Finding Competitiveness in Supply Chain Management

The international trade environment is not what it used to be. "Made in China" urgently needs to be transformed. How can foreign trade companies create their own development strategies? Global Sources, together with its "CEConline", continues to create a series of "Outsmart the Future" export forums, providing an excellent exchange and learning platform for foreign trade enterprises. Mr. Huang Weixiong, Marketing Director of Zhongshan Minchuang Optoelectronics Co., Ltd., shared his overseas market expansion experience at the forum Zhongshan Station.

Choose the right platform

Huang Weixiong: We mainly manufacture LED lamps and lanterns. We are currently cooperating with Global Sources for the second year. It took a long time to enter the foreign trade market in the first year. In one year, the turnover of foreign trade also accounts for about 20% of the total performance of Minchuang Optoelectronics, which is a very good effect. This year, the contract with Global Sources has been renewed, and the level of the Global Sources platform has also been improved. It is estimated that through the excellent platform such as Global Sources in the second half of this year, the turnover and customer inquiries will increase by more than 30%.

At the beginning, Minchuang didn't know where its market was, and didn't know where the region was. It locked the region through Global Sources. The market we most wanted to meet was the European and American markets. This market is widely used by many people. It is more difficult to do in the eyes, and the more difficult it is, the more valuable it is. So far, the United States and Canada have begun to cooperate with customers, including our current main market is Brazil and Australia, which have long-term cooperative customer groups in operation.

Take the high-end route to form a differentiated advantage

The LED lighting industry itself is a big exporter in China. The lighting industry exported by China has always been relatively cheap products in the market, especially the LED industry. In recent years, the market price of cheap products has been very fast. It is also because this batch of cheap products has stimulated the EU countries that use high-end products overseas. This is what cheap products look like. We have our own relatively complete R&D team through our own efforts. The product quality is relatively high. There will also be many colleagues around me who will ask me if the quality of the products you make is slightly higher, and the price is much higher. I I can tell you very well that the price of our products is only allowed to be slightly higher than that of cheap products, and we will reduce the cost of our products from various material suppliers.

A lot of times, I also often think about why customers choose us to cooperate. I also asked customers. In fact, it is very simple. What customers want is a product that is completely worthy of customers in the market. They now know the choice. The quality is slightly higher, the price has the same advantage, and the follow-up research and development capabilities are required to obtain the desired effect.

The LED lighting is a relatively new product. In the past two years, there have been price wars at home and abroad, and it is universal. Because of the price problem, there are many fake and inferior products on the market, which are reflected by customers after short-term use. The bad includes the customer's dissatisfaction. After this fluctuation period, the customer thinks that the product I bought is so cheap, but the quality is like this. The foreign customer group who pays more attention to the quality of the product asks him to find a better product. Make a better product. Similarly, the customer will also propose that the price should not be too high, not higher than the price he intends to purchase now.

After such a transformation, companies such as LED R&D and production companies can improve the quality without increasing the price. For example, the quantity of our fluorescent tubes is very large in the market. Our first batch of goods for Brazil is What we are doing routinely to meet the basic lighting requirements, when the first batch of lamps passed, the customer would say that the brightness could not reach the level he needed. He asked our relevant foreign trade personnel if your company could increase the brightness and the price could not be changed. The company's first reaction was that it could be done, because we started with chips, packaged ourselves, and started with the most basic technology. We knew how to control this process. After the adjustment, we have improved the quality of the entire lamp tube, the price has not been mentioned, and the customer is very satisfied. This means that not only cheap products sell well in the lighting industry, but high-end products can also compete in the market, because I believe that what everyone wants is a quality life, and lighting directly affects life.

How to manage the supply chain

From the first-generation light source to the current high-end light source, I know that many manufacturers used imported chips, which were relatively expensive. The technology they made was not very mature before they stayed In a relatively conservative state, although Minchuang Optoelectronics is not well-versed in high-end technology, it will relatively go to some relatively developed cities, such as Shenzhen, where their technology is upgraded very quickly. How can this solution be made in the cheapest and fastest way with the best quality. When we first started, we made a lot of things ourselves. We always used imported materials to do it. Later, we used friends in the material industry to discover some materials with better quality and lower prices. For example, LED lamp chips came from Taiwan and added customs duties. It will rise a lot. Now we use some domestic big brand chips that are very good and OK, and the brightness will not be worse than imported ones. Control the product from the light source chip. Now the light source we use has high brightness and high display index, which is not inferior to the quality of traditional lamps, and the price is not higher than them. The quality of this material has improved, and the price will not change. For the driver, we will also choose a relatively high-end manufacturer for research and development, and use a lower price. We can get a driver for more than ten yuan for a few yuan, and the quality is guaranteed as well as the price.

If our own manufacturing process will incur higher costs, we would rather do it outside and find a reliable material supplier with a lower price than ours.

The future is how to optimize your own supply chain. The supply chain is your parents, not your customers.