Li Ning, founder of Chinese sportswear Li-Ning Company Limited and Olympic medallist

Choose the risky life: Olympic medallist Li Ning

Local residents need to risk more and start their own businesses instead of relying on safe jobs in the gaming or hotel industry, the founder of Chinese sportswear Li-Ning Company Limited, Li Ning, said on Friday.
The former gymnastics Olympic medallist was the main speaker at the Macao Franchise Expo 2017 ‘Forum on Chain and Franchise Business Opportunities of International Brands’.
“Macau is a nice city with good benefits and living environment. People like to work from 9 [am] to 5 [pm] but a very diversified city needs people willing to pursue and take the challenge, which should be more encouraged […] Take your salary and start a startup,” Mr. Li stated.
The chairman of Li-Ning Company – which Li started 27 years ago – considered that, even with a “good idea”, business endeavours always have high possibilities of failure, but the whole process of starting a company itself provides “a great deal of pleasure and experience”.
“Start it as a hobby, but you have to firmly believe what you’re doing is significant and interesting […] Don’t expect to be comfortable later, you will always continue learning as the process continues. I was 37 when I started my company and I’m still learning in my early 50’s,” Mr. Li told the audience.
A sports clothing brand mainly supplying the Chinese market, Li-Ning Company registered a total of RMB643.2 million (MOP768 million/US$95.4 million) in profit attributable to equity holders in 2016, with total revenues going up 15 per cent yearly to RMB8.01 billion last year.
Mr. Li was also appointed by the MSAR Government as an ambassador for the city’s Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, and Events (MICE) industry, stating that Macau had “great infrastructure” for MICE events in its hospitality sector.
“There’s a lot of room for development with the One Belt, One Road policy and through cooperation with Portuguese-speaking countries. I’m honoured to be a brand ambassador of Macau,” he added.

The Big Data advantage
In terms of how he used Big Data to expand his company’s sportswear business, Mr. Li said client data is not the “target itself” but the “applications that data can have for your business”.
“Two years ago, we worked with Xiaomi for jogging shoes with chip sets to connect jogger running data with apps and social media. It all helps to know the customers’ needs and plan our products,” Mr. Li said.
The topic was also addressed during a panel discussion prior to Mr. Li’s talk, involving experts including the General Manager of Baidu International, Frankie Ho, and franchise representatives such as the Committee Member of Franchising and Licensing Association (Singapore), Albert Kong.
According to Mr. Kong, in 2011 alone 1.8 zettabytes of data were created – “equivalent to 28 million 64 gigabyte smartphones”, with the total amount of data expected to increase 50- fold by 2020.
“However, 80 per cent of all existing data is still unstructured, but is a valuable resource to uncover business insights, offer fresh perspectives and increase productivity,” Mr. Kong added.
According to the Chairman of the Franchise Committee of the Japan Small and Medium Enterprise Management Consultants Association, Kyo Ito, convenience store chain 7-11 made the employees of its almost 20,000 stores in the country record not just the price paid by its customers, but their age and sex.
“It allows the gathering of information on what type of customer buys what product. Big Data is then used to develop the product brand, removing slow-selling products and replacing them with fast-selling products very quickly,” Mr. Ito stated.
Macau resident and CEO of female fashion store chain Azona (HK) Ltd., Dicgo Chan, stated that the retail sector was expected to undergo large changes, with increased use of Big Data changing how to approach clients.
“In this business, you can either look for more customers, wait for customers to come or retain old customers. Gathering valuable information on customers will allow tailor-made marketing solutions,” Mr. Chan stated.