From Cloud To Valley Six Years Of Li Ning Co

In October 10th, Lining The company held a press conference in Beijing to announce the signing of last season's NBA champion, the Miami heat's star Dehn Wade. The sight of the company reminded people familiar with the company of 6 years ago. In the summer of 2006, at a news conference in Beijing, Lining announced the signing of NBA superstar "big shark" O'neal. At that time, O'neal just helped the heat team get the first championship in the history of the team. What is worth pondering is that another core player of the team is today's protagonist, Wade.

The same team, also a champion, is also a superstar. However, after 6 years, the company has already changed things. 6 years ago, Lining was strong and steady in the first place of the local sports brand. "Jinjiang Department" was hard to catch up with. 6 years later, the transformation of the company was blocked, and the first position of the local company was also at stake.

From cloud to trough, what has happened to the company in the past 6 years?

Strategic swings, losing good offices

2004 is a new starting point for Li Ning Co.

After sales exceeded 1 billion of the bottleneck, Lining went to Hong Kong in the same year. In the first 3 years after the listing, Lining went all the way, bringing one surprise to the domestic consumers.

It is basketball business that helped Lining make the breakthrough in the market.

In May 2004, the Li Ning Co became an unknown Spanish male and female basketball player. clothing The sponsors have proved that this is a very good cooperation. 3 months later, Lining released the first professional basketball in the company's history. shoes Free Jumper.

Free Jumper has changed the inferior image of local brand sneakers, not only for its excellent design, but also for injecting a lot of technology elements, such as the concept of main shock mitigation. Lining also invited the then CBA "dunk king" Hu Guang to endorse products, which gave consumers a refreshing feeling.

In January 2005, Li Ning Co further signed a strategic cooperation agreement with the NBA alliance in Beijing. Since then, a new term has appeared in Lining's TV advertisement - "NBA official market partners".

In the domestic market at that time, local brands were facing a very embarrassing situation: with the improvement of per capita income in China, two big international giants of Nike and Adidas began to rise vigorously in the Chinese market. From 1997 to 2002, Lining kept the domestic market share for the first 6 years in a row. However, in 2003 and 2004, Lining was surpassed by Nike and Adidas in just two years. Although the company's business can still maintain rapid growth, but in the first tier cities facing competition with international brands, Lining is increasingly unable to cope.

It is against this background that Lining has initiated cooperation with NBA. At that time, consumers did not know what the title and identity of "NBA official market partners" meant, but the first local sports brand could cooperate with the world's most influential professional leagues, which is enough to be expected.

A year later, the two sides handed over their first answer after the cooperation.

In January 2006, in the NBA alliance's matchmaking, Lining signed the Cleveland Cavaliers defender Damon Jones, thus becoming the first Chinese sports brand to enter the NBA arena. Although Damon Jones was only an unknown role player in NBA, the news still shook domestic consumers. At that time, the fans' impression was that the "sacred" NBA arena was an international giant such as Nike and Adidas. No one could imagine that the local brand would have the chance to kill the stronghold of the giant.

Just six months later, Lining brought a more shocking news to domestic fans - signing the superstar "shark" O'neal. O'neal was the most famous spokesman in the history of the local sports brand. Although he was 34 years old, he had entered the late stage of his career, but he was still a star player in NBA. The cooperation between the two sides has broken the monopoly of SuperBrands by international brands such as Nike and Adidas. Lining once again pioneered the industry.

On the promotion of the market, Lining has also made rapid progress in product capability. In 2006, Lining's trump card. Designer Zheng Yongxian's "flying armour" basketball shoes designed for Damon Jones won the "iF China 2006 Industrial Design Award" in one fell swoop. Spin And Fashion Awards. Not only that, Lining also launched the "Lining bow" slow vibration technology with independent intellectual property rights. After nearly 20 years of Nike's basketball shoes Market guided by air cushion technology, the first time the local brand has narrowed the gap with the international brand from technology.

With the continuous improvement of brand awareness and reputation, Lining's distribution network is also everywhere in China. In 2003, Li Ning Co had fewer than 3000 outlets, and by the end of 2007, it had reached 5233.

The support company's expansion is the continuous optimization of the supply chain system. Since 2004, Li Ning Co has begun to establish a "market sensitive supply chain" system to integrate suppliers, logistics and agents on the industrial chain. In order to let partners better understand the company's intentions, Lining even sent the suppliers to Japan to visit the lean management production mode of TOYOTA. After returning home, he invited experts from Tsinghua to train them professionally.

These efforts soon worked. In 2003, Lining's average stock days were around 160 days, and by 2006, they had dropped to 77 days, close to international brands such as Nike.

Insiders told reporters that in 2004, Lining basketball shoes sales were only about 80 thousand pairs, and by 2008, this figure has reached 1 million pairs. Thanks to the breakthrough of basketball shoes, sales of Lining footwear products increased by more than 40% in 2006 and 2007 for two consecutive years.

Allied with NBA, signing role players, signing a superstar, and playing a strong three strike in basketball, Lining's brand image in the new generation of consumers also ushered in a turning point. However, what is unthinkable is that Lining slowed down the pace of basketball in this time. In the next two years, Lining did not appear impressive in basketball.

"What a pity!" a staff member who had worked for many years in Lining mentioned the past events. "In 2006, the momentum was just right, and the atmosphere and combat effectiveness of the whole company were very good. It was the most memorable part."

In the basketball business, it is because the company has taken the initiative to decentrate energy to other places. The change of marketing strategy shows that the Li Ning Co is becoming more confident and embarked on the road of big expansion.

From 2007 onwards, Lining began to focus on running a series of running products. With his experience accumulated in basketball, Lining soon began to run his own running business. However, with the approaching of 2008, the company began to prepare for the Olympic Games, and the importance of running was abruptly stopped. In addition to the expansion of running, Li Ning Co also spent 305 million yuan in 2007 to merge the famous "table tennis" equipment manufacturer "red double happiness" into the table tennis market. It is worth mentioning that, just a year ago, the Li Ning Co received the identity of the official market partner of the ATP (International Men's Professional Tennis Federation).

Meanwhile, a week before the opening of the Olympic Games, Li Ning Co suddenly announced that the franchise of Italy leisure sports brand Lotto in the past 20 years has cost more than HK $1 billion. In 2005, Lining abandoned the Kappa brand that had been acting for many years. However, in the next 3 years, Kappa has launched a fashion movement under the leadership of the new owner. With Lotto, Lining obviously wants to replicate the success of Kappa.

During the Beijing Olympics, the Spanish men's basketball team in Lining's shirt and Nike's dream team met in the finals, and the two sides managed to get the final result at the last minute. Although the Spanish team finally lost, but the team's performance has been enough to make Lining feel proud and elated.

The strong performance of the Spanish men's basketball team seems to make Li Ning Co executives recognize the importance of basketball. In November of that year, after nearly two years of silence in basketball business, Lining finally made new moves to sign the famous star Baron Davis of the Jinzhou warriors. However, the signing did not cause much response.

Because now the local market is already another pattern, "Jinjiang Department" PEAK and Anta have successfully landed NBA through the signing of the stars, of which PEAK has succeeded Lining as the official NBA market partner. In the time when Lining distracted his attention to other businesses, the "Jinjiang Department" did not stop catching up for a moment. In just two years, Lining's advantage accumulated in basketball business was almost eaten up. This also made the decision makers of the basketball business somewhat grim. {page_break}

In 2009, after two years of aimless exploration, Lining finally began to focus on a sport, of course, no longer basketball.

In April, Lining replaced Yonex, the world famous badminton brand, as the main sponsor of China badminton team. In July, Lining completed the acquisition of Kaisheng, a local badminton equipment brand. In that year's earnings report, Li Ning Co clearly stated that "to develop badminton into a sport with the greatest relevance to the Lining brand", Lin Dan became the head spokesman of Lining.

From the commercial logic point of view, the reason why Lining made such a choice is that although the great investment in basketball field has made her basketball business go by leaps and bounds, it has failed to shake Nike's dominance in this field. Therefore, it is better to give up the positive competition with Nike in basketball business and set up another way to establish its own differentiation advantage.

Badminton has a broad mass base in China and even in Southeast Asia, and China's badminton power is the first in the world. Most importantly, there is no Nike and Adidas players in this market, so it is a very good breakthrough. It seems to be a perfect plan, but it is full of flaws.

Although badminton has a good mass participation both at home and abroad, there are two concepts that involve people and have market influence. Nike and Adidas are good at basketball and football, not only have a wide population, but also have a highly marketable professional sports event as a marketing platform, such as NBA and the Premier League. This allows the participation of the masses to eventually be converted into the purchasing power of the market. However, badminton does not have such a professional competitive platform, which makes the commercial value of the sport very limited.

The investment in badminton does make Lining have differences with international brands, but this "difference" can not further form the "differential advantage".

Just as Lining established badminton as the focus of future development, there was an inflection point in the domestic sporting goods market, and even international brands began to face the pressure of inventory. At this time, another force appeared on the market. The vertical B2C website represented by Yue Tao and Hao Le bought began to rise. They got a large number of international brand stock products and sold at low prices on the Internet. The price of many products was almost the same as that of local brands after the discount, which undoubtedly had great destructive power to local brands.

At this time, the consequences of Lining's strategic swing are exposed, and the accumulation of expertise is insufficient. The original price advantage has disappeared under the impact of vertical B2C, so the consequences can be imagined.

The continued swing of strategy finally destroyed Lining's hard accumulation in basketball field. Lining chose to give up in the distance where the change took place, and the "Jinjiang Department" went farther and farther away from Lining's road. All of this may be due to the ideals of Li Ning Co and the eagerness to realize the ideal.

The ideal of "fullness" and the cruel reality

Now, behind the uncertainty of the company strategy is the pursuit of internationalization of Li Ning Co and the deviation of self cognition in the process of internationalization.

Lining himself has won 14 world titles in his entire athlete career, including 3 Olympic champions. Such a brilliant experience has determined that the enterprise he started alone will never aim at "China first". In fact, the root of this goal is not even commercial, but the founder's own ideal.

At the beginning of the Li Ning Co, when Lining met with senior management, he often talked about what he felt behind the glory of that year. He felt "despised" by others in China. Every time he talked about these unknown experiences, the participants would be infected with tears. It can be said that "the impulse of internationalization" is the inherent instinct of this company and is locked in its DNA.

Driven by the ideal, the company has become an example of the industry and is moving towards the goal of becoming a world-class enterprise. In 1996, Lining began to implement the de familial approach of the company. In stark contrast, the Jinjiang department still maintains a strong family color. In 1999, Lining began to implement ERP and became one of the first local enterprises to apply ERP. In 2004, it became the first local sporting goods company to list. There are too many similar examples.

From Barcelona in 1992 to Athens in 2004, Lining's four consecutive Olympic Games became the equipment sponsor of the Chinese Olympic delegation. At the Olympic Games held at home in 2008, although Adidas replaced Lining as the equipment sponsor of the Chinese delegation, when the 45 year old "old prince" lifted the torch over the bird's nest, the sponsorship fee of Adidas $80 million was instantly wasted. At that moment, for the Chinese people, the two words "Lining" not only represent the best athletes and sports companies in China, but also symbolize the honor of the whole country.

Igniting the flame made Li Ning Co's reputation reach its peak, but the seeds of the crisis were also buried. On the way to the ideal, the goal suddenly seemed to be so close, which made the Li Ning Co begin to sprint at the wrong time.

Overall, before 2008, Lining's internationalization had been relatively stable in two parallel tracks, and the internationalization of talents was carried out within the company, while the internationalization of the brand was being carried out externally. But after 2008, the pace of Lining's progress suddenly lost its rhythm.

"After the Olympic Games, the company was still in the inertia of the Olympic Games. The goal of the board was to rush to 10 billion in 2010." A senior Lining who has left office tells business value.

The goal is indeed very good, but the local sports market is showing signs of recession. As the most important agent of Nike and Adidas in China, BELLE's action is undoubtedly of great reference value. In the first 3 quarters of 2009, the number of BELLE shutting shops reached 295, not only that, but also transferred its agent's high-end leisure sports brand Fila to Anta.

Just as BELLE began to shrink its integration channels, Lining was still expanding. "There was a chance to stop and rearrange, and I believe the result will be different." Memories of that time, the senior is very emotional.

In 2009, Lining added 1004 new stores to 7249. By virtue of the Olympic Games, Lining has surpassed Adidas in terms of sales of 8 billion 400 million yuan, becoming the second place in the domestic sports market, and is only one step away from Nike.

Beyond Adidas, a wrong signal has been released, which makes Li Ning Co management think that people's consumption psychology has matured and no longer pursue international brands. This is an excellent opportunity for Lining to fight back. Management hopes to be able to work hard at the end of the battle, and radically reshape the war with the radical way of brand remolding.

But in fact, the pursuit of growth for some time before Lining has given the whole system a great deal of tension. From products to channels, and then to marketing system, there are many problems to be solved. This is just like a tire that has been seriously worn out, not only does not enter the repair station to refill and repair, but also continues to crazily speed up the hope of a tyre and a box of oil to complete the whole race.

The prosperity of 2008 and 2009 is largely due to the rise of the national complex caused by the Olympic Games. Once the enthusiasm of the people subsided, everything will return to its original state.

In fact, this time Li Ning Co hopes to solve the problem of "aging of consumer groups", which has always been a worry for the company, and is also a major obstacle to its internationalization. However, the difficulty and risk of this problem is really underestimated.

Li Ning Co's market research in 2006~2007 years shows that over 50% of consumers are between 35 and 40 years old, which is seriously inconsistent with the company's expectations. A typical case is that although Lining shouted the slogan of "Anything is Possible" in 2002, but in 2004, Adidas put forward "no Impossible is Nothing". After that, Lining got the "plagiarism" injustice. To this day, most young consumers still wishful thinking that Lining copied the creativity of Adidas.

Such pain will undoubtedly further strengthen the Li Ning Co's determination to internationalize. The brand remolding in 2010 is looking for the brand younger, but the core part is to realize the internationalization of the brand.

Today, almost all of us are going to focus on the root cause of Lining's turmoil in the second round of 2010. It seems that this is the "90's" formulation in 2010, which seems to be the culprit of the failure of the brand reconstruction. However, this is not the essence of the problem. In fact, even if there is no "post-90s" formulation, Lining's brand remolding is doomed to fail to achieve the expected success. {page_break}

The goal of Lining's brand remolding is to seek direct dialogue with young consumers. In the research stage, the company positioned the young consumers who were looking for these expectations as "the first generation of creators after China's reform and opening up". Unfortunately, from Taiwan, CMO Fang Shiwei's handling of the mainland's culture was obviously not enough enough for the brand to be rebuilt. Finally, there was a serious deviation in the implementation.

The new generation of young people Lining hopes to catch up is growing up in a relatively open environment, deeply influenced by foreign culture, and has a natural superstition and preference for foreign brands. Therefore, only by building an international brand, or building a brand that looks at least international, can we get their recognition. But this is not done with a slogan or logo.

After listing, Li Ning Co clearly put forward the strategic plan of "first brand internationalization, then market internationalization". However, careful analysis will show that the so-called "internationalization of the brand first and the internationalization of the market" is essentially a means of "self deception". Without such a solid international market support, it is impossible to create the so-called international brand.

Before the Beijing Olympics, the internationalization of Lining's brand was basically on a smooth track, but after 2009, it was obvious that Lining had been in a mess on the market strategy.

From the perspective of brand building, a comprehensive international sports brand should have two basic characteristics. First, build up enough professional advantages on a sports event. Second, make sure that the main sports items are covered by the product line as far as possible.

Li Ning Co is indeed in the two directions on the surface, but there are great problems in its implementation.

According to the original idea of the company's top executives, from 2009 to 2013 is the preparatory stage for Lining's internationalization. After 2013, we should push forward the internationalization process in an all-round way. In order to catch up with this timetable, Li Ning Co has abandoned the "knock down" strategy with Nike on the basketball and turned badminton into the strategic direction of the company's development.

In order to achieve the coverage of mainstream sports, Lining "made up" an international spokesperson team with different skin color. In March 2010, Lining signed the "javelin Prince" Thohir Andersson. Even a sports fan could hardly know who he was. In October, Lining somehow signed the former 100 meter flying Powell, who had been out of breath for a long time. At this time, the sprint race had long been the "lightning" world of Boulter. "The endorser should use his popularity to influence my audience, not to spend money and time telling consumers who they are." A former Lining employee was so commented.

This series of puzzling market strategies gives the impression that Lining's marketing system seems to be dealing with high-level tasks rather than attracting customers and stimulating sales.

Perhaps at that time, Li Ning Co did set up a team of international spokesmen for different sports and different skin colors. However, in sports fans' eyes, this is a group of miscellaneous legions pieced together by a group of non mainstream athletes. There are more and more international faces in Lining's advertisements, but the influence of brands is going downhill.

Over the years, the strategic swing not only consumed a lot of energy and resources of the company, but also buried many hidden dangers. At this time, the Li Ning Co was already somewhat overburdened, and the radical remodeling of the brand finally became the last straw to crush Lining.

When the market strategy starts to deviate, sales channels will inevitably be affected. Replacing the brand logo means that the Lining products sold on the market at that time became "outdated" stocks in a flash. Not only that, it also involves upgrading and transformation of retail terminal stores, which is a nightmare for agents.

Of course, the core issue is not only that, product price increase is an important part of Lining's brand remolding. If we want to build a brand that can really compete with Nike and Adidas, then the price of the product must be closer to the international brand, but the market does not buy it.

At the end of 2010, the average retail prices of clothing and footwear products rose by more than 8% in the two quarter of 2011, but the number of orders decreased by more than 7% and 8% respectively. The total value of the orders decreased by about 6% compared with the same period in 2009. The average retail price of Lining's clothing products and footwear products decreased by more than 7%. The promotion of Lining's brand value is not enough to support the increase of its product price, which is already declaring the failure of Lining's brand remolding. Since then, Lining announced the reform of the distribution system, intends to integrate more than 500 stores, improve efficiency.

Behind the confusion of market and channel is the confusion of corporate governance.

Beginning in 2009, the board decided to carry out the reform of the company structure, began to implement the "CXO" governance structure, added CMO, CPO and other positions, and began to introduce a large number of airborne troops with international backgrounds. The division of labor and the introduction of airborne troops are the only way for a company to become internationalized. However, these two initiatives are aimed at improving the management system of the company and bring disastrous consequences.

When the company is in the process of rapid transformation and transformation, the relative centralization of power will help the management to effectively co-ordinate the overall situation, just as Jobs had led apple out of the predicament. At this time, Li Ning Co is planning to transform, but the power of management has been decentralized through the adjustment of the structure, which effectively reduces the efficiency of the company's operation and greatly improves the communication costs between departments.

"From then on, all the people were tied up with the meeting chariot." Those who have witnessed the assessment of the structural adjustment at that time. "In 2010, we have to confirm the time of the order, but we can not confirm it. Everyone has his own opinion. The product has the opinion of the product, the market has the opinion of the market, and after the opening of the thematic meeting, no one will listen to anyone."

The arrival of a large number of paratroopers has undoubtedly worsened the situation. There has been frequent conflicts between the so-called international vision and local thinking. From the product design to marketing strategy, parachute soldiers and local staff are often poles apart. The most typical case is that after the brand is rebuilt, the company is pushing the concept of "post-90s Lining" and making use of the "70 after" Lin Chiling to endorse the product. The insider told reporters that the opposition of the company was as high as 7, but in the eyes of CMO from Taiwan, this is a reasonable choice.

The paratroopers have disrupted the corporate culture while disrupting the rising channel of employees in the Li Ning Co, breaking the fairness of the company's internal pay and so on. Many talented local mainstays encountered career ceilings earlier and had to choose to quit and seek better development. With the turnover of old employees and the continuous injection of new employees, Lining's accumulated corporate culture has been rapidly diluted.

After the failure of brand reconstruction, Lining broke out of the tide of resignation. The problem of a company in the development process is not terrible. It is terrible that no one wants to be in company with the company after the problem arises, which is the result of blindly implementing the "internationalization".

"Lining's fundamental problem is that people's minds are scattered." A senior executive of a Jinjiang brand is so critical of his opponent. The complexity of company politics and the disappointment of management led to many Lining who had been struggling for many years to choose "abandon ship and run away" when the storm came. The internationalization process which is out of balance with its own development speed eventually brought the company to a blind alley.

In 2011, Lining's performance declined for the first time in 10 years, and its revenue fell to 8 billion 929 million yuan from 9 billion 478 million yuan in the previous year, down 5.8% from the same period last year. The profit was reduced by 65% to 386 million yuan, while the rival Anta was 1 billion 730 million yuan. In addition, the company's inventory reached 1 billion 133 million yuan, an increase of 4 over the previous year, and the number of days of inventory turnover increased from 52 days to 73 days. The cash flow from operations dropped from 990 million yuan in 2010 to 15 million 570 thousand yuan. {page_break}

Hard reconstruction

In July 4th of this year, CEO Zhang Zhiyong left, and Lining took the most important step in the process of reconstruction. In fact, as early as January this year, Li Ning Co has made efforts to prepare for the restructuring of the company from the capital level. At that time, Lining introduced the strategic investment of the US private equity fund TPG and GIC totaling 750 million yuan. TPG has been well known in the industry for helping Daphne get out of the predicament.

Zhang Zhiyong [micro-blog] opened a new door for Lining before he left. In June 11th, Lining announced that from the start of the new season, Anta has replaced CBA as the equipment sponsor for the next 5 years. But there are different opinions about whether the door is hidden behind opportunities or traps.

It is rumoured that Lining won the CBA price of up to 2 billion yuan. Although Li Ning Co did not publicly respond to this figure, a person familiar with the matter told reporters that the actual amount was basically in this order of magnitude. In 2004, Anta became the official sponsor of CBA at a price of 3 yuan and 60 million yuan. In 2006, Anta renewed its contract with CBA for 7 years, allegedly priced at 40 million yuan per year.

Judging from the bad guys, the cost of cooperation between Anta and CBA is only tens of millions of yuan per year. By such standards, Lining's 2 billion price is crazy. But in fact, the key question should be how much CBA should be worth.

When Anta became a CBA sponsor 8 years ago, it was at the lowest point of CBA. In the absence of Nike, Adidas and Lining, Anta took over CBA's equipment sponsorship. At that time, who would have thought that today's CBA can attract Marbury and other NBA stars to join? As a company with less than 400 million turnover at that time, Anta's masterpiece was hard to understand by many people, but Anta valued the potential of CBA. Finally, it turned out that the bet was right.

Last season, due to the suspension of NBA, a group of NBA players came to China to rush for gold, which made CBA an unprecedented concern. For a professional event, attention is the biggest commercial value. It is gratifying to note that in the new season, NBA superstars Mcgrady and Arenas joined CBA. The two heads of Adidas brand spokesmen had huge market appeal, which ensured the CBA's box office and ratings in the new season.

The cooperation with CBA is certainly a big gamble for Lining, but it is one of the few choices that can be made right now. Instead of being a little bit overlooked by the local rising stars in minor repairs, it is better to go all the way.

After his comeback, Lining summed up the company's next direction as "Three Focuses": focusing on the core brand (Lining), focusing on core business (basketball) and focusing on the Chinese market. Cooperation with CBA just fits this idea.

In October 10th, signing Wade and Lining brought another surprise to the industry. In fact, as early as September, the relevant news had already circulated in the bookshops, but most people heard it just laughed and did not take it seriously. On the one hand, the cooperation with CBA has made people feel that the company has not been able to afford so many resources to sign such a big star. On the other hand, the company's inactivity in the past few years has made consumers feel that Lining has lost the courage to sign O'neal.

Two days after signing the contract, ESPN reporter Mark Stern exposed the contract between Lining and Wade - 100 million dollars in 10 years, and a few other shares. For a while, the resurgence of doubts is still a question of value and worthless.

In fact, if we know about the local sporting goods industry, we will know that Wade, 30, is the youngest superstar player signed by local brands. When Lining signed O'neal in 2006 and Anta signed Garnett in 2010, the two players were already 34 years old.

In any case, from the perspective of market strategy, the return to basketball symbolizes that Lining has finally embarked on the right path, but the company's crisis is far from being resolved.

Prior to this, Lining has disclosed that in the fourth quarter of 2012, the total number of orders had a high double-digit decline. In the latest performance note, the company also announced that it would no longer publish the important reference data for quarterly orders.

2012 semi annual report shows that Lining's net profit fell 84.9% compared to the same period last year, only 44 million yuan. Zhong Yiqi, who was CFO of the time, said that the sales situation of the order meeting could not predict the future sales situation, so the company decided to change the sales strategy of the order meeting in the second quarter of next year. This means that Lining's performance this year will remain pretty ugly.

On the second day of signing Wade, CFO Zhong Yi Qi announced his departure. With his resignation, Lining completed the formatting of the top management team over the past 3 years. At the moment, the most important problem for Li Ning Co is finding new leaders as soon as possible, but this is by no means a simple matter. In July 5th, when Zhang Zhiyong retired, Lining announced that TPG partner Jin Zhenjun was temporarily acting as vice president of the company and was responsible for the internal operation of the company.

After taking office, Jin Zhenjun immediately announced to the outside world his reform plan: the first stage is the next 6~12 months, mainly completes the reduction stock duty, causes the stock rate to return to "the health level". The second stage is 2013~2014 years. The main task is to focus on improving the supply chain and marketing mode of the group, and introduce more exciting products to consolidate the leading position of the market. The next 2~4 years are the third stage, hoping to improve the profit structure and cash and investment return targets. {page_break}

It can be seen by the discerning eye that this is just an "emergency plan" rather than a strategic plan taken into account by the company in the long run.

In a recent interview with Hongkong media, Jin Zhenjun made it clear that Lining would not try to compete with Nike, whose target customers were those who moved from the countryside to big cities.

Compared with Lining's expectation of grabbing high-end market in Zhang Zhiyong era, Jin Zhenjun's attitude seems to be overcorrecting. Not to mention that Nike and Adi are targeting the market. How to grab the market share from the Anta Department represented by the Jinjiang department is enough to make Li Ning Co headache.

The Li Ning Co is still experiencing growing pains. Over the past few years, the company with strong idealism has paid a heavy price for its pursuit of ideals. However, the crisis has not shaken the company's root, because Li Ninggou built the most mature and perfect system and framework recognized in the industry on the road to internationalization. This makes it even able to maintain normal operation even in turmoil.

For the 49 year old prince, the difficulties now are somewhat familiar. 24 years ago, after the defeat of the Seoul Olympics, Lining once became a "public enemy", and even someone sent him razor blades and rope. The ups and downs of life and the inconstancy of human nature have long been known by Lining. Compared with that year, the difficulties encountered by the company at present are not much. As the founder of the company, Lining himself is also the largest common divisor in the company. The staff of Li Ning Co, including those who leave for various reasons, are full of respect when referring to Lining. "As long as Lining is still there, there is hope for the company." A former employee said, "his presence is the foundation for the cultural reconstruction of the company."

The pursuit of ideals not only made the company suffer, but also made it taste sweet. Between bitterness and sweetness, how to find a balance between ideal and reality is a lesson. For the current Lining, whether he can find the balance between ideal and reality from the detours of the past few years, whether he realizes that the world class and international impulse of Chinese enterprises "seize the day" needs more patience and wisdom to reconcile, which will ultimately determine the company's last fate.