By Hu Hongjun
Inside the Beijing International Media Center (BIMC), an exquisite map of Beijing is capturing people's attention. People can pick up the Aigo pen beside the map and touch the map, and they can get all kinds information both in Chinese and English, including the history, culture and everyday life of Beijing.
This is the Beijing featured map with an Aigo pen, introduced by the Aifly Education & Technology Co., Ltd. (AIFLY), the Official Language Training Services Supplier of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.
Feng Jun, founder of company, told that, as the first official language training services supplier in Olympic history, AIFLY offers assistance for a successful Olympics and popularizes Chinese culture by providing a variety of "practical English" trainings to the 1.5mln Olympic volunteers. Feng Jun said that they had realized the transformation from "Made in China" to "Created in China" through independent innovation. The Olympic platform will advance the internationalization process, and introduce the brand of Aigo to the whole world so as to realize the leaping development of the company.
Feng Jun is busy with two things recently. One is to encourage the employees to study English; the other is to illustrate the independently developed Aigo pen with much patience to make people feel the magic of "listening to the book".
On June 18th 2007, AIFLY was elected as the Official Language Training Services Supplier of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games and was responsible to provide language test and training services for the Olympic volunteers. It is the first official language training services supplier in Olympic history.
In August of 2007, Aigo became partner of BIMC, responsible to provide certificate services for Olympic non-registered reporters and also provide them with mobile storage equipment. Non-registered reporters coming to China can use Aigo digital equipment to report the Olympics.
At the end of the same year, Aigo signed an official contract with the Olympic Museum in Lausanne of Switzerland and became a partner of this museum. Aigo was the first high-tech brand of China to enter the Olympic Museum. Its independently developed high-tech product, Aigo pen, was the only officially appointed illustration product in the tour exhibition of this museum.
In the view of Feng Jun, the Olympic Games are not only a marketing platform, but also a spiritual platform to learn the Olympic spirit and use the Olympic mechanism and operation method in the brand construction of the company. "To become a hero, one must first assist and serve one." The whole Olympic marketing strategy of Aigo is to serve the Olympics.
"Without independent innovation, there won't be Aigo pen, and the cooperation between Aigo and the Olympics won't go so far" said Feng Jun. Currently, besides the 20% of annual profit for staff dividends, the rest 80% of its annual profit is spent mainly on R&D.
The company's development from a small shop to the present scale is mainly attributed to its great investment in R&D. Through independent innovation, it manages to secure a foothold in the consumer electronic products market in which the competition is extremely fierce.
Take MP3 (digital music player) as an example. Around 2002, domestic MP3 market was occupied by foreign brands in general. By learning the using habits of the consumers and based on independent innovation, the company introduced the plug-and-play MP3 which f is more tailored to taste of the Chinese. After one-year efforts, the MP3 player achieved the largest occupation rate in domestic MP3 market. The MP4 player introduced afterwards also ranked the first in domestic market within one year.
After years' development, now Aigo has established many research centers in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen. Among the 700 researchers and designers, technicians holding doctor's degree or returning from oversees takes up 10% and those holding master's degree occupies over 30%.
In the mean time, Aigo possesses a list of world leading technologies, including the globally leading digital image watermarking technology, the first OLED (organic electroluminescent display) color screen MP3 in the world, the first energy-saving MP3 which can play continuously for 25 hours, the first watch-type MP3, the first eyeglass-type MP3, the first MP5 which supports the REAL format, the first personal digital camera with 10-mega pixels, etc..
Now, "There are hundreds of patent items each year, more than 100 in first half of 2008 and possibly more in the second half. It's estimated to be three to four hundred this year." Feng Jun revealed. Take Aigo pen as an example. The company owns 28 patent items on it, among which 27 items are invention patents. Besides serving as the only officially appointed illustration product in the tour exhibition of the Olympic Museum, it was also adopted by national museums including the Palace Museum.
Independent innovation has brought great business opportunities to the company and created an industrial miracle with an increasing development rate of over 60% in a continuous period of 10 years.
The independent innovation of Aigo is also acknowledged by international enterprises. SISVEL, one of the world famous patent agencies, has signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Aigo, to popularize its patent technologies with independent intellectual property rights throughout the world. This indicates that patent in digital field of China is striding toward the world market.
To develop Aigo into a world famous brand, in October of 2003, the company published the wholly new international identifier, Aigo, and launched an all-round internationalization strategy.
"2008 Beijing Olympics is a perfectly good opportunity for companies in China to realize the goal of becoming an international brand." Feng Jun said with confidence, "Our goal is to make Aigo an international brand of which Chinese people will be proud."
