BYD Car You Slowly Go Don't Walk Two Boats Again

On August 5th, Xia Zhibing, vice president of BYD Group Corporation and general manager of the domestic automotive sales division, finally officially released the news of leaving BYD.

In fact, before Xia Zhibing officially left BYD, there have been rumors in BYD that Xia Zhibing has resigned without success. In the end, Xia Zhibing chose to temporarily return to calm in the BYD Auto Channel crisis in 2010, BYD heavyweight new car S6 listed, in addition to BYD return A shares and a series of things arranged properly, Xia Zhibing finally chose to leave BYD.

Before the departure of Xia Zhibing, he told the media that the two biggest pressures on BYD were the acquisition of Qinchuan Automobile in 2003 and the 2010 dealership withdrawal event. The difference is that the acquisition of Qin Chuan, he was the opposition, that the risk is too high, and finally Wang Chuanfu gave him a platform and opportunities to become the general manager of BYD Auto Sales Company, when he took over the post of general manager, he is still less than 30 years old. In the BYD channel crisis, the dealer’s withdrawal from the internet almost directly led to his departure from BYD.

In the summer of 1998, Zhibing Bing graduated from Guanghua School of Management at Peking University. She was moved into BYD by Wang Chuanfu’s personal charisma. With the development of BYD from small to large, BYD Auto has grown from scratch and has been doing it for 13 years. Xia Zhibing began sales of BYD Auto from scratch, and achieved 520,000 vehicles in 2010. In 2008 and 2009, it grew at the speed of doubling for two consecutive years. The market has also reached 1.6 million, which has become the industry’s myth.

Judging from Xia Zhibing's position, he is not only the general manager of BYD Auto, but also the vice president of BYD Group Corporation. He is also one of the founding fathers of BYD. BYD has given him his dream, warmth and cruelty, and his feeling may be no less than a "U.S. Past."

Therefore, Xia Zhibing’s departure is more like a child leaving the mother’s body and cutting the umbilical cord. Instead of leaving an employer as a professional manager in the ordinary sense, this is more like the choice of Xia Zhibing’s life direction. This also shows that BYD Automobile is facing a lot of problems.

From the miracle to the destruction of the miracle, BYD entered the auto industry. It was once a miracle with a spirit of enthusiasm and the fearless spirit of the ignorant.

In 2003, BYD took over Qinchuan Freel and then quieted for nearly three years. According to the initial sales performance of the BYD Auto Business Division, for two years, sales did not know what to do, did not know where to go to find a dealer, and did not know what to say after opening a dealer’s door and what they said. . Lack of experience, lack of product, and other reasons, sales of the Flyer minivan are stagnant. At that time, Xia Zhibing had to take out three packs of cigarettes every day, and even dared not answer Wang Chuanfu's calls.

In 2004, BYD’s entire marketing system suffered a heavy blow. When hundreds of dealers saw the first new model they had developed independently, their faces looked like rainy weather. Wang Chuanfu recalled that he stayed up all night and had to make a painful decision to abandon the first new model. This was not only a high cost but also an urgent time issue. BYD entered the auto industry for two years without a new car, and a group of distributors immediately left.

Wang Chuanfu did not dig into the industry's marketing experts, to reverse the downfall into the role of Xia Zhibing. In the summer of 2005, he served as general manager of the automotive sales department. At that time, no one at BYD knew that at the time of a small media event, several local guest leaders did not read the word “BYD” when they read the manuscript. Someone read “Bidi car” and someone read it. "Bidia car".

This is the basis for BYD F3 sales from zero to 100,000 spent 14 months, from 100,000 to 200,000 spent 12 months. The first distributors followed BYD to earn the first pot of gold quickly and became the most solid channel power. In 2008 and 2009, BYD’s sales volume doubled in two years, and by 2010, the market had reached 1.6 million units. The rhythm of BYD Auto once brought fear to other local car brands and achieved a dark horse legend in the auto industry.

However, in 2010, when the large market environment continued to rise, BYD Automobile suddenly experienced a year-on-year decline in sales volume in consecutive months. Not only was the 800,000 sales target set at the beginning of the year difficult to complete, but the target was reduced to 600,000. Completed 520,000 vehicles. Beginning in March 2010, BYD dealers in Chengdu, Beijing, Zhejiang, Shandong, Henan and other regions have successively “exited”. As of December 31, 2010, A3 and A4 network resellers had 27.83% and 31.91% of their network exits, respectively, while A1 and A2 network dealers had a proportion of 12.97% and 27.6%, respectively, and the total number of outlets decreased from 1,200. To 1000 or so.

Although, BYD started adjusting its sales strategy in November last year. Xia Zhibing publicly apologized to the dealers. “My strategy is strict with merchants, demands are too high, management channels are too hard after team pressure is too great.” And promised to reduce inventory, ensure that the interests of dealers are set aside; Product, improving product line while improving product price range......

However, it is too late. Faced with a network of as many as 1,000, it is still difficult to fundamentally reverse market sales by simply reducing "pressing drugs" and stressing service quality.

According to data from the China Automobile Association, in the first half of 2011, BYD Auto had become a domestic automobile company with sales volume falling for six consecutive months, which was only 228,800 units, down 22%. If BYD does not recover sales in the second half of the year, it will be difficult for BYD to complete sales of 570,000 to 600,000 vehicles throughout the year. In mid-July, BYD shares announced half-year performance forecast. It is expected that the net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies in the first half of the year will fall by 85% to 95% year-on-year.

The new energy vehicles that have made BYD’s landscape in the capital market progress slowly. Despite Buffett’s blessings, the Shenzhen government’s support, and favorable national policies, BYD’s new energy vehicles and pure electric vehicles are not Market recognition, sales are very low.

The stepped foot BYD owns the genes of manufacturing, pays attention to cost and efficiency, and in the early stages of entering the automobile industry, it quickly opened up the situation with this advantage. However, automotive products are more complex than mobile phones and IT products, and pay more attention to human nature. This is an angle that BYD can hardly grasp.

Just as the former General Motors vice chairman Bob Lutz wrote "Car Guys vs. Bean Counters said that General Motors is in bankruptcy, and the deadly virus is not unions, but high-level executives with MBA degrees. It is because of their excessive pursuit of short-term profits that over-disregarding the needs of the most original consumers has caused GM's plight. In Lutz's view, the simple task of these idiots is deliberately sensible (or "complex", data). The focus of each product launch is not what the consumer wants, but what the quantified objectives are: assembly time, warranty costs, use of recycled parts, and speed of execution.

For auto companies, any strategy depends on product adjustments. So far, BYD does not see big product decisions. From this perspective, BYD should slow down and think carefully about what consumers need and how the market has changed. This is the foot of BYD's empty space. Now it needs to be adjusted by several steps to return to the origin. Taking a foothold in the automotive industry from the manufacturing industry and wanting to subvert innovation in an industry, we must first learn and submit to this industry.

In 2008, Xia Zhibing was full of enthusiasm in interviews with reporters. He believed that BYD Auto is no longer a layman, and he has also become an insider of car sales. He said at the time: "BYD is an amateur builder, and I am also an amateur. Because I used to be a financial person, I didn't sell anything. I figured it would be a bit more. After I came in, I had to learn. Marketing also needed. Creativity is created on the basis of learning. When learning, there are two objects that are best: one is your opponent and the second is your partner. It is just that our two resources are very rich.”

BYD imitates competitors and partners, and combines BYD's cost and efficiency advantages. BYD has become a dark horse in the automotive industry. Traditional car companies have a natural disdain and fear for this new recruit to break the industrial rhythm.

However, two years later, after the BYD car experienced a miraculous victory, a sudden crisis emerged.

After BYD acquired Qinchuan Automobile, there was no new product for two years. At that time, the BYD auto sales team was very confused. A veteran of BYD Automobile said: “At that time, I did not know where to look for a distributor. As a young person who just graduated, I found a car dealer and knocked on the door. I didn’t know what to say. I was very confused and nervous. Once it has survived, we are very grateful to BYD for providing such a large platform, although this is the most difficult, because it was basically the upper-level leaders and executives who explored the road ahead."

However, for the graduates who had entered BYD Auto Company in the last two years, they were not so lucky. BYD Automobile was not in the early stages of its establishment. It was not as crazy as it is now. It was moving forward and down. Before 2010, the sales of automobile sales companies basically went from sales channels, to car shape design, to ordinary media placement, and media interviews were ultimately decided by Xia Zhibing. "The kind of workload, in my opinion, one person can not finish 48 hours." The source said.

What happened in 2010? Xia Bingbing decided to decentralize decision-making authority. In his own words, he said, “Let people who listen to cannons make decisions.” At that time, BYD needed to develop its home appliance business, and at the same time develop the whole new energy industry chain. After that, it sold LED lights. These tasks were all on Xia Zhibing. He was indifferent.

At the same time, BYD’s top executives were dazzled by previous victories. All the people only reported good news but did not report bad news, eventually leading to serious market misjudgments. The front-end salespersons have adopted a sales policy of killing chickens and taking eggs for the distributors because of personal interests, vicious competition, different regional sales policies, and rapid network construction, regardless of the quality of the network. Selling a car is much more complicated than selling a mobile phone, and BYD finally uses a way of replicating a staged victory to make the problem soar. Facts have proved that the team of BYD Auto Sales Division has not yet accumulated or precipitated enough. There are a large number of students in the sales team who have just graduated two or three years. They do not even know how to properly communicate and communicate with distributors. At this time, the clarity of the goals and the formulation of the rules are more important for the clear definition of release and income. The fact is, although the decision-making authority is decentralized, the goal is not appropriate, and the rules are not clear. Finally, there are strategic mistakes and a major fallout.

Some dealers recalled that BYD Auto’s sales policy was very unstable at that time. For a period of time, several war zones across the country have their own politics. Each region has its own rebate policy aimed at distributors, while internal sales personnel compete fiercely with each other. Over time, seeing this situation harmed the interests of distributors, it was adjusted to a unified national sales policy. Later, due to the target of sales quantity, it was necessary to no longer manage each other several times, and each salesperson gave different rebate policies. The trust of dealers to BYD cars has been reduced to a minimum, and the expansion of blind and crazy stores has also left the dealer team uneven.

Why Wang Chuanfu will continue to develop so many new tasks for Xia Zhibing, who has already shouldered heavy responsibilities? Because in Wang Chuanfu's thinking, car manufacturing and sales are just like mobile phones and other IT products. Once the occupation of the beachhead market and the human and tactical channels, as well as the correct strategy, it is basically impossible to fail.

However, just as BYD's car sales exceeded expectations by 400,000 units in 2009, industry insiders have predicted that BYD's bottleneck and ceiling will appear when it sells 500,000 vehicles a year. At the same time, due to the diffuse development of BYD Auto's "One Thousand Stores Plan", it is difficult to take into consideration the interests of distributors, and it will cause major hidden troubles in the sales system.

The thinking that needs to change If the BYD Auto Division is viewed as an automotive company, it does not seem to have a core competence. But if you look at it in the context of BYD Group Corporation, you will find that there is a strong manufacturing gene and continuous preparation for new energy technologies in the future. BYD Auto does not seem like an auto company, it is more like an IT manufacturer. The difference is that the manufactured goods are cars and nothing more.

Many people have reminded Wang Chuanfu: To subvert a complex industry like a car, not just rely on passion, strength and courage to complete, nor just rely on the copy of home appliance business model, or IT manufacturing model can make a good brand of.

In contrast, Geely Li Shufu is one of the early awakenings. Li Shufu from home appliances and motorcycles to cars, Wang Chuanfu from the battery to IT products, and then to the entire automotive industry chain development. The common feature of both of them was that they did not put the myth of automotive technology and made big sales in a short period of time. They all began to claim to be affordable cars that Chinese people could afford. However, in 2008, Li Shufu changed his vanguard, and Geely started the product transformation and began to work hard to produce high value-added automotive products. This decisive decision has given Geely its vitality. BYD Auto has also reached such a turning point, and the rise from quantity to quality is a process that needs to be more insistent.

Wang Chuanfu is a dignified and honest appearance with technical staff, but it has a king-like heart. What he wants to build is a full-industry-chain empire that is supported by new energy sources. His ideals can not be shaken, and it is hard for someone to convince him that his strong subjective consciousness is sometimes tough and sometimes stubborn.

Wang Chuanfu can be called a "funny race." It seems that in addition to technology and commerce, his life is not much fun, and the way of pastime and crowding out depression is watching TV. He couldn't even remember the name of the movie he had watched with his daughter the last time. Every day when she went to work with BYD, she felt that she had punched herself because he felt very happy. He will give each batch of new employees a training session. It is said that the employees below are often lethargic because all the questions are technical.

His character is doomed to make it easier for him to concentrate on production technology research and development, while ignoring more humanized and personalized things. He seems to be able to see the essence of business at a glance but he does not understand the consumer market and the value of the brand.

When BYD Auto F3 was just listed, Wang Chuanfu said that BYD can minimize the cost of F3, and let the price of F3 become lower and lower. From the manufacturing point of view, this is indeed a very powerful thing, creating a whole industry chain and reducing costs. However, for declining product prices, its brand value is precisely a negative growth.

At the same time, BYD's success in other industries makes Wang Chuanfu believe that success can be replicated. It is large-scale, vertical, lowest cost, and tactical in the sea.

It is also easy to understand why Wang Chuanfu allowed Xia Zhibing to undertake construction projects other than automobiles, and the accumulation and precipitation of the automotive team did not reach a certain level.

The adjustment of strategic errors by BYD Auto is still in progress. This will be a long and slow process. However, for Wang Chuanfu, in the face of a complex automobile industry system, it may be thinking.

For Wang Chuanfu mentioned on many public occasions: “BYD Auto 2015 is China's No. 1 and 2025 is No. 1 in the world” target is not accepted by BYD middle and lower employees. They did not meet the boss’s ideal. A person with BYD said that for Wang Chuanfu, what he can see is technically achieved, but there is not much to think about how the user experience and how to implement it in batches.

Wang Chuanfu has a soft spot for technology, and also has a solid and straightforward technical staff. He publicly stated that in order to expand the number of sales channels, while maximizing the scale and minimizing costs, BYD's approach is to change the F3 and see it. The places to see are all different. The invisible places are all the same. They become G3 or L3. They are sold on different networks. This way BYD can easily expand the network because the models are not the same and everyone is safe. In this way, the number of BYD stores will easily expand from 200 to 1,000.

What he said was all honesty. In fact, this practice is not new in the traditional automotive industry. For example, Sagitar brand Volkswagen and Octavia Skoda brand are all on the same platform, with different shells and brands under the same core. Two models. However, the brand personalizes automotive products, people who like sports power often choose Sagitar, and those who like to be low-key will choose Octavia. But no one will elaborate on such technical issues in public. At the same time, although BYD changed its shell, it did not give them soul.

For a car that carries human emotions and cultural products, it is not enough to achieve technology. If you want to do a good brand, you have to meet the needs of consumers from the aspect of quality and culture. In this regard, Wang Chuanfu see through all kinds of things at a glance. The essence of the brand and model, and can quickly learn to imitate innovation, and then he overlooked an essential difference, both the Volkswagen brand and the Skoda brand have given these two shells a lot of cultural, emotional, and empirical extensions.

For large companies, the inertia of strategy is beyond imagination. Once the strategic direction is misjudged, the price paid is enormous. Often the first step is empty, and you will need to adjust in four or five steps to return to normal. Therefore, if BYD Auto is determined to make BYD Auto a real automobile company car brand, it is imminent to start changing the way of thinking from Wang Chuanfu. Because the BYD car began its mid-disaster crisis after the miracle of the opening stage, it has once again proved that for most companies, there is no miracle. The best way to subvert an unfamiliar industry is to first settle down to the laws of the industry.

BYD Auto can actually run a bit slower. It does not worship the cost and efficiency of its own manufacturing industry. It respects the key elements of the brand spirit and user experience of the auto industry.

Wang Chuanfu can also begin to accompany her daughter to take a look at the latest movie, to experience the changes in the real environment, changes in people's needs, he will certainly have some new feelings about the relationship between technology and people.