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By Xue Chen, Senior Researcher at Jinshi Brand Lab

Recently, the Guizhou Provincial Government has held intensive press conferences to detail the province's economic performance and industrial development in the first half of the year. As an important part of Guizhou's "six major industries", liquor-related data performed well. In particular, at the press conference on Guizhou's industrial economic development held on July 31, it was mentioned that Guizhou liquor is creating 37.3% of the profits with 6.8% of the national output.

Against this background, Guizhou Province proposed to continuously enhance the vitality of industrial development, consolidate the advantages of the world's origin and main production areas of Maotai-flavor liquor, and vigorously promote the export of advantageous products including Guizhou liquor in the first half of 2024.

As a leading Guizhou liquor company, Moutai has provided a sample for Guizhou liquor's international layout and high-quality development in 2024. The value of the sample lies in that Guizhou liquor can leverage the power of international authoritative institutions and platforms to empower the company's international vision and high-quality management capabilities. More importantly, Moutai has enabled Guizhou liquor and even Chinese liquor to find a way to showcase the results of high-quality development of the company, and to use an international discourse system to express the subtleties of liquor culture.

Moutai won the highest honor of EFQM Global Award with its strength

In the first half of 2024, the most important exploration result of Moutai's international layout was the winning of the EFQM Global Award (formerly the European Quality Award), which is the highest level of "Seven Diamonds" honor. It is understood that Moutai is the first Chinese company to win the award after the new standard was adopted for the award.

The special feature of the EFQM Global Award is its high influence worldwide. As an excellent management award initiated by the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM), the EFQM Global Award selection aims to help companies improve performance and promote management changes, and reward companies that have made outstanding achievements in quality.

Quality is regarded as the foundation of Moutai, and there is no need to repeat it in the domestic market. At present, Moutai is aiming at "world-class", but it lacks management tools with a more international perspective to meet the requirements of high-quality development in the new era; it lacks a communication platform with more international influence to ensure that Moutai and Baijiu are better known to the world.

As a result, Moutai and the EFQM Global Award "hit it off". Russell Longmuir, CEO of the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM), visited Moutai and pointed out: "Moutai can be loyal to tradition while moving towards a modern international enterprise."

What is the tradition and modernity of Moutai favored by the EFQM Global Award? It is to make "inheritance more traditional and innovation more modern". Therefore, the industry can see that Moutai has three major material inheritances: strict materials, strict utensils and stable microorganisms; four major intangible inheritances: control of time, respect for climate laws, understanding of temperature changes and full exploration of the beauty of traditional brewing techniques; Moutai also constantly innovates technical methods and equipment facilities, and even in high-profile areas such as green and digitalization, Moutai has no shortage of innovative measures. Achieving a dynamic balance between inheritance and innovation is Moutai's eternal melody and an important "skeleton" for Moutai to achieve high-quality development.

Moutai has even summarized its own unique management and practices into six best practices that can be interconnected and promoted in a coordinated manner, including the interpretation of inheritance and innovation mentioned above, as well as the construction of "three communities" of interests, emotions, and destiny, and the creation of a "responsible and warm brand" through industrial promotion, rural revitalization, public welfare activities and other initiatives.

Moutai's experience and practices were highly recognized by the EFQM Global Award judging panel. Russell Langmuir commented: "Chinese companies such as Moutai can also compete with all international level 'rivals' on the world stage."

Providing samples for liquor to demonstrate high-quality development results

The Moutai experience has brought new concepts and ideas to the development of Guizhou and even Chinese liquor. Moutai's participation in the EFQM Global Award selection process can be used as a reference for the liquor industry. It is a process for companies to showcase their products and culture to the world. It is also a process for liquor companies to "go global" to expand the market, use international rules to improve management and quality, and show the results of high-quality development of Chinese liquor.

Taking Guizhou liquor, especially the sauce-flavor liquor industry, as an example, the current development presents the characteristics of "growth against the trend and fewer brands", that is, while the scale of the sauce-flavor liquor industry has expanded and its market share in the country has increased, there is a lack of listed companies or even nationally renowned brands.

Data shows that in 2023, the output of liquor enterprises above designated size nationwide was 4.492 million kiloliters, a year-on-year decrease of 2.8%; however, the output of liquor enterprises above designated size in Guizhou was 304,000 kiloliters, a year-on-year increase of 6.5%. In the first half of 2024, the added value of liquor industry above designated size in Guizhou Province reached an increase of 13.3%.

Correspondingly, Guizhou Province currently has fewer nationally renowned liquor brands than Sichuan Province, another major liquor province, and there is only one liquor company listed on the A-share market: Kweichow Moutai.

In addition, some industry opinions pointed out that due to factors such as intensified competition in the liquor market and the market gradually entering a new round of industry adjustment cycle, Guizhou liquor urgently needs a new idea to expand new market space and, under the trend of large-scale and centralized development of liquor, to expand and strengthen its scale and enhance the influence of the production area.

The evaluation model of the EFQM Global Award has brought world-class management experience to Moutai and other liquor companies that want to go global, allowing liquor companies to understand their own strengths and gaps and readjust their management methods and market positioning.

The process of Moutai's participation in the EFQM Global Award and the best practices summarized by Moutai have helped liquor companies understand how to summarize an international language system that suits them and introduce the highlights and cultural concepts of their brands in the face of higher consumer demands and a broader overseas market. The world can see that Moutai and other liquor brands are ready to show the determination and strength of Chinese brands to impact the global market.