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 海补班作业：【企管】超越ODM&OEM，一个中国服装厂的冒险之路 |
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牛仔
头衔: 海归中校
声望: 学员
加入时间: 2004/02/20
文章: 302
海归分: 39055
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作者：牛仔 在 海归商务 发贴, 来自【海归网】 http://www.haiguinet.com
原文摘要：
谁能想到，Esquel终於赢得NIKE的单子竟来自于老虎伍兹在电视上的一个镜头？
在 2002年Georgia 的一次高尔夫球比赛转播中，NIKE高尔夫用品公司的老总David Hagler发现伍兹的NIKE牌POLO衫的领子因不耐湿热的天气而打起了小卷，实在是丢人。於是该老总马上打电话给Esquel的西雅图办事处，表示如果他们可以做出防起卷领子的POLO衫的话，NIKE的订单之门就从此打开。办事处首代自不敢懈怠，马上通知在广东的设计师和化工师开始实验，数星期后攻关小组就拿出6个样板并带到佛罗里达通过了现场耐候性实验。接下来，自然顺利挤掉原来的竞争对手，成为NIKE新的供应商。
和大多数同行一样，Esquel在1978年起步时也是一家以低成本、大批量、长交货期为核心业务方式的厂商，并和当时如日中天的KMART建立了买卖关系。然而，随着80年代中期后越来越激烈的同质竞争的出现，Esquel决定另辟蹊径，向高档成衣商演变。在大量投资了设备、技术后，Esquel迎来了一段获利的蜜月期，从做KMART这样的无品牌低档成衣加工商，升格为象POLO Ralph Lauren 和 Tommy 这样的品牌成衣加工商。然而好景不长，很快竞争对手也升级了加工能力，威胁 Esqual的市场。面对挑战，Esquel寻找到了新的稀缺资源--特殊棉纺线。从1998年始，Esquel和中国西北地区的棉花农场签定了长年的长绒棉收购合同，并投巨资引进了先进的染色、纺线设备，成功转型为专做高档成衣、拥有1000多种纺线、拥有整个供应链的技工一体型成衣商。
读后感
和恨不得连CEO都外包出去的美国企业相比，Esquel的做法似乎是在自寻死路。垂直整合需要借更多的钱、占用更多的资金、学习新的技术、管理更多的员工…… 同时要面对更多的风险: 万一并购的棉纺线不合客户口味了怎么办? 万一竞争对手也有了这种纺线怎么办? 万一发生资金周转困难了怎么办? Esquel是在赌, 赌什么呢?
1, 客户关系: 做过销售的都知道, 寻找一个好的拜访客户的理由是成为优秀业务员的基本功之一. 对於企业而言, 不断创造出让潜在客户耳目一新的资讯也是排挤竞争对手、赢得生意机会的重要手段。
Esquel通过耐心的公关，把自身技术优势的信息不断灌输给NIKE。终於趁对手有问题的时候挤了进去。可以说，Esquel的垂直整合是其推销加工服务的独特卖点之一。
2, 稀缺资源：新疆的高质棉花是越来越出名了。犹如法国波尔多和美国那帕谷的红酒一样，新疆棉花也可以成为纺织业内有产地标签的名牌。随着纯天然环保概念的流行，谁占有的优质棉花原料资源越多，谁的市场力量就越强。
3, 专业精神：Esquel以一间数万人规模的大厂放弃做自有品牌 (仅有派牌服饰在国内试销) ，甘作国外名牌的打工仔，是深谙韬晦之术的。精于市场运作、把制造全部外包的品牌商家已经享受惯了坐玻璃写字楼、和媒体、零售商吃喝玩乐、训斥供应商的大爷日子。很少见到有重新向下整合加工厂的。孰不知，他们的身家性命是掌握在供应商手中的。因为在供应商眼里，买家的生意状况是透明的。但反过来却不成立，因供应商有随时另投明主或树自有品牌等不可预测的可能。Esquel在西雅图的办事处除了第一时间伺候好本土客户外，也是学习客户市场运作，伺机打响品牌的桥头堡。从Esquel的故事联想到台湾广达、宏基的成功史，再想到国内品牌手机70%都是韩国台湾组装的现状，不禁为那些自夸为市场运作大师、实际对产品技术一知半解的名牌们捏一把汗。
P.S. 在Esquel的网站上看到该公司和国内名校合办的MBA实习项目，为该公司的进取心再次叫好。
商务英文
glitch：small problem
It's also risky, exposing Esquel to glitches that could occur anywhere along the multistep process and requiring it to invest large amounts to keep its machinery up to date
unorthodox：unconventional
Esquel executives concede that the company's unorthodox approach often looks as if it doesn't add up.
原文
Tiger's New Threads
Champ's Wilted Polo Collar
Appalled Nike, Which Proved
Boon for Chinese Shirt Maker
By GABRIEL KAHN
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
GAOMING, China -- As Tiger Woods cruised toward victory at the Masters in Augusta, Ga., in April 2002, executives at Nike Inc. looked on in horror. By the 18th hole, Mr. Woods was 12 under par, but the heat and humidity were laying waste to the collar of his signature Nike polo shirt.
Watching Mr. Woods receive the winner's green jacket, his collar a crumpled mess, was the "best and worst moment of my life," says David Hagler, the director of apparel for Nike Golf. There was Tiger's burgundy collar, decomposing on national television. It didn't help that the same image showed up
on the cover of that week's Sports Illustrated.
The next morning, Betsy Hentz, the Seattle-based director of merchandising for Esquel Apparel Inc., a subsidiary of Hong Kong shirt maker Esquel Group, received a phone call. Nike wanted to re-engineer its polo-shirt collars -- the wilt-prone ones were made by an Esquel rival -- from scratch, creating one that wouldn't buckle in the heat.
Esquel designers and chemists in China began work on a new fabric using special technologies to create resilient fibers. Within weeks, the Chinese company flew six prototypes to Florida, where the May weather was humid enough for Nike to stress-test them. By October, shirts with the new collars were rolling off Esquel's assembly lines.
Esquel's ability to develop and produce a new product in a few months -- lightning-fast by textile-industry standards -- derives from a unique edge it has carved in the cutthroat apparel business. The 47,000-employee company owns or controls every link in its supply chain -- from the factories that stitch the cloth to the spinning mills that make the yarn, and even the fields that grow the cotton. That means the company can "crack new problems quickly," says Ms. Hentz, because it controls every step in the process.
It's a bold approach in an industry that is increasingly focused on specialization. It's also risky, exposing Esquel to glitches that could occur anywhere along the multistep process and requiring it to invest large amounts to keep its machinery up to date. But it is also a sign of how producers in China are changing the way the global apparel game is played.
By handling more of the core functions of fashion in Asia, from design to fabric innovation, Esquel can get new products on store shelves faster. And it has allowed the company to position itself as a crucial one-stop shop for big labels like those of Nordstrom Inc. and Nike. "They can go to a customer and say, 'We own the whole supply chain, no one else has to get involved,' " says Mohan Komanduri of Kurt Salmon Associates, a retail-industry consulting firm that has worked for Esquel.
That ability allows Esquel to "make sure their claws are into their customers pretty deeply," Mr. Komanduri adds. "They don't want to be in a place where their customers will jump if there is a lower-priced offering."
Esquel got its start in 1978 as a low-cost, high-volume supplier to big retailers. But the company, which is still a closely held, family-run business, was soon getting squeezed by steadily falling prices for apparel. "Kmart was our biggest customer, 25% of our volume," recalls K.L. Lee, the executive director. "Our business was built on big orders, low prices and long lead times."
As more textile factories sprang up in China in the mid-1980s, there was always someone with a lower bid. Esquel thought it would distinguish itself by offering higher-quality garments. "Then we wouldn't need Kmart, we could trade up," says Mr. Lee.
Esquel bought expensive new equipment and trained its workers on it. But its edge in quality lasted only a few years, as other factories raced to escape the low margins at the bottom of the textile heap. In 1990, the company set out to climb the next rung, establishing its own weaving operations where it could produce high-quality fabric -- something its competitors couldn't match.
"That was the beginning of our backward integration," Mr. Lee says. Kmart (now Kmart Holding Corp.) left for cheaper suppliers, and Esquel replaced it with labels like those of Polo Ralph Lauren Corp., Tommy Hilfiger Corp. and Lands' End (now a unit of Sears, Roebuck & Co.).
That work soon had Esquel seeking hard-to-find yarns for its special fabrics, and it saw a new way to carve an advantage -- locking in supply. In 1998, it began establishing long-term lease agreements with farmers in China's northwest to produce long-staple cotton, which is used to make finer, stronger fabrics. Its own cotton now accounts for about 10% of Esquel's total needs and is used almost exclusively in its highest-end shirts.
At one end of Esquel's sprawling, 19,500-worker factory complex in Gaoming, in China's southern Guangdong province, bales of fluffy, white cotton are slowly sucked into a machine that turns it into a coarse yarn. Several steps in the process later, it is a fine thread, which is then woven into broad sheets of fabric. The fabric is dyed, dried and wrapped onto large rollers. At another end of the complex, workers bent over sewing machines stitch together the collars, pockets and sleeves of what are soon to be Tommy Hilfiger knit shirts. The process, from raw cotton to finished garment, can take several days.
Over the past few years, as Esquel moved more tasks in-house, it had to swallow some major wastage, says Mr. Lee. A year ago, for example, when Esquel upgraded to state-of-the-art German dyeing machines, it took six months for the company's technicians to figure out the proper temperature and water content needed to attain optimal results; in the process, a lot of fabric was spoiled and discarded.
What's more, maintaining the necessary machinery and technology requires vast amounts of capital in an industry that operates on razor-thin margins. Esquel, which produces roughly 60 million shirts a year, would not disclose its annual revenue or gross margins.
Some in the textile business consider Esquel's strategy unwise. "I think it's better when each part of the supply chain is separated," says Steven Feniger, the chief executive of Hong Kong apparel-sourcing company Linmark Group Ltd. During a 20-year career at British clothing chain Marks & Spencer, he says, "the factories we used to own accounted for 10% of the turnover [revenue] and 90% of the problems."
Esquel executives concede that the company's unorthodox approach often looks as if it doesn't add up.
"Vertical integration is difficult to manage and has a high demand on assets," says the company's chairwoman, Marjorie Yang. But Esquel says it stays ahead only by offering something unique -- such as more than 1,000 different fabrics each year.
Still, Mr. Lee says that any advantage it gains in the market is short-lived, as competitors quickly mimic its products. Now Esquel is considering trademarking its own fabrics in order to give them added cachet -- and higher prices.
"It's all a continuation of trying to build a competitive edge," he says.
作者：牛仔 在 海归商务 发贴, 来自【海归网】 http://www.haiguinet.com
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 海补班作业：【企管】超越ODM&OEM，一个中国服装厂的冒险之路 -- 牛仔 - (9270 Byte) 2004-4-01 周四, 06:21 (3423 reads)
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