Abstract: The launch of economic high-quality development strategy and the increasing trend of consumption upgrading are driving Chinese consumer goods enterprises to seek further growth through premiumization. To explore how these enterprises should make a strategic change toward premiumization, this paper uses the grounded theory to qualitatively analyze the practice of industry leaders, such as Yadi, Bosideng, Feihe, Zhuyeqing and Fangtai, which have successfully achieved premiumization through different ways. In this paper, firstly, we extract 11 main categories related to the composition and formation of premiumization path: premiumization target, contracting business scope, expanding business scope, lack of resources, rich resource reserves, designing a subversive concept, reconfiguring and upgrading quality module, reconfiguring and upgrading marketing module, reconfiguring and upgrading channel module, organization structure restructuring, and digital reform; secondly, we identify and explore the fundamental reasons why different consumer goods enterprises follow different premiumization paths, that is, the differentiated resource reserve state; thirdly, we identify the common and different parts of each path, and explore its unique function in the change; and fourthly, we combine the common and different parts together to form a contracting premiumization path suitable for consumer goods enterprises with scarce resource reserve and low-end resource reserve, and a expanding premiumization path applicable to consumer goods enterprises with rich high-quality resource reserve. The conclusions of this paper can supplement and enrich the theoretical system of premiumization, and provide guidance for the premiumization practice of consumer goods enterprises.

Key words: strategic change toward premiumization, change path, grounded theory, consumer goods enterprises