Zong Qinghou'S Strategy In His Later Years: Reducing Uncertainty And Managing Difficulties

Core tip: 66 year old Zong Qing began to formulate and carry out his old age plan: to reduce the uncertainty of the company. Administration The difficulty is to make it compatible with its weakened energy and provide enough stability for future successors.

Every 10 minutes or so, Zong Qinghou must rekindle a cigarette. " wealth For me, it is to realize the value of life. My biggest consumption is to smoke two cigarettes, I smoke 12 yuan a pack, and drink some tea, usually do not have the effort to spend. When asked about what wealth means to you, Forbes, the former richest figure in mainland China, who earned $7 billion in 2010.

The past year has had an extraordinary significance for the 66 year old man. Raw materials such as sugar, milk powder, etc. Price The profit of Wahaha Group, the main beverage company, is expected to decline by 23% in 2010 (to 6 billion 700 million yuan, 2 billion yuan less than a year ago). This is only one aspect of the matter. The income of the group is expected to increase by only 27% (to 55 billion yuan), which is 15 billion yuan less than the 70 billion yuan of the plan. This has dragged down its ranking and wealth figures in the Forbes rich list - down from last year's $7 billion / richest to $5 billion 900 million / third.

"Perhaps for us, the growth of 20% in the future will be a healthy figure. If we are so large, if it is more than 50% growth in the past, it will surely destroy the ecology of the whole industry." He has some self comforting ways. This may be the 24 years since he was in a state of excitement, and for the first time, he has confirmed that the company has entered the prime of life, just as he has entered the old age in his prime.

In fact, he has begun to accept the fact that energy is down, and he has embarked on the formulation and implementation of his old age plan. Most of his efforts revolve around a topic: reducing the uncertainty and management of the company, so that it can adapt to its weakened energy and provide enough stability for future successors.

This is very important. Before Wahaha, the beverage industry changed little. A product could be sold for many years, and the scale effect was between the companies. But Zong Qing, who has some talent in the product, has changed the rules of the game. Wahaha has launched many new products every year to replace the products that have been launched for more than 3 years as the new sales force of the company. Gradually, Chinese consumers are accustomed to changing tastes, forcing other companies to launch their products quickly. But the advantage of Wahaha is largely based on Zong Qinghou's product sensitivity, which adds flexibility to the company's performance (and uncertainty) and may become a challenge for future successors.

So, from last year, Zong Qinghou began to consciously add more control nodes to the company (the whole company revolved around him). The first effort included establishing the terminal that Wahaha controls itself, that is, investing in 80 thousand -10 million square meters of shopping malls in the two or three line cities of Henan and Chongqing. His plan is that in the next few years, similar shopping centers will be located in all two or three cities across the country. Every shopping center will have a large supermarket, which is completely controlled by Wahaha. At the same time, these large supermarkets will link up a large group of small and medium-sized supermarket chains, so Wahaha will have a wholly owned retail terminal network throughout the country. Collaterals.

In the past, Wahaha almost depended on Zong's personal charisma and frequent personal exchanges to maintain the sales power of Wahaha channels. "I have started grading authorization now, but what I am most worried about is market sales, so I want to develop retail business, so it will be more stable to give class to others." He said. At present, his daughter has already held some important positions in the company, such as the children's clothing and beverage business, and the preparations for some new shopping centers. But he was not sure whether to give the company to his daughter.

He may also bring another unintended benefit: a share of the wave of shopping malls in the two or three line cities with huge potential. At present, there are very few shopping malls in these places, while at the same time, local consumption enthusiasm is very high. These projects may also be closely related to the local government and strive for a preferential land cost. In many places, there are factories in Wahaha. The government is very interested in attracting high-quality enterprises such as Wahaha.

Another work is also progressing: empower managers everywhere. Although the company has 8 large areas in the country, in the past, the power of sales, finance, production and so on were concentrated in the headquarters. The regional sales managers must return to headquarters at any time. There was no independent financial power, and the regional factories were only equivalent to the concept of a big car. But now the company is working hard to set up general managers and managers with decision-making power in various districts, including production and management. The sale of all businesses is progressively decentralized.

At the same time, business diversification is also being tried, including the development of Wahaha's milk powder business by taking advantage of the credibility crisis of Chinese dairy products, CO farming dairy cows with China Agricultural University, developing energy saving motors with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and conducting market research on Philippines's purchase of mines. But for most of the new businesses, he has invested with reservations. He does not believe that there is still a big uncertainty in technology, such as solar energy, and it is not cold for buying foreign businesses on the brink of bankruptcy. Philippines's project has kept him hesitant for nearly a year, and he is not sure if he can exploit the ideal mineral resources there.

When he did this, he also tried to avoid competition and risk. For example, when it comes to buying mines in Philippines, he thinks, "the state is short of this resource, and it doesn't need to compete with others. It's easy to buy this thing and not worry about the market problem, so the risk is not too great." When referring to the internationalization of business, he also insisted on the same principle: "try not to compete with others in Western markets, but to cooperate with others in helping them sell their products to the Chinese market."

In his later years, he became more and more aware of the importance of harmonious coexistence with the environment. For many years, for example, he used his National People's Congress's status as an appeal to increase the income of the public through redistribution, including raising the tax threshold to 5000 yuan, because he believed that only in this way could the domestic demand of the Chinese people be stimulated, and finally the companies in the consumer industry could benefit. At present, there are about 30 thousand official employees in Wahaha. Nearly half of them are holding dividends, but too many shareholders limit the possibility of Wahaha's listing.

Although it is one of the richest people in China, none of this has changed him. He still works at 7 o'clock every morning and gets off after 11 p.m. and sometimes sleeps in his office. However, he spent less time with his marketing partners. In the past, this part of the work took up 2/3 of his time, and now the proportion has dropped to half.

"After all, the age is too big." He sighed. When asked what kind of enterprise he would like to become a Wahaha future, he unhesiate to say "evergreen and a century old shop". He also hopes to make the company enter the world top 500 in 5 years. "This is what the government hopes."
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