Fenjiu Group championing spirit of innovation

Prominent liquor distillers look to new era of growth via internal reform

Time-honored alcohol brand Fenjiu has innovated over the past three years and helped elevate Shanxi province in North China.

Fenjiu Group held the 2019 Fenjiu Global Distributors Conference in the provincial capital of Taiyuan on Thursday. It attracted nearly 1,400 dealers worldwide and reporters from more than 100 news outlets.

At the event, Li Qiuxi, chairman of Fenjiu Group, said, "We should make the conference a beginning and pursue a bigger dream than what we have originally."

The group's 2016 distributors conference was held in the same venue, when Li said Fenjiu would speed up its development and enter a new stage in the next year.

The number of Fenjiu's sales staff members increased from 500-plus to more than 4,000 during 2017-19. Also, the number of distributors that have close ties with the group has risen from more than 700 to more than 2,000 in the same period.

Its annual sales surged from 4 billion yuan ($571.8 million) to 12 billion yuan between 2017-19. The sales of Bofen, a product series of the group, is expected to approximate 12 million this year.

By the end of November, the alcohol income and profit of the company in 2019 surpassed those generated in 2018, having completed its annual goals ahead of schedule.

Looking back at the three years of reform of Fenjiu, Li said the company made six breakthroughs. Among them was increasing brand value of the State-owned company.

According to the list of China's 500 most valuable brands in 2019 released by the World Brand Lab, Fenjiu is worth more than 37.72 billion yuan. This is about 21.44 billion yuan higher when compared to 2017.

The number of attendees at Fenjiu's 2019 distributors conference reached 2,020, a record high.

The event comprised five activities. Of them, an investors' communication meeting was new on the agenda. A photo exhibition displaying Fenjiu's reform stories in the past three years was also held.

In the past few weeks, Fenjiu elected its new board of directors. It signifies the company has finished its system reform and become the first company in Shanxi that completed holistic listing, Li said. He added that the group has become a wholly publicly traded company.

Representatives from the company said 2019 is a special year for Fenjiu.

The Fenjiu Research Institute was set up in Beijing in July and Li said the industry of Chinese baijiu, literally white alcohol, entered a competition period. Businesses will compete in strategies, brands, professionals, culture and reform.

That is why Fenjiu launched the institute, Li said. The organization planned to recruit 24 experts to intellectually support the company in aspects including development of Fenjiu's talent pool, renaissance of Fenjiu culture and integration of quality resources.

The institute released a research report on Fenjiu's revival in Taiyuan on Dec 21.

Report authors had collected and analyzed data on foreign and domestic policies and development of related sectors for more than three months. The report includes detailed measures for Fenjiu's renaissance.

Before this, a seminar on Fenjiu's revival was held on Nov 23. Insiders on policy research, State-owned enterprises' reform and macroeconomy discussed a draft of the report.

Coastal city Sanya in southern China hosted a market promotion conference of Fenjiu on Dec 5. It shows that the alcohol giant has begun to develop markets to the south of the Yangtze River.

Executives of Fenjiu said the company's continuous reform and all-round revival are ultimately embodied in marketing, data growth and high-quality development.

songmengxing@chinadaily.com.cn