Kunpeng Project
On the surface, it is a sales problem, but in fact, it is an organizational problem, and there is no internal process mechanism to create star hit products, resulting in high input and low output of the company, and there is no sales explosion for a long time.Recently, NIO has had a bit of a lot of news, and it's a mixed bag.
Negative: 10% layoff; Selling one at a loss, losing more than 70 billion yuan in 5 years; As Wei Xiaoli's "big brother", sales are once again at the bottom, and the gap with Ideal and Xiaopeng has widened.
Positive: Appeared in the list of car companies of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology to obtain independent production qualifications; The battery swap business signed two heavyweight partners of Changan Geely, and the "circle of friends" was further expanded; In the third quarter of 2023, the financial indicators improved, the loss narrowed, and the gross profit margin returned to double digits.
*'s interpretation is also divided on both sides, some believe that NIO is gradually moving away from bankruptcy and crossing the line of life and death, and some voices believe that it has not yet passed the dangerous period, the "big test" has just begun, and the ecological layout such as battery swapping and mobile phones is "difficult to quench thirst from far water".
Since Weilai's sales have been surpassed by ideals, the Internet has begun to "Li Xiang is teaching everyone how to be a CEO, everyone is teaching Li Bin how to be a CEO", but Li Bin did not listen to the persuasion of this session of netizens, insisted on long-termism, insisted on not significantly reducing prices for price, and insisted on investing heavily in R&D and services.
This is also reflected in the ** meeting of NIO's third quarter report, and the focus of attention from the outside world is how NIO can increase sales and how to optimize the structure and improve efficiency. The answer given by Li Bin can be summed up in three points: first, to expand the sales team, in the past two months, the number of sales personnel has been expanded by 3,000, and the sales force has increased to 5,700 people; The second is to increase brands to accelerate the launch of new products, and in the next two years, 3 brands will launch a total of 9 new products; The third is to reduce projects, and the investment in projects that cannot improve financial performance within three years will be reduced or postponed.
These responses cannot be said to have failed to respond to the focus of attention from the outside world, but they always feel a little scratchy from the boots. Can NIO's sales problem be solved by expanding its sales network and speeding up the launch of new products? If this is the case, in 2022-2023, when new cars are intensively launched, NIO's sales should explode, instead of the current state that it is difficult for 8 products to break through the monthly sales of 20,000 units.
Travel Magnifying Glass" believes that NIO's current problems,On the surface, it is a sales problem, but in fact, it is an organizational problem, and there is no internal process mechanism to create star hit products, resulting in high input and low output of enterprises.
Li Bin and other senior NIO executives insist on long-termism is not wrong, butThe tactical problems of the moment cannot be properly covered up with a long-term strategy. If we don't scrape the bones and heal the problems in organizational management, the faster NIO expands, the more products there are, and the bigger the hidden dangers。In the early years, Chery could "have more children and fight", and now Wei Xiaoli wants to prove that he has the ability to create a system that sells explosively.
Sales are not good just because they are expensive?
Why can't NIO sell Ideal and Xiaopeng? The most common answer to such a question is, because it is expensive to sell. NIO's cheapest car is also 29Starting from 80,000 yuan, mainly targeting the high-end market of more than 300,000 yuan; The ideal product price is in the range of 300,000-400,000 yuan; Xiaopeng mainly focuses on the market of more than 15-200,000 yuan.
But after careful study, it is not convincing enough to sell expensively, and the ideal is not cheap, and there are only three products: L7, L8, and L9, and the number of stores is not as many as that of NIO, but the sales volume is already twice that of NIO. Moreover, the sales volume is balanced, and the monthly sales of all three models have exceeded 10,000 units, and the cumulative sales volume has exceeded 100,000 units.
Xpeng Motors has 6 models on sale, and the number of stores is roughly the same as that of NIO, but there is also a major sales force such as G6 with a monthly sales of 8,000 units, driving the overall sales to stand at the threshold of 20,000 units per month.
NIO has a total of 8 models on sale: ES6, ES7, and ES8 in the ES series; EC series includes EC6 and EC7; The ET series has ET5, ET5 hunting suit, and ET7. Among the 8 models, it is difficult to find products that have sold more than 5,000 units a month.
As early as December 2021, NIO achieved monthly sales of more than 10,000 unitsThe two years from 2022 to 2023 are a big year for NIO's products, with a total of 5 new products launched and three old products updated, but the monthly sales volume has only increased by 5,000 units, and the star main model used to sell more than 5,000 units a month, but now it is not easy to sell more than 5,000 units a month.
Not only is the product line the most complete, the number of stores in NIO is the largest, and the brand awareness and service are also the best. What's the problem? The main reason is the product, although the number of products is increasing, but the competitiveness of the product has not been improved, and there is no one who can fight.
Judging from the consumer complaints on the Internet, NIO's products mainly lie inThe upgrading of old products is not enough, and the positioning of new products is not clear
es8 and es6From interior design to space to seats to entertainment systems, the original shortcomings have not been improved much, and the new upgrades are not enough, which does not bring users a leapfrog experience. For example, after the ES6 is listed, the steering wheel heating, front seat ventilation massage, rear seat heating, threshold pedal welcome light, rear seat massage and other comfort configurations that consumers care about are all optional, and they have to spend money to install, and competing products are already standard.
ec7:Is it a sedan or an SUV? It is said that the coupe is not sporty enough, and the customer wants everything, and the product planning is not done well, and the result is not pleasing to anyone.
et7: As a 500,000 yuan class medium and large car, it is neither sporty enough nor business enough, and I don't know which market I want to focus on. The rear seats are thin, narrow, and stiff, making for a poor ride. The interior design is not luxurious enough, and there is no gap with NIO's low-end models.
et5 vs. et5t: Obviously, it can be made into a family car such as BMW 3 and Tesla Model 3, and become the mainstay of sales, but due to the sporty chassis tuning, the rear space and trunk are too small, and the storage space is small, which deviates from the main needs of family cars for wide and comfortable, and is not practical enough.
Intentions to build a car, but technology and the market are two skins
Although the product is not enough to "hit", there is no doubt about the sincerity and intention of Weilai to make cars, which can be called the existence of the ceiling in the industry.
Since 2016, NIO has invested nearly 40 billion yuan in R&D. NIO's R&D investment has always been the highest among new cars in China, whether it is the worst year in 2019 or 2023 when the whole network is persuaded to reduce expenses, NIO has not reduced its R&D investment.
As a result of continuous investment in R&D, NIO is full of sincerity in terms of design, technology, manufacturing and other aspects alone.
In terms of design, the early ES8 and ES6 have been atmospheric and novel, which is unforgettable, and the design of the new products ET7 and ET5 is even more amazing, winning praise such as "the pinnacle of industrial design and the top design of smart cars".
In terms of technology, NIO NT2The 0 platform models are all equipped with a dual-motor four-wheel drive system as standard, four NVIDIA Drive Orin X chips, and lidar. The "full-stack" layout of technology, including chips and on-board intelligent hardware, battery systems, electric drive systems, vehicle engineering, operating systems, mobile Internet, intelligent driving, intelligent cockpits, smart energy, intelligent manufacturing, artificial intelligence, global digital operations, and other 12 key technology areas have been focused on investment, self-developed "Tianshu SKYOS" on-board operating system and "Yang Jian" chip, released intelligent driving and cockpit cross-domain fusion domain control CCC to lead the new trend of autonomous driving, and insisted on investing heavily in battery swapping. Make battery swapping a business card of NIO's services, cross-border mobile phones and release smart phones, and accelerate the ecological layout.
There are many specific examples, such as an all-aluminum body or a high-strength steel aluminum body, and the design of an aluminum alloy anti-collision beam plus a torsion box structure to ensure the safety of the passenger compartment; air suspension; top-of-the-line sound system; The display effect of the central control screen and HUD (head-up display system) is first-class; In terms of brakes, aluminum alloy one-piece cast calipers with better safety but higher cost are also used, while floating calipers are used.
As some car critics and users have said, NIO's design and material standards are the ideas of traditional luxury carsIt is done in accordance with the highest water standard and the highest upper limit in the industry, but it makes some "low-level mistakes" and "design flaws" where users are concernedFor example, the ES8 does not have a small table; The ET7's uncomfortable rear seats, the ET5's cramped rear space from height to width, and the small trunk volume are really"Such a good design, such a kind of material".
In the field of SUVs, ES8 and ES6 opened a precedent for domestic high-end pure electric SUVs, and were the first to discover the market opportunity for high-end SUV households. In the field of sedans, ET7 and ET5 two cars are good enough to play, and the brand occupies a high position, which could have been sold in the case of traditional luxury brand electric vehicle products are not strong, and the domestic BYD Xiaopeng brand support is not enough, but due to the unclear product positioning, the high-end business is not luxurious enough, and the household is not practical enough, missing the market opportunity of domestic pure electric high-end cars.
Li Bin is a good corporate spokesperson and a master of communicating with users, but he is obviously not a good product manager. Otherwise, he spends a lot of time visiting stores and communicating face-to-face with users all year round, according to the industry's high standards, using honest materials, and "regardless of the cost" where users can't see, but "planting heels" on the issues that users care about most.
To put it mildly, this is a product that is not well definedWho are the users of the product, what are the main needs, which are the core needs and which are secondary, to what extent do competitors do it, and how to differentiate and win.
To put it more broadly, it is the disconnection of different departments of the enterprise, the lack of coordination, and the two skins of technology and market。The design department uses the power of the wilderness to reach the highest level in the industry; The technology department puts the best hardware and the best technology into the car; The marketing department then according to their own understanding of the selling point, it seems that each department has done its best, and a single department is very good to bring out, but when integrated together, it cannot create a competitive and truly satisfactory product for users.
NIO has always emphasized the concept of "user-oriented enterprise", but from the perspective of the actual competitiveness of products, user-centricity has not been implemented in the daily work of various departments, and there is a lack of collaboration between different departments.
All in all, it's a matter of organizational management.
Conclusion
In order to cope with the acceleration stage from 1-10 enterprises and more severe market competition, Wei Xiaoli will adjust the enterprise management and organizational structure in 2023. At present, NIO's organizational adjustment effect is the least obvious.
The ideal organizational change is huge, and after a small-scale trial in the early stage, it has begun to roll out organizational reform on a large scale this year, upgrading from the previous management model of vertical functional organizations to matrix organizations, aiming at trillion-level enterprises. With the in-depth organizational change, the ideal sales volume also took the lead in breaking out in Wei Xiaoli, and the morale of the upper and lower levels soared.
Although the organizational change of Xiaopeng Motors has not been high-profile, it has also done a lot of work, from the division of labor positioning of the leader He Xiaopeng himself to the organizational process to the anti-corruption of the procurement chain, and after a series of adjustments, it has entered a state of "small and weak positive cycle".
On the other hand, NIO's organizational adjustment is the most indifferent, with neither major organizational structure adjustment nor any means to reduce costs to the extreme. Only at the end of the year, the news of layoffs and projects will be announced. But organizational change to create an efficient organization is much more than eliminating a group of employees at the end and cutting some projects that cost money, if it is so simple, everyone can become a management master.
As He Xiaopeng said: "Competition is changing, technology is changing, the scale of personnel has increased more than ten times, and the difficulty of management has actually increased dozens of times. ”
*:*Internet.