During the Spring Festival, Shi An read two books in his spare time. One of the books is called "Why the Invisible Champion", which was written by Zhang Jianwei and published by Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications Press in 2007.
            In this book, it reveals the management of a special group of enterprises. Such enterprises are not IBM, General Electric, Microsoft Google, Lenovo, Haier and other well-known large companies that are familiar to everyone, but some atypical enterprises that are unfamiliar to the public and "unknown by virtue of virtue". These enterprises are often unknown to outsiders. Apart from people in the industry, few people know these enterprises, but they occupy an important position in their own market. Focus, pragmatism and persistence are the ultimate business path for such enterprises ， They focus on their own "niche" market and strive to make the best of their small businesses, thus becoming one of the top leaders or even monopolists in their industry ——They are called "invisible champion" enterprises in the book. In Shi An's view, for the vast majority of enterprises, studying and understanding the way to success of such enterprises is far more practical than studying those large enterprises.
            The book says The concept of "invisible champion" was first proposed by German management master Herman Simon. He believes that the best companies do not necessarily have to be big companies. There are also many excellent companies in small companies, which are usually unknown to the public. He calls these unknown but leading companies in the industry invisible champions.
            Simon believes that, As a qualified invisible champion, it must meet the following three criteria First, it must have the first or second place in the international market share of its products; Second, it must be a little-known small and medium-sized company; Third, an invisible champion company is a company with low social popularity.
              Now, the invisible champion enterprises are extended to those enterprises that are unknown to the public but occupy a leading position in the international or domestic market.
            To sum up, "invisible champion" enterprises have the following common characteristics:
          First, they are highly focused on a certain field without distraction 。 This is also the most important feature of such enterprises. Professional because of focus, extraordinary because of professional 。 They focus on specialization, not diversification, and position the enterprise in a specific product field. Through mass, large-scale and high-quality production, the enterprise can form a strong competitiveness in this product field.
            As for concentration, there is a vivid metaphor in the book: "If customers find that your beef noodle stand has shoes for sale, they will not know what you are selling."
          Second, walk with the strong 。 This phenomenon is particularly obvious in those enterprises that make intermediate products or provide product support or services for brand customers, such as accessory companies that make accessories for complete machines, such as Samsung, LG Gol Electronics, the top three microphone manufacturer in the world supplied by Ericsson, and Dofluoro, the first cryolite to go abroad, are willing to be green leaves. Through cooperation with giant companies, they are willing to and good at making supporting facilities. Once they are completed, they can also achieve considerable development. Therefore, "walking with the strong" is also a shortcut for some invisible champions to succeed.
          Third, don't make public, concentrate on doing your job. Low profile development, dedication to work, not chasing the trend and fashion, are almost the common characteristics of this unique group of invisible champions. They just seriously do what they should do, and never care whether anyone pays attention. These champion enterprises are highly focused on their own field and strive to be the best. Most of their time and energy are focused on how to be the best themselves, so they often do not pay special attention to or pursue public reputation. Their reputation is usually spread within a professional scope, "let people who need to know know". So when we look at these invisible champion enterprises, we will find that although they are not well known by outsiders, their achievements in both products and markets are often amazing. Some of them even occupy more than half of the national or global market share of an industry.
      "Being a low-key person and doing things in a high profile" is the same as being a person and being an enterprise.
        Fourth, be the master of the industry. Managers of invisible champions generally believe that: "A big fish in a small pond is safer than a small fish in a sea full of sharks." All invisible champions have demonstrated strong competitive strength in their fields or industries, and even have established a strong leading or monopoly position. At the same time, even if they have established a strong competitive advantage and strength, However, it is not easy to change the tune and embark on the road of diversified expansion (business cases that fail due to diversified expansion are also everywhere). Diversification is often the "forbidden area" for the development of invisible champions. In their view, if you cannot achieve "perfection" in this field, you should resolutely say no when facing temptation.
            Only by persisting in the focused strategy, boldly abandoning non related businesses, concentrating effective resources, cultivating and strengthening core capabilities, and vigorously developing core businesses, can enterprises make their main businesses bigger, stronger, and better, and walk out of the efficient road of intensive development. This is also the admiration of the invisible champion enterprises.
            Fifth, take "specialty, specialty, excellence and novelty" as the way to win. Expertise means specialty, single-minded, dedicated, and special means characteristic. Excellence means delicacy and precision. Innovation means innovation, especially independent innovation.
            The importance of concentration is self-evident. The spirit of concentration and perseverance is the core of the invisible champion culture. Supporters of the invisible champion believe that an enterprise should not be "small and comprehensive", but should focus on its core competitiveness, concentrate its resources on specific areas, narrow its focus to core business, stick to one industry, one field or even one category, one product or service, emphasize depth rather than breadth, and stick to products, technologies In terms of market and management innovation, we can concentrate on our business without external interference, so as to achieve the best in our chosen business, strive to be far ahead of our peers, and strive to occupy the largest share of a certain market.
          In fact, it is also the embodiment of market segmentation, and it can really form its own characteristics and differentiated competitive advantages. Usually the invisible champion has his own specialty, which is also the enterprise's own "oil weapon". With this weapon, we have a strong voice in cooperation or market. No matter how small and low-key the enterprise is, who dares to despise you?
              In addition, the invisible champion also pays great attention to forming the big advantage of differentiated competition. They constantly introduce new selling points, new functions and improve the added value of products, so as to avoid face-to-face price competition with other brands. By increasing the value, they can obtain higher profit margins. Therefore, they can avoid the price competition trap and have more conditions to reinvest, thus forming a benign development environment.
            In the aspect of refinement, how to achieve delicacy and accuracy is actually a concrete manifestation of "details determine success or failure". As Lao Tzu, an ancient philosopher of our country, said, "The world's major events must be done in detail". Without the perfection of details, the greatest goal can only be a rootless tree. When we look at the invisible champion enterprises, we will find that they are often models of small businesses becoming big businesses.
              In terms of innovation, we will find that invisible champion enterprises are often highly focused on a certain field and far ahead of their peers in terms of product innovation. They often have technologies (capabilities) that are generally outstanding in value, that others do not have, and that cannot be replaced, or that they have some "unique" capabilities.
            It is described in the book that these invisible champions are generally in a relatively closed environment, which is not even known to the public. Although their products are small or in a narrow market segment, they are indispensable. They are very focused on specialization, do not engage in diversification, and seldom deliberately promote themselves in their market, There are few or no strong competitors, and the profit margin of the product is high enough.
            It can be seen from this that the most critical and important thing for an enterprise to succeed is not whether it has public awareness, but whether it can persist in doing its best. (Wen/Shi An, founder of Gutan Technology)