The Clothing Industry Is In Parallel With Pressure And Power

The clothing industry is in parallel with "pressure and power"

The "painful period" can be said to be the most frequently used vocabulary in the Chinese garment industry in 2008. The “pain” comes from many aspects: the appreciation of the renminbi is accelerating, and the long-term high CPI index leads to the continuous rise of labor and other costs. These factors have caused the profits of apparel companies to drop sharply, and various pressures have also come to the forefront.

Not long ago, in the 2008 National Textile Ideological and Political Work Conference on the theme of “Peer with Reform and Opening-up” held in Jilin City, Jilin Province, Du Yuzhou, President of China Textile Industry Association, encountered the current Chinese clothing industry in the “pain period”. All kinds of difficulties and pressures have been thoroughly and comprehensively analyzed, and they have expressed their wishes for the development of the industry in the future.

"People have no pressure and fluttering." The existence of pressure does not mean that it is a bad thing. Especially for the Chinese clothing enterprises with high aspirations, the current problem that needs to be solved urgently is not to be crushed by the immediate pressure, but in the face of difficulties. And in the current environment, the pressure is the driving force, so that the company can develop healthily and well.

change your mind

It is not terrible to have pressure. The terrible thing is to bow down and admit defeat in the face of pressure.

At this National Conference on Textile Ideological and Political Work, Yang Donghui, Vice President of China Textile Industry Association, gave a very vivid example in his speech: In the face of the arrival of strong winds, some people choose to repair walls to block the wind, and some People choose to repair the windmill to generate power with the strong wind. In the past, most of our clothing companies have played the role of hoping to use the “wall of policy” to block the wind, but in today’s overall environment, our company must strive to change its own concept and dare to go. Play the role of building a windmill and turn the wind into its own infinite power. With the gradual improvement of China's market economy and the increasingly close exchanges between the domestic market and the international market, enterprises cannot rely too much on policies. After all, hiding under the wall, the wall will inevitably be blown down. Self-repairing the windmill, but able to use force to control the wind, let yourself walk in front of the difficulties. Take the first step, and when the policy comes, you can take a step forward.

The positioning of the enterprise itself is equally critical. How to repair windmills and repair large windmills requires companies to make pragmatic choices. Under the premise of a pragmatic view on corporate development, entrepreneurs can think more about their own development. In a huge market like China, there are many well-known companies at home and abroad, and they share most of the market. For the domestic enterprises in development, it is not necessarily realistic to rely on the pressure from these large enterprises to break out of the ranks of strong enterprises. Therefore, it is possible to change the development concept of the enterprise and find its own correct positioning. A new way for many companies to survive and develop. After all, we need “little giants” in our industry.

Creative Thinking

In the "pain period", the pressure of clothing enterprises is most directly derived from the sharp decline in profits. How to maximize profits under difficult conditions is the answer that many companies are eager to find.

It is more direct and effective to create a bigger profit in the production process than to increase profits through changes in product design innovation and business methods. Because the production process is a link that the enterprise itself can strictly control, in the current market environment, the goal of increasing profits for the company is more direct than the product design or management method.

Many clothing companies in Ningbo, China's famous clothing city, have provided us with many valuable experiences in this respect. While ensuring the quality and efficiency of product production, we will put more energy into the “energy saving and consumption reduction” in the production process. Ningbo Shenzhou Knitting Co., Ltd. can be said to be a representative of this aspect. As a company integrating textile, printing and dyeing and garment processing, it insists on “spending money on the cutting edge” from beginning to end, through capital investment in production technology and production equipment. The company's energy consumption per 10,000 yuan of GDP in the production process is less than 0.39 tons of standard coal, and the original cost saved by energy saving and consumption reduction has become an objective "hidden profit."

For Chinese garment enterprises in difficult times, consciously getting rid of the long-standing fixed pattern in the process of development and learning to reverse thinking will help to develop forward in difficult times.

Role models

Although Chinese clothing companies are facing unprecedented pressure, she is not the first industry in China to encounter major difficulties. In 2002, for China, which had just joined the WTO, many industries, such as the automobile industry and the insurance industry, faced tremendous pressure from the international market. But what surprised everyone was that these industries not only did not stop, but showed strong vitality and achieved unprecedented good results.

Taking the insurance industry as an example, I was very worried about the external “shock”. The main reason is that the foreign insurance industry has a history of several hundred years. The technology is mature and experienced, but China’s insurance industry has just started, and it is in its early “developmental period”. Not at the same starting line with others. If our insurance companies and foreign insurance companies were "hard-working" in the market at the time, we would definitely not be rivals. However, if you take advantage of the advanced technology and management of others, and the advantages of “land advantage” and “human harmony”, domestic enterprises will not have the “capital” of competition.

In some respects, our clothing industry is quite similar to the domestic insurance industry at the time. Despite the many differences between the industries, clothing companies can learn from the insurance companies' pressure-taking actions in the past year, and learn from the lessons of "the other way."

Since August 1, the export tax rebate rate for some textiles and garments in China has increased by two percentage points, reaching 13%. This has had a positive impact on the textile and apparel industry in the “pain period”. In fact, as President Du said at the National Conference on Textile Ideological and Political Work, the reason why our textile and garment industry is now in the "pain" is because the current structural adjustment is very strong. But what can be optimistic and foreseeable is that when our structural adjustment victory is completed, the driving force for the operation and development of the entire industry will be difficult to estimate. At that time, clothing companies that have turned pressure into power and will persist will win a new spring.