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 core competitiveness of Chinese enterprises is the easiest to lose, 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 ventured into the market 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 extremely important. Unfortunately, when you ask this question, the response is often superficial, lacking awareness of the question's significance.

Some only stay at the verbal level, but when it comes to specific actions, it changes flavor. They use the mindset of running a street stall and a penny-pinching financial awareness to implement surgical-like profit division with any party involved in or about to be involved in a profit relationship.

I once worked at a small company that did make a decent 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.

They noticed that certain products were selling well, so they 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, their own profits would surely increase.

Partners who collaborated with them saw the warning signs of price increases and began to stock up on certain products. After a year of promotion, some consumers had recognized the product, and if it were suddenly taken off the shelves, it would inevitably affect their business. However, if they also followed the price increase, 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 increasing competition, having a consumer base is equivalent to having a 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 partial testing, if they find the effects are not significantly different, they start 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 request a return.

If the new product does not become popular after a brief promotion but has latecomer 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 investigations, 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 increase in price, so they dare not promote it. The reason they still choose to sell this product is that customers will actively come to them, and they do not want to lose these clients. After all, 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 marked up, they can no longer form such packages. Rather than losing loyal customers due to price increases, 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 price increases cannot be made, but they should be based on investigation and research. For example, are different regional markets different in market environment? What are the specific reasons that make certain merchants sell well? Are partners sensitive to price or to 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 always work, but they overlook the subtle changes in specific conditions from the past to the current market.

For example, the market may have been in a period of dividends in the past, where having quality resources meant there was no worry about sales, and the market was in a seller's market state. In such cases, price increases could still lead to booming sales.

Or in the past, partners were passively choosing due to certain cooperative 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, failing to understand these issues and simply discussing with accountants to think that price increases can be made, 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. Building relationships takes time. Today, the purchase price is one thing, and soon telling the other party that prices have increased creates a roller-coaster sales relationship, which 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; more emphasis is placed on providing effective sales solutions and sales capability support.

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. As a result? They would think this company has no prospects; apart from supporting products, it seems to have no other commendable capabilities. Do you still think you can raise prices and 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 hustle and bustle leads to nothing more than making a wedding dress for others.