LIU Han
CHLITINA, born in Taiwan, a beauty care brand connected with beauty, humanistic art and life style, aiming at spreading beauty philosophy to women worldwide, holds retribution to the society as its significant core mission from beginning to end. Since its first landing in China mainland in 1997, CHLITINA has grown into a super brand in the domestic beauty industry within 20 years, striking up enormous and intensive marketing network with near 4000 distribution outlets in 29 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government in the mainland, possessing abundant r&d teams and production bases passed the national and international quality certification, accumulating excellent corporate image and brand value. And the steersman behind the vast “Beauty Empire”, is the chairman of CHLITINA Group, Chen Bihua, Tongji SEM 2005 EMBA (Executive MBA) alumni.
Study in Tongji Fate in SEM
In 1997, Hong Kong returned to the motherland, and trade contacts and personnel exchanges among Taiwan, Hong Kong and the mainland increased frequently. Authorized by her father, the founder of CHLITINA, Mr. Chen Wugang, Chen Bihua took charge of the group general manager, leading CHLITINA to the China mainland market. Recalling the time when she took on the task entrusted by her father, Chen described her state of mind with “trembling”. But her keen business sense made Chen aware that the mainland vast market is a “virgin land” — a new world ahead, and an unknown challenge beyond doubt.
Taking this “Beauty Career”, Chen Bihua was devoted to the deep ploughing of the mainland market. She led the team to dig female beauty care demand, taking gentle amino acid skincare as the brand concept, and to develop exclusive skincare products and facial treatments on the basis of oriental female skin characteristics, thereby to obtain brand awareness and positive feedback from the market. In 1999, CHLITINA opened its first store in Shanghai, and started to develop chain stores in 2002, maintaining fast expansion speed for a certain period. By 2005, which is the eighth year of CHLITINA operated by Chen, she began to reflect on the problems encountered:
“From 1997 to 2005, I was busy preparing for my career territory, following up from research and development, production and channel to human management. By 2005, I began to get confused. On the one hand, the systems of Taiwan and mainland are different, while the interpretation of policies is the prerequisite for the sustainable development of enterprises. How to design a good business model in the policy environment of the mainland is what I want to learn and think about. On the other hand, I also want to know what the mainland business elites are thinking about and how. That’s why I came to Tongji University for an EMBA.”
Chen said that as a student who is not “comfortable within her bounds”, what she gained in Tongji is not limited to course study but “interpersonal contact and connection”:
“Tongji gave me such an atmosphere, that is the teacher’s attention to students and the mutual help among classmates. During the period studying in Tongji, I was actually in my feeblest mind. It was also my busiest time, because I had to do everything of the company by myself. Therefore, I would like to express my special gratitude to my mentor, Professor Wu Sizong and Ms. Cheng Guoping, who gave me great support and encouragement then.”
Good at learning is an ability, implying that a person can absorb useful energy from all the people, events and practices around, which is the quality of many excellent managers, is also one of the characteristics of Chen Bihua. School time in Tongji is so memorable and meaningful that Chen Bihua remembers up to now the winger orientation activity when enrolling in Tongji EMBA: “It’s very good team training, I soon applied it to CHLITINA team. Later a beauty school especially for beautician and manicurist training was established, with trainees participating in this project termly.”
Love and Sharing to Create Value
The steady development and brand achievement of CHLITINA Group depend on good economic system and cultural environment in China, also benefit from Chen Bihua’s excellent experience endowment, especially her unique management and operation philosophy:
“In fact, now I am returning to the question that how CHLITINA embody its value. If we classify value into commercial value, capital value and social value, then the success of CHLITINA is attributed to its ranking of value starting from social value.”
As an enterprise with major business of skincare products and beauty salon franchise, integrating research and development, production, sales and training, CHLITINA is responsible for brand and products operation, and brand authorization to franchisees. Meanwhile, a whole set of management specifications and systems are provided for the franchisees, as well as continued support on talent training. Both the emphasis on employee cultivation and franchisees growth and support to people who are willing to join CHLITINA for “second start-up” are the embodiment of CHLITINA’s social value. Chen Bihua believes that these people’s profit earns CHLITINA’s future.
“Consumers have a need for beauty and skincare products, and entrepreneurs have a demand for corporate brand and reputation, which is the value of CHLITINA. Social value brings commercial value, while commercial value brings capital value after listing. This is the right sort from my point of view. If you only think of the capital value at the beginning, it would have a tough way to go.” Said Chen Bihua.
CHLITINA’s emphasis on social values and social responsibility derives from the succession of enterprise culture. From the “six principles” proposed by the founder, Mr. Chen Wugang (You will be blessed if helping your friends and relatives who deserve it. To love and respect our family and friends, we win respect from them. To share the joy with others, the joy will be more abundant. People who dedicate love not for feedback will never be insufficient. If you love your business, you will succeed in your honesty. Sharing on everything ensures everlasting safeness.), to the principle of “big five” (service enthusiasm, friendly guidance, professional learning, team success and personal glory), to the present “love and sharing”, all of which fully embody humanistic care of warmth and positive people-oriented energy of the company.
With unique and accurate market positioning and judgment, Chen Bihua builds a high quality product foundation for CHLITINA brand, and insists on humanistic care and art to build the inner spirit of “love and sharing” and enterprise culture.Over the years, CHLITINA actively participate in culture and art activities and social welfare activities, sparing no effort to take social responsibility of the enterprise, indeed practising the spirit of “Taking from society, giving back to society”. In 2009, jointly with China Youth Development Foundation, CHLITINA co-sponsored “Lighting Lantern Plan” aiming to improve education condition in rural China, striving to support teacher training in remote areas, thus to help more uneducated children out of poverty. CHLITINA sponsored for several times in support of earthquake stricken areas in China like Wenchuan and Ya’an in post-disaster reconstruction and the relocation of victims. CHLITINA had sponsored Shanghai International Arts Festival for eight years since 2002, exclusively sponsored the fourth Chinese Opera Festival in 2004, and first sponsored Shanghai International Film Festival in 2008. In 2016, CHLITINA joined hands with Shanghai International Film Festival for the second time and became the only designated skincare brand for the 19th Shanghai International Film Festival during when initiated documentary venture capital investment project named “Brave Love of Woman”, collecting documentary film script on feminine theme, in support of young art creators, thus to share the true story of “Brave Love of Woman” with the unique artistic language. In November 2016, the University of Cook, New York, awarded Chen Bihua the honorary doctorate of humanities, commending her contributions to the cultural communication between the eastern and western world. Selfless devotion and persistence also make Chen Bihua win the recognition of the “China’s Public Welfare Figures Award”.
Based in China Embrace the World
In the fast-changing Internet era, many people are adapting to change, looking for “vents”, but few think about what invariable in the next decade or even two decades. Grasping the essential needs of consumers or the unchangeable things in human nature can to some extent precisely help a company win the future.
In the face of overwhelming e-commerce, Chen Bihua shows a calm and leisurely attitude: “What CHLITINA do is “product + service”, which is different from the general skincare brands.” Consumers get skin testing service at CHLITINA beauty salon provided by professional beauticians who would offer professional skincare advice. Store experience and beautician service help CHLITINA realize brand differentiation, which can’t be easily replaced by the Internet .
Facing the challenge of Internet, CHLITINA also operate in active layout: starting from the consumer demand, to set offline stores as the core pathway, meanwhile to utilize “franchise store + Internet + O2O” model for the integration of online and offline platform, so as to adapt to the increasingly younger customer group, letting more consumers enjoy CHLITINA’s services and products in a free way. As Chen Bihua introduced, CHLITINA will explore the online beauty procurement platform in the future , achieving “Beauty to Shop”, “Beauty Internet”, and connect medical cosmetology and health industry with existent beauty business, creating greater experience value for consumers.
In recent years, the cosmetics market has become an important field of consumption upgrading in China, and the Chinese cosmetics market is the largest emerging market throughout the world. According to statistics, the cosmetics market size in China exceeds 200 billion RMB in 2016, and presents sustainable growth, while the global beauty industry market has exceeded 500 billion euros. It is foreseeable that with the improvement of living standard, Chinese demand and investment for beauty will continue to grow.
In 2016, the focus of world’s attention, the G20 Hangzhou Summit ended successfully. As an important supporting activity of the G20 mechanism, the Business Summit of the Group of Twenty (hereinafter referred to as “the B20 Summit”) has become an important platform for world’s business community to participate in global economic governance and to promote the growth of the world economy. CHLITINA, as the only beauty industry brand representative in China, is invited to the B20 Summit and make recommendations. Chen Bihua claims, CHLITINA will also follow the national strategy of “One Belt One Road”, and actively deploy and explore overseas markets, letting CHLITINA‘s “Beauty Career” take China as an axis and radiate all over the world.
The brand name CHLITINA originates from the name of Christina (saviour), which means starting a new revolution of skin care. Today, the leading brand of this beauty industry holds the vision and mission of “love and sharing”, and constantly expands the territory of its beauty career. And Chen Bihua hopes that she can jointly with all the other women start from the heart on the basis of love, soft and firmly proceeding to the dream, and together create a brave new world.