“Five-Star” Zoomlion Becoming a World-Class Enterprise

From being selected as one of the Top 500 Brands inAsia, to being named a Chinese “five-star brand,” Zoomlion continued along thepath of “strengthening the country through strong brands” in 2013. On January19, the National Enterprise Brand Evaluation and 2013 Chinese EnterpriseFive-Star Brand Forum were held in Beijing. At the Forum, the list of Chineseenterprises recognized as five-star brands in 2013, which included Zoomlion,was announced.

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Wang Xuhong, director of Zoomlion’s brand promotion department,said, “Zoomlion’s soul comes from its culture of sincerity, and its breakthroughsare a result of innovation. The company has constantly opened up internationalmarkets and is increasingly demonstrating the strength of an independent brandon the global economic stage. The ‘China Dream’ of strengthening the countrythrough strong brands is gradually being realized.”

Culture of Sincerity Shapingthe Five-Star Brand
Five-star brands are selected in accordance withstandards set out in the Commercial Enterprise Brand Evaluation and CorporateCulture Building Guidelines promulgated by the State Administration of QualitySupervision, Inspection, and Quarantine and the Standardization Administrationof the People’s Republic of China. These standards are used to conduct acomprehensive system evaluation of corporate and commercial brands using fivelevel-one indicators: “ability, quality, reputation, corporate culture, andinfluence;” 17 level-two indicators, including brand planning and brand management;and 52 level-three indicators. Each brand is then awarded between five and twostars.

Founded in 1992, Zoomlion is the leading company in China’sconstruction machinery industry. The company’s brand image of having “devotionto the profession, leading technology, and a sincere sense of responsibility”has been widely accepted and recognized by the industry. Wang Xuhong believesthat Zoomlion’s growth from a startup with an RMB 500,000 loan into a five-starChinese company is closely related to its corporate culture of believing that “toentire sincerity there belongs ceaselessness.” As Wang Xuhong notes, “A veryimportant reason Zoomlion has gotten where it is today is that we’ve alwaysintegrated the concept of ‘sincerity’ into all aspects of management.”

Creating Brand Value throughUnerring Quality
Chairman of the China Federation of IndustrialEconomics Li Yizhong stressed at the Forum that enterprise brand building isinseparable from unerring quality. He stated, “The responsibility of anenterprise is to provide society with high-quality products and good service.If it can continue to do so in the long term and receives market recognition,then it may become a product or service brand.”

Zoomlion attaches great importance to product quality.In the course of the company’s development, there have been numerous definingmoments similar to Haier’s Zhang Ruimin taking a sledgehammer to the company’s substandardrefrigerators. In 1994, for example, as a result of imperfections and a numberof faults with the first generation of concrete pumps, the company applied thebrakes, and Zoomlion Chairman Zhan Chunxin made the decision to “stop allproduction.” In July of the same year, Zoomlion successfully developed itssecond generation of concrete pumps, and by the end of the year the company hadsold 45 pieces of equipment and exchanged for free 10 pieces that it had soldpreviously. Zoomlion’s focus on responsibility to the customer and its constantattempts to improve quality led to a successful turnaround and safeguarded thereputation of the brand.

From the company’s early days of rigorously pursuingproduct quality, to establishing a “zero-defect” quality management principle,Zoomlion has gradually grown into a model of “quality management” in the constructionmachinery industry, for which it was recognized at the highest level in Chinaby being nominated for the inaugural China Quality Award.

As Wang Xuhong points out, “Using innovativetechnology and management, Zoomlion manufactures high-quality products. At thesame time as it creates value for its customers and society, it also createsvalue for itself.” He also notes that in the course of pursuing productquality, Zoomlion has also improved its operational quality.

Opening Up InternationalMarkets and Forging a Chinese Global Brand
Wang Xuhong went on to say that, having achieved improvements in quality, Zoomlion set a benchmark forinternationalization among Chinese companies, and that the company hasdisplayed the strength of Chinese brands on the global stage by becoming aworld-renowned brand itself.

In 2008, Zoomlion successfully acquired the world’sthird largest concrete machinery manufacturer, CIFA of Italy, which laid thecornerstone for Chinese construction machinery to move into overseas markets inEurope and beyond. In recognition of Zoomlion’s contribution to the Italianeconomy through post-merger integration, the President of Italy presented the InternationalLeonardo Award to Zoomlion Chairman Zhan Chunxin. This honor also illustratesthe recognition the Zoomlion brand has received in Europe. Since the end of2013, Zoomlion has again been accelerating the pace of its globalization, withthe announcement that it has acquired Germany’s M-TEC, the world's foremost dry-mixedmortar equipment brand. Analysts believe that Zoomlion will soon become theworld leader in the field of dry-mixed mortar equipment.

In the international market, Zoomlion is alsoincreasingly demonstrating the influence of independent Chinese brands, and isgradually realizing its dream of becoming a “world-class enterprise,” havingdemonstrated its ambition of creating a world-class brand from a five-starChinese enterprise.