Allen Qu, Founder & CEO & Chairman, Netconcepts
In today’s business world, many have ideas, but only few take the risk and convert those ideas into opportunities. Allen Qu is one such entrepreneur who believed in giving wings to his aspirations. He is the Founder, CEO, and Chairman of Netconcepts, an award-winning eCommerce and digital marketing solutions provider for leading brands in China. It provides online marketing and e-commerce solutions for the world’s leading organizations and companies in Greater China, US, Australia, New Zealand, Europe, and Japan. Prominent clients include Suning, Gome, Amazon, Nike, Air China, VIP.com, and many more.
For about 10 years, Allen has lived abroad in countries including New Zealand and Japan. In 2008, he found a development opportunity in the domestic internet market and returned to China to start his own business. Since then, Allen has managed to run the company for 13 years, and today, Netconcepts is one of the largest online marketing solution providers and one of the top 10 e-commerce and mobile solution providers in China.
Uniquely Positioned in the Market
Established in 2008, Netconcepts was started to provide effective internet marketing solutions to improve traffic, ranking, and to deliver transformation result for large enterprises and traditional enterprises on the Internet. Subsequently, the company added more services such as creative marketing, IP marketing, content marketing, and other related comprehensive solutions. Currently, Netconcepts is a marketing solution provider integrating effect marketing and brand creative marketing.
The company’s mission is to be the best marketing and e-commerce solution provider in China. “Since the inception of Netconcepts, we have been focusing on this field, providing internet marketing solutions and services for various industries and large enterprises in China and around the world,” asserts Allen. During the process, the company has always been keeping pace with times, whether technical, content, or serviceability level, it is developing along with the development of the industry.
Overcoming the Hurdles
In the past 13 years, Netconcepts has faced many challenges. Among them Allen considers three challenges to be the major ones. The first challenge he faced is the lack of talents in the early stage of the company. Back in 2008, although China’s market was blooming, the whole market was very immature and lacked ready-made talents. Allen had to do many things all by himself, including training front-line staff and colleagues.
The second challenge Allen faced was the rapid development of the Internet. In the past decade, China’s Internet has changed from the earliest PC to mobile, from the search era to the later era of MicroBlog and WeChat, and then to the current Instant Music Video era. “The whole pattern of the Internet has changed a lot. For us, we need to quickly improve our ability from technology and service to adapt to the rapid changes of this era,” says Allen.
The third challenge he faced was to control the pace and cash flow at the operating level of the company. With the rapid development of China’s Internet, there were many temptations along with opportunities. “Some of our peers may go too slowly, and some may go too fast, which eventually leads to some bad results. So it’s important for us to better control the company’s operation in the process, and makes the right strategic decision at the right time,” shares Allen.
Being a leader, Allen follows three values that he conveys within the company. The first is reliable. He says, “Be it to ourselves, our customers, and to anyone whom we make promise, everything must be reliable. Unreliable is not acceptable in our company.” Secondly, he calls it altruism, which means that in the process of serving customers and projects, he also maximizes the other party’s benefits. The third one is long-termism. Allen believes that “whether it is the long-term value of the enterprise, the cooperative relationship between us and customers, or the relationship between people, it must be based on the principle of long-termism, and then we can go further.” As a result, every time the company makes a business decision, it takes the attitude of long-term cooperation with customers and partners as the starting point.
Future Roadmap
Netconcepts aims to continue to focus on internet marketing and e-commerce solutions. Also, it aspires to continue to invest and focus on technology R&D, personnel training, and deep cultivation of the industry.
“We have a slogan in our company, which is the hope that we will be the world’s longest-living leading Internet marketing solution provider. We hope to keep pace with the times, cooperate with our partners for many years, and provide them with the best internet marketing services,” shares Allen. Personally, Allen believes that the most important self and social responsibility is to have a proud enterprise and keep it running continuously.
Words of Wisdom
“Ten years ago, we experienced the rapid development of the Internet, especially from PC to mobile internet, which was a fast iterative era. Now, most of the companies in the industry have become mature and stable. So for today’s young people who want to start a business, it may be important to find a field that they like which they can focus on for a long period time, go deep into the field, and be a part of the development,” shares Allen.