News Observation: Behind the rise of Wujiang’s garment industry against the trend
The clothing industry is one of Wujiang’s traditional advantageous industries. Although it has experienced a series of unfavorable factors such as national macro-control in 2019, continuous appreciation of the RMB, credit tightening, export tax rebate reduction, rising labor and raw material costs, slowdown in external demand, and the international financial crisis, Wujiang’s garment industry has Instead of falling, it has achieved impressive results.
Data from the Wujiang Garment Association shows that in 2019, the city’s clothing output reached 330 million pieces, an increase of about 10% over the previous year, which is much higher than the 5.92% growth rate of the national clothing industry. Statistics from the Wujiang Entry-Exit Inspection and Quarantine Bureau show that in the first four months of 2019, Wujiang exported 4,190 batches of legally inspected clothing worth US$107.687 million, a year-on-year increase of 3.9% and 4.9%. The products are exported to the United States, Japan, Canada, European Union and other countries and regions.
What is the reason that makes Wujiang’s clothing so popular in the international and domestic markets?
Yang Zongxian, president of Wujiang Garment Association, analyzed this and said that paying more attention to corporate technological innovation, brand building, and management innovation are the magic weapons for Wujiang garment enterprises to overcome challenges in the face of severe situations.
Technological innovation
Occupying the commanding heights of the industry
Today, as competition in the apparel industry becomes increasingly fierce, technological innovation has become the consensus of apparel companies in order to gain a foothold and expand their share. This has become particularly prominent since last year.
Suzhou Qingtian Enterprise Development Co., Ltd., located in Zhenze Town, is at the forefront of many clothing companies in independent technological innovation. As early as December 2006, the company established the Wujiang Clothing Information Development Engineering Technology Research Center, cooperating with scientific research institutions such as Donghua University and Shanghai Textile Science Institute, and invested more than 11 million yuan in more than two years. No expense was spared to introduce more than 70 senior talents from home and abroad, which put the company on a new track of information management and made a qualitative leap in clothing design and production.
Yang Zongxian, chairman of the company, said that the existence of the center has brought two significant advantages to the company. One is that the variety development capabilities have been significantly improved. Last year, the company obtained more than 170 clothing design patents and applied for 5 invention patents, establishing a relative competitive advantage among its peers. The other is that the company’s operating capabilities continue to increase. Regardless of the batch size required by the customer, the difficulty of the variety, or the complexity of the pattern, the company can use advanced equipment and information management to carry out variety renovations in a timely manner. In the first quarter of this year, the company’s sales revenue increased by 25% year-on-year, continuing to maintain a good growth and development trend.
Speaking of technological innovation, Wujiang Fashifei Garment Co., Ltd. also has its own unique experience.
The 603 design patents and 10 utility model patents in 2019 are enough to prove the company’s emphasis on technological innovation and the strong strength of its R&D team. As the only company in the clothing industry in Wujiang area with a well-known Chinese trademark, the company’s general manager Li Xinglong told reporters that as people’s requirements for clothing have increased, multiple varieties and small batches have become the consensus of many manufacturers, which requires companies to increase research and development. intensity. Since last year, according to the fashion trend of the clothing market, the company has invested more than 7 million yuan in research and development funds, introduced more than 5 million yuan of German computerized flat knitting machines, and developed personalized pure cashmere sweaters, temperature-adjusted cashmere sweaters, and take-off sweaters. High-end products such as style woolen sweaters are popular among consumers. Li Xinglong believes that in an era when the market is constantly segmented, only by constantly seeking innovation and differentiation and increasing the added value of products can we take the lead in the competition.
Nowadays, it is common in Wujiang’s clothing industry to improve product quality through technological innovation. Some large-scale enterprises have linked up with Zhejiang University, Suzhou University, etc. for factory-school scientific research, and 5 enterprises have been awarded the titles of technology center and engineering information center above the municipal level respectively. Many companies have achieved zero breakthroughs in invention patents. In response to the trend that the international market has increasingly high requirements for clothing quality, safety and hygiene, some clothing companies have established fabric laboratories and purchased advanced instruments and equipment from abroad to ensure the fabric quality of exported clothing. These measures will give enterprises more leverage to win in future market competition.
Brand Innovation
Grasp the domestic and foreign markets
Once upon a time, Wujiang’s garment industry was mainly based on the business model of undertaking foreign processing. Most enterprises were in a state of having factories but no brands, quantity but no name, and products but no trademarks. There were less than 20 garment enterprises in the city out of more than 200. It has its own brands, but many well-known brands in the international market are produced by Wujiang clothing companies. In recent years, more and more clothing companies have begun to realize the importance of brand innovation, and clothing companies represented by Qingtian and Fashifei have begun the practice of creating brands.
Qingtian Garment is a clothing company that started out as an OEM company. On the basis of doing a good job in foreign trade production, in response to the increasingly unstable export environment, the company began to pay attention to the domestic market, actively carry out independent brand building, and explore domestic sales. new way. At present, the company has 4 independent brands including “TEGGE” (Jiangsu Province famous brand product), and has invested more than 30 million yuan to build21 brand-operated stores and franchised stores. Yang Zongxian said that in the past, the unit price of each piece of OEM clothing was only tens of yuan, and the profit was only a few yuan. Now, Qingtian’s “TEGGE” brand pants and casual wear are priced from 498 yuan to more than 3,000 yuan a piece (piece), and the profit per piece has increased significantly. Driven by the huge gap in product added value, companies have no reason not to develop and expand their own brands and sales networks.
Building the brand is also the direction that Li Xinglong, the boss of Fashifei, has been working hard. After years of layout, Fashifei has opened more than 300 specialty stores or agent sales points across the country. These points have been carefully selected and decorated uniformly, reflecting the marketing style of Fashifei. The construction and development of the national sales network has had an immediate effect on improving the brand image.
“From OEM to brand innovation is the only way for Wujiang’s clothing industry to upgrade.” Zhou Haisheng, vice president and secretary-general of Wujiang Garment Association, said.
Management Innovation
No link should be missing
Details determine success or failure, and the same is true for a company.
What is missing in the 21st century? Talent! Several large clothing companies in Wujiang are well aware of this and have worked hard on team management. Enterprises such as Meishanzi and Qingtian regularly provide training and quality education for employees and managers; Fashifei invested more than 6 million yuan last year to introduce an information software management system, and everything from raw material procurement to market network construction is integrated into the management system; Qingtian Enterprise The information management project has been applied for a provincial information application demonstration project; clothing companies in Taoyuan, the hometown of clothing, make full use of the Taoyuan Vocational Training School to organize employees and managers to train on technology, marketing, labor contracts and other related knowledge, so that they can The quality of enterprise cadres and employees continues to improve.
Under the premise of continuous compression of profits in the clothing industry, cost saving has become a problem that many CEOs are thinking about. Jiashida Garment’s energy-saving experience is a typical example. The person in charge of the company told reporters that in order to reduce costs, the company replaced hundreds of fluorescent lamps in the factory with energy-saving lamps; spent 50,000 yuan to buy energy-saving cabinets and installed them in the power distribution room, so that the current output power is close to 100%; the workshop 24 5-horsepower high-power air conditioners were replaced with “earth air conditioners” that use fans to blow out water mist for cooling, which can save nearly 100,000 yuan in electricity a summer. The company has also implemented many energy-saving measures such as steam recycling and energy-saving irons.
Customers are the “food and clothing parents” of enterprises, especially in the context that many enterprises in the city focus on foreign trade exports. Entrepreneurs feel this. A financial crisis caused Qingtian Enterprise’s original customers in four Nordic countries to go bankrupt. Fortunately, it still had more than 80 customers in more than 20 countries, so the enterprise was not greatly affected. Therefore, how to consolidate and develop customers has become a major task that Yang Zongxian devotes himself to. Coincidentally, Junya Garment Co., Ltd. located in Taoyuan attributed the company’s good development trend of declining single customer orders but increasing customer groups to “quality and reputation”. Try to meet the customer’s requirements as much as possible, even if you work overtime overnight, you still have to make sample clothes. This is the way for Junya to remain invincible. At present, strengthening contact with customers has become an important part of the clothing industry operators to take advantage of the competition.
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