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If an innovation has to go through so many uncertain risks before it can finally produce a product, will the assessment stifle the desire for innovation?

Text｜Liang Xiao, reporter of "Chinese Entrepreneurs"

Editor: Mina

Source of header image｜Visual China

In 2020, Chen Ke, who had just joined Anta and served as the group's COO, received a task to review Anta's previous innovations.

Chen Ke, COO of Anta Group. Source: Interviewee

Previously, Anta's management had been unable to figure out one thing.They particularly want to encourage innovation, but the following voices still reflect that "the company does not support innovation much";In addition to overall R&D investment, Anta Group also established a special "Innovation Fund", but the result was: out of the 200 million yuan fund, only a few million yuan could be spent in the first two years.

Chen Ke discovered thatThe problem lies in the KPI, but it cannot be solved by simply changing the KPI.Over the past three years, Anta has carried out a series of reforms in its innovation system, which not only brought more breakthroughs in product innovation and technological innovation, but also sparked model innovation."If a company of this size doesn't innovate in its model, it will become rigid as time goes by."

Technological breakthrough

In April 2024, at the London Marathon, 41-year-old Ethiopian veteran Bekele broke the world marathon record for "over 40 years old" with a time of 2 hours, 4 minutes and 15 seconds. Previously, he was a spokesperson for Nike. At this moment, he was wearing Anta C10 PRO, also named "King of Forefoot".

This pair of running shoes, which was specially developed for marathon events, has also gone through a marathon-like long-distance run from the concept proposal in 2017 to the product launch in 2022.

"Project establishment, interruption, and restart," said Zheng Zhiyi, head of Anta Group's Innovation Laboratory. He joined the laboratory in 2010 and only did routine sports science tests in the first four years. In order to gain more product thinking, he took the initiative to reduce his salary and demoted his position to intern in the shoe product management department for two years. After returning to the laboratory, he proposed the "King of Forefoot" project.

Photography: Deng Pan

From concept to technology, it is like groping in the dark night.At the beginning, we had to prove: the power of the shoe is biased towards the forefoot, will it cause Achilles tendon damage to athletes? Therefore, we had to find multiple external experts and conduct various tests and research. After finally passing the proof, the next question came: what kind of material can achieve such performance? If one doesn't work, we try another one... In this repeated process, the "King of Forefoot" project has gone through three or four years.

In those years, the professional running shoe market has been booming. Not only are there Nike's Zoom and Adidas's Boost, but Li Ning also launched the (beng) technology in 2019, seizing the initiative in the field of professional running shoes.

"First mover advantage" not only occupies the front market, but also determines the battlefield in the rear."Material innovation is the foundation of product innovation," said Su Jiaming. The shoe purchasing innovation department of Anta Group, which he is in charge of, mainly innovates the materials of uppers and soles. Because Anta previously focused on mass running shoes, when they were developing professional running shoe materials in 2020, most suppliers in the market could no longer be knocked on: either they were too busy to receive customers because they had given priority to other major customers, or they had signed an exclusive supply agreement and could not receive customers. The most embarrassing time was when they had made an appointment with their boss to meet the next day, but when they arrived at the other party's park that day, they were told that they had signed an exclusive agreement with a competitor the night before and could no longer cooperate with Anta.

The road of experience is blocked, so we can only find another way, or we can comfort ourselves by thinking, "If we have the opportunity to use the materials chosen by our colleagues before, even if we do it well, we can only reach the same level as them."Su Jiaming recalled. So they simply went back to the "first principles" and found an item with a very small application scenario based on the two performance requirements of lightness and elasticity - the oil seal in the car. The scientific name of the material is polyurethane thermoplastic elastomer (TPU), which is both an elastomer and has the conditions for foaming to produce high performance.

The materials were found, but the foaming process was still a problem. Since they couldn't knock on the door of a large factory, they turned to a company that had just started in China and was responsible for the antenna foaming process for Huawei. Su Jiaming still remembers the excitement when he tested the rebound rate of the materials. Although they had to piece together a lot of things, they finally made this light and elastic midsole and named it "Nitrogen Technology".

This is in 2021. The technology of "King of Forefoot" is ready, but there is still a long way to go before it can be turned into a real product. The current hurdle is not easy to pass - because the cost of a pair of "Nitrogen Technology" midsoles is very high, so when Su Jiaming's team promoted it internally, it was not surprising that it was not well received.

Product breakthrough

How many hurdles does it take to go from technology to product? The process of "breathing membrane" transforming into "storm armor" is also the answer to this question.

In 2021, Anta Group released its new ten-year development strategy - single focus, multiple brands, and globalization, entering the "Strategy 5.0" stage. The layout of the innovation sector has also been iteratively upgraded, and it has gradually built a "global open innovation ecological network" involving 6 major design and R&D centers in the world, more than 70 universities and research institutions, more than 250 experts, and more than 800 suppliers.

Photography: Deng Pan

The "breathing membrane" is a material jointly developed by Anta and the Donghua University team, with its main features of waterproof and moisture-permeable properties.

With the materials and technology, the subsequent process happened naturally: find suppliers to transform the technology into products, but in the process it was discovered that there was a problem with the fit between the breathable membrane and the fabric - so they continued to work on it. After the problem was solved, Anta Group handed the technology over to Anta Children to apply it to shoe products. They received tens of thousands of orders and the results seemed good.

But there were problems with product quality: the fabric was flat cloth, and when the product needed to be sewn or glued together, the joints broke.

At this time, everyone is faced with a choice. People on the brand side suddenly lose confidence. For them, it is not necessary to sell the respiratory membrane products. It is not certain how many they can sell now. Even if they sell them, they may still get into trouble. So forget it. Chen Ke said that this mentality is not difficult to understand, so many companies stop their innovation here, "resulting in everyone seeming to invest a lot, but in the end nothing comes out."

In order to take this step, Anta Group took over the project again and developed a supporting process suitable for the bonding of the breathable membrane together with the supply chain. The process seemed to be able to continue, but it was not over yet: the cost of the technology was too high and deviated from the price positioning of the Anta brand.

Finally, in order to lower the price, Anta placed an order for 100,000 pieces, because only with such a large order would suppliers be willing to cooperate in improving technology and processes and control production costs. At this time, this jacket "product" could finally be launched on the market, and Anta named it "Storm Armor"."It is achieved through trial and error. If any one point fails to stick, the innovation will die."Chen Ke said.

In this process,The group and the brand also need to cooperate with each other to pass on the innovation from ideas to products step by step: As a platform, Anta Group needs to build an innovation network, connect innovative resources, and carry out innovations in cutting-edge basic technologies. The technical application level will then be handed over to the brand because they are closer to the market. The group will supervise the process and provide resource support as needed.

Back to the story of Nitrogen Technology, the reason why the technology was eventually turned into a product was because it caught up with the background of Anta's professional transformation and innovation strategy change. At first, this technology was applied to the "King of Forefoot" priced at 2,599 yuan, and then slowly drip-fed to other more product lines, from the high-end market to the mass market, and the cost curve continued to decline with the spread of technology.

KPI Unbundling

If an innovation has to go through so many uncertain risks before it can finally produce a product, will the assessment stifle the desire for innovation?

In 2020, when Chen Ke reviewed the situation, he found that the innovation process was stuck by KPI. At that time, the innovation assessment followed Anta's unified KPI strong operation control system. "Although there is no assessment, employees have a sense that even if they spend 10 yuan, they have to mention the business value and ask questions thoroughly. People are afraid of being asked." Chen Ke said that culture cannot be just "put on the wall". If the mechanism is not guaranteed, no matter how good it is, employees will not experience it.feelI also feel that companies are bragging and that "such a culture becomes an obstacle to innovation."

"Should innovation management have quantitative goals? What kind of goals should be set?" After many discussions, the Group Innovation Management Committee reached a consensus on "goals" - they do not have to be fully quantified to KPIs, and can also be integrated with OKR (objective and key results management). At present, the Group's Science and Technology Innovation Department divides the goal assessment dimensions into three items: technological leadership, brand leadership, and order contribution. For this purpose, a management model has been established to comprehensively evaluate each indicator.

"The success of something requires cooperation across the entire value chain and across all fields. This kind of culture is more helpful for large companies like ours to maintain flexibility and efficiency." Chen Ke said that in practice, he found that setting innovation goals is still very necessary.

Taking the product development of "King of Forehand" as an example, it involves innovation departments such as laboratories and material research and development, as well as technicians, designers, and a series of departments such as group quality and procurement."We need to have both wild imagination and down-to-earth goal management, so that everyone can complement each other's strengths and form a synergy, and keep moving in the right direction."Zheng Zhiyi, who has experienced this tough battle, feels deeply about this.

But back in 2018, the head of the innovation lab also backed off. At that time, the "King of Forehand" project was stopped midway because a leader believed that "it has never been done in the industry and the economic benefits are not obvious." For him at the time, this basin of cold water poured from head to toe. "Can you imagine a straight male scientist who judges from a purely professional perspective that the direction is right and has already taken shape, but the leader says that we have to stop. How uncomfortable do you think it is?"

Therefore, the direction of Anta's innovation system adjustment in the past two years, in the words of Chen Ke, is to form an evaluation system of "top management leadership and expert governance". "It is impossible for top management to understand all areas. Professionals should be allowed to do professional things."

Under this mechanism, each leader of the Innovation Management Committee is divided into different roles and assigned to different expert pools according to their professional and ability quadrants. Reviewers are selected from the corresponding expert pools for the innovation involved. Chen Ke gave an example, "For example, I am a management expert. I am only eligible to vote in the selection of management projects, but I cannot express my opinions on design." Under the original model, whoever has a higher level is right, and "innovation cannot be decided by one person on a whim."

Compared with before, the mechanism of project management has also changed.The same thing is that all innovation projects still need to look at the promotion process and phased progress. The difference is that the financial assessment setting has been cancelled at each node.One aspect of process management is to track progress, and the other aspect is to empower and enhance. "Because the group has a lot of resources, it can help some projects focus on overcoming difficulties and bottlenecks and improve innovation efficiency."

In the past two years, the number of applicants for the innovation fund within Anta Group has increased. Last year, tens of millions of yuan were approved. "At least they dare to apply. They didn't dare to apply before because they thought it would put a lot of shackles on themselves," said Chen Ke. "As we continue to follow this system, the innovation trend will get better and better. The application progress in the first half of this year was much faster."

Photography: Deng Pan

In March 2022, Zheng Zhiyi's team applied for a more daring project to make a pair of smart basketball shoes with carbon fiber strips on the soles that can be retracted and extended freely, so that users can switch functions in various scenarios. Currently, this device can be controlled by a mobile phone. They are studying an upgraded version that uses skin touch control. In the next step, they even want to use a brain-computer interface to achieve this extension and retraction conversion.

After reviewing it, an expert asked Chen Ke, "Isn't this a bit too innovative?"

"In the past, many companies, including Anta, were followers in innovation. Now Anta wants to do more leading innovation," said Chen Ke.Some things need to be excessive, and some things need to be advanced.Anta is already a leading company and it has to do something like this.”