In April 2020, when the global epidemic spread and the economy slowed down, Guilin Rubber Machinery went against the trend and successfully signed an agreement with a new Bangladeshi customer to expand the blue ocean market of the Belt and Road.
The newly signed vulcanizer for passenger tire and engineering tire is a traditional advantage product of Guilin Rubber Machinery, featuring high precision, stable structure, reliable operation, high startup rate and simple maintenance. This model has been exported to Japan, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and other countries as well as delivered to Shandong, Guizhou, Zhejiang and China’s other provinces, gaining the favor of domestic and foreign customers.
In recent years, Guilin Rubber Machinery has kept improving its equipment performance by increasing its R&D efforts. According to the customer’s needs, the vulcanizer structure was improved, the on-site mold replacement time was shortened, the automation rate was enhanced, and the efficiency was increased by 50%. In addition, the stability and appearance of the equipment have also been optimized.
To expand overseas markets, Guilin Rubber Machinery has changed from simply selling equipment to providing an overall service plan, and made key subdivisions of customer needs, greatly enhancing customer trust. With the proposal of the Belt and Road Initiative in 2013, Guilin Rubber Machinery has taken this national strategy to gradually shift its sales focus to the Belt and Road market, developing customers in Turkey, Pakistan, Iran, Vietnam, Sri Lanka and other countries. Among them, orders of Turkish customers topped RMB100 million, those of Vietnamese customers exceeded RMB70 million, and those of Hungarian customers were about RMB40 million. All these orders brought considerable benefits to the enterprise. In 2018 and 2019 alone, nearly RMB330 million of orders were signed with customers in the Belt and Road market, representing 94 percent of the total exports. Including the new Bangladeshi customer, Guilin Rubber Machinery’s friends in the Belt-and-Road Circle added up to 21.
Faced with the rampant overseas epidemic, Guilin Rubber Machinery changed its marketing thinking by promoting products through telephone, mail, WeChat and other communication methods, launching business negotiations, conducting online sales, and successfully signing online orders. In view of the job rotation required by the epidemic prevention and control, the “cloud office” was implemented. The marketing team divided the work into person and contacted customers in its area via online tools every day to understand the epidemic situation, communicated business and emotion in a timely manner, and maintained existing orders and customer relations. Guilin Rubber Machinery proactively publicized positive information such as the resumption of work and the fight against the epidemic through channels such as the enterprise extranet and WeChat official account, so as to transmit positive energy to the society and customers and enhance their confidence in the enterprise. The information of enterprises in Baidu, 360 and other search engines were updated and maintained in real time to make full use of the advantages of ChemChina E-commerce Platform, recommend our products to customers, and improve the Internet traffic and exposure of products.
“The most important thing in overcoming difficulties is to resist risks and strengthen confidence.” Zhang Hongbo, General Manager of Guilin Rubber Machinery, said, “The crisis has prompted us to accelerate our digital marketing strategy and adjust our product structure. We need to tap the potential of technological innovation, foster new growth points of profits, and seek new developments in the crisis!”