Who guides the local furniture industry

This Chinese industry with an output value of more than 200 billion yuan, which is said to be listed as the fourth largest industry in China with home appliances, IT and automobiles, why is it only caused by the fierce trade barriers with the United States?

Why is this "strong" brand and enterprise such as IKEA born in a country that is becoming the world's furniture "world factory"?

This Chinese industry with an output value of more than 200 billion, why did not create a benchmark enterprise that is sufficient to guide the entire industry?

Let us revisit a story more than half a century ago.

"God, how much space is this. Let's take our feet off and put them under the table." Gillis. Glenn muttered to himself. In 1953, in the remote town of Amhert in Northern Sweden, IKEA founder Kamprad was arguing with a young man who was recruited for advertising, when he took a photo of a table in the product catalogue. Language, the world's first furniture flat packaging was born. This seems to be quite normal today, which essentially opened a revolution.

In the history of business, there are some ordinary days that have created an extraordinary history. But in too much time, perhaps Chinese companies have not been able to revisit these days.

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Still don't want to go around. Everyone knows that we are actually paying attention to the direction of China's local furniture industry (home). The reason is not only included in the slightly questionable industry questioning, but also reflected in the reality of corporate anxiety.

This Chinese industry with an output value of more than 200 billion yuan, which is said to be listed as the fourth largest industry in China with home appliances, IT and automobiles, why is it only caused by the fierce trade barriers with the United States?

Why is this "strong" brand and enterprise such as IKEA born in a country that is becoming the world's furniture "world factory"?

This Chinese industry with an output value of more than 200 billion, why did not create a benchmark enterprise that is sufficient to guide the entire industry?

Undoubtedly, in the face of the "hard" trade barriers against China on the two sides of the Atlantic in the past two years, on the stage of the strategic strategy of China and the United States, the Chinese furniture (home) industry has received high attention from the industry for the first time. When the Chinese people unexpectedly felt their overseas competitiveness, the fact that the industry with an output value of more than 200 billion yuan actually divided more than 50,000 enterprises once again confirmed the huge and fragile competitiveness of the "world factory".

Undoubtedly, this country is simultaneously becoming a huge world furniture factory and market. There is no shortage of learning and innovation efforts for companies involved in and living. However, when sharing the high-growth economic benefits, and facing the contrast between huge industries and companies, the industry is accustomed to defending the industry with the characteristics of "scatter, chaos, and poor". Of course, it also includes the short-lived business history that is often mentioned: only 20 years! In response to the lack of representative companies in the local furniture industry. Many times, this is a fact, and it sounds reasonable. But it also obscures the truth. In fact, companies such as Taiwan Sound, which are exclusively produced for the US market, have become among the top billion companies. Even if the IKEA, which is regarded as the number one opponent, purchases in China, it has far surpassed its traditional international. The place of purchase - Poland, ranked first with a ratio of about 20%... These facts show that production capacity and scale are not the core issues of the lack of representative enterprises in China's domestic furniture industry.

So, is it only time that they lack? This may also be a plausible answer.

Time itself does not decisively create a company. The height of the company is deeply rooted in its value identification itself and its source. In an era marked by the so-called "China's rise", when local companies compete to compete in the fierce battlefield for the "middle class" market, they will evolve "design" into a symbol of dividing the consumer class, or indulging in the Chinese real estate industry. When the unusually rich movements of wealth make commercial real estate a magic weapon, local companies may be deviating from the main coordinates of their time, or they may be losing opportunities to grow into representative enterprises.

Quite a few times, the industry is also accustomed to attribute the performance of those companies that are outstanding to some kind of "advanced" in the imagination. Ignore the fact that IKEA was born in a remote town full of hail. Just as the outstanding companies that emerged in the history of business have succeeded in overcoming the dilemmas that human beings must experience in modern life together.

Therefore, going back to the times and value itself, what kind of company is this? It is not a ridiculous question.

Out of the fog of the times

Undoubtedly, the new history of the local furniture industry began more than 20 years ago, and "communism" as a perfect social rescue movement declared failure.

When the omnipotent state power, in a tragic historical turmoil, began to withdraw from the trend of Chinese family life, when the portrait of the leader is no longer in the center of the home... At this time, the most important issue is the Chinese who are getting richer. The ultimate life space is ultimately dominated by what "ism" is? This term is the term "modern" that was later honored by the Chinese. The consumption trend that echoes and satisfies the Chinese people's most human needs for new life styles constitutes a common source of local enterprises.

Facts have proved that this kind of consumption trend that has lasted for 20 years, the influence on Chinese enterprises is ultimately longer than any political trend in the ideology, which is the centuries-old corporate secret that the Chinese have been eager to establish. Where.

And this trend is hot and cold all over the world. Henry in 1941. R. Russ declared the "American Century" as the issuer of Time, claiming that "democracy wins, just like the lightning in the sky traversing the old world of snails." But in secular life, democracy There is no victory. The public is struggling for the so-called expensive modern life. The "middle class" life has evolved into a dream of a noble and unique life in every country. As Veblen saw in modern life in The Theory of the Leisure Class, money wealth became the basis for honor and respect, and became the standard for evaluating everything, regardless of religion or beauty... but in re-marketing China. in this way.

Then, what kind of business philosophy and action can modern life style, beauty, design, and enterprise be unified? Is it better life, lower price, better life, higher price? Furniture (home) Companies that do not seem to be in the ranks of the Times are actually in the first line of the times.

In the ice of Amhert, Ingwa. Kamprad, a young businessman who accidentally entered the furniture industry in 1948, began his own thinking and action. From spontaneous to conscious. Kamprad’s thoughts not only originated from his simple hometown of Simalan, but also crossed the East and West. At a furniture exhibition in Milan, Italy in 1950, Kamprad witnessed the gorgeousness of the exhibition and the dark family life of the citizens. Further questioning: Why do the poor have to endure such ugly things? The good things can only be those elites. Is it a big price to enjoy? His questioning and business actions are accompanied by IKEA's progress from Amhut to the world, from Poland, which was in the "communist" camp, to the United States that has evolved into the "number one capitalist" country. ... even when doing the initial trade with China, ask yourself "How to do it? What is the welfare of the people?" This basically restores an idea, "Let the majority of the people buy the price at a price they can afford." Cheap everyday items. This is closely related to the real so-called democracy. "So, "democratization" is a fairly appropriate business philosophy, which makes design, function, price "three in one", and in 1976 "a veteran of a furniture company" Convergence is a corporate doctrine (religion).

The success of Kamprad's "democratic" home business model is not a great but isolated event in the history of modern business, but rather a Swedish part of modern business, such as George. Eastman "democratized" the film, making photography a civilian event, Henry. Ford has made ordinary people own cars, liberating a backward country in space... Until the recent IT and Internet wave, there was a PC business dream on every table... Ebay-style global free market Dream: Everyone, regardless of their origin, or even their physical disability, can trade in such an e-commerce market...

In an era when China is becoming a "world furniture factory", it is indeed necessary to revisit the coordinates of the modern business spirit. This is essentially a contest about the style of modern life and its claims. The value of the company is not to create the virtual middle-class life scenes of its own virtuality, not to use it as a sign of class or class, to turn design, price and aesthetics into barriers to segment the crowd, but to intensify and re-divide again. Class (hierarchy). This will make the "middle class", an unusually vague word in China, even more scarce. When it loses the quality of political democracy, it also has a taste of power in life.

Even when thinking about traditional Chinese furniture culture, we have already understood that the simple and clean furniture of the Ming Dynasty cannot be extricated when it is different from the flamboyant power. This probably also shows that the "Chinese style" that was popular in the West in the 18th century did not become the benchmark of modern furniture.

In such an era, the pursuit of excellence in the survival of local companies can only stem from an idea. The discovery and shaping of modern Chinese home life styles is also the discovery and shaping of modern Chinese life and values. This style has got rid of the control of private power by state power, and the liberation of individuality and humanity, but it cannot be surrendered to the power and vanity of money...

Such "modernity" allows the Chinese to no longer simply live in the Western style, or to copy the Western style, or to cross the traditional Chinese and Eastern elements to survive.

Is there a local company that can act on such a "trinity" to achieve its own business value?

In the era of "world furniture factory", let us pursue the local benchmark.