Since entering society, I have been intentionally learning and thinking about the knowledge of enterprises. Whether as a grassroots employee or occasionally being promoted, I have never given up on studying and researching corporate knowledge.

I have found that the most easily lost core competitiveness of Chinese enterprises is their identity, often getting lost in the pursuit of profit, sometimes leading to absurd situations like looking for a horse while riding one or biting the leg to protect food.

Since China's reform and opening up was not initiated after educating talents, but rather decisively opened in response to the trend of the times, most entrepreneurs are self-taught. They have navigated the situation relying on certain advantages, and their self-assessment is often overly optimistic. Without policy protection, it is difficult to gain a competitive edge in globalization.

Of course, there are exceptions, such as Huawei, but this is based on their extraordinary insights, which were not recognized by most entrepreneurs before Huawei emerged, and many even predicted their decline.

For a company, understanding its core competitiveness is very important. Unfortunately, when you ask this question, the other party's answer is often superficial, showing a lack of awareness of the question's significance.

Some only stay at the verbal level, but when it comes to concrete actions, it changes flavor. They use a street vendor's mindset and a penny-pinching financial awareness to implement surgical-like profit divisions with any parties involved in or about to be involved in profit relationships.

I once worked at a small company that indeed made a good profit in its first year, so in the second year, it became complacent. While researching ways to increase profits, it completely abandoned the previously held customer-first philosophy.

It found that certain products were selling well, so it began to raise the export prices of those products, believing that as long as the export prices increased, unit profits would rise, and based on past sales volumes, its own profits would surely increase.

Partners collaborating with it saw the warning signs of price increases and began to stock up on certain products because, after a year of promotion, some consumers had recognized the product. If it were suddenly taken off the shelves, it would inevitably affect their business. However, if they also followed suit with price increases, they would start to think because raising prices is a double-edged sword.

Some partners chose to continue selling at the original price, even though profits became lower, because they believed consumers were more important. Faced with intensified competition, having a consumer base is equivalent to having a consumer market.

However, they also calculate costs. When selling at the original price, if the costs are too high, they quietly choose substitutes or similar products. After conducting partial tests and finding little difference in effect, they begin to promote the new product. If the new product can become popular after a brief promotion, they will choose to shelve the original product or even directly propose a return.

If the new product does not become popular after a brief promotion but has late-mover advantages, in order to gain greater profits during the busy season, they may choose to dump products they do not plan to cooperate with long-term, disrupting the market price of that product. Even if the owner later transfers the product to their company for sale, it will be difficult to succeed.

After conducting surveys, I reached two high-frequency conclusions. Some merchants reported that cooperating with this company is unsafe; as long as a product sells well, it will inevitably raise prices, so they dare not promote it. The reason they still choose to sell this product is that customers will actively come to them. They do not want to lose these customers because as long as they come, they can promote other products. Some merchants reported that they originally sold it as part of a package with other products, which is why it had such good results from a technical perspective. Now that it has been raised in price, they can no longer form such packages. Rather than raising prices and losing loyal users, they prefer to seek alternative solutions.

Therefore, in a buyer's market, rashly raising prices on well-selling products is not a wise move, especially without market research and investigation, thinking it is a simple math or financial problem is even more ridiculous.

It is not that prices cannot be raised, but it must be based on investigation and research. For example, are different regional markets in different market environments? What are the specific reasons that make certain merchants sell well? Are partners sensitive to price or to customer relationships? These factors must be understood; otherwise, it is easy to shoot oneself in the foot.

However, this method of raising prices may be based on past experiences of a company, believing that as long as it is used continuously, it will work every time, but it ignores the subtle changes in specific conditions from the past to the current market.

For example, the past market may have been in a period of market dividends, where having quality resources meant there was no worry about sales. The market was in a seller's market state, so in this case, raising prices still led to booming sales.

Or in the past, partners were passively choosing due to certain cooperation conditions, but today the conditions have changed, and they no longer have to choose, and they have already established a relatively complete sales user system.

Therefore, if these issues are not understood, and one simply discusses with the accountant and believes that prices can be raised, then calculating greater profits based on past static sales is clearly mechanical thinking.

I have long recognized these situations, but unfortunately, there are always people who say finance is paramount, allowing financial management to direct marketing, so all business personnel are passively obedient. Just think about how great a risk this is.

At the same time, applying the same policies to old and new markets is also a continuation of this problem. The old market has some well-established customer relationships; they know how to maneuver related products. But what about the new market? Customers in the new market are not only unfamiliar with your products but also have a low understanding of this company. Cultivating relationships takes time. Today, the purchase price is one thing, and soon they are told that prices have increased again. This rollercoaster-like sales relationship will make the other party lose the sense of security in cooperation. Even if a product seems to be opening up sales channels, they will hesitate and quickly look for alternatives. Some decisive customers may even proactively say they will no longer cooperate.

Therefore, for the new market, cultivating customer relationships is very important, sometimes requiring the sacrifice of temporary profits. For the old market, maintaining customer relationships becomes less important; it is more about providing effective sales solutions and sales capability support to customers.

I found that the leaders back then got this relationship wrong. They were obsessed with maintaining customer relationships in the old market, weakening sales solutions and sales capability support, believing that the other party would definitely be stronger than themselves, allowing the market to run wild. What was the result? They would think this company had no prospects; apart from supporting products, it seemed to have no other commendable capabilities. Are you still thinking about raising prices to exploit them? No way!

As for the new market, the leaders back then always rushed to propose sales solutions and sales capability support, even though the relationship was not yet solid. They were eager for a leap forward, which gave the impression of wanting to teach others how to do things, while there were various problems in their own cooperation. Failing to grasp the main contradiction is the key reason for the new market's inevitable failure.

In summary, companies must always remember and be vigilant against behaviors that deviate from their core competitiveness, because after N years, the consequence of deviation is that all the busyness leads to merely making a wedding dress for others.