CHARLOTTE, N.C. _ How hard is it for a Chinese company to build a brand in the U.S.?
Positec, a 23-year-old Chinese company with its U.S. headquarters in Charlotte, says it takes time, local hires and respect for American culture. The privately-held company says it has produced double-digit revenue growth for more than a decade. It also has faced challenges, including multimillion-dollar lawsuits brought by an American competitor.
Founded in the city of Suzhou in southeastern China in 1994, Positec houses customer support and sales operations at its offices in northeast Charlotte, where it employs more than 200.
If you go to Home Depot or Lowe's, you might see Rockwell or Worx brands of cordless trimmers or portable blowers on the shelves. But you might not know the products are made by Positec, which established its Charlotte footprint in 2005.
"I don't really see this company as a Chinese company," Tom Duncan, the company's U.S. branch president and CEO, said. "I really see it as a global company."
"We are a challenger brand," Duncan said. "If we did things the same as our competitors and they are much bigger, they are always going to win."
Duncan said the company's Charlotte-based engineers use "backyard conversations" to continuously innovate. The goal is to understand what customers need when they're working in their backyards.
For example, he said some customers, many of them women, complain that gas cords are too heavy to lift for garden tools such as trimmers and blowers. So the company designed tools that are powered by electricity instead of gas so that customers can use the tools by simply pulling a trigger or pushing a button. The company has filed more than 4,600 patents worldwide and was named a top innovative vendor by Lowe's.
"We want to better understand American customers' minds than our American competitors," said Don Gao, founder and CEO of Positec globally, who is based in Suzhou and listed as the 238th richest person in China by Forbes.
