The business philosophy of the mainstream American business is called a (America) model

Management academia, now the mainstream of American business philosophy known as a (America) model, the Japanese enterprise mainstream business philosophy known as the J (Japan) model. The most notable feature of Model A is focus, narrow and deep; J mode is broad and plain.

History has proved repeatedly that the more revolutionary the thought, the more it needs to be known.

Since 1972, the most influential marketing magazine in the United States, "advertising Times" published a "positioning era" series of articles, so that positioning theory officially entered the center of the world marketing stage, has been 40 years. Since 1981, "positioning" a book in the United States officially published, has been 30 years. Since 1991, "positioning" for the first time in China published (the book was called "Ads of Hearts and Hearts") has been more than 20 years. Today, however, Chinese companies still know little about positioning theory.

On the surface, the cause of this situation and the "positioning theory" of origin, for such a "import", many people have not read a few pages can not wait to discuss the so-called foreign theory in the Chinese market "acclimatized" problem. The fundamental reason is that the concept advocated by orientation not only has great conflicts with Chinese enterprises ' inherent thinking mode and concept, but also is opposite to the mainstream thinking mode of Japanese and Korean enterprises. Because of the geopolitical advantages, Panasonic, Sony, Samsung as the representative of Japan and South Korea experience was once considered more suitable for Chinese enterprises.

From the marketing and strategic point of view, we call the mainstream business philosophy of the United States as a (America) model, the Japanese enterprise mainstream business philosophy known as the J (Japan) model. Generally speaking, the most notable feature of Model A is focusing, narrowing and deepening; J mode is broad and plain.

A simple discussion of the merits of the two is perhaps the problem of the beholder, it is difficult to have substantial results, but if the comparison between the models of the typical enterprise long-term profitability, then stand.

By keeping track of the financial situation of Japanese companies and American companies for a long time, we find that the typical J-mode business is extremely bad, following is the business data of Japan's six largest electronics companies in the year 1999-2009 10:

Hitachi sales revenue of 8.42 trillion U.S. dollars, loss of 11.7 billion U.S. dollars;

Panasonic sales revenue of 734 billion U.S. dollars, loss of 1.2 billion U.S. dollars;

Sony sales revenue of 696 billion U.S. dollars, after-tax net profit of 8 billion U.S. dollars, sales net profit margin of 1.1%;

Toshiba sales revenue of 563 billion U.S. dollars, after-tax net profit of 400 million U.S. dollars;

Fujitsu sales revenue of 445 billion U.S. dollars, loss of 1.9 billion U.S. dollars;

Sanyo sales revenue of 202 billion U.S. dollars, a loss of 3.6 billion U.S. dollars.

A common example of Chinese companies, Japan's most famous six electronics companies 10 operating results are actually a loss of 10 billion U.S. dollars, even Sony, which has the highest profit margins, is far below the bank's lending rate (Japan's big companies rely on the Japanese government to stimulate the economy to adopt a high discount policy for big companies, and the cost of capital is very low to maintain).

And Japan's six major electronic enterprises of the losses corresponding to the same period, the United States 500 companies profit margin of up to 5.4%, good or bad at a glance. Thus, from a more macroscopic perspective, the root cause of Japan's long economic slump is far from bad monetary policy, financial asset bubble burst, but the J model of real enterprises generally poor profit level.

The positioning theory is becoming the theory behind a model because of its far-reaching influence on American enterprises. Since its inception, the positioning theory has undergone four important stages of development.

The 1970s: the birth of positioning. "Positioning" the most important contribution is in the history of Marketing point out: Marketing competition is a mental competition, marketing competition, the ultimate battlefield is not the factory is not the market, but the mind. The mind determines the market and the success or failure of marketing.

The 1980s: Marketing warfare. In the the late 1970s, with homogenization of products and intensified market competition, Ais Riss and Jack Traut found it difficult to achieve success in marketing only by satisfying customer needs. And Reese's early military experience brought inspiration to their marketing ideas: from the extreme form of competition-the search for marketing strategy in the war. In fact, the idea of modern strategic theory mostly originates from the military field, and the word strategy itself is military term. 1985, "Business War" published, known as the marketing industry, "Sun Tzu", its proposed "defensive", "offensive", "flank warfare", "guerrilla warfare" four strategies are widely adopted by the world's leading schools.

The 1990s: Focus. The growing pressure from Wall Street in the late 1980s forced big American companies to diversify their way of growth, hoping to increase sales and profits by adding product lines and services. As a result, big companies such as IBM, General Motors and GE have been mired in losses. How do enterprises acquire and maintain competitiveness? Ais Riss The answer to a simple natural phenomenon: the Sun's energy is hundreds of thousands of times times the size of a laser, but as it is dispersed, it becomes the warm sunlight that human skin can enjoy, and the laser is able to easily cut hard diamonds and steel by focusing on the power. Enterprises and brands to achieve competitiveness, only focus.

New Century: Open the category of innovation. 2004, Ais Riss and Laura Riss's book "The Origin of the brand" published. The book states: Nature provides a ready-made model for business. Category is the business community's species, is hidden in the brand behind the key forces, consumers "to the category to think, Brand to express", differentiated the emergence of new categories, evolution to enhance the new category of competitive power. Reese further pointed out that the sole purpose of the enterprise is to create and dominate the new category, Apple is to create and dominate the new category to achieve the best example of success.

After half a century unceasing development and consummation, the localization theory has the profound influence to the American enterprise as well as the global enterprise, has become the American Enterprise's success source, even the American national competitive power important constituent.

The past 40 years of practice have also proved that under different cultures and systems, a model enterprise based on "positioning theory" generally has good long-term profitability and market competitiveness.

In Europe, the early 1990s, Nokia was "focused" thinking, decisively cut off rubber, paper, color TV (Nokia was the second largest color TV brand in Europe), such as most of the business, focusing on mobile phone category, only in a short span of 10 years, beyond the Hundred century enterprise Siemens became Europe's first big enterprise. (Unfortunately, Nokia has not been in a timely position to absorb the latest development of positioning theory, to grasp the trend of differentiation, the introduction of new brands in the smartphone category, now in a new predicament.) )

In Japan, the success of the three major automobile companies in the world, the key is to play Japanese companies in product production advantages in the same time learning a model of experience. Toyota, for example, has long focused on the automotive sector, innovative categories, and the introduction of independent new brands, has created a Japanese-medium vehicles on behalf of Toyota, Japan luxury cars on behalf of Lexus, the young car brand Thorn, and recently the hybrid car brand Prius Independent, These independent brands based on the new category push Toyota to become the world's largest car company.

The example of Nintendo and Sony, two Japanese companies in the electronics industry, illustrates the problem. Sony has a higher visibility and brand influence, but its business is dispersed, belongs to the typical J-mode enterprise. Nintendo is a typical a-mode enterprise: By focusing on game consoles, creating a family game category. Although Nintendo's turnover is only one of Sony's more than 10 points, its profit margins have been far more than Sony's. On the eve of the financial crisis in 2007, for example, Sony sales revenue of 70.4 billion U.S. dollars, profit margin of 1.7%, and Nintendo sales revenue of 4.3 billion U.S. dollars, profit margin is 22%. Nintendo, which overtook Sony for the first time in its market capitalisation, was close to twice times its market capitalisation and still retains its market-leading edge.

The same is true in China.

China's household electrical appliances enterprises generally take the J mode of development, and finally plunged into the industry downturn, Haier most representative. Haier started with refrigerators, in the "Meet customer demand" concept under the guidance of the gradual entry into the Black Power, IT, mobile communications and other dozens of areas. According to Haier published business data estimates, Haier's profit margin is basically around 1%, no wonder Haier's chairman Zhang lamented "Haier's profits like razor thin." Corresponding to this is, home appliance enterprises in the typical a-mode enterprise-gree, through focus, in more than 10 years time by a small enterprise developed into China's largest air-conditioning enterprises, and achieved the 5%~6% profit margin, and the global Model A-mode enterprises in line with the average level, become the most profitable enterprises in China's household appliances.

In fact, in the Chinese market, each industry has a good momentum of development, profitability and stability of enterprises and brands are almost no exception to a model, such as household appliances in the gree, the car in the Great Wall, tobacco in the Chinese, liquor in Maotai and Yanghe, beer in the snowflakes and so on.

At present, China's economy is in a very difficult transition period, the key to success or failure from the microscopic point of view, depending on whether the business model of Chinese enterprises can be achieved from product trade to brand management transformation, and further look, is from the current popular J mode to a mode. In this sense, the study of the theory behind a model-positioning theory is a compulsory course for Chinese enterprises and entrepreneurs.

It is gratifying that, after more than 20 years of dissemination of works and the demonstration effect of early practice enterprises, more and more Chinese enterprises have been engaged in the study and practice of positioning theory, and achieved remarkable results. From this we believe that, in time, positioning theory will become the most influential concept of Chinese marketing in history. Thus, the successful transformation of China's economy, and even the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, will become possible.