Lining, 45 years old, wore a "LINING" sportswear on his temples and appeared in the "Li Ning Co 2008 Olympic strategy" press conference.

Although his title is chairman of Li Ning Co, he appeared as a former Olympic champion on this occasion, so that he was dubbed "Olympic old hero".

Li Ning Co CEO Zhang Zhiyong is fully responsible for the announcement of the Olympic strategy and answers questions from the media.

In fact, Lining himself has less and less attended such company activities, especially those related to the company's operation. Although he lives in Hongkong, he seldom goes to the office of the company. His appearance is more frequently seen in public welfare activities, donating a school or donating an athlete.

Zhang Lianwei, a professional golfer, once joked that he had been a teacher to Lining. He had plenty of time to see his son's teacher or play with his daughter, and there was news that Lining was going to read history.

This is a completely different state of life with most of the founders of family businesses, thanks to Lining's own decision.

10 years ago, Lining was 35 years old. He had run his own Li Ning Co for 8 years.

That year, Lining made several important decisions that changed the future of the company.

In 1998, the Li Ning Co born in Sanshui, Guangdong, bid farewell to Li Jingwei, a mentor, and set up Beijing Beijing sporting goods Co., Ltd.

Lining's vision is no longer confined to Guangdong or even China, and the world champion's goal is the whole world.

In 1998, Lining set up the first design and development center of sportswear and shoes in Foshan, Guangdong.

For most Chinese manufacturers who were also satisfied with OEM production, this is a commendable decision - not everyone is willing to make such a huge investment, and not everyone can bear the possibility of a return period.

This is the beginning of Lining's practice in training Nike, ADI and other pnational sports brands. Before that, more learning was limited to advertising and marketing.

The most important significance of this center is that Lining has decided to operate the brand named after him as a brand, not just a product.

In 1998, Lining took off the position of general manager of Li Ning Co and handed over the heavy responsibility to Chen Yihong, who started business together, and chose to go to Beijing University to study.

For a long time, this decision was considered to be a compromise to Chen Yihong after Lining's removal of the family traces of the enterprise.

Before making this decision, Lining persuaded all relatives who worked in the Li Ning Co, even the comrades of the gymnastics team, and asked Chen Yihong's relatives and friends to leave the company.

Now, it seems that Lining's courage in making this decision is unmatched, and the pformation of a family business to a modern enterprise is beginning to emerge.

Chen Yihong is a very suitable entrepreneur. Under his leadership, Li Ning Co has increased by more than 50% per year in the first few years of its establishment, and achieved sales of 650 million yuan in 1996.

But a few years after 1998, it was a low tide in the development of Li Ning Co, and the performance of the company failed to exceed the 1 billion yuan mark.

Lining began to rethink the brand and the future of the company.

The two basic principles have not changed: create a globalized sports brand and build a modern enterprise system managed by professional managers.

Only people can be changed.

In 2001, Zhang Zhiyong, 35, succeeded Chen Yihong as general manager of Li Ning Co. The chief financial officer, who has been working in Li Ning Co since graduation, is prudent and is regarded as "persistent pursuit of system and system".

Over the next two years, Zhang has broken the company's annual sales by 1 billion yuan, which has been a sales bottleneck for Lining for many years.

Lining and Chen Yihong arranged for a proper retreat. At that time, Li Ning Co was talking about cooperation with KAPPA, and the whole business was left to Chen Yihong to take charge of the establishment of Beijing trend company. In exchange, Chen no longer took part in the operation of Lining brand and company.

A year later, Chen Yihong bought shares in the Beijing trend held by Lining. After another year, Chen Yihong bought the brand's permanent right to use KAPPA in the Chinese market; in 2007, Chen Yihong led China's trend in Hongkong, and the result was satisfactory.

Zhang Zhiyong began to pform his company in accordance with his own ideas, especially a large number of professional managers, such as CFO Chen Weicheng from Reuters Group, Chen Weicheng Xu Weijun, who worked for Coca-Cola. Zhang Xiaoyan, director of public affairs, worked in DuPont, while Wu Xian, from Procter & Gamble, was responsible for shoes and clothing products.

This is also the direction Lining wants.

Today, even in propaganda, Lining gradually fades out of the company or even people's attention. Zhang Zhiyong is more pushed into the public eye.

At the same time, the important task of professional manager management team is to develop Lining brand into a young, internationalized and character brand, so as to drive the consumption of local target groups.

"In front of us, there is a lot of temptation to make quick money and we need to work hard to overcome it," a senior executive said. Lining focused on long-term investment returns, so he insisted on developing only in the sporting goods industry, insisting on constantly adding more connotations to the "Lining" brand.

In the Research Report of Credit Suisse, Credit Suisse said that in China's future sporting goods market, the chances of local brands will not be less than that of international brands. But whether they can get close to different price markets and respond quickly to different needs is an important indicator of whether China's sporting goods market will develop at a rapid pace in the future.

For now, Lining is clearly the most successful.

From the development of family businesses to modern enterprises and from the efforts of local brands to international brands, Lining has given positive demonstration significance to Chinese enterprises in two aspects.