1.Background

Established in 1993, Shanghai Sincere Property Intermediary Consultation Company Co., Ltd. was an subsidiary company invested and operated by Taiwan Sincere Property Intermediary Incorporated Company. In 1999, under the direction of strategic view, Sincere was licensed the proprietary right of COLDWELL BANKER, which is the famous brand in the property intermediary field, to operate business within China under the name of CENDANT, one of the 500 Strongest Companies. Meanwhile formed its own brand name of COLDWELL BANKER with CENDANT in the spirit of association between strong enterprises. So far, it has more than 60 branches within the mainland with the wide distribution of its offices in Shanghai, Beijing, Zhejiang and Jiangsu province, and Chongqing.

Crowned as the first of its kind in Taiwan area, upholding the managerial concept of “established on sincerity, pursuing perfection unremittingly” since its establishment, Taiwan Sincere Property Intermediary Incorporated Company takes the lead of its peers in excellent service quality based on its clients’ requirements. Currently, Sincere has more than 130 direct sale shops in Taiwan area, and it has been continuously listed at the top for its turnover in this field since 1994. It has frequently won the honor of “model corporation in the property intermediary area” and “the most ideal brand name in consumers’ mind” appraised by the following famous business media, such as under the sun (under hearven), breakthrough, and market and information and so on. In 1993, Sincere was the first company who entered into the property brokerage market in form of chain shops in Shanghai region, and took the initiative to set up the industry norms, provisions and systems within the property intermediary industry, which was followed by its competitors afterward. Sincere has been enjoying the reputation of great business prestige and the brand notability.

2.Development Process

Sincere was firstly established by Mr. Zhou Junji, creator of the company, currently, the chairman of the board of directors in 1981 in Taiwan, upholding the managerial concept of sincerity to open-heartedly conduct business in property intermediary circle.

In order to change the image of charging at will, Taiwan Sincere firstly advocated the establishment of system to charge service fees without making profits from price differences in Taiwan area. By following this rule, Sincere began the habit of spending a week investigating the property right before selling a house so as to safeguard the rights and interests of consumers. At that time, our competitors all laughed at us because we missed the best selling time, but afterwards, the Taiwan government legislated that all property brokers should make investigation before selling houses, which proved that our initial strategies were proper and far-sighted. Other service measures which were taken for the houses, such as real estate specification, repairing the water pipes in case of leakage, performance guarantee of built-up houses and so on, were also initiated by Taiwan Sincere, which also stimulated the trend of imitation by our competitors.

In 1992, when Shanghai was not a fully developed area, we sent out our pioneers to make investigation on the mainland market after President Deng Xiaoping’s tour address in Shanghai which indicated that the China market would be further opened up for the foreign investment. They spent a whole year there. In 1993, when they brought the data collection materials back to Taiwan, the Shanghai real estate industry has began its climbing out period under the joint development by the Taiwan and Hong Kong investors. In a short time, we decided to move part of our strength to invest in the mainland market, which made us one of the earliest Taiwan investors in the mainland market in this field. We trusted Gallup to conduct a large-scale investigation on the mainland market to establish our base, and under their direction, we eventually selected Road Rui Jin Er as our first shop site in the mainland.

In 1993, our first shop opened for business in Shanghai when there was no any property intermediary industry in China, and we met many troubles while going through the formalities of registration. Fortunately enough, we soon got our project approved and the enterprise registered, which greatly represented the Shanghai municipal government’s initiative spirit of trial. At that time, the infrastructure in Shanghai was not perfect either, which led to the telephone-using rush (worry) in our first shop as we only got one telephone line, but employed six salesmen in our company, they had to wait in line while conducting business. As known, phones are the most significant communicative tools for property brokers to conduct their business, however, we did get phone routes shortage then.

The market order was not perfect at that time, we still operated our company honestly without taking any advantage of loopholes in the regulation. The first employee we employed in our Shanghai shop was a lawyer with certificate, mainly responsible for interpreting the relevant rules, regulations, the government policies and related documents formulated by government. Based on these efforts, the Shanghai Sincere could gradually become the most professional property brokers, and even to now, we are still the authoritative company providing consultation service to our peers.

In 1993, the economy in Shanghai was not so developed as nowadays, and most of the real estate investors at that time were from Taiwan, Hong Kong or foreign countries. Then many foreign enterprises invested in China and established their factories or companies in Shanghai with many of their own employees transferring into Shanghai, together bringing the demand of houses renting. We thus locked the staff from Taiwan and foreign countries as our chief client community in our early development stage, especially the Americans and Japanese whose houses renting demands were bulk, together with high rent.

In order to satisfy such clients’ demands, all the salesmen we employed could speak English, meanwhile, our honest business operation, bright and clean shop played contributive role in gaining Taiwan and foreign employees’ trust. Therefore we took our first step of success in the mainland due to the development of Sincere.

Just when we stood firmly in a smooth direction, Chinese government began to carry out the “Macro Regulation” policy so as to cool down the over-heated real estate market, which directly led to the slipping of the once continuously climbing property price in Shanghai.

Our Shanghai Sincere took advantage of this period to improve internal function dramatically and painstakingly, aiming at opportunity, accumulating strength to make a breakthrough. In 1999, we restructured our company and readjusted our business emphasis, and conducted cooperating work with an American company, COLDWELL BANKER, by gaining their charted right of alignment, and, setting up the brand of COLDWELL BANKER Sincere Property and Sincere Property Intermediary Consultation (Shanghai) Company Co., Ltd.

After 1999, the property industry in Shanghai began to grow steadily when our core business has been greatly readjusted. Before 1997, the our renting business in Shanghai probably accounted for more than70%, whereas the houses selling only took up a little bit more than20 %. In a big reverse, our proportion of business at that time was changed with houses selling accounting for more than 70%, and the renting reduced to20%. The crucial point of change was that we saw the second-hand houses markets were growing mature gradually.

By 2003, when was the tenth anniversary of our Shanghai Company, we faced great challenge. First of all, SARS plagued throughout China, which greatly affected the profits of the public service trade; then, the property intermediary commission was reduced according to the relevant policy, which brought great pressure upon the intermediary industry. While confronted with the above-all challenges, we Shanghai Sincere once again braced up, and smoothly tided over the hard period, meanwhile never stopped our steps of progress in front of difficulty. By the end of 2003, we’ve set up our Xujiahui Contract Assignment Center which was the second large-scale center of this kind following the establishment of the headquarter one. In May of 2004, the Pudong Sincere shop, i.e. Pudong Contract Assignment Center, was established, which is the largest multi-functional property intermediary center in Shanghai, also the third largest Contract Assignment Center of Sincere Property Company.

The above-all measures we took are purposely showing to consumers and our competitors that we will unswervingly guarantee the transaction safety between customers, take full responsibility for the interests of customers, and provide sense of safety and trust to them during the course of transaction. We also hope that we can lead the China property intermediary industry progressing towards perfect service industry, honoring the mouthpiece of the industry as a whole.

2004 is a year when Sincere progresses dramatically: in May, the Beijing Shibang Sincere was announced open; in July, we further established our Middle China market by taking Chongqing as our center in that region. In 2005, we are going to establish another branch of us in Guangzhou.

3.Safe Quality and Sincerity Adherence

To be simply, our managerial concept is “established on sincerity, pursuing perfection unremittingly”. Only under the circumstances of keeping promise, can we establish our business, however, establishing business not only means creating company, but having a job and establishing a competency. Our corporation goal is not only “unremitting operation”, but “pursuing perfection unremittingly”, and continuously in pursuit of development and progress to further reach the state of “being longevity and sound”

“Continuously promoting the service quality” is also the principle that we Sincere consistently adhere to. While facing each transaction and innovation of service system, we insistently uphold our managerial concept of “established on sincerity, pursuing perfection unremittingly” and whole-heartedly dedicated to the continuous improvement of service quality and efficacy. The promotion of quality and efficacy is our unremitting pursuit and action. Most of the intermediary services tend to be criticized even during the course of transaction and afterwards with numerous problems, such as house purchasing issues and difficulty of property license transferring, which all spring from the service quality of the intermediary industry. However, we Shanghai Sincere persistently stick to honest service and sales with credit for exchange of zero risk of transaction between buyers and sellers. In the recent years, opportunities of consumers’ using of property intermediary company are increased step by step, furthermore, higher requirements and expectation of service quality from the employees are promoted by clients. Whereas we Sincere Company has been strictly requiring ourselves to be far more ahead of customers’ demand in quality and guarantee to provide the best service to our customers throughout.

We only employ new employees without any property intermediary experience so as to carry out our spirit of brand name from their very beginnings. We firmly believe that the experienced salesmen are easy to continue their old working patterns, whereas the inexperienced employees can accept novelties rapidly without any difficulty and confirm our idea. We are quite different from other concrete commodities of famous brand lies that what we sell are services, and our brand image is represented by our forefront employees’ work through their face-to-face communication with customers.

If one customer feels our service improper, ten others will be informed. So we have to ask the new employees to undergo 300 hours’ professional training in order to protect our spirit of brand name from losing during the course of service. Except that our leader will make an address aiming at stimulating our spirit at our monthly meeting, all Sincere staff have their own brochure on managerial idea, which is required studying a chapter per month, and conduct a discussion together led by the chief shop assistant. Meanwhile we especially pay great attention to the transmission of our corporate spirit while providing education and training.

COLDWELL BANKER Sincere Property will take “the new model of service” as our higher goal to provide better services to our customers and to increase our market shares. And we can further get our turnover quintuple within two years, make our office sites distributed in 14 provinces by 2012, totaling 1, 500 in number with direct goal of becoming the top-class brand name of China property intermediary industry.

Appendix: Sincere Chronicle of Events

l       1993, established Shanghai Sincere Property Intermediary Consultation Company Co., Ltd. 

l       1995, joined in the Shanghai Property Broker Association as vice president of the association and executive director unit

l       1999, won the “Golden Bridge Award in Real Estate Industry” with the title of one of the ten strongest corporations

l       2000, joined in the Shanghai Web-Site Property Transaction Center as a unit of vice president of the board of directors

l       2001, grandly opened the first aligned shop of Goldwell Banker-Sincere Property

l       2001, appraised as “Credible Broker, Credible Rent”, one of the ten advanced property brokering corporations

l       2003, once again won the “Golden Bridge Award in Real Estate Industry” with the title of one of the ten strongest corporations

l       2003, Mr. Xia Zhiliang, president of Sincere was appointed as executive director of Property industry Research Center of Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences

l       2003, won the title of “National Model Unit of the Double Guarantee of Quality and Credit”

l       2003, won the title of “Shanghai Credible on-line Corporation” appraised by its first session

l       2004, became a member unit of China Trustworthy Quality

l       2004, ranked second among the 100 Strongest National Property Brokering corporations

l       2004, CB Sincere became Property Concentrated Brannd of Shanghai (Trademark)

                                          Written by Wang Cangde

Special GM assistant