China Construction: Undertake the Dream of a Great Power Brand

Peshawar-Lahore Motorway in Pakistan (financed by the Export-Import Bank of China), Temburong Bridge in Brunei, National Highway No. 1 of the Republic of the Congo, the Great Mosque of Algiers, the Alexander Hamilton Bridge in the United States, an island resort in the Bahamas... Do you know that these landmark buildings that people from all over the world are proud of are all made in China, more specifically, they are all outstanding works of China State Construction Engineering (CSCEC), a Chinese central enterprise. Furthermore, 90% of China's super high-rise buildings over 300 meters, three-quarters of airports, three-quarters of satellite launch centers, half of nuclear power plants, one-third of urban comprehensive utility corridors, and other domestic "high-difficulty, urgent, high-risk and heavy" engineering projects are also completed solely by CSCEC.

Today marks the professional "Chinese Brands Day" since its establishment approved by the State Council. As a central enterprise, China State Construction Engineering Corporation presents a gift to the motherland with numerous difficult landmark buildings. For decades, relying on superb technology, excellent quality and honest performance of contracts, CSCEC has, with its own brand image, won trust, honor, a larger market and broader space for Chinese brands and even China's national image. CSCEC employees distributed around the world are turning their brand dream into a national business card and shouldering the country's brand dream. The brand story of "China State Construction" is not only the experience of one of the world's largest investment and construction enterprises, but also a footnote to the times.

Brand is the business card of a country

Brand is the business card of a country and an important manifestation of a country's soft power. Building internationally renowned brands can often generate huge exemplary power, enhance national pride and self-confidence, promote global resource allocation and market expansion, and strengthen the country's discourse power in the global economic system.

The Communist Party of China and the Chinese state have always attached great importance to brand development and have placed brands at a high level of national strategy. The Party has made the important instruction to "promote the transformation of Chinese products into Chinese brands"; the Government Work Report points out that it is necessary to "build more 'Chinese brands' well-known around the world"; the Outline of the National 13th Five-Year Plan proposes to "strengthen quality and brand building"; the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) of the State Council has issued the Guiding Opinions on Strengthening Enterprise Brand Building, which points out the direction for central enterprises to build international brands.

China State Construction actively responds to the call and deployment of the Party and the country, takes building the "China State Construction" brand and boosting the "China Construction" brand as an unshakable responsibility of the times. Combining the characteristics of the investment and construction industry, it conducts accurate positioning, promotes industry progress, innovates ideas, completes top-level design, makes solid progress, and strives for practical work results.

CSCEC entered the Fortune Global 500 list in 2006, ranking 486th. After 11 years of progress, it jumped to 27th place in 2016, ranking first among global contractors on the ENR list; it has consecutively received the highest global credit rating in the industry from the world's three famous credit rating agencies S&P, Moody's and Fitch for two consecutive years; it has won the China Quality Award, the highest honor in the quality field awarded by the Chinese government.

In this regard, Guan Qing, Chairman of China State Construction Engineering Corporation, said, "Outstanding international enterprises must have world-famous brands and corporate culture with greater influence and charisma."

After years of development, the brand image of "China State Construction" has been widely recognized by the domestic market and the international community, and has gradually become a beautiful business card for "China Construction". The "China State Construction" brand has been selected into the "World's 500 Most Influential Brands" compiled by the World Brand Lab for five consecutive years; it ranked 44th in the "2016 Global 500 Brand Values" released by Brand Finance, a famous independent brand management and valuation consultant firm in the UK, one of the world's five authoritative brand value evaluation institutions; it was awarded the title of the first "Excellent Enterprise in Brand Building" by SASAC of the State Council.

The Soul of the Brand

CSCEC deeply recognizes that the culture and brand of an enterprise are integrated, and are the exterior and interior of each other. To become an investment and construction group with international competitiveness, CSCEC relies on culture as an important support, speeds up the pace of brand building, designs the brand work system and work plan with high starting point and high standard, and has completed key tasks such as building the brand system, integrating brand influence and cultural connotation, and integrating brand promotion and cultural publicity.

With the violent baptism of China's transition from planned economy to market economy, CSCEC has innovated while inheriting traditions and made breakthroughs in competition. Its brand and cultural construction has also gone through a process from spontaneous to conscious, from groping across the river by feeling the stones to top-level design.

In 1996, CSCEC took the lead in introducing the CI strategy in China's construction industry, implemented cultural integration and brand unification, and strongly promoted the construction of the "China State Construction" brand, laying the image foundation and cultural foundation for the rapid development of the enterprise. In particular, the "triple integration" cultural construction project of cultural concepts, CI strategy, and code of conduct has become a breakthrough for the integration of the group's brand culture internally, and a model for the same industry to learn from externally, generating positive social impacts. Domestic construction enterprises set off a wave of building CI images, which effectively promoted the improvement of civilized construction level in the construction industry.

Through the all-round and multi-angle image coverage of projects, CSCEC has found a carrier for brand building and promotion through visual image design. At the same time, it organically integrates CI strategy with project management, and pioneered a new project management model of "high-quality process, separated pricing, CI image". It displays the brand image with high reputation, high intensity and high-impact information, and the "China State Construction" brand, along with the image of "garden-style" construction sites, has taken root in the hearts of the public.

In 2012, on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the founding of China State Construction Engineering Corporation, the *CSCEC Creed* was officially released, and later the code of conduct manual *Ten Principles and Nine Norms* was promulgated, marking the formal establishment of CSCEC's brand culture system with the mission of "expanding happy space", the core values of "quality assurance, value creation", and the spiritual core of "integrity, innovation, transcendence, win-win".

Since then, a number of personified pioneers represented by Chen Chaoying, Lu Jianxin, Zhai Shaihong, Ye Hua, Zhou Yuqi and others have emerged continuously. Through the deeds of these pioneers, the *CSCEC Creed* and *Ten Principles and Nine Norms* have taken root in the hearts of people, become the value pursuit and code of conduct of the whole group, and made active performance of responsibilities and craftsmanship the common pursuit and conscious action of all CSCEC employees.

At the same time, CSCEC integrates brand building and management improvement. It drives the innovation of enterprise management concepts, systems, mechanisms and methods through core values and behavioral orientation, and promotes the transformation and upgrading of the enterprise; it improves the scientific level of overall brand culture construction through systematic top-level design; it promotes unified brand image, clarifies the relationship between the parent brand and sub-brands, and forms the "brand galaxy" of CSCEC. The spiritual connotation and value pursuit of the enterprise's business philosophy have been increasingly integrated into the big brand of "China State Construction", ensuring the continuous improvement of brand reputation. Professional sub-brands such as CSCEC Design and CSCEC Steel Structure are the preferred choices of owners in related fields, and China Overseas Land & Investment has ranked first in the industry in terms of brand value for 13 consecutive years.