Appliance companies urgently need to solve the demand crisis

Under the influence of the debt crisis in Europe and the United States, in 2012, the global home appliance industry continued its relative slump in the previous market. According to data released by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), global digital home appliance sales decreased by 1% year-on-year in 2012. How does the relative decline of the global home appliance market affect global business development? What was the development trend of the global home appliance market in 2013? The “Economic Information Daily” reporter interviewed Mr. Luo Qingqi, a specialist in the home appliance industry, on these issues.

"Economic Information Daily": In 2012, the global home appliance market is not optimistic. The global sales of home appliances have generally declined. Many enterprises in Europe, America, Japan, and South Korea have fallen into a state of declining performance or even a loss. How do you view this phenomenon?

Luo Qingqi: The development dilemma faced by the global home appliance industry is essentially a manifestation of the fact that there is no effective docking between market demand and product supply. It is not so much a crisis of the market brought about by the economic recession that it is defined as the development of enterprises in new industries. Stages of demand management crisis.

In the era of Internet economy, the fragmentation of the global industrial chain was fragmented, and the opaque state of information in previous links has been completely subverted by the information tools that are transparent in the Internet age. In other words, at the stage of the development of traditional industries, users are separated out of the industrial development process and only exist as product receivers and buyers. However, with the development of network information tools, users are accelerating their integration into the entire industry chain in the form of big data, especially in the context of the economic downturn. Demand individuation and fragmentation further amplify user involvement in product design and R&D. Desire, this has become a new change in market demand. At this time, most enterprises still use the thinking under the traditional development model, instead of incorporating users into the entire product circulation, they have adopted the previous large-scale manufacturing model, which has resulted in a relatively large global industrial scale and market demand. The disconnection has triggered a demand management crisis in the entire industry.

In addition, the global inflation crisis triggered by the implementation of quantitative easing monetary policy in some developed country economies has also become an important cause of current market conditions. The excess liquidity of the US dollar, the world’s major settlement currency, has exacerbated expectations of global inflation and has made global customers’ purchases more cautious. On the other hand, it has also pushed up global raw material prices, which has increased the operating costs of the entire industry and exacerbated companies. Operational risk.

"Economic Information Daily": With the continuous rise in raw material prices and other comprehensive costs, global appliance companies are facing multiple pressures, do you think the current home appliance companies should be how to deal with the ever-changing market environment?

Luo Qingqi: The biggest impact brought about by the turmoil in the global market is not the change in market sales, but a test of the logic of traditional industry operations. On the surface, the logic of the company's development trajectory is in line with the logic of the economic trajectory is correct, but this idea of ​​relying on the external environmental dividend clearly gives the company's development to the ever-changing external market, losing the self-dominance of the development of the enterprise. Sex.

In fact, no matter how the economic environment changes, market demands are objectively present. The key is how companies capture and how to meet. According to the traditional concept, in the economic recession, enterprises should reduce staff and cut output, but in the Internet era, the more economic turbulent enterprises should increase their staff and increase efficiency, and this increase is to continuously expand the perception of user needs. In other words, in times of economic turmoil, companies need to subvert the traditional development model and allow consumers to participate in the research and development of the company's laboratories. Digital data will be used to incorporate user data into the company's innovation process, and users will be guided to research and develop and produce new products. Development model.

Users participate in the product innovation process is not a simple purchase behavior, but enter the entire industry chain with the role of the designer, that is, the company transforms from the large-scale manufacturing to the large-scale customization in the traditional era, creating a user-friendly Internet for the user. The open customization platform of the characteristics of the development of the times, companies based on this platform to integrate resources to meet the needs of users of innovation, so that the Internet era of corporate innovation is not a concept of self-innovation, but a concept of his innovation.

"Economic Information Daily": The current domestic market stimulus policies for domestic demand have been withdrawn, there is no obvious sign of recovery in foreign market demand, how can Chinese companies better enhance their competitiveness?

Luo Qingqi: During the booming period, the entire market environment “subsidizes” enterprises. In the period of market recession, the government has introduced stimulus policies to “subsidize” companies. However, these subsidies are only selective subsidies for the external environment and have uncertainties. How companies turn elective subsidies into sustainable subsidies and realize their own "subsidies" is the root cause for enhancing competitiveness.

At present, the external demand market is relatively sluggish. At this time, companies should not pin their development hopes on policies. The key is how to exercise their internal strength. That is to say, companies should not avoid or even fear economic turmoil, but should embrace the turbulent economic environment because From the perspective of the entire economic development, economic turmoil is the norm. If companies blindly place their development power on the development of the external environment, they can only fall into the trap of being held by changes in the external environment.

Under the current industrial environment, whether it is digging the domestic market or expanding into the overseas market, the scale of the company is not the largest, but who is faster, that is, how to quickly achieve the subversion of development logic, completely subvert the previous factory thinking The manufacturing pattern and strategic shape form a custom-user-enterprise R & D - a new type of industry development logic. The qualitative change in business logic can truly bring about qualitative changes in the company's ability to adapt to changes in the external market environment.