Zhou Dongyan - the "Maitreya Buddha" of the flexible packaging and label market

Zhou Dongyan, Chief Representative of Omet in China, is a name that resounds in today's printing industry. Who could imagine what he looked like more than a decade ago, when he was struggling alone in the printing circle? With a measure of admiration and curiosity about a successful business manager, we listened as he recounted career stories unknown to outsiders...

Interviewing Zhou Dongyan - the questions people in the industry have already asked too many. From his first steps into the printing circle to six years as Omet's head in China, from being unknown to becoming a well-known figure in the printing circle, the hard work and bitterness, the waiting and the persistence involved can only be understood by those who have lived through it, and it is precisely this that made Zhou Dongyan what he is today.

Heidelberg: Experiencing the Spirit of Persistence

In 1996, Zhou Dongyan joined Heidelberg, in charge of sales of flexographic presses in the northern region. At that time, flexographic printing presses were still something very new in the northern China market, and their characteristics were not well understood. What he remembers most clearly is that when he took flexo samples to show customers, the customers said outright that these were waste products. In such a market environment, Zhou Dongyan had to face the question of how to find and break into the relevant market, but he never expected that this process would actually last as long as two years.

"In those two years not a single machine was sold. At the time I kept wondering where exactly the problem lay - was it that I was not familiar enough with the product, that I could not accurately grasp the product's characteristics, or that the company's market policy was wrong, or that the market timing was not yet ripe?"

Yet it was precisely these two years that became the most valuable period of experience in Zhou Dongyan's career. He learned to face enormous pressure with a calm state of mind, to examine himself, the market and the company's strategy, and, by combining the company's resources, to find a market breakthrough point suited to the company's characteristics.

In this process, some colleagues in the department had already moved to other product departments, and only a few remained and persevered. During this period we constantly summarized experience, studied other companies' sales policies and improved our own technical level. Through extensive visits and research in the market, we confirmed that in the northern China market at that time, the packaging field was the most likely one to break into. In the end, hard work paid off; as the market was painstakingly cultivated, Zhou Dongyan and his colleagues finally had the door of the packaging field opened to them, and in the following year they sold six large, highly configured flexographic production lines.

Having experienced the spirit of perseverance with a calm state of mind, the facts gave Zhou Dongyan a satisfactory answer: the path he had explored on his own was the right one.

The tempering under enormous initial pressure laid a solid foundation for Zhou Dongyan's later success. Several years of experience at Heidelberg gave Zhou Dongyan a keen eye for discerning market demand; which equipment to introduce and which equipment was suited to the Chinese market were things he already knew like the back of his hand at that time. As Zhou Dongyan himself said: "Working at a powerful company like Heidelberg gave me a very good foundation, including the ability to understand the market, the professional market philosophy of how to introduce new products into the Chinese market, team building, and so on."

Now, speaking again about his experience of working at Heidelberg, Zhou Dongyan says that everyone encounters a hurdle when just starting out in their career, and that what is needed to get over this hurdle is a calm state of mind. Only when you are calm can you concentrate on exploring; in the painful process of exploration, the most important thing is persistence - when others can no longer hold on, if you persevere a little longer, then sweetness will follow bitterness. Experiencing persistence with a calm mind is Zhou Dongyan's deepest realization in the face of difficulties.

Mitsubishi: Building a New Profit Center

After leaving Heidelberg, Zhou Dongyan joined Mitsubishi Corporation. "Mitsubishi taught me how to run a product department," Zhou Dongyan says. "If Heidelberg required you to perform only the function of a single screw, giving you no room to play any role beyond that screw, then Mitsubishi is exactly the opposite: it gives you enormous space, and you need to discover the market yourself, find suitable products and even build an independently operating profit department."

Zhou Dongyan went to Mitsubishi as printing department manager, and in order to expand this new printing department he considered various market strategies at the time. In the initial stage, to avoid competition, he chose some little-known foreign products targeting a niche market, that is, bringing into China equipment that did not exist on the Chinese market and selling it, which achieved very good results. For example, it was the first to introduce holographic embossing equipment into China's packaging market. But as an independent profit center, products with little competition also mean a relatively small total sales volume, and expanding a department also requires bringing in mainstream products.

At that time, the mainstream products on the Chinese market were mainly offset presses and gravure presses, and they basically already had stable sales channels and agents. At this point, the keen market insight Zhou Dongyan had developed at Heidelberg played a key role, and he thought of flexographic equipment. Through overseas exhibitions, Zhou Dongyan noticed the Italian company Omet; Omet's extremely strong R&D capability and the high registration quality of Omet machines left a deep impression on Zhou Dongyan, and the advanced nature of the equipment was beyond doubt, but its somewhat weak marketing strategy meant that it had not yet entered the Chinese market. In Zhou Dongyan's eyes, this was precisely a business opportunity with great potential. "Later we successfully introduced Omet's first machine to a Chinese tobacco packaging enterprise, and from then on Omet's road in China was opened."

Zhou Dongyan's business at Mitsubishi became more and more impressive, and at this time he was mentioned more and more by peers and customers in the printing circle, and it was from this time that the bond between Omet and Zhou Dongyan was established. In the course of expanding the product department, Zhou Dongyan found Omet, and in the process of dealing with Omet's headquarters, Omet's management gradually came to know and understand Zhou Dongyan. In 2003 Omet intended to set up an office in China and wanted to invite Zhou Dongyan to serve as its China representative. Omet's fine style of always insisting on continuous innovation and R&D deeply attracted Zhou Dongyan, and from then on Zhou Dongyan joined Omet with full enthusiasm for the business, starting the third stop of his career.

Omet: Grasping Setbacks and Passionate Innovation

Omet is an Italian family-owned enterprise with a history of nearly 50 years. At that time, although Omet led the industry trend in technology and R&D, it did not carry out strong marketing promotion. Previously Omet had developed in the Asian market only in Japan, and Omet was too new to China, so it could be described as little known.

When Omet entered China, it was also the first manufacturer in the flexo industry to set up its own direct organization in China. Omet's office in China was built single-handedly by Zhou Dongyan. Speaking of Omet's entry in June 2003, Zhou Dongyan says: "At that time we set up a representative office in Shanghai. At the start there were only 3 employees, and everything was done with our own hands."

"At that time the difficulties were considerable - nobody knew you. The Chinese name 'Omet' was translated by ourselves, and it appeared on the Chinese printing market for the first time." The challenge Zhou Dongyan faced was how to bring a brand-new brand into the Chinese market and establish a brand image in the shortest possible time.

"Within 2-3 years we established Omet's high-end brand image. What did we rely on? We gained an in-depth understanding of customers' needs, discussed matters together with customers, and jointly built each customer's unique equipment platform."

"At this point, the market background Zhou Dongyan had accumulated over many years, together with his passion for technology R&D and his solid technical foundation, played a key role."

"We have never simply taken the company's existing products and sold them as they are. For the high-end market, that kind of take-it-and-sell-it marketing approach does not work. Omet's products have a very high technical content. Our sales approach is not only to address the market's current needs, but also to look ahead to various future needs. On the basis of a deep understanding of the company's existing technology, we do a little R&D on the existing technology so that it can satisfy customers' current and future needs. This is a new product that can drive the market, and also a profit point that drives the company forward. We must make full use of the company's existing resources and, without forcing the company to undertake special R&D, satisfy the market's current and future needs - this is what we do.

The traditional marketing model is to sell existing equipment to suitable customers, not accepting customers' special requirements, with no R&D component in the sales process. Zhou Dongyan broke through this model, tailoring unique equipment platforms for the high-end market. Zhou Dongyan tells us that this is Omet's core philosophy for breaking into the high-end market in China.

His years at Omet led Zhou Dongyan to sum up some insights of his own. "Running a company is bound to run into ups and downs, and this can be summed up with two curves. The first curve is the loss curve: when a company begins to grow, its speed is certainly very fast, but when it grows to a certain point it will encounter difficulties in the company's development, possibly even very great difficulties, and after crossing this trough it will certainly rise again. Corporate management means, on the premise of grasping the overall direction, constantly adjusting according to internal and external changes, reducing the oscillation intensity of the loss curve as much as possible, and making the company move forward as steadily as possible. Take Omet for example: it also went through a low period, mainly because its sensitivity to the market was not sufficient. A few years ago we used our technical advantages to break directly into cigarette factories. Later, the domestic tobacco industry merged, and the structural adjustment of the tobacco industry inevitably affected printing plants; many customers adopted a wait-and-see attitude during the adjustment stage. When we discovered this trend, we balanced our market structure and tilted toward the label field, achieving good results in the rapidly developing South China market."

Zhou Dongyan has always insisted on combining market development with R&D, requiring that the products Omet launches be able to lead the market and help customers create new profit growth points. For example, various combination processes for different markets, such as high-speed production lines combining offset and flexo, or offset and gravure; and auxiliary production lines composed of registered hot stamping, screen printing and die-cutting processes. The processes must be combined, and the people must be combined too; to grasp the market profoundly, one must also deeply understand technology R&D and grasp technical characteristics. This probably sums up the road Omet has traveled in China over these years.

At present, the first phase of construction of Omet (Suzhou) Machinery Co., Ltd. is nearing completion, the interior decoration of the plant has been finished, and the production line is about to be put into operation. This is also the first production base Omet has invested in and built outside Italy. Obviously, the burden on Zhou Dongyan's shoulders has grown heavier again. We firmly believe that no matter what difficulties Omet may encounter on the road ahead, Zhou Dongyan will lead his team forward and further forward.

——This article is reprinted from China Packaging Network (pack.cn). Original link: http://news.pack.cn/show-376274.html. All rights belong to the original author; this article is for industry exchange and learning only.