--Interview with Zhou Zhenyang, Chairman of Shunde Furniture Brand Alliance

Zhou Zhenyang
Chairman of Shunde Furniture Brand Alliance

VOLLODIS Furniture Chairman
MBA, Tsinghua University

Executive Chairman of Shunde Young Entrepreneurs Association
Executive Chairman of Guangdong Furniture Chamber of Commerce
Vice President of the Shunde Furniture Association

"Shunde furniture has been lacking a voice in the industry, probably because everyone is pulling their heads down and busy doing their own business." November 24, Shunde furniture brand alliance chairman Zhou Zhen Yang interviewed by the "furniture - business" reporter, the opening will say the beauty of Shunde furniture people, a number of years, the crazy Shunde furniture people do things high profile, low profile, outside the enterprise to take responsibility for the industry is not enough, the cohesion of the group is not enough.

 

This situation is being changed. Shunde furniture brand alliance was established more than two years ago, has grown to more than 40 members now, for the benefit of the alliance, and around the relevant government, with the relevant manufacturing enterprises and distribution giants to carry out extensive dialogue and communication, Zhou Chairman led a team to travel more than 400,000 kilometres. In China, you can often see the figure of Chairman Zhou and the members of the brand alliance, so that people are happy to see the power of Shunde furniture people unity, happy to hear the voice of Shunde furniture people groups.

After interviewing Chairman Zhou, the reporter has more confidence in the alliance to hold a group of swords, a Shunde furniture of a better future more clear.

Reinventing the "soul of Shunde"
 

 

The interview took place in Longjiang, Shunde, at the VOLLODIS furniture company founded by Zhou Zhen Yang, facing National Highway 325.

The furniture industry belt with National Highway 325 as its axis is so heartening. The national highway runs through the town of Longjiang and through the town of Le Cong, flanked by furniture industry clusters - more than 3,000 furniture manufacturing companies in Longjiang, the world's largest Longjiang Asia International Materials City, and the world's largest furniture sourcing centre, Le Cong Ten Mile Furniture City.

"I believe Shunde furniture has had the glory and success of the past." Zhou Zhen Yang said. His town, Longjiang, has truly realised the "one township, one product" of the developed world, which is the blossoming of furniture manufacturing. Shunde was once the birthplace and pioneer of the upholstered furniture industry in the country. 35 years ago, Li Junjiang from Longshan in Longjiang developed the first sofa of modern significance, demonstratively leading to the following effect, the butterfly effect, and even the cluster effect, gradually forming an industry that also led to the emergence of a "pan-Shunde furniture industry circle" in the neighbouring areas of Zhongshan, Jiangmen, Nanhai and Panyu "This has led to the formation of the largest and most complete furniture industry chain cluster in China and the world. To this day, the revitalisation of Cantonese furniture is fundamentally dependent on the strength of the old school Shunde.

When people from outside speak of Shunde, they first think of it as a place where the economy took off, with products other than Midea appliances and Shunde furniture, with Shunde people writing myths about everything.

But what about the people of Shunde? It's like Japan talking about Japan, full of crisis awareness and worry. So, Zhou Zhen Yang's thoughts from the excitement of past memories, quickly back to the "crisis": "Although Shunde furniture has long been loud, now after all, our mainstream brand with Shenzhen, Dongguan or other sections to compare, the voice is too small."

Indeed, the Shunde model in Dongguan Houjie, by Jiangsu Li-kou, by the Hebei Xianghe copy and innovation. Nearby, Shunde furniture was Dongguan furniture, Shenzhen furniture strong sandwich; far away, by the Sichuan army and Jiangzhe squeeze. As a result of low-key Shunde furniture people are only good at doing things quietly, not good at making noise, so that people mistakenly think that Shunde furniture has been a hero in the twilight years, the waning days, really let Shunde eat a dumb loss. And in fact, Shunde furniture one day did not collapse, such as the national furniture exports this year, negative growth, Shunde but continue to maintain strong growth momentum, the first three quarters of Shunde exports of furniture 5.21 billion yuan, a significant increase of 12.1% over the same period last year.

Shunde furniture people seem to be awakened. "In the past, we were all pulling the cart with our heads down, each sweeping the snow in front of the door, but now it is a rare thing that we can sit together to discuss how to develop our business, adapt to the times and revive the majesty of Shunde furniture." As one of the founders of the Shunde Furniture Brand Alliance, Zhang Yaojing, Managing Director of Nuojia Furniture, is very pleased and recognized the establishment of such an organization, the brand alliance to lead everyone outside the image, internal quality.

A new force in the industry

On 18 August 2012, when the Shunde Furniture Brand was established, Zhu Changling, Chairman of the China National Furniture Association (CNFA), placed high hopes on it, inscribing the words "New strength in the industry, creating new value". Now in just over two years, the Shunde Furniture Brand Alliance has lived up to its mission and is well recognised by the industry.

On 12 November 2014, Zhu Changling gave high praise to the Shunde Furniture Brand Alliance during his visit: "As a new industry organization, the Shunde Furniture Brand Alliance has made many useful explorations and efforts in the process of industry development, especially in the home furnishing stores." A vocal phrase, inspired by the Union enterprises continue to explore and strive for progress.

Zhou Zhenyang told reporters that the Alliance was established more than two years ago, the organization of large and small activities up to more than a hundred times, not only visits between enterprises to strengthen communication, enhance feelings and discuss the development of enterprises; also with the property channel communication, to open up the market for the Alliance enterprises laid a solid foundation; at the same time also to promote cross-regional, cross-field enterprises and industries to exchange and cooperation, the introduction of fresh activities to help promote the enterprise It also promotes cross-regional and cross-sectoral exchanges and cooperation between enterprises and industries, introducing fresh activities and helping to promote more diversified development. All this shows that the brand alliance is on a different platform than before.

Group photo of officers and delegates at the conference

"In the future, we will also build a bridge of graft in the articulation of exhibitions." He gave a new imagination to the mission and value of the Alliance.

Sword pointing to Shunde Smart Manufacturing

Zhou Zhen Yang believes that Shunde furniture has been transformed from the original Shunde manufacturing to Shunde creation, and there is still a great distance from the road of Shunde wisdom, which is the need for each member company to jointly promote Shunde furniture to Shunde wisdom direction, this is an inevitable trend.

For the Shunde intelligent manufacturing, he is this interpretation, Shunde's furniture enterprises must be in the product design, product value-added, market channels, talent channels and other major aspects, continuous optimization and extension. And as a company must have innovative thinking. He gave an example of the recent joint procurement of raw and auxiliary materials proposed by Chen Haoran, the president of Superior Hall Court Furniture, which can effectively reduce the procurement costs of alliance enterprises and do a good job of enterprise development "plus and minus".

Ideas determine the way out. Zhou Zhenyang said, the future competition is definitely the competition of the whole industry chain, including the optimization of supply chain channels, which requires a team, the need for wisdom, to land, and the key lies in the talent, no talent to talk about the development is empty talk.

Talent outflow and talent mobility, has become a bottleneck and shortcomings that restrict the development of Shunde furniture enterprises, to attract quality talent to Shunde, is a long-term project and strategy. In terms of talent attraction, the Union's move can be described as touching the nerves of Shunde furniture, their concept is more recognized by member and non-member enterprises.

"We will build a talent base in Longjiang, the core place of Shunde Furniture, to attract outstanding talents to settle in, to achieve exchange between talents and to promote the stable development of talents." Zhou Zhenyang said this target plan has been declared to the town government and is awaiting government approval. Constructing a talent depression to provide convenient and perfect living conditions for middle and senior level talents will solve the previous practice of disorderly and low-end mode and enhance the competitiveness of the region.

In his opinion, to boost the development of the industry, it is necessary to carry out industry integration, integrating and packaging from brand, talent and resources (capital and logistics), and presenting the most advantageous, core and competitive things to the market and customers. "These two years of activities have also proved that our exploration is worthy of industry recognition and acknowledgement." Zhou Zhenyang added.

Shunde model difficult to replicate

"Shunde furniture has never lacked brands, excellent products with high added value, and industrial chain advantages; what is lacking is integration and cohesion." Zhou Zhenyang macroscopically outlined the entire Shunde furniture advantages and current shortcomings.

So is there any possibility of the Shunde advantage model being copied or overtaken? He paused for a moment to give analysis, Shunde after a long period of accumulation, has formed their own unique advantages, at least the field temporarily can not catch up, replication is also quite difficult.

These two advantages are: First, there is a very complete industrial chain, from raw and auxiliary materials, production enterprises, research and development institutions, skilled production workers and backed by the world's largest sales market in Le Cong. Two, there is the most competitive logistics, with access to the whole country as well as the world from here.

He went on to say that even though the rise of the Sichuan army, the Beijing school south, the Zhejiang school of sandwich, if in a single industry cluster than the strength of the old Shunde furniture power is basically difficult to shake. Now coupled with the rise of furniture e-commerce, will be able to lead the Shunde furniture brand to achieve a second take-off!

2014 double 11, located in Shunde's brand of electricity Lin's Wood strong debut, a sales of 330 million yuan, took the first national furniture e-commerce sales, become the light of hope for Shunde furniture. Shunde to Lin's Wood as the leader of the electric business, and the rest of China's strong electric business is growing in competition, which is proof that Shunde furniture in the road of electric business is building a new advantage.

Not waiting for the whip to rise from the hoof

The President looks glorious to outsiders, but few will really understand the hardships and efforts behind the halo.

According to people close to Zhou Zhenyang, "Chairman Zhou has really worked hard for the Union, and his dedication to the Union is selfless, his feelings for the Union are deep, and the time and energy spent on the Union far exceeds that of his own business. Chairman Zhou has been on the run for more than two years, accumulating more than 400,000 kilometres of travel, and has been a Vip customer of Southern Airlines for several consecutive years."

Many executive chairmen and vice-chairmen of the Shunde Furniture Brand Alliance reflected that Zhou Zhenyang put most of his time and energy into the work of developing and building the alliance, but Warren Tisch's performance did not decline as a result. Zhou Zhenyang told reporters that Valentissima still maintained a 15% growth rate this year. He said that in the past, it was all about micro-management, but now it is about meso-management. Although people are not in the company, they can use the internet and mobile network to achieve communication and control at any time.

In terms of managing the company, Zhou Zhen Yang preaches that "the boss is not the only boss in the company, everyone is the boss, only in this way can the company have a long-term sustainable development." At the same time, he also revealed to us that in order to attract and retain high-level talents, Valentissima will implement a shareholding reform to be fair and efficient, so that those who really pay and take responsibility can enjoy more dividends.
The reporter asked him if he regretted that he had spent less energy on his own business as Chairman. He did not hesitate to answer: "I have never regretted, the Union is everyone, the enterprise is a small family, I am willing to be a Shunde furniture development of the number of hands, and the Union Bureau together to really do something for the family as much as possible!"

Zhou Zhenyang some speech, really let people witness the Shunde confidence and Shunde power. Since a Chinese furniture town has sprouted, taken root, blossomed and come to fruition in Shunde, there must be an inherent logic to it. As the world-renowned prophet Kevin Kelly said, "What you say today, you think is impossible, but it's hard to measure what we'll see in 20 years, and we need to recognise that in the next greatest thing yet to come." Yes, Shunde furniture is only at the very beginning of the frontier and the innovation has only just begun. Shunde furniture will not remain silent and low-profile as the powerful new force that is the Shunde Furniture Brand Alliance grows!

Shunde Furniture Brand Alliance Highlights (2014)

On January 4, 2014, the Alliance reached a strategic partnership with the Beyoncé Group, a hundred billion housing enterprises in Shunde and ten billion furniture industry strong cooperation, creating a benchmark model for the upgrading and transformation of the furniture industry in Shunde.

On 13 January 2014, the Alliance held the 2014 Chinese New Year Party, demonstrating the spirit and new image of Shunde furniture people united and striving for excellence.

On 23 February 2014, the Alliance held its first annual congress and Spring Dinner 2014, during which it visited the Huizhou Guangdong East International Furniture Expo Centre, Huizhou Guanghui Home CBD and Aoda Tree Bear Paint (Huizhou) Co.

On April 1, 2014, it visited Taiping Garden International Home Furnishing Expo City, visited Langdu Kyushu City again, and was invited to participate in the joint investment promotion of Red Star Macalline Chengdu Jinniu Store and Chongqing Neijiang Sweet City Store.

On May 26, 2014, Zhou Zhenyang, Chairman of the Union, led nearly 30 outstanding brand enterprises of the Union to attend the investment promotion conference of Nanchang Yuexing to expand the new cooperation and big development of the Union in Nanchang furniture market.

On May 29, 2014, Zhang Zhihuai, Vice Mayor of Dengfeng City, Henan Province, visited the Alliance and inspected the Alliance Chairman's enterprises such as Valentissima, Jinxing, Junye, Kangbao and France Meishengna.

On 16 June 2014, the Alliance visited China National Furniture Association (CNFA) and was warmly received by Zhu Changling, Chairman of CNFA, Liu Jinliang, Vice Chairman of CNFA, Zhang Bingbing, Vice Chairman and Secretary General, Chen Baoguang, Vice Chairman of CNFA, and Wu Guodong, Vice Secretary General and Director of the Membership Department.

On June 18, 2014, the Alliance and actually Home Group Industry Elite Summit was held in Beijing to further deepen the exchange and cooperation between the Alliance and actually Home Group.

On 27 August 2014, the Alliance visited Yunnan Desheng Home Furnishing Enterprise Group to conduct in-depth exchanges and discussions on the strong cooperation between the Alliance's home furnishing enterprises and Yunnan Desheng.

On 3 September 2014, Huang Hong, general manager of Zhengzhou Golden Horse Triumph CBD, and his party came to the Alliance to discuss specific cooperation matters, and the two sides signed a strategic cooperation agreement together, announcing that important cooperation projects between the Alliance and Zhengzhou Golden Horse Triumph Home CBD were officially landed.

On September 11, 2014, the signing ceremony of the cooperation agreement between Red Star Macalline Beijing-Shanghai-Southwest Region and the Alliance was held, laying the foundation for the next deep-level cooperation between the two sides.

October 11, 2014, Red Star Macalline North East China Region and the Alliance communication will be held in Jinan, Shandong Province.

On October 12, 2014, Fang Runzhong, Secretary-General of Dongguan Famous Furniture Club and his party came to visit the Alliance.

On 18 October 2014, Zhengzhou Golden Horse Triumph Home CBD held the theme activity of "Advancing into the Central Plains - Winning in China". All the chairmen of the Alliance attended the activity and organized more than 100 enterprises in the pan-Foshan Shunde area with nearly 300 people to conduct business negotiations.

On 20 October 2014, the Alliance visited Henan O'Kailong Home Furnishing Group Co., Ltd. and had a compact visit to O'Kailong Home Furnishing Plaza and reached a preliminary cooperation intention with O'Kailong Home Furnishing Group.

On October 29, 2014, Ms. Ren Cheng, Vice President of Actually Home Group, Mr. Wang Ning, General Manager of Actually Shanxi Branch and other senior management of the Group, made a special trip to visit and inspect the Alliance.

On November 4, 2014, Mr. Deng Ruigang, Chairman, Mr. Deng Zhigang, General Manager and Mr. Xie Yongzhong, Executive Director of Mangrove Bay Furniture Group and a 15-member delegation came to the Alliance for a visit and inspection.

On 7 November 2014, a team from the South China region of Red Star Macalline Group came to visit the Alliance.

On 12 November 2014, Mr. Zhu Changling, Chairman of China National Furniture Association, visited the Alliance for inspection and guidance.

On 15 November 2014, the 100th branch of actually home - actually home Wanjia Yanbei Road shop opened in Lanzhou.

*** Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version) ***