From aluminum profile to the whole aluminum industry chain, and then to diversified development, transformation and upgrading are always embodied in the over 20-year development of Galuminium Group. Nowadays, with the arrival of “Internet +” era, transformation and upgrading are of great significance to Galuminium Group, a company with an annual turnover of nearly RMB ten billion and the most comprehensive whole aluminum industry chain.

Transformation in the Servitization of Manufacturing Industry -- An Irresistible Trend

Transformation and upgrading is an everlasting topic for an enterprise. It can be seen that Galuminium Group has also experienced several major transformation and upgrading periods throughout its development over the past over 20 years.

In 1993, the founders of Galuminium Group followed the trend of reform and opening up, and purchased Guangzhou Baiyun Aluminum Factory, thus entered into the field of aluminum profile. Later on, it realized cross-regional production and a full set of production from aluminum ingot smelting, aluminum bar casting, profile extrusion, oxidation treatment to product packing, through purchasing Nanhai Lishui Steel Tubing Plant and Machong Dongjiang Aluminum Material Factory in Dongguan, thus laying a solid foundation for the Group to become a legend in aluminum industry.

In 2000, the Group realized that it was time to transform and upgrade itself after successfully established the famous brands of aluminum products such as “Galuminium”, “Baiyun”, “Dongjiang”, “Lv Ke” and so on. Meanwhile, the direction was extending to both ends of the industrial chain, in order to forge a whole aluminum industrial chain. Currently, the Group has three core competition advantages: 1. The most complete aluminum industrial chain at home and abroad; 2. Abundant bauxite resources with nearly 0.2 billion tons of explored bauxite reserve, which accounts for one fifth of the total around the country and ranks the second only next to that of Aluminum Corporation of China; 3. Brand influence, with 22-year professional experience and the “Galuminium” brand of national level.

Yet in recent years, there has been profound changes in the downstream of the industry chain, and the outstanding development tendency of manufacturing industry servicizing. The responsible person in the President Office of Galuminium Group said, “we used to sell products after they were made to customers, while nowadays we produce the products based on users’ demands. The idea is totally different, although there is just a difference of only a single word between customer and user.”

Regarding to the downstream aluminum market in the chain, with the rise of “Industry 4.0” and “Internet +”, Galuminium Group is redefining the aluminum building system and begins to occupy household market, besides relying on traditional distributors and contractors. Comparing with simple aluminum construction profiles, aluminum building system pays more attention to services, including overall decoration service, which sells product as well as design.

“The servitization of manufacturing industry has begun,” the responsible person continued, “taking doors and windows system as an example, users can choose different styles of home decoration services according to their house conditions, and place an order after determining service selection. This is a future tendency of individualized demands.” In addition, “sunlight rooms” produced with aluminum have gain gradual popularity among the owners, and building a “sunlight room” in a villa, a top floor duplex house, or a private garden also generates large demands of aluminum products.

Implementing Marketing Network and Platform

How to achieve the “online” and “offline” connection between users and the Group? The responsible person above indicated that the Group is developing a powerful App for mobile terminals on which products are displayed and users can directly place an order, thus facilitating the seamless joint of “online” and “offline” aluminum products. The system is now in test stage.

The transformation and upgrading towards aluminum building system is also a process of continuously meeting with users’ individual demands as well as improving their life quality. How to start from users’ needs and integrate them with the production line, and effectively manage the production are great tasks and challenges. In terms of this, the Weishang Furniture located in the furniture city of Foshan may offer an idea, which controls the large industry chain with its huge sales data. Furthermore, the finished automobile production model of Toyota is also of important referential significance. Toyota vehicles tend to resources integration of parts, thus forming an industry alliance.

A related official said, “The development path of the Group in the future, will no longer be blind capacity expansion, but to develop towards middle end and high-end brands; though the market share catering for users’ custom orders is comparatively small, the overall economic value is high, and it can especially contribute to spreading brand reputation when serving the users. Therefore, it is a good transformation direction for enterprises.”

He admitted that this is the first year for China's social and economic development to enter into a new normal, and servitization, network and platform are the mainstreams of development for traditional manufacturing industry. “As a large-scale conglomerate with 22 years of development history, we always keep in step with the times, deepen our service concept, and intensify transformation and upgrading, so that the Group will achieve greater developments and continue the legend in aluminum industry.”

 (Shared from Nanfang Daily)