Chinese manufacturers to improve products’ value

In the highly competitive security industry, the preferred countries where visitors are interested in sourcing their products are narrowed down to China, Taiwan, and Korea. Most visitors agree that Taiwan reigns supreme technology-wise due to its longstanding history of having a superb IT background; China is able to offer better prices; Korea manufactures most aesthetically pleasing products.

Though buyers used to source surveillance equipment mainly from Taiwan, the market has radically shifted its focus to China. China's immense production power is further solidifying its status as the manufacturing hub of not just Asia, but throughout the world as well. With much improved product quality and competitive prices, Chinese products are attracting the attention – and the wallets – of buyers worldwide. The rapid improvements are also removing the previous skepticism of their technology developing abilities.

Despite the rapid improvements and advancements of China, Chinese manufacturers are not as concerned about the appearance of their products. While Taiwanese manufacturers might be slightly more aware about product appearance, they are unable to compete with Korean manufacturers in terms of the consistency of the appearance of products they manufacture. “If you buy an iPhone, iPad, or a Mac computer, you can tell that it's made by the same company. The design is beautiful. So the first impression you get out of that product is really good. That is often lacking in the Chinese manufacturers. Simple things that really shouldn't be too hard to do are lacking. Similar with Taiwan, to a lesser extent,” said Neil Morgan, National Product Engineer at Ness, located in Australia. Morgan's observation serves as constructive criticism for defect rate and quality control issues that Chinese and Taiwanese manufacturers need to acknowledge and address in order to achieve further advancements.

Improved Quality in Chinese Products
Buyers agree that China is progressing quickly in its technology developments, leading to increased sourcing from Chinese manufacturers. “Chinese products' quality is improving, but their price is still very competitive. This makes it difficult for other countries' players to compete in the market. In turn, companies are feeling that they need to work with Chinese companies, because there is a demand for it. Around three to four years ago, 50 percent of our products were Korean, 30 percent Taiwanese, and 20 percent Chinese. Now, it is 10 percent Korean, 30 percent Taiwanese, and the rest is Chinese. In other words, Chinese products have taken over the share of Korean products, mostly because of better prices coupled with improving quality,” said Nikita Panfilov, Marketing Department Head at Intant, located in Kazhakstan. “Their price to quality ratio is increasing very fast. We tested IP cameras from China two, three years ago, which has nothing to do with what is coming out today. It improved very fast. Two years ago, you couldn't even trust their IP cameras. It was like an analog camera with something like IP. Today, it's much better. But I think it's also because the market was not big. Now the market is becoming bigger and bigger, so they are putting more energy on that,” agreed Karim Elleuch, CEO of Waycon in Tunisia, emphasizing on the vast improvements the Chinese manufacturers have made. Their competitive price coupled with their technological advancements increased their partnership with buyers all over the world.

Aside from its technological and quality improvements, the Chinese manufacturers have started to provide enhanced after-sales support over the course of the past few years, one baby step after another. According to a major Brazilian manufacturer, Chinese companies are now offering better technological support to their customers by trying to understand the different problems that commonly occur. Some are even going as far as sending their engineers from country to country to try and replicate the different environments of their customers and see what types of environments each country will have to deal with to further improve products to suit their different requirements.

Though Chinese manufacturers have convinced the majority of the buyers to start sourcing from them, some prefer to maintain loyalties with Taiwanese manufacturers. “Brazil is a very price sensitive market, and to overcome that, we focus on adding value to our solutions, such as creating long lasting relationships with our customers. In addition, our Taiwanese partners also have many qualities to differentiate them from others in the market, even if they do not offer the lowest price. More importantly, Taiwanese partners understand the reality in Brazil, and they are willing to offer us a special policy suited to the local market demands. In Brazil, there is a general sense that Chinese products have improved on quality, but there is still a resistance in the market. For us, we source 70 percent of our products from Taiwan, 20 percent from Korea, and 10 percent from the rest of the world,” said Natan Cuglovici, Director of Technology at Vault.

Buying from the “Right” Original Manufacturers
Regardless if they are Chinese, Korean, or Taiwanese, it is important that manufacturers remain trustworthy in the eyes of the buyers. Many times, buyers find themselves working with Chinese “manufacturers” who are in reality, large dealers with their own brand. “In China, there are dealers with their own brand names, but they actually buy their cameras from a manufacturer. They have such great marketing power that even when negotiating the prices of the cameras with them, you won't notice that unless you're from China,” Yossi Yaron, IP Department Manager at Smart IP Solutions. Though situations have improved, it is still important to find an ally who is familiar with the companies in the country one chooses to work with. “When you start dealing with a company, you're dealing at a purchasing level and at a technical support level. There are multiple levels. When any of those start to let you down, it becomes a problem,” said Morgan.