Vigorous, it was the reporter’s first impression of meeting with Li Dakai, although the reporter’s constant pursuit made his voice a bit hoarse.
Chairman of Fast Group Li Dakai
From a small enterprise in a ravine to a four production base in Baoji and Xi’an, the sales revenue increased from 100 million yuan to more than 6 billion yuan in ten years. Heavy-duty transmission sales have been ranked first in the world from domestic championships to steady growth. The throne, in the face of such performance, Fast chairman Li Dakai cannot be ignored by many media. However, the purpose of this reporter's interview is not to excavate the more halo of Fast, but the story behind these achievements.
The persistence of "cold baby"
“Lengwa†has the meaning of hard work in the Shaanxi dialect. The “cold baby†is used to describe Li Dakai, who is a thoroughbred Shaanxi native, who also counts as a three-pointer, although he has now become an object of popular discussion.
When the overall automotive market is advancing rapidly, people are more willing to attribute the reasons for success to “catch up to a good time.†However, as a result of careful analysis, not all auto companies have a better life, they are talking about heavy-duty transmissions. Very powerful companies are now struggling, not just one or two. So what's so good about Fast?
“The three major reasons have brought about today's Fast.†Chairman Li Dakai seems to have pondered this issue for a long time. Specifically speaking, it is the continuous innovation of products, the correct and timely decision-making, and the opportunity to benefit from the great development of the country.
Product innovation is the continuous launch of marketable products, not only introducing and digesting foreign advanced technologies, but also more importantly independent innovation. Heavy-duty transmissions, the most famous internationally are the American Eaton Company and German ZF Company. Both companies are the masters of Fast, but they have been left behind by Fast. "We have a lot of products they do not have, such as three-shaft transmissions and fully synchronizers with 12-speed and 16-speed transmissions. So, on the mechanical transmission, we basically reached the international advanced level." In this regard, the technical background of Li Dakai Very proud.
But for the first, Li Dakai did not lose his calm before honor.
"This is the first, only the first in terms of production, sales and quantity. Frankly speaking, we have not yet achieved the first in technology and quality. We also need to catch up and learn from them. At the same time, we must also have a sense of crisis at the cost. We have to work hard to reduce energy consumption. We must have better quality, lower energy consumption and more suitable prices to increase the cost-effectiveness of our products."
According to Li Dakai, in addition to technical innovations, there are still a large number of funds invested in the development of the Institute, and the ratio of R&D investment to sales is much higher than that of domestic counterparts, which is comparable to the world level. . The amount of success can no longer satisfy Li Dakai's inner desire. He wants to try the core competitiveness brought by original innovation. "The basic research has been done well and the original and innovative products have come out," he said confidently to reporters.
Take every step
In addition to the extreme emphasis on technology and investment, and the unique understanding of marketable products, Li Dakai believes that taking every step is the second most important reason for Fast's success. This may be even more difficult for Li Dakai, who is a technical background student. .
In 2004, it was a blowout year for China's heavy-duty truck market. All manufacturers believed that the spring of heavy-duty trucks in China was coming. However, in the following year, the sudden drop in the market caused many manufacturers, including Fast, to be caught off guard. As can be seen from a simple data: In 2005, sales volume of sales of specialty products from the 200,000 units in 2004 will reach 130,000 units, a decrease of nearly 35%. The downturn in the market did not hit Li Dakai's confidence. On the contrary, he called it bold.
In 2005, Fast turned upside down and carried out a large-scale technological transformation and built its own high-tech plant, expanding its production capacity in one fell swoop. This step laid the foundation for Fast's takeoff from the industry. The subsequent market trend proved that this was a correct move.
In October 2008, the global financial crisis struck, and Fast was not spared. From the previous monthly output of 40,000 to 50,000 units, it suddenly dropped to 10,000 units. The abruptly reduced orders also allowed Fast employees to idle a lot. On seven days a week, the workers only need to work for three days, but they can rest for four days.
This time, Li Dakai reappeared a cold baby character, decisively invested in the construction of a new workshop of 33,000 square meters, and increased the production capacity of more than 100,000 units.
In addition to accumulating power for new market growth, the counter-cyclical operation of this kind has huge benefits. The financial crisis has brought the industry to a low ebb, and product prices have also reached historic lows. At this time, Li Dakai was more like a businessman who cares more. By virtue of the financial crisis, he purchased a lot of cheap and high-quality products from abroad, many of which are world-class technical equipments, and raised the company's accumulation to a new height. Engaging in technical reforms is to find death, and no technical reform is to die. This is a true portrayal of many state-owned enterprises in the 1990s.
Fast had also suffered such a loss, and Li Dakai still has a vivid memory of this. "Ten years ago, we had 100 million yuan in income, and the loan plus the expected interest rate was 500 million. You can imagine how difficult we were to operate at the time. But now we have sales of 7-8 billion, but the amount of loans is minimal. Almost nothing."[next]
The benign development of Fast comes from Li Dakai's three principles of technological transformation. That is health technology reform, real-time technical reform, and scientific and technological reform. Relying on these three principles, Fast was able to break the people's awareness of technological innovation.
"If the products reformed are actually unsuitable products, or if they cause work inefficiencies, this is unscientific. If you are operating in debt and do not consider the rate of return, blind loans will not be a health technology reform." It is already a magic weapon for Dafa to guide Fast forward.
"The input must have output. This must be firmly grasped. We are rolling technological transformation. In the 1990s, we produced 5,000 units a year. It is now our two-day output. Now we have more than 800,000 units. Special development is slowly rolling. Use the money earned in the market to develop the company."
Of course, for Li Dakai, taking every step, both technical and institutional, such as the intervention of the Hunan Torch and the company's mechanism transformation, have all solved the company's development plan.
The pain and sense of mission in transition
Social progress, many new ideas poured into China, but in the face of various honors, Li Da began to regard himself as an ordinary member of Stable. As an entrepreneur, Li Dakai has different feelings about the modern enterprise manager system.
At first, after three years of negotiations, the joint venture between Fast and Eaton was finally established. For the better development of the joint venture company, Li Dakai pridely told Mr. George, the leader of Eaton, that if you do not leave Eaton, I will not leave Fast and we can work together to make this joint venture the best.
However, Mr. George gave a different answer: "I do not understand, Lee, if there is better treatment and higher positions waiting for me, why do not I leave?" George can leave, but Lee can not open.
From the age of 18 to work in Fast, Fast has already brought together Li Dakai's feelings and ideals. This is the biggest difference between Li Dakai and those so-called professional managers. Decades of feelings and efforts are not exchanged for simple treatment and duties.
Not only Li Dakai, but ordinary employees who work in Fast also have a deep affection for Fast. In 1998, Fast did not pay employees for four months, but none of the Fast employees left. The loyalty of the employees also created a unique Francis company culture. Many manufacturers want to learn or plagiarize Fast's technology, but according to the cat and tiger, they never learn the key technology, because the technicians of Fast have not lost.
“In fact, cohesion is also an important core competitiveness of the company.†Li Dakai said to reporters without feeling. In such a cohesive enterprise, he cannot choose to leave because he is the core of cohesion. “If corporate leaders don’t lead by example, it’s impossible to have cohesiveness. In the 1990s, I first let my wife be laid off, which must be the case for state-owned enterprises,†Li Dakai added.
Of course, the loyalty of employees to the company does not replace their changes in concepts and concepts. The improvement of the quality of employees is a long-term problem that Fast has to face. Moreover, when leading a manufacturing company with an old state-owned enterprise background to realize the change of employees' concepts and concepts, the transformation of enterprise mechanisms and systems, the pace is too fast and too slow to work. Li Dakai thinks that this is the same thing as the product in the market. Too far ahead will not work.
As a modern entrepreneur up and down, some people represented by Li Dakai carry the mission of upgrading the Chinese auto industry. All of them share the same characteristics, that is, to nurture and grow up under the traditional culture, but also to lead their employees and enterprises to transform into modern enterprises. This transformation has conceptual conflicts, cultural contradictions, and denials and transformations of its own. However, the love and loyalty of the country has enabled this generation of entrepreneurs to take on this mission without fear. [next]
Tomorrow's Fast
After four consecutive years in the world of heavy-duty transmission production and sales, what is the next goal of Fast? This question has already been partially answered in Li Dakai. The establishment of the famous brand of Fast and the extension of Fast's industrial chain is the keystone for his future development.
As a non-terminal transmission, it also needs to pay attention to its own brand building, which is common in some large international multinational companies. Cummins' engines, Eaton and ZF's transmissions, all use their non-terminal products to create international brand influence. To reach the level of Eaton Corporation in the United States is Li Dakai's goal for the Fachs.
Fortunately, in the domestic heavy truck industry, Fast has successfully established its own brand image. After a reporter visited the investigation, many heavy-duty truck drivers would ask for the truck when they went to buy a truck: I only need to configure the truck of the Fast Transmission.
“We have already seized brand highlands in the domestic industry, but this is not enough.†Li Dakai is very clear about the gap between his own company, his products and the international top level.
“We need to extend the entire field of automotive powertrains, but we can't just do high-end and big ones. I also have to go down and go into the light-card market. The high-end is the automatic transmission and the future hybrid power. We have to extend vertically. At the same time, we also need to develop other fields such as synchronizers, power take-offs, etc. That is to say, tomorrow's Fast will become the supplier of the entire drive system.
Li Dakai quotations:
“For the automatic transmission of heavy trucks, the U.S. has developed a market share of less than 20% for 20 years. We only started in these two years. If the AMT market in China can account for 2% or 3% in the next five years, thank you very much. If within 10 years, it can reach 10%, it is really not easy."
"In the face of crisis, we must have confidence in the future of our country and we must have confidence in the future of our own business development."
"A bit more serious, as long as this is the case, your quality is better than Others."
According to the cat and tiger, you cannot learn from the core.
"If our aftermarket is like the Eaton Company of the United States and we don't follow China's national conditions, we have long been topped by private entrepreneurs in Jiangsu and Zhejiang."
“Our automobile industry produced and sold 13.7 million vehicles in 2009. It definitely exceeded 15 million in 2010, 20 million in 2015, and 30 million in 2020. I believe because at least 12 million of them are sold abroad. If we fail to achieve this level, it will be a failure, and in another decade, our cars and trucks must be sold to Europe and the United States. Without this ambition, it will not be possible.
Thrust Ball Bearing,Radial Thrust Bearing,Auto Parts Bearing
Xiangyang Bearing Co., Ltd. , http://www.china-bearings.com