Adidas New Possibility: Trying To Regenerate In 69 Military Regulations

Du Bairui (ChristopheBezu), the new managing director of Greater China in Adidas group in January 2010, has a French style of action that is in line with popular imagination. No one is smoking with his elegant gesture. When he meets inside the company, he will burst out a "rude" mantra and speak freely.

When asked about the Olympic sponsorship, Du Bairui told the "Global Entrepreneur" honestly: "although I was one of the people who sponsored the Olympic Games, I have to admit that it was a wrong decision."

As we all know, Adidas has been through a difficult year in 2009 - the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games' mistakes and the negative effects brought by the economic crisis continue to this day. (please check the sequel of Olympic Games in gemag.com.cn) for details.

In May 4, 2010, its first quarter earnings report showed that sales in Greater China fell 15%, to 198 million euros, and if the exchange rate factor was taken into account, the decline was 20%.

And Adidas's real heart headache is that it was replaced by Lining, a local rival, in the second place of mainland China's sporting goods market, which was the first defeat of Adidas after catching up with Lining in 2004.

More than one Adidas employee agreed that the days of 2009 and 2010 were very tough.

"There is nothing to lose a battle," Du Bairui said. "The key is to learn from it."

Du Bairui brought Adidas earth shaking reform plan: in 2010 alone, he launched 69 new development plans, involving production, market monitoring, retail, dealer management and so on.

Some of these practices completely overturned the decision of former Bai Wenkang (WolfgangBentheimer).

For example, the Adidas clover store, which was resumed by itself at the end of 2008, was redistributed to distributors.

In 2009, Bai advocated setting up shop and improving the sales of single stores. But Du Bairui was against the trend and plans to start a new store in two or three cities in China.

Prior to this, Du Bairui served as president of Adidas Asia Pacific region, and the Asia Pacific region was sent to China after being dissolved.

He has only three years to prove himself, and then he will return to Adidas global headquarters.

"Therefore, his radical attitude is possible."

A Adidas employee said.

"I don't think competitors are much better than us in terms of products," Du Bairui said. "We lose in the way we operate."

In his view, the current predicament of Adidas first came from the loss of Olympic Sponsorship: in the 14 to 16 months for the preparation of the Olympic Games, the company invested a lot of money, and then the sales of Olympic products were poor, which caused tremendous pressure on the cash flow.

Secondly, for all multinational companies, the complexity of the Chinese market has become a consensus.

Not long ago, when there was a renewal of the contract with the national volleyball team, there was a dramatic scene: after 5 years of sponsoring the national volleyball team, Adidas was forced to return to the tender line due to the public opinion pressure of "geomantic omen" and compete with local rival Lining and other brands.

Because Adidas fully communicated with the competent units, it finally defeated Lining, who had thought that he would win, and won the sponsorship.

This is the reality of China. As a result of the implementation of the "national system", sporting goods companies must rely on the government to sponsor sporting events.