Chuango: A typical path for China's manufacturing upgrade

From a room of less than 9 square meters, to becoming a global enterprise with branches in North America and Europe; from doing OEM to owning Chuango and Smanos own brands, becoming the No. 1 export sales volume in China's civil security alarm industry The first company, Chuango, took 14 years. The development path of Chuanggao typically reflects the path of development and upgrading of Chinese export manufacturing enterprises. Although 14 years later, Chuango is still in the growth stage, but after experiencing the baptism of mature foreign markets, Chuango has a broader vision and a more solid foundation in terms of brand, business model, and even innovation. And this is also the advantage and opportunity of China's export manufacturing enterprises. On the occasion of the "2014 China International Social Public Safety Products Expo", the founder and CEO of Chuangco, who led Chuangco's team and products to the exhibition, accepted an interview with "CEConline". , business models and other topics expressed his views.

From OEM to self-owned brand

In 2001, Li Chen and his father developed the first wireless burglar alarm. In a room less than 9 square meters, Chuangao Electronics Co., Ltd. The company "was born". Like many starting points made in China, Chuangao also chose the OEM model at the beginning.

CEConline: Chuangao has the first wireless anti-theft alarm developed by itself, why not directly choose the path of independent innovation and become an OEM?

Li Chen: Simply put, it is a matter of survival. For example, we are now pushing our own brands in foreign and Chinese markets, and we spend a lot of effort, including time, capital and manpower, because brands need such a process, as does independent innovation, which requires accumulation and trial and error. But in the early days of the company's establishment, we considered more about survival, because survival was the most important thing, and then we talked about persistence and other things, so we chose to be an OEM, but later found out that being an OEM is actually a problem for us. Good thing, a nice buildup. We have served some big foreign brands, and they have much higher requirements on us than ourselves. These experiences and experiences can help us improve and grow rapidly. At the same time, in the process of contacting with big brands, we also deeply felt that if a company does not have its own brand, it will not go far in the future.

CEConline: For Made in China, the power of the brand has not been highlighted overseas. How did Chuanggao promote the brand image of Chuango and Smanos?

Li Chen: We have been vigorously promoting brand building since 2008, creating our own brand Chuango with independent intellectual property rights and international competitiveness. In 2013, we launched Smanos, a high-end smart home brand. Brand management is another work that the company attaches great importance to in addition to research and development. On the one hand, the quality image is the foundation of the brand image. The establishment of the quality image is not as simple as just improving the quality of the products. The key is to establish the impression of "good quality" among global users. We check the quality of our products according to international standards, and every product must pass strict inspections. On the other hand, we have branches in Shenzhen, Taipei, Amsterdam, Texas, and other places, attracting "international" talents with international vision and advancing with the times to participate in global brand promotion. In addition, creativity is very important. Our company attaches great importance to design and has formed a unified VI system that runs through a series of links related to brand image from industrial design, packaging design to external publicity. In the process of improving the brand management system, my experience is: the rise of the brand requires a precipitation process, strict requirements on product quality, and a unified voice in external publicity, plus time, patience and persistence, can Form high-quality brand assets and achieve "Created in China" instead of "Made in China".

Explore the O2O model

Starting from product research and development in Fujian and Shenzhen, Chuangco has successively established two overseas sales centers in Shenzhen and Taiwan, as well as subsidiaries at home and abroad such as European headquarters and American headquarters. branch. Chuango's products include alarm systems, smart sockets and WiFi network video surveillance, which are sold well in Europe, America and Asia Pacific. Chuango is now an enterprise with an international organization, and their market development path also started from abroad.

CEConline: In your opinion, what is the difference in demand between international and domestic markets? In what ways does overseas experience benefit Chuanggao?

Li Chen: At first, our orders came from Japan and the United States, and the quantity was not too large, one or two hundred sets, but through these small orders, we felt the demand in foreign markets, and we were able to obtain users' demand for product packaging. , some feedback and comments on features, experience, etc. At that time, the domestic market had not yet developed, so we put our main energy into the foreign market.

Our customers are located in Europe, America, and Asia-Pacific. The needs of customers in each region are very different, especially in the consumer market. For example, our security device will have a prompt tone after entering the password. Is the tone long or short? Some customers require us to modify according to the user experience of the local access control system and building system. There are also some problems that users understand. For example, Chinese houses are very different from foreign houses. Most Chinese houses are high-rise buildings with high density, but in Europe, they are mostly independent villas. This kind of residential characteristics will also have different requirements for security products. Let me give an example. We make an outdoor alarm. The size of the speakers we made before was relatively small, but they need large sizes in Europe and the United States, and they also hope to be powered by solar energy. In the past, we used adapters to supply power. , but European and American customers feel that installing the adapter needs to pull a wire, which is more troublesome. Frankly, our engineers were surprised to hear this kind of demand first, but since the customer asked for it, we had to do it. In the face of the customer's demand for solar-powered products, we began to conduct research and testing in this area. Now from solar conversion to electromagnetic, we have strict standards for waterproof testing in the entire outdoor environment, such as rain, snow, and frost conditions. Therefore, we have also become the first enterprise in China to develop solar-powered series security alarm products.

Generally speaking, the Chinese market itself is the largest single market with a large population base. From the perspective of the difference between domestic and foreign markets, the user needs of the two markets are completely different. Secondly, the sales channels in the Chinese market and foreign markets seem to have the same place, but the actual situation is also different. There are mature sales methods, channels and categories in foreign countries, but not in China. For example, supermarkets in foreign countries have special sections for security products, but there is no such channel in China. For this reason, the sales of Chuangao’s products in China mainly rely on direct sales on e-commerce platforms, covering almost all mainstream e-commerce platforms in China. In 2013 "Double Eleven", the total sales of Tmall and JD.com exceeded one million yuan, ranking first in China's B2C online sales of security alarm products. After more than 2 years of precipitation in e-commerce operations, Chuangko has been doing well in the B2C field. However, the disadvantage of online sales is that it is impossible to intuitively understand the product, let alone experience it. Therefore, since the end of last year, we have spent a lot of effort exploring O2O. Chuangco has built offline experience stores in major cities, so that users can truly experience the lifestyle brought by this product in the store. Consumers can go online to place an order, or after placing an order online , and the after-sales service is provided by the offline experience store.

Entering the smart home industry

CEConline: From the beginning of this year, Chuanggao began to enter the smart home industry. What are the advantages of Chuangao entering the smart home industry from the security field?

Li Chen: This year, we have adjusted our entire strategy. The founder and CEO of the brand, Li Chen, believes that in the civil security alarm industry, technology is not an obstacle. What is important is to build an industry ecosystem and build an independent brand. Smanos relies more on smart homes. At present, the entire Chinese smart home industry, including some Internet companies, are doing it, but I think most of them are single products, that is, a product, an air purifier, a smart socket, etc. I think this is not enough to constitute a smart home. And our smart home is more emphasis on an integrated system, but how many terminal devices this system contains to meet the needs of users, this is a problem we have to consider.

We start from the field of security, from alarm to monitoring, starting from IoT detectors, which is one of our directions. Internet companies seek new ideas, but they are not experts in hardware. Second, in terms of communication between hardware and users, that is, whether user needs and product positioning can really match, and whether there is a good supply chain to produce such products, these are all questions. In my opinion, the ecological chain of the future industry should be open, not closed.

In addition, we have also maintained the consistent positioning of Chuanggao in smart home, that is, D, IY, users can adjust the function by adding or subtracting configuration and parts to make the product more personalized. And other smart home products are currently unable to do this, they are all complete machines. We once did a survey and consumers in the 35-40 age group were our largest customer group. Most of these people are in the middle class, they are curious to try and understand new things, and they are willing to do it themselves. This is the basis of our D,IY design consumption.

In today's smart home industry, many voices are talking about big data, Internet of Things, cloud computing, APP control, etc., more from a technical point of view, and little attention is paid to "pursuing the ultimate user experience." ". In fact, we believe that products that are easier to use, safer and more reliable can be called smart homes. Networking and APP control are just means, not ends. What manufacturers should do for users is to "leave the trouble to themselves, give simplicity to users, and use human-computer interaction to make products truly integrated into people's lives."