The transformation battle of Xiubo industry

"Many people in the industry are complaining, and the money is not easy to make." Tian Wei said with emotion when talking about the current market situation of China's manufacturing industry. As the founder and chairman of Shenzhen Xiubo Industrial Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Xiubo Industrial"), Tian Wei still retains the habit of running his own business. He has worked in the manufacturing industry for more than 20 years, and has personally experienced the rapid growth period of Chinese manufacturing, catching up with the earlier wave of development dividends. Referring to the future of Chinese manufacturers, he said that companies cannot operate behind closed doors, but must continue to innovate and be market-oriented.

In 1995, Xiubo Industrial was established with digital signage as its core products. At the beginning of its establishment, the three main founding members, including Tian Wei, worked in a small room in a residential building. The earliest business was to develop and sell VCD decoders and audio processors.

Over the past 20 years, Xiubo Industry has been a comprehensive solution provider and information provider covering digital signage advertising machines, touch all-in-one machines, online advertising machines, ultra-thin LCD digital advertising machines, and multimedia information distribution systems. Software and system integration service providers. In the face of the company's past development history, Tian Wei summed up this way: "Don't stick to the traditional model and do what customers ask for it. The business environment is complex and ever-changing, and business methods are constantly changing. Constantly changing yourself."

Following the trend

China has been in a period of rapid development for the past 40 years, which gives manufacturers a lot of time and space to grow .

"In 1996, the company developed a VCD decoder for upgrading CD players and an additional sound processor connected to the amplifier." Tian Wei recalled in an exclusive interview with CEConline. Their first foreign client came from India, and the connection was established through Global Sources, a leader in B2B international trade. The entire process from initial communication to successful cooperation was also full of drama.

At the end of 1996, Indian customers went to Shenzhen to discuss specific cooperation matters with Tian Wei. However, Xiubo Industry, which had just started at the time, still did not have a very formal office location. A small house in a residential building was the "temporary combat center" of Tian Weihe's team; not only that, due to the English level at the time, Tian Wei Unable to communicate directly with the other party in English, I had to ask a friend who works in a foreign trade company to act as a temporary translator. Tian Wei had to bite the bullet and continue to communicate, relying on body language to communicate with Indian customers, and finally facilitated the first foreign order, Tian Wei said, "The Indian customer took out $7,000 from the bag and bought a VCD on the spot. Decoder."

Digital photo frame is also the business that Xiubo Industrial started in the early days. In 1997, by chance, Tian Wei took a digital photo frame to the United States to participate in the exhibition, and discovered the huge market of the United States. Tian Wei said: "It can be seen in American TV dramas or Hollywood movies that Americans like to put photo frames in their homes and offices. This traditional habit has created room for growth of digital photo frames."

Xiubo Industry caught up with the "bonus period" of the digital photo frame industry, and also accumulated the original funds for the company's sustainable development in the future by relying on the digital photo frame. By the end of 1997, Xiubo Industry's turnover reached 650,000 US dollars, of which export business accounted for nearly 80%. In 1998, Tian Wei continued to focus on overseas markets, and the turnover in that year nearly doubled, and the export business accounted for more than 90%. In 1999, Xiubo Industry's product sales continued to grow rapidly, and its cooperative factories became more and more difficult to meet the production requirements of Xiubo Industry, so in this year, Tian Wei began to build the company's own factory and expand product lines. In 2001, Tian Wei specialized in liquid crystal displays and started the oversized advertising machine business.

Because of the similarity of technology, Xiubo Industrial's digital signage business and digital photo frame basically started in the same period. Today, the meaning of digital signage is far greater than the concept of traditional advertising machines, and has become a new media concept. According to the introduction of Encyclopedia, it mainly refers to a multimedia professional audio-visual system that publishes commercial, financial and entertainment information through large-screen terminal display equipment in large shopping malls, hotels, cinemas and public places where other people gather. It is designed to broadcast advertising information to a specific group of people in a specific physical place and a specific time period, allowing it to obtain the effect of advertising. In foreign countries, some people juxtapose it with paper media, radio, television and the Internet, and call it the "fifth media".

Tian Wei still clearly remembers winning the first big order for digital signage, which was also the first big order for the entire company. Tian Wei went to an advertising-related exhibition in Shanghai with the mentality of giving it a try. Because digital signage had not been widely popularized in the market at that time, and even many practitioners in the advertising industry did not know much about it, Tian Wei was asked many questions that made Tian Wei laugh at the exhibition site, for example, most of them were like " How much is one meter?" Such a completely layman's question, Tian Wei is basically doing very basic science introduction work.

Tian Wei's patience was not in vain. A company manager from Taiwan, Mr. Zhu, made it clear that he was optimistic about products such as digital signage. After the exhibition, Tian Wei and Manager Zhu continued to maintain email communication, including further introducing various information of products to each other and discussing with each other on industry development trends. After three years of long-term communication with Tian Wei, he finally received Xiubo Industry's first large order in the digital signage industry through Manager Zhu, an order for more than 5,000 digital signage from American customers.

With the changes in market demand, digital signage business has now become the core business of Xiubo Industrial.

It is not difficult to find that Xiubo Industry has developed under the environment of demographic dividend, cost dividend and market expansion dividend. There are countless Chinese manufacturing industries like Xiubo Industry growing under the "blessing" of various dividends. up business. Today, all kinds of dividends are saturated, and all kinds of new challenges are waiting for them to solve.

Market-Oriented Innovation

High taxes and fees, the gradual disappearance of "dividends" such as population and costs, and the exodus of manufacturing industries...

In recent years It is not easy for Chinese manufacturing to go from "bigger" to "stronger". The domestic economy is slowing down, and manufacturing frictions between major countries are becoming more frequent. China's manufacturing industry is facing a new round of tests.

Tian Wei is very aware of this. Taking the rising housing costs as an example, for this reason, the office of Xiubo Industrial moved from Futian Shawei in the central district of Shenzhen to Xili, Nanshan, in 2018. Moved to Baoan Shiyan again. The same is true for taxes and fees. As early as 2016, Cao Dewang, a well-known entrepreneur and chairman of Fuyao Glass, publicly stated that "the comprehensive tax burden of China's manufacturing industry is higher than that of the United States", which triggered a big discussion on the taxation and fees of Chinese enterprises. We can also see In the past two years, the government has launched various favorable policies to reduce the operating costs of manufacturing enterprises. However, some unreasonable tax systems accumulated over the years may not be resolved once and for all.

However, this is not the biggest challenge for manufacturers. In recent years, innovation, which has been emphasized by the government and enterprises, is undoubtedly a key point. Only with the ability to innovate can we calmly face various changes in the future. Tian Wei said to "CEConline": "It is impossible for an enterprise to change the overall situation, so it must keep up with the overall situation. In the future, innovation must be accelerated to create its own characteristics. If others can also make the products you do, then you will be far away. It’s not too far to be eliminated.”

Throughout the interview with CEConline, Tian Wei repeatedly emphasized the point of “market-oriented innovation” in the face of economic slowdown and industrial upgrading Tian Wei is also a firm practitioner of this "route", constantly exploring new product directions, providing customers with commercial value and improving product experience for terminal consumption.

Tian Wei has been advancing the "evolution" of its core product, digital signage. As an intelligent product, the combination of digital signage and new technology can produce a variety of new ways of playing. In this regard, Chinese companies are developing faster than foreign companies. In 2018, Tian Wei discovered a new product development direction in communication with customers from South Korea, that is, the combination of blockchain technology and advertising machines. He quickly seized this business opportunity and began to develop "blockchain advertising". machine".

Tian Wei introduced to "CEConline" that from the appearance, the "blockchain advertising machine" is no different from the ordinary advertising machine, but it has different new functions, because China's digital currency Therefore, there is no market for this product for the time being, mainly for European and American countries that allow the circulation of digital currency. For example, after consumers go to retail stores, sometimes merchants will give consumers some coupons such as discount coupons or shopping coupons, and the "blockchain advertising machine" can be directly circulated through consumers' mobile phones. Digital currency is given to consumers, and the camera on the device can conduct passenger flow analysis and statistics, forming a closed loop of the entire industry chain.

Because "it can accurately transmit light, effectively improve the color gamut value of the display, make the colors more pure and bright, and make the color performance more intense", in recent years, the quantum dot display technology has become popular, and many manufacturers are developing New technology in this display field. "Therefore, as a 'sideline' digital photo frame, which is almost negligible in small quantities, it may re-launch an 'upgraded version' to produce digital photo frames with quantum dot displays. Currently, we are discussing cooperation with a listed company." Tian Wei said.

Tian Wei believes that in recent years, under the background that BOE and Samsung and other domestic and foreign major manufacturers have added quantum dot displays, in the future, the equipment equipped with quantum dot displays has great potential. As a downstream manufacturer, Xiubo Industry should also seize this opportunity.

In addition, at present, Xiubo Industry is mainly for enterprises, and Tian Wei hopes to have more products directly for end-consumers in the future. In the past, it was very troublesome for store owners to update advertising machines. They had to ask engineers to program and design software to complete the update of advertising content. Xiubo Industry is developing advertising machines that users can update content themselves, and can realize the independent operation of advertising content. Mainly for retail customers.

"Innovation cannot be done behind closed doors. We must first understand customer needs, then generate different new ideas, and then invest in them based on customer or market needs. The innovation of Xiubo Industry is just like this. I have come here. I think the transformation of all manufacturing companies cannot leave this point." Tian Wei finally said to "CEConline".

Picture / Xiubo Industry, Picture Worm