With intensifying market competition, customer relationships have become a core competitive advantage for equipment manufacturers.

In the era of involution, customer relationships have become the core competitiveness of equipment companies.

Currently, the intensifying competition in China's equipment manufacturing sector is exacerbating the situation. From general machinery to specialized equipment, from industrial production equipment to commercial terminal equipment, a vicious cycle of homogeneous competition, overcapacity, and price wars has trapped many companies in a predicament of "sacrificing profits to grab orders and lowering service standards to maintain revenue." As the barriers of core technologies are gradually broken down and product differentiation diminishes, the competitive logic that relied on scale, cost, or technology in the past is failing, and customer relationships are becoming the core competitive advantage for equipment companies to break through.

One of the core characteristics of involution is the homogenization of equipment and the compression of profits. On the one hand, the accelerated technological iteration of core hardware and the cross-industry technology spillover have led to the rapid replication of original product advantages. The suppliers of core components for many devices are becoming increasingly concentrated, resulting in smaller differences in the performance parameters and user experience of the final products. On the other hand, against the backdrop of overcapacity, companies have to resort to price reductions as their primary means to compete for limited orders. Profit margins for some equipment categories have dropped from double digits in previous years to single digits, even leading to a situation where "selling equipment doesn't make money, and profits are made up for by after-sales service." Even more serious is that price wars are often accompanied by "service degradation"—slow after-sales response, inadequate maintenance, and neglect of customized needs, resulting in high customer churn rates and a vicious cycle of "low price → low service → customer churn → even lower price."

When transactional competition becomes unsustainable, the advantages of relationship-based competition begin to emerge. First, evolving customer needs require equipment manufacturers to shift from "selling products" to "selling solutions." Today, customers no longer focus solely on hardware functionality and price when purchasing equipment; they value the entire lifecycle of the equipment: from solution design and installation to maintenance, upgrades, and even optimization suggestions for their own production processes. This requires companies to build long-term, in-depth communication with customers, rather than a one-off transaction. Second, the competitive logic of the existing market makes existing customers far more valuable than new customers. Industry research shows that the demand for upgrading and supporting existing equipment accounts for over 60% of total market demand. Maintaining good relationships with existing customers not only ensures stable repeat purchases but also generates new orders through referrals, with customer acquisition costs approximately one-quarter of those for new customers. Trust, as the core of a relationship, is an irreplaceable barrier: equipment procurement often involves large sums of money, long decision-making cycles, and high risks. Customers prefer to choose familiar and reliable suppliers. Long-term and stable cooperation can reduce communication and trust costs for both parties, and can even anticipate potential customer needs in advance, providing services that exceed expectations, forming a positive cycle of "customer loyalty → stable orders → profit margin → further service optimization".

Many equipment manufacturers have begun to incorporate customer relationships into their core strategies. For example, they have established dedicated "customer success" departments to replace traditional after-sales service, proactively monitor customers' equipment usage, conduct regular technical inspections, and provide customized training. Some companies even integrate customer feedback directly into product iterations, transforming customers from "users" into "participants" and strengthening the bond between them. This "customer-centric" shift is essentially a change from a "transactional mindset" to a "relationship mindset," treating customers as long-term partners rather than short-term profit-seekers.

In today's competitive landscape where involution has become the norm, competition among equipment manufacturers has shifted from a "product-centric" to a "relationship-centric" approach. When technology and price are no longer sustainable advantages, cultivating customer relationships and establishing long-term partnerships based on trust and mutual benefit are the key to navigating economic cycles.