Research On Internationalization Strategy Of LI-NING Brand

Since the reform and opening up, especially after China’s accession to WTO, China’s economy has experienced a stage of rapid development, people’s living standards have been greatly improved and the2008Beijing Olympic Games has made huge success, all of which greatly promoted the rapid development of China’s sports industry that provided a very good opportunity for development of China’s sports goods industry. At the same time, the world’s major sports goods giants began to enter China to compete in this attractive market. And many new emerging domestic sports goods companies also expanded their scale, which made sports goods market full of opportunities and fierce competition.Brand internationalization is the product of background of international economy. After entering the21st century, the pace of economic globalization accelerated and the world economy showed a situation of market internationalization, multinational enterprises and capital, and intense competition. Brand internationalization has become important strategy of development for an enterprise or a country, sports goods enterprises included. Internationally renowned sports brands such as Nike, Adidas, and Puma began to enter China’s market and quickly open up the market and divided the domestic sports market by virtue of their strong financial power and brand campaign. China’s sports goods enterprises with LI-NING Company as the leader began to adjust their strategies to implement strategy of brand internationalization.LI-NING is an important sports brand in the minds of Chinese consumers. LI-NING Company that was established in1990by the famous gymnast Mr. Li Ning has been occupying a high position in the sports goods market of our country since its inception and its market share has been ahead of other domestic sports goods brands. LI-NING Company made tremendous achievements in the field of sports goods after more than twenty years of its establishment. However, as the process of market economy continued to accelerate, competitiveness of LI-NING brand began to decay due to double impact of foreign brands and domestic emerging brands. Nowadays, LI-NING brand has encountered unprecedented growth bottlenecks. With intense competition in the market, the key points to compete with NIKE, Adidas and other famous international brand are:whether LI-NING Company can grasp the process of market segmentation, produce more specialized international products and make more accurate market position; whether LI-NING can take advantage of its superior resources, strategizing in a surprise move, root in the mainland and have a foothold in the world; whether LI-NING can establish a strong brand advantage to improve its brand awareness and influence.Success of the2008Beijing Olympic Games is a good chance for China’s domestic enterprises to go abroad; the vision of Olympic flame lit by Mr. Li Ning is a powerful springboard for LI-NING brand to become renowned world brand. LI-NING Company only can find problems and shortcomings in the process of brand building, make an appropriate market position and design a marketing program of future development combined with its corporate strategic objectives so that the company can establish its strong brand advantage transformed into the boost power to enhance its competitiveness, seize a good opportunity of the world’s booming sports industry to occupy more market share and make LI-NING brand truly global famous. LI-NING Company began to put forward brand internationalization strategy in1999but it was relatively blind without systematic planning before2004. And the company set a strategic developing goal after2004: from2004to2008, to focus on domestic market, to build an international brand. This is the first stage goal in fulfilling its internationalization strategy. The main task of LI-NING is to build international brand; from2009to2013, it will be the preparation stage of internationalization. LI-NING will focus on improving its internationalization capability and laying a foundation for comprehensive internationalization of the next stage; from2014to2018, it is the stage of comprehensive internationalization. LI-NING will realize its dream of brand internationalization step by step. Based on the above reasons, research on the brand internationalization strategy of LI-NING has practical significance.This paper mainly includes:The introduction chapter describes the research background and significance of the thesis, literature review, and thesis framework. The methods used in this paper are literature material, logical analysis and PEST.The second chapter is relevant theory review. This chapter mainly introduces the concept of brand, brand internationalization and enterprise strategy and relevant theory of brand internationalization:pattern of brand internationalization, measurement of brand internationalization and strategy of brand internationalization. Finally, strategic analysis tools are introduced:PEST analysis method and Porter’s Five Forces Model. This chapter is the main theoretical basis for this thesis.The third chapter is analysis of external environment of LI-NING Company. This chapter mainly introduces status of China’s sports goods industry and analyzes external environment of LI-NING Company with PEST analysis tool including political, economic, sociocultural and technological environment. Through analysis, we can know that the overall external environment is beneficial for LI-NING Company to implement its brand internationalization strategy and demand for international sports brands is currently very strong, which contributes to its strategy implementation to become well-known international brands.The fourth chapter is study on industry environment of LI-NING Company. First, this chapter introduces economic characteristics of sports goods industry. Second, the chapter analyzes the international and domestic environment of LI-NING Company including:suppliers, buyers, new entrants, substitutes and industrial rivalry. Through analysis we can draw that competition in China’s sports goods market is becoming more intense, foreign sports goods companies pay more attention to.China’s market and domestic emerging sports goods companies raise rapidly, all of which causes great challenges and threats to LI-NING Company. In this case, LI-NING Company badly need to integrate more outstanding international resources, enhance its brand competitiveness and expand its international markets through the brand internationalization strategy in order to gain better development.The fifth chapter is a current internationalization of LI-NING brand. First, this chapter introduces the development status and process of brand internationalization of LI-NING Company. Second, the chapter gives basic introduction of current brand internationalization:LI-NING’s internationalization mode is "difficult to easy", the degree of LI-NING’s brand internationalization is still low and lies in the initial stage, and current overseas markets of LI-NING Company are mainly in Europe, U.S.A and Southeast Asian countries.The sixth chapter is analysis of brand internationalization of LI-NING. This chapter is the key chapter of this paper and strategies mainly are:internationalization of brand image, talent, technology, advertisement and distribution channels. This chapter mainly includes analysis of successful experience and problems in the implementation of brand internationalization and gives relevant recommendations. Successful experience mainly includes:formulate periodical goals of development, strategy of market internationalization after brand internationalization and deliver messages to global market with Chinese elements.Finally, draw the following conclusions preliminarily through the research of the thesis: 1) LI-NING Company first proposed the strategy of brand internationalization in1999, developed the periodical goals of development, and strived to become the world’s top five sports good brand in2018achieving the international strategic objective that more than20%of its revenue comes from the sales of overseas market.2) Difficult to easy mode. LI-NING Company first entered the European and American countries and then turned to the Southeast Asian countries.3) The strategy of market internationalization after brand internationalization. The current degree of internationalization is relatively low and its overseas revenue accounts for less than3%of the total sales revenue.4) LI-NING Company takes measures of internationalization of brand image, technology, talents, advertisement, and distribution channels to implement the strategy of brand internationalization.5) The successful experience in the implementation of brand internationalization: develop periodical goals of development to promote its international strategy; strategy of market internationalization after brand internationalization; appeal the global market with Chinese elements.