are better than others. This is especially true in Xu Xufeng’s opinion. In this way, when asked about Dazhuang’s core competitive advantages, Xu Xufeng said that Dazhuang only has a slight advantage over its peers. Compared with other industries, Dazhuang does not have much in the field of floor tiles where technical requirements are not very high. Competitive Advantage.If measured by time, Dazhuang may only be two years ahead of its peers, and this is largely because Dazhuang got involved in the bamboo flooring industry earlier than them.Xu Xufeng’s narrative is full of a sense of crisis. He believes that Dazhuang must do more in technological innovation and product development to continue to be ahead of its peers. In this regard, one of Dazhuang’s practices is to apply for and protect as much as possible. patent.They have done a good job in this respect. They started to purchase patents earlier than many companies in the same industry. Now they have a lock floor tile that sells very well, which is a patent purchased from abroad.

Set up technical barriers to protect themselves. Xu Xufeng said that the higher the production technology content of a product, the better it is for them.In terms of technology research and development, Dazhuang not only establishes a technology research and development center within the company, but also cooperates with universities and research institutes to establish its own laboratory. Zhejiang Forestry University Timber Industry Research Institute and other universities and scientific research institutions cooperate to conduct research, experiment, testing, development and other scientific research activities, participate in the formulation of production management, quality control and other work, in July 2002 Dazhuang developed a new two-story bamboo floor The manufacturing and bamboo board manufacturing projects are included in the national spark plan projects.Their products have also passed the European E1 standard, the American national standard and the Japanese JAS standard.At the same time, it has applied for the trademark of "DASSO" and combination patterns and a number of patents in the United States and Canada.Through these measures, the comprehensive ability of Dazhuang has been greatly improved, the production scale has been rapidly expanded, and the products have been exported to the United States, Europe, Japan, Russia, South Korea, Australia and other countries and regions.The technological leadership ensures that they have always been pioneers in the industry.

Perhaps it is the low-key and pragmatic handling style of Dazhuang people, their clear awareness of their own sense of crisis and their technological leadership, which make them more favored than their peers when opportunities come.The following case is a true portrayal. If you can find out some projects that Dazhuang participated in from Dazhuang’s historical materials, the Dutch National Television, the Dutch Ministry of the Environment Building, Madrid International Airport in Spain, the Crown Prince’s Lounge in Italy, the Toyota Showroom, the Nike Office Building in Germany, and British Airways The list of prominent projects such as Shanghai Branch can be drawn out in a long list. Among the many famous cases, Dazhuang people are most fond of talking about the construction project of the new international airport in Madrid, Spain, which won the bid in December 2002. , winning the bid for this project means that all the bamboo decorative materials used for the ceiling of the 230,000-square-meter terminal hall of the project will come from the production workshop in Dazhuang, China. Before winning the bid, no one could have imagined that there would be such a A little-known company is involved in this high-profile project.The high-profile project was not only because it was the largest international airport under construction in Europe at that time, but also because its chief designer, MR·RICNARDRODGERS, was once the designer of the British landmark "Millennium Dome". MR·RICNARDRODGERS requires that all the ceilings of the airport waiting hall should be made of bamboo, and the fire rating should reach M1 level (that is, the fire-resistant bamboo will be burned at a distance of 1cm from the high-temperature test piece of 32kw/cm2 (1400°C) for 20 minutes, and no flames are allowed ), the important reason for this requirement is that, after scientific tests, as long as the fire protection index of bamboo decoration materials manufactured with modern advanced technology reaches the M1 standard, they are fully qualified for the century-old task of the airport roof.However, at that time, the global fire index of bamboo products had never reached this standard. Therefore, when the famous contractor participating in the project bidding, the German Lindner Company found Dazhuang, the fire index of their bamboo decoration materials also did not meet the M1 standard. , but Dazhuang accepted this big order full of temptations and challenges, and promised to meet this standard.This is a challenge full of variables, because once the contract is signed, the quality guarantee must be guaranteed for 15 years. Once a product quality problem occurs within 15 years, a huge amount of compensation must be promised according to the contract.Therefore, once this project is taken over, it will either become famous or lose its reputation, and it will collapse in Europe and even the entire international market.In the next more than a year, Dazhuang Company invested huge sums of money to buy equipment and instruments, built a fire prevention research laboratory, invited first-class industry experts from China and Europe, and through repeated tests, finally produced products that reached Bamboo decorative wood with M1 fire rating.

Perhaps little is known about Dazhuang’s efforts for this project, but after winning the bid, The Times and The Wall Street Journal took the lead in commenting: “The successful signing of the Spanish Madrid International Airport project is a result of the successful cooperation of the international trade community. At the same time, it marks the possibility of China’s advanced manufacturing industry participating in the re-cooperation and division of labor in the international market.” Later, this news was reported by many domestic media following the Spanish Prime Minister’s visit to China. The excitement afterwards made this development of Dazhuang A major opportunity in the process has become a classic case of post-publicity.

Among Dazhuang's product samples, what impressed me the most is a product that is different from other products with pits or flaws on the surface. If you look at it according to some standards, it is actually a substandard product, but this A product called "country floor" is very popular in Europe and the United States. This is a personalized floor made of natural surface characteristics of floor materials. It is processed and made while keeping its "true face" as much as possible.Xu Xufeng said that around the 1980s, a trend of advocating the use of antique furniture became popular in Europe and the United States.The rapid development of society has led to the faster and faster pace of life of modern people. People miss the slow life in the past, so people choose to be as close to nature as possible after intense work and return to a natural and relaxed life. , Antique furniture is the choice of use in this state of mind.People expect to return to nature, but the original clean and bright floor gives people a sense of restraint. In order to match those antique furniture, so that they can relax as much as possible in their own room and be unrestrained. Families who choose antique furniture begin to demand A matching floor, so the kind of floor that is closer to the original state, looks more natural, and is easy to arouse people's memories of the past life. The simple and personalized floor appeared under the market demand, and then, this choice gradually became A trend, which intensified in the 1990s, has remained strong since the 2000s and continues today, with more and more people opting for antique furniture, personalized country flooring The demand is also on the rise. Dazhuang, as a relatively early manufacturer of personalized flooring, has already done a good job in rural flooring, and the number of export sales has been increasing.Xu Xufeng said that although he will not invest too much energy in making rural flooring, Dazhuang will continue to develop rural flooring as a new growth point and a new market demand.

In fact, Dazhuang, which started with bamboo flooring and has always been in the leading position in the bamboo flooring industry, except for the above-mentioned personalized country floors that are made of wood, Dazhuang has always had a large part of the market for wooden floors, especially when it started to produce bamboo flooring. Soon, the leaders of Dazhuang, Lin Hai and Xu Xufeng, found that even if they had an absolute market share in bamboo flooring, if they did not produce wooden flooring with a much larger market space than bamboo flooring, it would be difficult for their business to grow. At the same time, when the market prospects of bamboo flooring in the early stage are still very vague, if you only make bamboo flooring, you will bear obvious risks. After all, bamboo flooring has limited profits. , must also produce wooden flooring to make profits, so as to ensure their development of bamboo flooring. This strategy is called "growing bamboo with wood" by them. The helplessness of this strategy may only be theirs. Only then can I have a deeper experience. Xu Xufeng recalled that almost at the same time they produced bamboo flooring, in 1993, just in time for the housing reform in China, people began to pay more attention to decorating their houses. At that time, the demand for wooden flooring continued to rise. It quickly occupied a certain market share, and the sales volume of wooden flooring has maintained a high upward trend in China. This situation continued until 1997, when more and more companies began to join the production field of wooden flooring, and the competition became more and more intense. The more brutal, the lower the profit accordingly, so they began to transform and decided to concentrate on making bamboo flooring.Xu Xufeng said that it was also the profits brought to Dazhuang by making wooden floors during this period, so that Dazhuang has always had enough funds to invest in the research and development and production of bamboo flooring. Enterprises, because they did not make timely adjustments, failed to persist in the narrow niche market of bamboo flooring at that time, and disappeared from the bamboo flooring industry. In 2005, Dazhuang also won the title of "Top Ten Most Influential Bamboo and Wood Flooring Brands in China's Wood Flooring Industry". In the short ten years of development of Dazhuang, through unremitting efforts, the production scale of bamboo flooring has also continued to grow, until it has become the first in the industry, but in this process, it has been seen in different periods Dazhuang is a wooden floor business. Just recently, because Xu Xufeng received a large order that was enough to make them unable to resist his temptation, Dazhuang resolutely expanded the factory building and mobilized staffing to complete the order.For this, although Xu Xufeng said that they still focus on the development and production of bamboo flooring, and will not give up the "foundation" of bamboo flooring, but judging from their shaky business operations, although the bamboo flooring they are walking On this road, such flexibility is likely to allow them to go further, but for a company that is well aware of the lack of its own brand, if it cannot focus on the industry it is best at, this opportunistic flexibility Will sex eventually take them another way?Hard to say. It is hard to imagine, let alone in the bamboo flooring industry, Dazhuang is considered excellent compared to most small and medium-sized enterprises. However, this company has its own forestry base, semi-finished product base, several branches, nearly 1,000 An enterprise with more than 10000 employees, until today, is still mainly based on OEM production, without its own stable brand. From the beginning to now, it is still based on accepting orders and then producing according to customer order requirements. This is a long-term prospect for an enterprise. Development is obviously unfavorable. Regarding this point, Xu Xufeng, who can clearly understand the status of his company in the same industry and can calmly analyze the potential crisis of his company, is worried about Dazhuang's failure to have his own stable brand. He is worried that if this continues, Dazhuang's reputation in the industry will continue to be squeezed by peers. Therefore, in the last few years, he hopes that Dazhuang's reputation in the industry will increase and it will have more loyal customers.This has become one of the goals they have recently set to achieve. The competition from peers has made Dazhuang’s market share in foreign countries more and more challenged, and has even begun to compete with rivals in the form of price cuts. This is obviously not what Dazhuang, the industry’s price decider, is unwilling to do. In addition to continuing to actively Open up foreign markets, establish branches overseas, find more partners, and still export as the development direction. Dazhuang, seeing the prospects of the domestic market, has also begun to try to open up the domestic market in the past two years. Just last year, Dazhuang won the bamboo flooring project of two real estates in "Beijing Wanguocheng" through bidding. Although this is only a small market compared with more than 90% of Dazhuang's annual sales revenue from export sales, it is still a small market compared with overseas and peers. In the bloody price battle, it is better to try to do a reflex in the domestic market, so Xu Xufeng said that when the time is ripe, it is not ruled out that Dazhuang will invest more energy in the domestic market.