Rikard Hesslevik from the Danish company FOSS Scino in Suzhou told about the establishment of an entry-level brand for the mid-market in China. The objective of the second Scino brand was to establish a position in the China mid-market by reducing the costs. The Scino products have a shorter lifetime and do not have the same high level of technology as the FOSS brand, but they are still quality products. Chinese customers are in general used to small problems with products, and will not complain the same way as Western customers. To reduce the cost further, there is no service for the Scino products – only hotline help.
The FOSS and Scino brands are sold through separate channels based upon distributors. Initially FOSS was afraid of cannibalization of the high-end brand, but it has not been a problem. FOSS also expected the new Scino brand would create a pull from the existing FOSS brand, but it turned out the mid-market customers did not know about FOSS.
In 2009 FOSS Scino also established a R&D group in China with currently 30 engineers working on product development, maintenance and product upgrade, and product transfer.