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The Haier Road to Growth
Customers always come first for this Chinese appliance maker — even as it continually
reinvents itself and expands around the world.
by Bill Fischer, Umberto Lago, and Fang Liu
By building cooling machines based on
this in-depth and multilayered approach
to consumer insight, Haier is following
its own core principle: “customer service
leadership,” or the necessity to shape the
future by giving customers what they
want most (but may not have yet realized
they can ask for). Even the decision to use
the phrase “cool, not cold” in its Chinese
advertising campaign reflects this principle.
These are the words that customers
use themselves, as opposed to a slogan
dreamed up by a marketing professional.
Headquarters on Haier's main campus in Qingdao, China. All photographs by Wang Zhao
Start with 30 million responses on your
QZone, Tencent, and other social media
platforms — all to a simple question:
“What do you want in air conditioning?”
Then pay attention to the more than
670,000 people who take part in the
online conversation that follows. You’re
bound to come up with something
cool — or, more precisely, “cool, not
cold.” This concept, drawn from online
responses, became the tagline for the
Tianzun (“Heaven”), Haier’s advanced
household heater/air conditioner/air
purifier, released in 2014. Many Asian
consumers don’t like the chilling effect
of conventional temperature control.
They’d much prefer to be “cool, not
cold.” But there’s more to the concept
than temperature. Air from most such
devices in China is dry and dusty. The
machines themselves are too noisy, or
too likely to spread disease (bacteria
112
world monitor
live in air conditioning systems).
Moreover, the machines look — well,
like air conditioners.
The Tianzun doesn’t have any of those
drawbacks. It is an obelisk-like device
with a small wind tunnel that draws air
through it from the room where it is
positioned. It has an Internet connection,
so consumers can use their smartphones
to warm or cool the room while on their
way home. Some consumers probably
knew they wanted that feature, but
they didn’t know that they wanted to
see the circle’s light shift from red to
blue as their air quality improved. Once
they saw that happening, they were
hooked. The product is targeted directly
at a consumer segment that no other
company, in the West or the East, has
recognized, and that could end up being
much bigger than a niche.
Just as unconventional was the cross-
functional nature of the appliance’s
launch. While the marketing staff digested
the insights gained from Haier’s online
customer interactions, manufacturing
was already considering what they would
mean for production, procurement was
speaking directly to suppliers about
sourcing feasibilities, and after-sales
service was developing plans for follow-
through. Because they worked closely
together from the start, managers from
all these functions were moving forward in
concert, addressing possible disconnects
as they arose. This allowed products to go
to market as soon as they were designed
and developed, instead of waiting for
each department to throw its work “over
the wall” to the next one. Meanwhile,
representatives of each company function
conducted conversations directly with
customers, thereby adding a responsive
new dimension to the company’s consumer
insight capabilities.
Haier’s rapid introduction of the Tianzun
air conditioner is typical of the company’s
track record since the late 1990s. The