Companies achieve revival through keeping up with the changes

As other businesses have been wiped out during China's period of vast change and unprecedented business growth, these three Shanghai-based time-honored brands have not only survived but become leaders in their fields:

Lao Feng Xiang

Founded in 1848, one year after Cartier was born in Paris, Lao Feng Xiang is not only known as one of China's oldest jewelry brands, but also as one of the most successful time-honored brands standing against the competition with its overseas peers since the 1990s.

The Shanghai-originated brand has managed to grow its sales from 710 million yuan ($103 million) in 2001 to 25.25 billion yuan in the first half of 2018, according to the company's latest financial report. In 2001, the jeweler was acquired by China First Pencil Co Ltd, another Shanghai-based company with a history dating back to the 1930s, and taken over by a new helmsman, Shi Lihua.

The former general manager of China's largest pencil manufacturer has since started a radical reform of the brand, which had been suffering low profit and stagnant revenue growth for years. Some of Shi's most effective measures included expanding the offerings from exclusively gold jewelry to a variety of types including diamonds, pearl, jade and other colored stones, and significantly removing pieces made by other jewelers from their shelves.

Shi has been quoted by Chinese media as explaining his strategy to convert Lao Feng Xiang from a "famous gold dealer" to a "popular jewelry brand".

Today, the brand has more than 2,000 outlets across the country, and a dozen stores overseas, including one on the Fifth Avenue in New York, neighboring the likes of luxury hotels and fashion boutiques.