Ambitious Zheng Cizi, the founder of Korean automobile myth

On March 65438+September, at the board meeting held by Hyundai Motor Group, Eui-Sun Chung, the chief vice chairman (Euisun? Zhong was elected as the new chairman. Zheng Mengjiu officially stepped down at the age of 82, ending his 265,438+0 years in charge of the second largest consortium in Korea.

I know the feud between the rich and powerful, and I see through my roommate. Looking back on his life, Zheng Mengjiu's fate is like the "Nine" in his name-he became the biggest winner among the nine children born to his father Zheng Zhouyong.

The second son of the Zheng family

Zheng Mengjiu's father, Zheng Zhouyong, built a "modern empire" step by step from scratch.

1945 "modern automobile industry society" was established, and 1947 "modern civil engineering society" was established. Relying on a large number of engineering orders during the Korean War, the reputation of "Hyundai" is growing day by day. Since then, it has won many firsts such as the first shipyard, the first automobile factory and the first expressway in Korea.

In 1950s, "modern" forces spread all over the fields of automobile, heavy industry and steel, and became the largest consortium in Korea.

Zheng Zhouyong has eight sons and one daughter. In Korea, inspired by Confucianism, the eldest son inherited the family business and was legitimized. Therefore, the successor of the "modern dynasty" has long been determined, and Zheng Zhouyong devoted all his energy to his eldest son Zheng Mengbi.

At that time, Zheng Mengjiu's label was "the second son of Zheng Zhouyong, founder of Hyundai Group".

However, in 1982, Zheng Mengbi was on his way back to Seoul from Ulsan Company, and his car collided with a truck because of fatigue driving, and he died on the spot.

This bizarre car accident not only brought pain to the living, but also set off family civil strife. The plot of the successor's struggle often begins from the moment the "Prince" dies.

Among other sons, Zheng's fourth son committed suicide in 1990. There are only six sons left, and Zheng Zhouyong likes three people: Zheng Mengjiu, the second, Mong Hun Chung, the fifth, and Zheng Mengzhun, the sixth.

Some people speculate that this preference may also represent a watershed between the first son and concubines-not all these nine children were born to Zheng Zhouyong and his wife.

After Zheng Mengbi was killed in a car accident, his second son, Zheng Mengjiu, decided that he was the heir of Hyundai Group.

Zheng Mengjiu has since embarked on the road to power.

First of all, he wants to separate the automobile company and R&D department from the group and set up an automobile group by himself.

Zheng Zhouyong was furious when he found out, and immediately nominated his fifth brother, Mong Hun Chung, as the co-chairman of the board of directors, trying to balance Zheng Mengjiu. In Zheng Zhouyong's subconscious, he prefers "gentle and polite" Mong Hun Chung, while Zheng Mengjiu and his sixth son Zheng Mengzhun can only be regarded as "alternative".

In order to retaliate against Zheng Zhouyong's "eccentricity", in 2000, Zheng Mengjiu, who had been waiting for revenge, demoted his best assistant while his fifth brother Mong Hun Chung was away on a business trip, and appointed his cronies to take over, in an attempt to further seize control of the group. A few days later, Zheng Mengjiu entered the old house of Qingyun Cave, where he had lived in Zheng Zhouyong for 42 years, and declared that his victory was justified.

The story is not over yet. After Mong Hun Chung returned home, he launched a counterattack. With the support of Zheng Zhouyong, Hyundai Group later announced that Mong Hun Chung was the chairman of the group, and Zheng Mengjiu was dismissed as the chairman of the group.

In order to calm Zheng Mengjiu's dissatisfaction, Zheng Zhouyong decided to split Hyundai Group into three parts, with Mong Hun Chung continuing as the chairman of Hyundai Group and Zheng Mengjiu taking control of Hyundai Motor. In addition, Hyundai Heavy Industry and its sixth son, Zheng Mengzhun's affiliated enterprises, also gained independence.

Since then, modern families have divided the world into three parts, and the dispute between brothers has temporarily subsided. At the same time, the split Hyundai Group also gave the position of the largest consortium in South Korea to Samsung.

The good times didn't last long. After the death of Kloc-0 in March, 200, the Zheng family staged another "powerful feud".

Under the planning of Zheng Mengjiu, Hyundai Motor and Hyundai Heavy Industry formally broke away from Hyundai Group, while Mong Hun Chung alone shouldered the heavy burden of investing in the DPRK and had to be frequently investigated for suspected political contributions.

The building is about to collapse, but our compatriots look on coldly. To Mong Hun Chung's dismay, Zheng Mengzhun, the sixth brother of FIFA at that time, took advantage of the investigation and led Hyundai Heavy Industry to acquire Hyundai Group.

In despair, one morning in the spring of 2003, Mong Hun Chung flew down from the modern headquarters building and took his own life.

Create Korean automobile myth

Zheng Mengjiu's goal is to turn Hyundai into the top five automobile manufacturers in the world.

Just like vultures on the other side of the ocean like to say "War is for peace". Zheng Mengjiu and his brother seized power for a legitimate reason-personally shouldering the banner of revitalizing the Korean automobile industry.

The time can be traced back to 10 years before Zheng Mengjiu made a solo flight. 1986, Hyundai Motor bought a cheap pony for $4,995. EXCEL model knocks on the door of American market. At that time, American consumers were lured by their low prices and bought a lot of modern cars. However, the problem of low-priced cars was soon exposed: quality problems appeared from time to time, and parts needed to be replaced at any time, so the sales of modern cars went down all the way and became the laughing stock of Americans. A famous joke goes like this: Modern cars only move when pushed, and they are going downhill.

During the period of 1997, the Asian financial turmoil surged, and the crisis quickly spread to Korean enterprises. Daewoo and other giant groups that were equally famous in those years had no choice but to declare bankruptcy, and Hyundai Motor could only protect itself by laying off 25% of its employees. 1998, Hyundai merged with competitor Kia, which made the already unbearable financial burden worse: Hyundai's market value was only10 billion US dollars, but its debt was as high as 6.6 billion US dollars.

Zheng Zhouyong's second son, Zheng Mengjiu, came to power in this crisis. In this way, in this context, the drama of the battle between the giants adds a sense of tragedy.

He is taciturn by nature and doesn't like to listen to opinions. Foreign media often evaluate him as "dull, inaccessible and not good at cooperating with the media". However, at the beginning of taking office, such leaders shouted out the rhetoric of "leading modern cars into the top five in the world".

He seems to have found the pulse of the problem at once: quality is the biggest problem for enterprises.

A few days after taking office, he visited the production workshop in Ulsan, South Korea. Zheng Mengjiu, who has always been low-key, roared: "Only by improving the quality to the level of Toyota is the foundation of survival!"

In a short time, Zheng Mengjiu paid a considerable price for his "quality complex".

In 2003, Kia OPIRUS stopped production for two months because of the noise problem of the gearbox. At that time, an assistant reminded: "The production line stopped for two months, and the loss was too great!"

Zheng Mengjiu replied: "If it is because of quality problems, it doesn't matter."

In order to save the quality trust crisis that plummeted in that year, 1999, Zheng Mengjiu promised the highest warranty period of 10 year to the global consumers at that time.

Zheng Mengjiu has also established a new system: 68,000 employees of Hyundai Motor, no matter who they are, can put forward any suggestions on improving quality at any meeting.

Hyundai Motor started a continuous quality improvement project. The impression that Asian cars are of high quality and low price has finally been broken.

In April 2005, the American Consumer Report rated Hyundai Sonata as the most reliable model. In the initial quality index survey conducted by J.D.POWER Company in the United States, the quality of Hyundai Motor tied for second place with Honda.

On the other hand, Zheng Mengjiu believes that the bottleneck of becoming the top five in the world lies in production and sales, but there is not much room for breakthrough growth in Europe and America, so we must choose a high-speed growth market, and China is undoubtedly the fastest growing market in the world today.

He likes reading Romance of the Three Kingdoms. In August 2002, Dongfeng Da Yue Kia Automobile Co., Ltd., which cooperated with Jiangsu, was established and settled in Jiangsu, which is said to be related to this. At that time, there were many sites with similar conditions, but in the end he decided to decide Yancheng, because it was the hometown of Sun Quan during the Three Kingdoms period.

Previously, Huatai Hyundai Motor, which cooperated with Shandong to produce SUVs, has also settled down. On June 5438+ 10, 2002, Beijing Hyundai Motor Co., Ltd. was formally established, with 50% capital contribution from Beijing Automotive Investment Co., Ltd. and Hyundai Motor of Korea. So far, from Shandong Peninsula, Bohai Bay to the Yangtze River Delta, Zheng Mengjiu has completed his layout of China.

In 2005, Hyundai Motor's sales in the United States, Europe, China, India and other major global markets expanded rapidly, becoming the second Asian automobile manufacturer after Toyota Motor to exceed 6,543,800+vehicles overseas. In 2006, Hyundai Motor Group sold 3.76 million vehicles (including Hyundai and Kia brands) and became the sixth largest automobile manufacturer in the world.

In 2008, there was a global financial crisis. Zheng Mengjiu judged that with the rapid recovery of the market headed by China, the market crisis will end. Hyundai Motor strategically launched attacks in China, the United States and Europe. In 2008, when the global automobile industry was in a downturn, the sales volume of Beijing Hyundai reached 294,500 vehicles, an increase of 27.4%.

In 20 12 years, Hyundai's global sales volume was 7120,000 vehicles, which was only behind Toyota, GM, Volkswagen and Renault-Nissan Alliance. Achieved the goal of "the fifth in the world".

But after that, Zheng Mengjiu, who has achieved his life goal, seems to have no further plans.

After 20 12, the operating conditions of Hyundai-Kia Motors Group went from bad to worse. The profits from 20 12 to 20 18 were 9.05 trillion, 8.55 trillion, 7.65 trillion, 6.42 trillion, 5.72 trillion, 4.55 trillion and 1.60 trillion won respectively.

Hyundai Motor Group sold 7190,000 new cars in 20 19, which was lower than the total sales target of 7.6 million set at the beginning of the year and only 70,000 more than the global sales in 20 12.

Zheng Mengjiu loved cars since he was a child. "People who can drive must be people who can do great things." . For China, Zheng Mengjiu has a love that transcends commercial interests. He likes China, China food and China wine. His dream is to travel to China after retirement.

Twenty years ago, Zheng Mengjiu took over the precarious Hyundai Motor Company and built it into the fifth largest automobile group in the world. Now, retired Zheng Mengjiu has left his son Eui-Sun Chung a modern Kia Group facing a bottleneck.

The difference is that it is no longer an era of winning only by car quality, and the high growth bonus that China, as an emerging market at that time, could bring to it is gone.

This article comes from car home, the author of the car manufacturer, and does not represent car home's position.