Dong Mingzhu once again became the person of the year, where is the future of China's manufacturing?

If we talk about who is the most popular commercial Internet celebrity in 2016, I believe that Ms. Dong Mingzhu and Ms. Dong will undoubtedly be on the list. Although Ms. Dong did not go well in 2016, first the bill failed to pass. Later, the position of chairman of Gree Group was removed, but in less than a month, Ms. Dong told the world a truth, "Never stop a woman from spending money. Even if you don't buy it for her, Lao Wang next door will." I'll buy it for her." This is a widely circulated joke on the Internet. Of course, everyone can laugh at it, but don't take it seriously. However, the person who helped Ms. Dong pay was indeed named Wang, and he was the former richest man in China: Wang Jianlin. I remember that Wang Jianlin’s reply at that time was: Mr. Dong gave me a call and I voted. Isn’t it just 500 million? Not too much, not too much. This tone of voice is really admirable. At the "2016 China's Top Ten Economic Figures of the Year" award ceremony held in Beijing on January 10, Ms. Dong was undoubtedly the first to take the stage to receive the award.

The organizing committee’s award speech to Ms. Dong was: She single-handedly created the legend of Gree and witnessed Gree Electric’s growth and transformation as an international home appliance company; she dared to speak out and take action against channel giants and bet against Internet companies. Defeat the barbarians; she is concerned about national brands, insists on being made in China, studies core technologies, and provides good solutions for Chinese products to go global. At the crossroads of transformation, she took the lead in diversifying exploration into smart home appliances, mobile phones, automobiles, etc., once again igniting Gree's passion and dreams.

Indeed, as the founder of a company, she has accomplished many things, even resisted the oppression brought by the system with one person's power, and purchased Zhuhai Yinlong with her own power, which surprised everyone. Today I want to discuss the role of a strong woman in an enterprise. Why is it that Ms. Dong can attract billions of investments with just one phone call? Why does Wang Jianlin dare to invest 500 million in Ms. Dong?

In fact, as we all know, the so-called statement by Mr. Wang next door is just a joke, and the real reason is what Wang Jianlin said: I have known Mr. Dong for a long time, and I believe she. So what exactly does Wang Jianlin believe? The author believes that Wang Jianlin believes in Ms. Dong’s ability and even more in Ms. Dong’s entrepreneurial spirit.

1. Miss Dong is full of entrepreneurial spirit

Believe me, when I talk about entrepreneurial spirit, everyone will definitely think that whatever the author says is mysterious and mysterious. This kind of illusory corporate culture Things that no one is interested in. What the author emphasizes here is not what we usually call enterprise construction, the so-called entrepreneurial spirit in the bad streets, or the harmonious and inclusive things, it is not these.

In economics, entrepreneurship has a special meaning. The famous economist Mr. Schumpeter specifically wrote: Only in a market economy can there be continuous innovation, and the main body of innovation is entrepreneur. To explain in simple words, what is an entrepreneur? An entrepreneur is a person who distributes money and other production raw materials organically and recreates through his own innovation and courage. Therefore, the real difference between Ms. Dong is not whether she is the chairman of Gree, but whether she is an entrepreneur.

The real entrepreneurs in China are not the so-called academics who graduated from MBA classes. These people can only be called professional managers, and what about those who perform the daily management of enterprises? They can only be called business managers, not entrepreneurs. But Miss Dong is a rare entrepreneur in China, because together with people like Cao Dewang, when a certain industry declines or a bottleneck appears in the development of an industry, they will be keenly aware of the problems that exist in the industry. problems and invest resources in areas that change or bring more profits.

So, a company can fire one or two workers, one or two managers, or even all professional managers, but a company can never fire entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs’ innovations It is a kind of destructive innovation. They use their own abilities to destroy the original enterprise and allow the enterprise to develop new. Therefore, what Wang Jianlin values ????is not anything else. What she values ????is Miss Dong's entrepreneurial spirit.

2. What is missing in Gree now?

If it can be said from the previous article that what Ms. Dong has that others do not have is entrepreneurial spirit, then what is Gree lacking now? In a sense, Gree is a very successful company. It is the industry leader in the field of home appliances, and its air conditioners are unparalleled in the world. The advertising slogan "Good air conditioners, made by Gree" is familiar to everyone.

Although Gree is very successful, Gree also has a lot of cash flow, and Gree's development can be said to be smooth, but Gree's problems are also very obvious. As a traditional manufacturing company, we admire Gree's contribution to China's manufacturing. However, after more than 30 years of development, the traditional manufacturing industry has developed a kind of inertia. Most people will only follow their old path. In traditional manufacturing enterprises, there is an urge to think and return to the habitual track again and again. This impulse is called path dependence in economics. It is obvious that many manufacturing companies have formed their own thinking inertia after experiencing great development. This habitual thinking makes them unwilling to innovate and only willing to accept the previous successful routines. Therefore, the products of many companies are only developing along the old path and are unwilling to accept new things.

However, with the development of the Internet and mobile Internet, the world is no longer what it used to be. Xiaomi, LeTV and a large number of Internet companies have begun to truly cross-border. Home appliances are sadly in the At the cusp of cross-border attacks, as discussed in the Hugo Award-winning masterpiece "The Three-Body Problem" by the famous science fiction writer Liu Cixin, with the madness of capital, Internet companies are simply using two-way foil to attack traditional companies. This kind of dimensionality reduction The blow left traditional companies with no ability to fight back. Just like when digital cameras defeated Kodak and the iPhone defeated Nokia, this kind of competition is not one-dimensional at all. No matter how good your traditional enterprise is, if others don't use your gameplay at all, you will still be finished. In many traditional enterprises, what I see is that they still use traditional thinking to consider problems, and want to use price wars to gain the possibility of their own survival. Although price is useful, there is no advantage in a pure price war. Just like horses can already catch up with the speed of chariots no matter how fast they run, tanks can still easily defeat war horses. This is the difference in dimensions.

Many traditional companies are facing this problem, but many people fail to realize it. Obviously, although Ms. Dong has made some Internet products that are not very successful, such as mobile phones, she All attempts are attempts to change traditional corporate thinking. This is what Gree really lacks.

3. What will happen to Miss Dong’s adventure in the end?

From a certain perspective, Miss Dong is now in a very dangerous situation. As the author once wrote in the article, Miss Dong has a big problem because she is using her own If you try to challenge the entire current corporate management system in China, you are likely to face further dismissal in the end.

However, as Mr. Schumpeter said, entrepreneurs have different spiritual qualities, the will to conquer, the urge to fight, the urge to prove that they are superior to others, and the courage to face all challenges adventurous spirit. It is obvious that whether Ms. Dong succeeds or not, she possesses these qualities. Facing reality, Ms. Dong must choose whether she needs to take more risks than ordinary people, because she is dissatisfied with the status quo, willing to break the rules, and unwilling to obey absolute power. But in China, a country that emphasizes collectivism, an entrepreneur represented by personal heroism must be tragic. Because the emphasis on tradition and collectivism makes it difficult to tolerate risks and allow failure.

The author is not a fan of Ms. Dong, and I often criticize Ms. Dong in my articles. However, my current feeling is that Ms. Dong is making a losing gamble, a gamble that will make her lose. Her gamble against collectivism, although her chance of winning was small, was a beginning, a beginning of disobedience, an elegy for entrepreneurial spirit.

For China, there is actually no shortage of obedient business managers, and there are also professional managers who have received MBA training. What China really lacks is entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs who truly dare to struggle, so the author is willing to I write this article for Ms. Dong, not for her alone, but to call for social tolerance and a force for the rise of entrepreneurship. Since China can produce ballpoint pen refills, why not let What about more entrepreneurs making more breakthroughs?

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