An Analysis of Chinese Agrochemical Companies’ Strategies for Building Brands Abroad

　　1. The Practice of Indigenous Brands
　　Speaking of Chinese enterprises establishing themselves overseas… Pesticide Among domestic brands, aside from the few early state-owned enterprises with “Zhong” in their names, the earliest pioneer was undoubtedly Yunfa Chemical (Pilarquim). As early as the 1990s, it had already secured registration for both glyphosate technical grade and formulations in Japan, exporting domestically produced glyphosate to that market. The registration certificate for glyphosate in Japan was held by Pilarquim, and the aqueous formulation was marketed under the trade name Pilarsato. Such substantial investment in regulatory registration and a well‑crafted brand strategy were truly unprecedented at the time.
　　As time entered the 21st century, with domestic… Pesticide With the relaxation of export qualifications for enterprises, many companies have ventured overseas. Pesticide The market initially remained customer‑driven, with companies assisting clients in registering their products. As these enterprises deepened their understanding of overseas markets, Chinese firms—primarily engaged in foreign trade—began to undertake independent registration abroad, filing local product names and trademarks and selling under their own brands. This operational model has gradually become a prevailing trend, with an increasing number of companies joining the ranks of those building their own overseas brands.
　　Today, the path of building overseas brand equity is being pursued not only by large corporations like Longdeng and Runfeng, but also by small enterprises that focus on one or two countries. These players include both manufacturers and trading companies. Whether in Brazil, Argentina, Ghana, or Kenya, Chinese brands can be found in retail outlets, and it’s safe to say that Chinese company logos and products in compact packaging have now spread across the globe.
　　It’s certainly heartening to see so many hometown brands on the international stage, but that sense of joy feels somewhat uneasy—there’s a lingering worry that they might disappear next time. And when they’re gone, they’re really gone; unlike Nokia, which might reemerge in our view after a decade or two.
　　Why China? Pesticide Is the brand a bit lacking in confidence?
　　I believe the primary reason is that our overseas self‑owned brands are not truly established brands. Intuitively speaking, these domestic labels abroad serve mainly to enhance brand recognition—communicating to farmers that a particular bottle, packaging, logo, and product name belong to our company, not to any other.
　　It’s a bit like a story I once heard: in some parts of West Africa, certain Black communities, naturally inclined to a certain laid-backness, would plant tomatoes and then simply leave them to their own devices. As for how much they harvested, it wasn’t due to fertilizing or spraying pesticides, nor was it because they staked the plants to keep them from toppling over. To reap a bigger yield, they devoted themselves each day to one simple act: prayer.
　　Establishing our own overseas brands is much like growing tomatoes: we simply plant the seeds, but without the right strategies to turn our efforts into a genuine brand.
　　Perhaps some people would disagree with this claim, arguing that their company’s brand is already a bona fide brand.
　　So let’s set aside the complex definitions and descriptions of branding and focus on one simple fact: a brand can deliver a price premium and generate added value for its owner. How many domestic brands can actually achieve this? And in overseas markets, which Chinese brand dares to raise the price of each individual package by even just one U.S. dollar without worrying that customers will stop buying?
　　If a brand lacks its own pricing strategy and the bargaining power to negotiate with customers, and ultimately relies on slashing prices or appealing to consumers with high value for money, then it is not a true brand.
　　In this sense, China’s Pesticide Chinese enterprises still have a long way to go in building their own brands in overseas markets.
　　2. A Core Competence That Seems But Is Not
　　At the CAC show this March, someone shared with me their experience of building an independent brand overseas. They believe that China… Pesticide It is simply unrealistic for a company to try to build an independent brand overseas. When a domestic firm enters a new market, establishes a new distribution network, partners with unfamiliar customers, and markets its own new products—such a “four‑new” enterprise is bound to fail.
　　I don’t think the problem lies with the “Four New” sectors. It’s perfectly normal for “Four New” companies to face significant challenges in their early stages; as long as they possess a distinct core competency, they will gradually grow and mature. The reasons behind the perception that “Four New” enterprises are destined to fail can be attributed to the following factors:
　　First of all, brand building is a long-term endeavor, especially in overseas markets—it cannot be achieved overnight. It’s unrealistic to expect that registering dozens of products at once, pouring heavy resources into aggressive marketing, and then seeing rapid sales success locally. While there are successful examples of this approach, such models typically work only in one or two countries and are difficult to scale broadly. Markets always require sustained effort; without dedicating eight to ten years, it’s very challenging to establish a solid foothold in any given market.
　　Secondly, it’s about focus—either on a specific country or on a particular crop. Given the current capabilities of domestic enterprises, attempting to go all‑in and pursue multiple fronts simultaneously would stretch both financial resources and human capital beyond their limits.
　　Third, it’s crucial to identify the right entry point. Perhaps a particular product is exceptionally effective, or perhaps a specific pest, disease, or weed problem is especially severe in the local area, or maybe the local customers are particularly supportive. Without a favorable window for market entry, it will be difficult for the product to generate significant buzz.
　　The three points mentioned above should serve as the foundation for building an independent brand; however, relying solely on these broad principles to establish such a brand is far from sufficient. Many companies that have been cultivating overseas brands for years are already well aware of these three elements—and may even be familiar with fourth, fifth, and sixth factors—yet their results still fall short of expectations. Why is this the case?
　　This is because having a solid foundation merely lays the groundwork; to truly establish a brand, you also need a towering pillar—what we call the product’s core competitive advantage.
　　So, do Chinese companies possess core competitiveness in overseas markets?
　　It can’t be said that there isn’t; there should be.
　　If low prices are a form of competitiveness, then we certainly have it—and every company that distributes overseas enjoys price competitiveness on certain products; otherwise, they wouldn’t have made it this far.
　　If we set aside low price as the core competitive advantage, do Chinese companies still have other sources of competitiveness in brand building? Let’s first examine three types of enterprises that engage in brand-building:
　　First are the companies that primarily export active ingredients: having started early and grown to a large scale, they enjoy high brand recognition abroad and are well‑received by local contract manufacturers. However, if they attempt to enter the end‑user market, they face double‑edged competition from both multinational giants and domestic players. Building their own sales teams would require substantial investment, while partnering with local distributors may work when prices are competitive—but once prices rise, distributors are likely to switch to competitors, leaving the company with limited control over its distribution channels. Beyond the established reputation of the company name, its core competitive advantage ultimately hinges on price competitiveness.
　　Category 2 comprises domestic active‑ingredient manufacturers that distribute branded end‑products overseas. These companies enjoy cost advantages, with their core competitiveness rooted in pricing. However, the products they sell are, to varying degrees, tied to their own active ingredients—either as single‑component formulations or as formulated blends. If a product is unrelated to the company’s own active ingredient, such sales revert to ordinary trade, and the cost advantage disappears. Conversely, if these firms insist on focusing exclusively on derivative formulations based on their own active ingredients, it becomes difficult to systematize their offerings and to build a core competitive edge beyond price.
　　Category 3 is currently the mainstay of overseas brand building, namely… Pesticide Export‑oriented trading companies. Due to the nature of their business, these firms are acutely aware of the urgency of brand building and typically boast over a decade of practical experience. Their most significant challenge is the lack of proprietary production facilities, which makes it difficult to ensure the stability of specialized dosage forms. Moreover, given the diverse and evolving demands of the market, obtaining regulatory approval for new products can be particularly arduous. The more successful players generally begin by capturing market share through competitive pricing; once they have established a foothold, they then seek to enhance profitability. Ultimately, price competitiveness remains their key advantage.
　　Looking across these three types of companies, their core competitive advantage boils down to price. Without a pricing edge, customer loyalty remains weak; at the slightest sign of trouble, customers will walk away. As a result, most established overseas brands can hardly be considered true brands. A brand should be deeply rooted in the minds of customers, fostering relationships that are built on partnership rather than mere transactional exchanges.
　　Even when many domestic companies establish their own registrations and brands overseas, their relationship with customers remains fundamentally transactional. Such a relationship is akin to buying a T-shirt on the street: if it’s cheap, I’ll buy it; if it’s not, I’ll go elsewhere—willing to switch for a price difference of just one yuan.
　　Even if you obtain marketing authorization in Europe and the United States, in Brazil, or in regions where registration is particularly challenging, as long as what’s registered is a me‑too product, you will inevitably face competition from identical products in the domestic market. Ultimately, this will reduce your business to mere price competition, reverting to the operating model of small-scale retailers rather than that of a branded enterprise.
　　So, China Pesticide Is it possible for companies to identify several avenues and establish truly independent overseas brands?
　　3. Insights from Aircraft Carriers and the Tomahawk Missile
　　Fortunately, we are living in a wonderful era.
　　Here are two pieces of news:
　　On March 4, 2002, the aircraft carrier Varyag finally reached its destination: the port of Dalian, China.
　　On June 8, 2017, China National Chemical Corporation announced that it had completed its acquisition of the world’s largest… Pesticide , the third largest seed The closing of the transaction involving the agrochemical high-tech company, Swiss Syngenta.
　　If the arrival of the Varyag gave rise to China’s first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, then Syngenta’s acquisition by ChemChina has had an impact on China’s agrochemical industry no less significant than the Varyag’s entry into Dalian Port.
　　To illustrate this point, let us first examine a passage from one of Mr. Jin Yong’s novels:
　　“In the Sword Chamber of the King of Yue, Aqing wielded a bamboo staff, facing twenty of Yue’s finest swordsmen. Yet not one of them could withstand even three of her strikes.”
　　With a flick of his bamboo staff, if his opponent’s wrist wasn’t pierced and his longsword flung from his hand, then the staff would strike a vital spot, leaving him prostrate on the ground.
　　The next day, thirty swordsmen were defeated beneath her staff. The following day, another thirty swordsmen, their wrists broken and arms shattered by a single bamboo stick, fled in disarray.
　　Eighty swordsmen of the Yue state had not mastered a single move from Aqing’s sword technique, yet they had all beheld the very shadow of that divine blade. Each one came to know that such a wondrous art truly existed in this world. And these eighty men, each imparting to others but the faintest, most elusive trace of that legendary swordsmanship, ensured that, even with only that fleeting glimpse of the divine sword, the Yue and Wu warriors’ martial arts would henceforth be unrivaled under heaven.
　　Often, it’s not that we don’t want to work hard—it’s that we don’t know how.
　　When it comes to building independent overseas brands, we’ve always been outsiders, seeing only the surface. It’s like watching someone eat: we can observe their mouth taking in the food, chewing it, and swallowing, but we can’t see the digestive process unfolding inside.
　　Even after hearing their accounts, we often grasp only a fragment of the whole. Sometimes, the scant details we do glean can even lead us into the trap of “survivorship bias.”
　　So, Syngenta’s entry into China has enabled China… Pesticide Enterprises now have the chance to witness top-tier masters at work in every aspect, allowing us to behold Aqing’s divine sword. This can be understood as follows: in the past, our perspective was two-dimensional, limited to the helplessness of mere survival; today, our vantage point has risen to three dimensions, enabling us to savor the beauty of life.
　　However, the path Syngenta has taken is one of sheer scale—something only state-owned enterprises and central SOEs can afford. As private firms, we can only admire it; we simply lack the means to follow suit.
　　So are we simply left to wait for death? Not necessarily.
　　The Liaoning’s deployment is not a solo operation; it is accompanied by a fleet of destroyers, frigates, and submarines. China’s… Pesticide Even domestic brands cannot rely solely on a handful of state-owned enterprises. For private companies seeking to build their own brands, the first challenge to address is the “me‑too” problem—indeed, the most fundamental one. If they continue to simply copy the products and strategies of large corporations or other firms, domestic brands will remain nothing more than an elusive dream.
　　4. True Differentiation
　　To avoid being just another “me-too” player and achieve differentiation, the most effective approach is to develop compounds with proprietary intellectual property. If our companies can secure a compound like Kangkuan, even if it cannot overcome every obstacle, establishing a strong corporate brand and product brand overseas would still be relatively straightforward.
　　Building a brand starts with innovating new compounds; taking it step by step is both easier and part of an exploratory, accumulative process. It is through this long-term accumulation and gradual maturation that China… Pesticide Rise— the “backbone” upon which domestic brands are built.
　　Yesterday, I came across an interview that recounted the 2002 World Cup match against Brazil. One Chinese player recalled that after just 20 minutes on the pitch, facing Brazil no longer felt like the exhilaration of taking on a World Cup champion—it turned into a sense of wanting to escape. The gap between the two sides is simply too vast. China’s national team still has a long way to go before stepping onto the World Cup stage. Closing that gap won’t come from sheer hard work or grueling training; it demands sustained patience and steady accumulation over time if they are to stand a chance.
　　Accumulation and steady progress are widely recognized as the cornerstone of brand-building for most companies, including global giants. Yet we often grow impatient, reluctant to take a measured approach, and eager to establish our own brand within just a few years.
　　Someone said, “That’s just how impatient we Chinese are—what else can you do?”
　　Of course there are—what difficulties could the Chinese possibly fail to overcome?
　　If domestic companies lack the patience to spend decades developing original, innovative compounds under their own brands, there remains a faster‑to‑yield approach: novel formulations.
　　The technology of formulation processing, compared with patented compounds, cannot be measured by the same standards in terms of brand strength and longevity. However, when the selection of active ingredients, the development of novel formulations, the research on formulations and excipients, and the advanced state of processing equipment are combined, these four strengths can collectively establish a 3–5-year first-mover advantage in the market.
　　For example, Delica, which Pilarquim is currently promoting in overseas markets, is a novel insecticidal formulation composed of lambda‑cyhalothrin and thiamethoxam blended in a unique ratio. In this product, lambda‑cyhalothrin is encapsulated into microcapsules, and these microcapsules are then dispersed in water along with thiamethoxam to form a microcapsule suspension.
　　Such a product, from initial design through domestic regulatory approval and subsequent market‑readiness assessments, typically takes at least three to five years. Even if other companies seek to develop overseas “me‑too” versions of Delica, they will still face a three- to five-year lag. In any given foreign market, this time gap is sufficient to establish strong brand equity for the product category.
　　The only challenge of pursuing this kind of brand strategy is that it’s incredibly demanding: you must constantly innovate while also managing the launch of new products—and, at the same time, prematurely phase out the previous generation, which has yet to fully realize its commercial potential.
　　Ultimately, having a distinctive product—or one that other companies find difficult to replicate—is the cornerstone of building an independent brand. Otherwise, your brand will be like water without a source or a tree without roots, unable to sustain itself and rise to the heights of a truly independent brand.
　　Imagine this: if your overseas customer learns that, once your product is registered locally, an identical Chinese‑made product will soon enter the same market, would they still devote their full effort to conducting demonstration trials and painstakingly helping you promote it? Unlikely. Who would go to the trouble of championing a new product for you, only to watch competitors leverage your hard‑won experience to sell the very same offering?
　　Without new compounds that possess independent intellectual property rights, it is difficult to gain a foothold in the mainstream market; and without formulation‑based advantages, even in small overseas markets, it is challenging to establish one’s own brand. Of course, this market model—centered on formulation‑driven differentiation—will ultimately evolve toward single‑active‑ingredient and mixed‑formulation products with proprietary IP. In the short term, however, the focus will remain on formulating combinations of compounds whose patents have just expired, supported by state‑of‑the‑art processing equipment and advanced manufacturing technologies.
　　I believe that what we call a “brand” or “differentiation” essentially boils down to a product or service enjoying a period of no competition, thereby establishing a de facto monopoly—even if that monopoly is confined to a narrow market segment or lasts only for a brief span of time. In such cases, it can still be considered a brand.
　　Some people aim to build a brand through service. Compared with new‑formulation brands, if a service‑based brand is founded on a me‑too strategy, it can only grow in a crude, unrefined manner. But what happens when you encounter an even more aggressive competitor?
　　Moreover, some Chinese companies, through relentless effort, have captured more than 50% of the market share in one or several countries. This dominant position—akin to an “aircraft carrier”—also represents a model of independent brand strength. At this stage, it becomes even more crucial to break free from the low‑price dumping strategy—but how can this be achieved?
　　5. Conclusion and Redundancy
　　Building an independent overseas brand has not only been a question I’ve been pondering over the past two years, but also a daily endeavor involving concrete, hands-on efforts. Along the way, I’ve spoken with several corporate executives about their experiences and insights in developing international brands. Some of these lessons have already been touched upon in earlier discussions, while others remain unaddressed—such as how to strike the right pace of growth and avoid reckless expansion, how to manage cash collection to mitigate financial risks, and how to foster cultural integration with local markets. These practical, operational considerations may be explored in greater depth in future articles.
　　As far as my limited understanding goes, the ultimate essence of a domestic brand lies in achieving a monopoly—within a specific space and over a defined period. Without its own core competitiveness, such a monopoly cannot be established; yet that core competitiveness itself hinges on long‑term accumulation and refinement. The aspiration to achieve instant success ultimately proves illusory, for even the smallest steps must be taken one by one. In the end, we find ourselves back where we started—hence the saying, “After ten years of wandering down many paths, one finally realizes how close home truly is.”

Source: China Pesticide Network Editor: bianji2