I'm crazy about big buyers

A woman plausibly said: "Customers who can earn more money for us with the same labor, can cooperate with us for a long time, achieve win-win development, and have good credit standing are our target customers."

A gentleman responded: "Our target customers are the ones that match and match the resources we have on hand."

More people joined later:

"The resources that can be integrated include Matching supplier resources, company sales team resources, staff human resources, documents, finance and other service resources."

"After integrating resources, we must provide sincere services to target customers, that is, we must stand in From the customer's standpoint, consider the problem for him, and think more about the customer, so that you can change your sincerity and win the customer's trust; in addition, you must have the ability to respond quickly, that is, to respond to customers' requirements "lightning" ."

......

During the debate, a middle-aged man with a clear face always smiled, sat in the crowd without saying a word, and listened quietly. Don't think this is in a business school classroom where a professor is listening to an MBA student analyzing a virtual case. These people are the backbone of the business of Shanghai Xieda International Trade Co., Ltd. and are discussing the management of key accounts, which is related to the future of the company. At the end of the meeting, the middle-aged person started to speak:

"The fierce market competition after the quota cancellation next year is already in front of us, and it can be said that the second half of the year is about to enter a state of 'white-hot'. For the development of our suppliers, we must actively work towards the direction of 'locking in target customers and allocating the best resources' to seek greater room for growth."

International buyers are becoming more and more critical of suppliers , the clothing export market capacity is expected to expand, and the company's own resources are limited, although Lin Yuhua, the general manager of the company, understands that it is imperative to only become big customers, but he still wants to pass the meeting in late July. Consolidate the consensus of the top and bottom of the company, create an urgent atmosphere, and mobilize the motivation of employees.

However, the tense atmosphere did not dilute Lin Yuhua's joy: the world's largest company and one of the largest US clothing importers have become Xie Da's customers. Walmart, which only selected Xieda as its supplier last year, placed an order for sweaters of US$2 million, and Risker, who has cooperated with Xieda for several years, gave them an order of US$8 million this year. Cooperation with big buyers has improved their self-confidence. "In cooperation with Walmart, our goal for next year is to achieve $5 million."

In addition to the large amount of intangible assets brought by big buyers, the confidence of large companies It also comes from their own grasp of the needs of large buyers and future competitive trends. At the same time, Lin Yuhua is convinced of the company's service capabilities and the value of services.

Positioning, Positioning, Positioning

To be an excellent supplier in the international market, no amount of effort should be devoted to grasping the needs of buyers. Today's needs of customers may soon become a thing of the past. Does price matter? Important, but not the most important. Large buyers believe that it is a matter of course that the production volume has become larger, economies of scale have been achieved, and prices have fallen. The real needs of big buyers are always changing, and suppliers can only see it if they look deeper.

Lin Yuhua found that positioning is very helpful to understand the real needs of big buyers, and "positioning" has become a word he often talks about during this period. "We do market positioning, do customer positioning, and at the same time understand customer positioning." Xie Da set the company's market as the United States, Europe, and Japan. "This market positioning is very accurate from the current sales situation." In terms of customer positioning , What Xieda wants to do is direct customers, no need to communicate through agents. At the same time, they want to be customers with market position and popularity in the target market. The eight target customers they currently target are all listed companies in local countries, with retail sales of at least 1 billion US dollars, including the largest customer, Rickley, And Walmart, a customer whose orders are gradually increasing.

Market positioning and customer positioning provide clear goals for penetrating customer needs. The next step is to align with the identified goals to understand customer positioning. Taking Riskerlab as an example, each of the 37 brands has different consumer positioning, including different ages, different styles, different brands sold in different retail channels, and different price positioning. "After we understand these situations very concretely, we can take the initiative to provide them with the sweater development services that each brand needs, which is very targeted. In this way, their designers will be more efficient."

After positioning in three aspects, Xie Da Company found the real needs of big buyers, which is accurate, fast and comprehensive value. Large international buyers need to buy the right goods accurately. Whether it is the US market or the European market, the competition is quite fierce, and consumers have a lot of choices. "If you don't buy the right product and the product does not conform to the current fashion trend, you will be under great pressure."

Now Large international buyers often do not make final purchasing decisions at the last minute, and they leave very short time for suppliers to operate, thus requiring suppliers to have very quick responses.

At the same time, they also require suppliers to have comprehensive value. The so-called comprehensive value means that suppliers not only need to be competitive in price, but also provide value-added services. "If you just rely on low-price competition, you won't be able to do a lot of work, then they need a large team to assist you to do these tasks, and their operating costs will increase." In fact, large buyers are very concerned about their overall purchase cost.

In order to provide comprehensive value to target large customers, XieDa Company has made corresponding allocation of resources. The company has changed from the previous situation that a business department had to serve several customers, and sometimes lost sight of one and the other. For each major customer, a different professional team was allocated to provide each customer with what Lin Yuhua called "whole-hearted" service. In this way, a structured way of dividing and organizing people according to the market economy has taken shape and worked effectively in his company with only 120 employees.

Risk Crabbe is the largest customer of Xieda, and Lin Yuhua also has the largest team for it, including professional sweater technicians. Whenever they receive a sample request from Risker, these professional technicians will conduct a full analysis. Before sending the sample to Risker, it must be repeatedly checked by professionals, so that the sample can pass through the sample at one time. Scribe's acceptance, to achieve the accuracy and speed of sample delivery.

Lin Yuhua has a correct understanding of the accuracy requirements put forward by Riskerlab, and has implemented them into the specific work of Xie Da Company. He believes that as a professional clothing supplier, Xieda must accurately grasp the fashion trends in the international clothing market. "The so-called accurate grasp is that we should study and judge the fashion trends of the European and American clothing industry a year in advance, that is, what styles, colors, and fabric styles are popular. This is what we must accurately grasp. With such accurate We can provide customers with services such as rapid fabric development before doing business, and if the work is done well in advance, if this advance is better than our competitors, then the buyer's satisfaction will increase."

In terms of specific actions, the association will digest these fashion trends in advance, and conduct cost analysis on new fabrics and new styles according to the purchase cost of buyers for one year, so that the purchase cost of buyers can be controlled within their acceptable range. . In this way, even if the product is new, the price will not make them unacceptable, thus reflecting the added value.

Make good use of intangible assets

A few years ago, Xie Da tried to do the Wal-Mart business, but found that it was miserable and not suitable for itself. In fact, at that time, they did not do business with Wal-Mart directly, but through an agent company in Hong Kong and an importer in the United States to do business with Wal-Mart. a long time". But since Walmart started its own global procurement, Lin Yuhua felt an opportunity came.

He understands what it means for his small business to do business directly with Walmart. "Wal-Mart is the No. 1 in the Fortune 500, which is a very large intangible asset. It is very beneficial to be able to cooperate with it to improve our management and brand image."

Indeed, after more than a year of cooperation, Wal-Mart has Buyers in Japan, Germany, South Korea, Brazil, Canada and other countries have regarded Xieda as a very important sweater supplier. Xieda's professional team dedicated to serving Wal-Mart has also benefited a lot from the cooperation. "The most outstanding thing is to get rid of the random work habits that I had developed when working with small clients. At the same time, my personal technical ability and development space have been greatly improved."

Lin Yuhua from the cooperation with international big buyers I have tasted the sweetness and strengthened my determination to only be the target big customer. In response to the inquiry from the general manager of Walmart Shanghai Purchasing Office, he said: "Our Walmart service team will double the number of people. If you want to sell anywhere, we will help you. If you have any international buyers, come over. , we will provide the best service."

It seems that Lin Yuhua's goal of "making the current only 8 target large customers to 20 as soon as possible" is worth looking forward to.