As the industrial park sector expands rapidly and competition intensifies, compounded by a complex macroeconomic environment, parks across the country are facing escalating pressure in both investment attraction and operations. Among them, sales-oriented industrial parks face the most direct and acute challenge: after factory buildings and facilities are completed, there are no buyers, and inventory remains unsold. Through visits to over ten industrial parks in Xi'an and Chengdu, a widespread common problem has emerged: some parks with decent locations and good quality still see sales and investment attraction rates below 30% after two years, with individual parks languishing in long-term vacancy.

The traditional real estate development logic of "build first, find customers later" applied to residential and commercial properties is completely unsuitable for industrial real estate. The correct development logic for sales-oriented industrial parks is exactly the opposite: first establish industrial positioning, lock in target enterprises based on the industrial chain layout, then reverse-design and optimize product forms based on the real space, supporting facility, and production needs of those enterprises. The core starting point for precise industrial positioning is systematically mapping the industrial chain.

Why must industrial chain mapping be the first step for parks?

Most sales-oriented industrial parks that fall into sluggish sales and investment attraction troubles share a highly consistent core problem: project initiation immediately focuses on product design, pricing systems, and channel construction, putting the cart before the horse throughout the entire process without ever clarifying the core question—who are the real target customers. The essence of investment attraction is "seeking businesses, retaining businesses, and activating businesses." If the identity, distribution, and needs of the target customer base are unclear, all product planning, sales strategies, and investment attraction efforts are nothing more than blind trial and error.

The low efficiency currently seen in most parks' investment attraction stems from the continued use of traditional, extensive, and crude attraction models. Investment attraction without an industrial chain map is like sailing without a map—unclear direction, aimless, and inefficient. Industrial chain mapping essentially draws a precise industrial combat map for sales-oriented industrial parks. This map clearly presents key information such as the full process chain of target industries, the list of core enterprises at each stage, the regional distribution of enterprises, production and office space needs, and supporting facility requirements. Relying on this map, a project can precisely define products, precisely find customers, and precisely execute marketing, completely eliminating blind development and blind investment attraction.

The core of industrial chain mapping: clarifying three key dimensions

Superficial industrial listings hold no value. A truly effective industrial chain mapping outcome capable of guiding project development, sales, investment attraction, and operations must contain three core dimensions, progressing layer by layer to deliver precise empowerment:

First, break down the entire chain to clarify upstream, midstream, and downstream industrial relationships. Any industry forms a closed-loop ecosystem—from source raw materials and core components, to intermediate processing and complete machine manufacturing, to end sales and supporting services. Each stage is interlinked with clear division of labor, and the spatial needs, site selection logic, and supporting requirements differ enormously across stages. Taking the new energy vehicle industry as an example: upstream raw material enterprises for lithium ore, cathode and anode materials, and electrolytes prioritize proximity to resource origins, emphasizing large-scale land use and logistics support; midstream enterprises for batteries, motors, and electronic controls—the "three-electric system"—and complete vehicle manufacturing require large-area, high-standard, high-load industrial plants, relying on mature supply chains and transportation networks; downstream enterprises for charging and swapping operations, vehicle maintenance, battery recycling, and mobility services prefer lightweight industrial land and office spaces in urban suburbs. Without breaking down the industrial chain stages in advance, blindly arranging products and attracting enterprises can easily lead to business format mismatches and supply-demand disconnects, ultimately resulting in dissatisfied enterprises and difficulty in clearing park inventory.

Second, lock in core players by marking leading and key enterprises. Each segment track within the industrial chain has head leaders, niche hidden champions, and high-growth emerging enterprises. These types of companies have stronger intentions to expand, relocate, and set up new bases, making them the core effective customer base for sales-oriented industrial parks. One of the core tasks of industrial chain mapping is to comprehensively survey and precisely list benchmark enterprises at each stage, building a preliminary target customer pool.

Third, base efforts on the local foundation to identify industrial gaps and differentiation opportunities. The universal national industrial chain map only serves as a basic framework and cannot support differentiated competition for a project. Mapping with real practical value must deeply integrate with the industrial foundation of the project's location: clarify the local existing leading industries, mature supporting facilities, and agglomeration advantages, while also identifying missing chain segments, weak tracks, and incremental space. Positioning, product development, and investment attraction based on local gaps is the key for sales-oriented industrial parks to escape homogenized competition. For example, creating a manufacturing-oriented park within a chemical industry high-tech zone requires mapping the industrial chain using the chemical industry as the framework, drawing up first-circle and second-circle industrial chain maps, as well as detailed satellite industry chain maps.

Practical implementation: a four-step method for industrial chain mapping

Step one: Integrate multiple channels to obtain authoritative industrial chain maps. Building a complete industrial system from scratch has extremely high barriers and takes a long time. Projects can rely on four major authoritative channels to quickly obtain standardized, precise industrial chain data and maps. First, engage government departments. The Development and Reform Commission, the Bureau of Industry and Information Technology, and the Bureau of Commerce hold regional top-level industrial planning, policy directions, industrial data, and investment attraction guidelines, serving as the most authoritative source of basic information, where official industrial reports and development planning documents can be directly obtained. Second, collaborate with industry associations. National and provincial industry associations connect both government and enterprise sides, having accumulated massive industry data, enterprise directories, and annual white papers, capable of precisely outputting the current state of segmented tracks and enterprise distribution. Third, interview frontline industry professionals. Procurement and production leaders at leading enterprises, and industry investors deeply involved in their tracks, understand supply chain distribution and industry expansion or contraction trends best, providing firsthand market information beyond what reports offer. Fourth, purchase professional research findings. Through professional institutions such as CCID Consulting, Forward Business and Industry Research Institute, and LeadLeo Research Institute, purchase segmented industry research reports to quickly establish systematic, professional industry understanding. It must be clear: the industrial chain map is a tool, not the final answer. There is no need to visit every enterprise on the massive list; the core is to use the map to filter effective opportunities and lock in precise customer groups.

Step two: Assess industry trends and lock in enterprise investment expansion directions. Once the map is obtained, avoid spreading efforts fully and attracting businesses blindly. The core is to rely on four dimensions—policy, market, technology, and competition pattern—to assess industry incremental opportunities, lock in enterprises with real investment, site selection, and capacity expansion needs, and precisely filter effective customers. First, study industry policies to capture policy dividend opportunities. Domestic industrial layout closely aligns with national and local policy directions, and favorable policies directly generate enterprise layout needs. For example, after low-altitude economy was written into the government work report, many regions nationwide successively issued special plans, leading to a concentrated surge in site selection and expansion needs among related enterprises. Parks that grasp policy signals early quickly seize the first-mover advantage in investment attraction. Second, gain insight into market trends to capture incremental growth opportunities. Focus on assessing industry growth space, market increments, and development bottlenecks, prioritizing tracks in explosive growth phases. Taking the new energy storage industry as an example: annual new installed capacity has grown significantly year-on-year, and market increments are forcing enterprises to expand capacity, with numerous upstream and downstream enterprises searching nationwide for locations. These incremental customers are far easier to attract than existing migration customers. Third, follow technological changes to anticipate industrial pattern reshaping. Breakthroughs in new technologies and new processes will completely reconstruct the original industrial chain pattern, creating entirely new enterprise layout and capacity landing needs. For instance, iterative upgrades in solid-state battery technology will reshape the lithium battery industry chain. Parks that position themselves in new technology tracks early can seize first-mover advantages and absorb incremental enterprise resources. Fourth, analyze the competitive landscape to filter expansion-oriented enterprises. Judge enterprise capacity expansion rhythm through capital expenditure and construction-in-progress items in listed company financial reports; corroborate landing intentions through enterprise recruitment numbers and regional layout actions. Enterprises that are expanding, relocating, or laying out new regions are the core effective customer base for sales-oriented industrial parks.

Step three: Precisely screen and lock in targets to build an exclusive target enterprise list. After trend assessment is complete, convert theoretical judgment into actionable implementation. Combine with the regional industrial foundation where the project is located to build a precise investment attraction target list, clarifying core directions for sales and investment attraction. The list must not simply list enterprise names; it needs to include core dimensions such as enterprise main business, industrial chain positioning, recent expansion plans, spatial needs preferences, and key decision-maker information, achieving "one enterprise, one file, precise benchmarking." A practical case: a smart manufacturing industrial park in a second-tier city conducted in-depth mapping of the local industrial chain in the early stage, discovering that the region had a strong foundation in CNC machine tool manufacturing, but industrial software supporting enterprises were almost completely absent. Combined with industry trend assessment, a large number of industrial software enterprises in a certain region were accelerating migration inland due to cost and capacity bottlenecks. The project team accordingly sorted out 28 core target enterprises, contacted and assessed each one, locked in 6 enterprises with clear intentions, and ultimately successfully landed 3. The project achieved a 47% destocking rate in the first month after opening, far exceeding similar parks in the surrounding area. Core enterprise information can be obtained through three main methods: tracking listed company announcements and annual reports to mine expansion plans; reverse-deriving spatial needs from existing plant layouts, recruitment demand, and peer tenant situations; and reaching enterprise key decision-makers through industry exhibitions, association resources, and upstream-downstream referrals. For sales-oriented industrial parks, sales without a target list is like shooting without a target—all effort is ineffective work.

Step four: Match project products and portray enterprise asset allocation profiles. Finalizing the target list only completes the work of "finding the right people." The ultimate goal of a sales-oriented industrial park is "selling out"—which requires shifting from the perspective of enterprise asset allocation to convert the "target enterprise list" into a "product matching plan." An enterprise's space purchase decision is essentially a heavy asset investment. For manufacturing enterprises, buying a factory is not simply office space leasing, but a strategic asset allocation concerning capacity layout, logistics efficiency, and production safety. The decision cycle is long, many departments are involved, and evaluation dimensions are complex—sales must move upstream into the enterprise's decision-making chain, selling with the logic of an "asset allocation advisor," not the logic of "selling houses." This means the park's sales team needs to portray the spatial asset allocation profile of each type of enterprise based on their industrial chain stage, production characteristics, and scale, then reverse-verify and even adjust the project's product plan. Why is this fourth step necessary? The target list formed in step three answers "who the customers are," but after receiving the list, the sales team still faces a practical dilemma: faced with these enterprises, what products should they actually promote? Different stages of the same industry have different spatial needs: within the same smart manufacturing industry, precision mold enterprises need high-load, large-span single-story plants with clear heights above 12 meters and floor load capacity no less than 3 tons per square meter; industrial robot system integrators need multi-story, high-standard plants where the first floor is used for assembly and commissioning, and the floors above for R&D offices and software testing, with 4.5-meter clear heights sufficient but extremely high power capacity requirements; upstream core component enterprises in the chain often need detached custom buildings with special requirements for logistics corridors and unloading docks. Without product matching, the sales team visiting all enterprises with the same brochure will inevitably end up with "mismatched offerings"—products that don't fit, and customers who don't buy. How to do product matching? Three steps: First, establish a "industrial chain stage–spatial needs" mapping table. Every enterprise in the target list from step three has its "industrial chain positioning" marked. The first thing step four does is establish spatial needs standard models for each industrial chain stage on the list. Taking the new energy vehicle industrial chain as an example, the spatial profiles of three types of enterprises differ completely: upstream material enterprises need large industrial land close to resource origins with heavy logistics support; midstream battery and vehicle manufacturing enterprises need large-area, high-standard industrial plants with high load capacities and heavy power infrastructure; and downstream service enterprises prefer suburban lightweight office and industrial spaces. With this mapping table, every enterprise on the list can quickly correspond to "which unit type and parameters to promote." Second, combine with enterprise scale to configure "area segments plus product forms." Two battery enterprises both in the midstream stage—one with annual output value of 5 billion yuan and the other with 500 million yuan—have completely different space needs: the former may need a 20,000-square-meter detached custom-built plant, while the latter may only need one floor of a standard plant (approximately 3,000-5,000 square meters). The advantage of sales-oriented industrial parks is that products can be flexibly combined by floor, by building, and by unit. The "spatial needs type" marked in the step three list needs to be refined here into specific area segment matching, floor position recommendations, and whether customized renovation is possible. Third, output a "one-enterprise, one-policy" asset allocation plan. After completing the first two steps, the sales team can output a brief but precise spatial asset allocation recommendation for each target enterprise: taking an industrial software enterprise from the list as an example—industrial chain positioning: industrial software R&D, belonging to the "empowerment layer" of the chain, not involving manufacturing; spatial needs: primarily R&D offices, small amounts of testing computer rooms, no need for heavy production areas; recommended match: R&D office building of 2,000-3,000 square meters, clear height above 4.2 meters, reserving conditions for computer room load-bearing reinforcement; recommended building: Building B of the project (near the metro, with talent apartment amenities); core selling points: the park has already brought in a benchmark upstream enterprise in the same industrial chain, offering potential nearby cooperation scenarios for customers. This "profile" is not static but continuously refined through communication with enterprises. Every visit updates the understanding of that enterprise's needs and calibrates the project's product configuration direction.

The value of step four: shifting from "selling space" to "selling asset allocation plans"

The first three steps solve the "direction problem": knowing what industry to focus on, what customers to find, and what products to offer. Step four solves the "efficiency problem": letting the sales team approach customers with precise plans rather than relying on a generic brochure to take chances. More importantly, this step forms a reverse-driving mechanism from the sales end to the product end. When the sales team returns with asset allocation profiles for target enterprises, the product design team has the most authentic customer input—which product parameters must be adjusted, which supporting amenities must be added, which unit types simply won't sell—these judgments no longer rely on experience-based guesswork but on real customer demand data. By embedding products into the logic of enterprise asset allocation, sales becomes a solution rather than a push. When product matching is done well, the 28 enterprises on the step three list genuinely transform from a "name list" into "customers."

Industrial chain mapping: the core starting point of the park sales closed loop

Industrial chain mapping is not a one-time task but a core action requiring long-term, dynamic iteration. Industrial trends, enterprise layouts, and market environments are constantly changing. The industrial chain map and target enterprise list must be updated synchronously, with quarterly dynamic iteration recommended—removing enterprises that have already landed or no longer have needs, adding newly expanding or relocating entities, and continuously revitalizing investment attraction resources. The core value of industrial chain mapping goes beyond precisely identifying target customers; it also forces the project to shift from "product-centric" real estate thinking to "customer-centric" industrial thinking. After precisely understanding enterprise needs, all planning actions—including factory clear heights, load capacities, areas, supporting facilities, pricing, and business format ratios—can be grounded in evidence and precisely executed. Launching a sales-oriented industrial park without mapping the industrial chain is not bravery; it is gambling. A precise industrial chain map directly determines whether all subsequent development, sales, and investment attraction actions will be right or wrong, successful or failed.