FIIL Headphone Profile Chart
Source: Interface News Song Jianan
FIIL headphones "changed".
In addition to low-key coaching changes at the beginning of the year, the company is gradually easing its “star aura†and becoming more like an ordinary startup company.
Before serving as FIIL CEO, Suining's position was FIIL CTO, doing the products and technical work he was familiar with. However, the departure of former CEO Peng Jinzhou has completely changed Suining’s career.
According to public information, Peng Jinzhou joined Huawei in 1993. During his time at Huawei, he was responsible for corporate and wireless business, and preparations for the Huawei e-commerce platform. In 2013, Peng Jinzhou joined the Huawei Glory Business Unit and his position was promoted to Vice President of Huawei Glory. In July 2015, he chose to leave from Huawei and join Wang Feng's FIIL headset team.
During the FIIL work, Peng Jinzhou led the startup company to achieve sales of 100,000 units. However, in January of this year, Peng Jinzhou resigned from the post of FIIL CEO and only served as a director of FIIL, no longer responsible for the day-to-day management of the company. A few months later, his name appeared on the list of executives of the hammer mobile phone and was mainly responsible for operations.
Regarding the reasons for leaving FIIL, he rather called the company's rapid pace of development in the early stages and exerted great pressure. As a result, Peng Jinzhou’s physical condition had some problems, and he wanted to take a break. FIIL's board of directors immediately decided that Suining would pick Peng Jinzhou. This is a huge test for Funing who is used to dealing with products.
At that time, Suining had just become a new milk dad, and taking over the CEO would undoubtedly mean that he would have to face more arduous work and spend less time with his family. After careful consideration, he decided to accept the challenge and his family also gave support. “This is no way. I used to be responsible for many products in the past. It is difficult to find people who understand the company, the industry and the FIIL brand in the short term,†explains Su Ning.
For any startup company, the CEO's change will have some negative impact, whether external or internal. The first thing that Suining needs to do is to reintegrate morale.
In order to dispel the employees' misgivings about the future development of the company, Suining not only communicated privately with many people, but also explained the specific situation at the annual meeting. Some adjustments have also been made in the development strategy in order to achieve more stable development.
"What we are doing is not reference to the object. It has always been a matter of crossing the river by touching the stone. Initially it aimed at the mid-to-high end, thinking that as long as the product is good enough, it can be. But then it realized that we need to expand a wider group of people, including low-end users, not Gao Duwei.†The cruel reality tells Su Ning that although many consumers in China are willing to pay high prices for headphones, the growth of this group will take a long process. "Enterprise development should be dynamic, and we must not scour the sword. We must improve product sales while maintaining product quality," said Ning.
From a certain point of view, this is also a "compromise" of FIIL in front of the market.
In October 2015, FIIL launched three headset products - FIIL Headphones (Head Hooded Noise Canceling HIFI Headphones), FIIL Wireless (Wireless Head Hooded Noise Reducing HIFI Headphones), and FIIL Bestie (Circle Iron with HIFI). headset). The selling price is 1099 yuan, 1599 yuan and 599 yuan respectively.
Such a price is already a middle-range position for a startup company. At that time, FIIL had found a number of headphone enthusiasts to blindly test their products and received a good response, but this did not allow FIIL's sales to increase rapidly. According to the interface news reporter, after the release of the Filil headset, the amount of appointments once reached one million, but the actual conversion rate is only about 3%.
The mid-to-high end positioning has limited FIIL's consumer groups to some extent. On the one hand, although enthusiasts often compare FIIL with mature headset brands such as Beats, Bose and Sennheiser to help increase brand awareness, the group still belongs to a minority. On the other hand, mass consumers who are not so fluent in sound quality are reluctant to pay for high prices.
FIIL is also aware of these issues and has made corresponding changes.
“Most of the markets are concentrated at the bottom. Our current strategy is to build on the basis of product work and brand attributes, and to force low-end products.†Suining told the interface news reporter that FIIL had previously launched a 499 yuan headset, has APP communication, voice search songs, smart pedometer and adjust the sound effects according to the number of steps and other functions. This seemingly intelligent product does not perform well on the sales side. The company tried to cut off these smart features and launched a 299 yuan product. The result was very good.
FIIL has also released a sports headset with local storage capabilities, priced at around $1,000, but decided to postpone the launch of the product before the official launch of the product. "We really want to make our products particularly advanced and intelligent. When we go back and torture ourselves, 'This is not what consumers really need,' it still has a question mark." However, Suining emphasized that FIIL's product pricing is between $300 - 2000 yuan interval section, too cheap products they will not do. For other products with the same price, FIIL hopes that users can spend a little more money and buy better headphones than competing products.
In addition to product positioning, another challenge that FIIL needs to face and solve is to go to Wang Fenghua.
As the chairman of the company, Wang Feng once let this little-known company quickly become famous in a short period of time and received high attention from the technology circle, the entertainment industry and the investment community. At the FIIL's previous product launch, Wang Feng will be the FIIL platform and will introduce the company's headset and team as the "product manager."
But with the company on the right track, FIIL hopes that the outside world will pay more attention to its products, rather than Wang Feng's influence on FIIL. Including Suining and the original CEO Peng Jinzhou, they have repeatedly mentioned to the media "to Wang Fenghua." After all, depending on the star effect, it is very difficult for a company to go further. Once there is an unfavorable public opinion involving the celebrity, it can easily damage the company's brand image and product reputation.
"Up to now, FIIL's biggest change is not to think too much about whether it is a star company or whether it is carrying a star's aura. We must have a good life to go further." Rather Ning said that the future FIIL market Marketing will less and less mention Wang Feng and no longer speak as a core element. However, Suining also stressed that going to Wang Fenghua is a long-term goal. There is no need to completely talk about Wang Feng, or will use some available resources to help FIIL expand its influence.
Specific to the company's management, the overall operating costs will be more refined, no longer hold high and fight high, more emphasis on input-output ratio. He set a goal for the team to achieve twice the growth in headset sales in 2017, reaching break-even, and starting profitability in 2018.
Not only that, FIIL is also actively deploying overseas markets, setting up wholly-owned subsidiaries in the United States, responsible for brand promotion and market sales, and domestically providing some support in products and technology. According to Suining, the FIIL headset will be officially launched in the United States this summer and will continue to use the existing LOGO of FIIL. He himself will also focus on overseas markets.
The company has always been Beats and Bose as their own learning and catching up. Suining believes that Beats does a good job in branding and cultural attributes, and Bose pays more attention to the sense of technology and functionality. In terms of noise reduction, FIIL is also trying to approach Bose.
However, over-focusing on headset products is not conducive to the scale expansion of FIIL. For this reason, Kenning said that in the future, he will expand his product line with the core word "lifestyle". "With the current team's strength, it will not be too bad to make smart hardware and audio-related products."
However, the most important task at present is still to increase the sales volume and make the financial figures more healthy. As for what to do afterwards, he rather believes that self-reliance will come naturally.
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