Song Zhiping, President of the China Listed Association and President of the China Enterprise Reform and Development Research Association. Photo: Deng PanText |Emiyama.
Zhongcai Industry Think Tank.
Although Mr. Song Zhiping has been running the business for more than 40 yearsIt has successively brought two central enterprises, China National Building Materials Group and China Sinopharm Group, into the world's top 500 campHowever, after having an in-depth exchange with Dr. Song Zhiping a few days ago and listening to some of his insights on industrial economy and enterprise management and operation, I deeply realized:He should not just be a big-name entrepreneur in the public eye, but a business leader with business ideas and unique achievements, and now he is more like an evangelist. His new role is now the chairman of the China Listing Association and the chairman of the China Enterprise Reform and Development Research Association. I don't want to talk about his business legends and achievements, but I want to share some of his business ideas.
One of the major challenges facing the Chinese market now is:More than 10 years after joining the WTO, in order to meet the needs of the global market, a huge production capacity has been formed, but in the current increasingly complex and severe situation, the pattern of international and domestic interests has entered a period of deep adjustment, and large-scale production capacity has become more and more "held in the domestic market", which has led to the increasingly serious involution of enterprises. In this context, many enterprises in various industries and online and offline channel providers are competing for price bargaining and vicious competition. In this regard,Song Zhiping said with deep feelings: "Without industry profits, it is difficult to have corporate profits." In the face of domestic and foreign markets, industry management and internal operations, if there is no order, no bottom line, competing for bargaining, in the end, no one has a way to live, basically self-destructive. So what to do?We must have strategic determination, innovative thinking and the courage to do better and bigger increments. It is necessary to deeply understand that in the market environment with Chinese characteristics, it is difficult to do a lot of things, a big difficulty to do a small thing, and a lot of difficulties to do not do it. With the spirit of innovation and will, it can not only scare away many difficulties, but also win the support of the first and all aspects. Therefore, to replace disorderly vicious competition with orderly market competition, industry associations and industry alliances should play an important role in a special period, and bad money cannot be allowed to drive out good money.
In the 20th century, the Chinese market was largely "in short supply and in short supply".In the 21st century, especially after China's accession to the WTO, the biggest feature of the Chinese market is "overcapacity and oversupply". For entrepreneurs, the biggest challenge is how to rely on innovative thinking and strategic courage to transfer to a higher level of industrial cycle in the increasingly fierce market competition. It also means that in the new stage of development, the focus of enterprise operation and management has undergone essential changes. In this regard,Song Zhiping's view is:If the 20th century is the era of production management, enterprises are mainly based on good products, focus on internal management, and solve the problem of efficiency. In the 21st century, in the past 20 years, we have moved from the era of production management to the era of operation management. The effectiveness of traditional management is weakening, and if you rely only on management, it is very likely that enterprises will stagnate. In this new era, the biggest problem facing enterprises in order to make a profit is how to innovate, how to deal with the uncertainty of the environment, and how to optimize the market layout. Times have changed, the focus of the enterprise has changed, and the role and positioning of the enterprise manager also need to change. How to transform from an effective manager to a strategic and efficient operator is a new challenge for enterprises in the new era. Song Zhiping's point of view undoubtedly subverts the cognition of many traditional entrepreneurs.
Practice has repeatedly proved that whether it is an excellent private enterprise or a state-owned enterprise, a difficult problem now is how to solve the problem of inheritance and find a good person. The better the enterprise leader, the more serious the "inheritance" problem faces. If this problem is not done well, the company may quickly fall into a trough and fall into crisis. When communicating with Song Zhiping, he said:"I admire Jack Welch of the American General Motors Group, he pushed the management and operation of the enterprise to a strategic height, and put forward a series of 'soul torture', one of the important propositions is: the more brilliant enterprises and entrepreneurs, the more we must pay attention to the 'inheritance problem', and we must choose the best people. This is important for both private and central enterprises in China. Personally, I think that it is not very reliable to rely on the selection of people, and the key is to have a good training system and selection mechanism, and to elect inheritors who truly have the spirit of mission, lofty sense of responsibility and actual combat ability. The best business leaders in office need to think about this issue early and not put it off until the end because of the greed for power. I appreciate Jack Welch's quote: 'How am I going to spend my life?'It's a sublime realm. Different stations will have different perceptions. ”
More than a century of global resource allocation and global corporate competition can summarize such an important characteristic:Behind a great enterprise, there is a soul with philosophical thinking, not a simple entrepreneur. For example, Fan Li, the originator of China's political and business circles, Jack Welch, the head of the most glorious period of the American General Motors Group, and many entrepreneurs in Asia worship Kazuo Inamori, the soul of the business world, and so on. There is no doubt that Song Zhiping is their followerHe was able to push the two central enterprises into the world's top 500 camp, obviously relying not only on the entrepreneurial spirit, but also on its constantly updated and sublimated business ideas. Song Zhiping said: "Entrepreneurs are not respected because they are big, but because they are thoughtful. The next goal for Chinese enterprises and Chinese entrepreneurs is not only to create more Fortune Global 500 companies, but also to create corporate ideas that represent the spirit and soul. To be a world-class enterprise needs world-class thinking, and only with world-class thinking can we lead a world-class enterprise. ”
Many people's success is due to the fact that at some point in their lives, they meet a noble person and are called. As early as more than 20 years ago, Song Zhiping was influenced and inspired by two important economists, Yuan Baohua and Chen Qingtai, and gave many teachings on their development. Yuan Baohua and Chen Qingtai also told him: "Entrepreneurs should not only be busy with affairs all day, but should calm down and do some thinking, and record the experience of running a business for future generations to learn and Xi, otherwise, generation after generation of managers can only start from scratch." Therefore, in addition to his busy work, Song Zhiping summarized and recorded what he saw, heard, thought, felt and understood in the practice of the enterprise, and through continuous study, further study and reading a large number Xi of Chinese and foreign economic and management treatises, the practice and theory of enterprise management and operation were gradually integrated and penetrated, and gradually formed his own unique enterprise management ideas and systems. In the ten years from 2010 to 2019, Song Zhiping has published more than 10 books on business management. Recently, he did one more thing: summed up his life experience, wrote and published a new book, "30 Rules for Management".Published by CITIC Press in November 2023). This book should be an organic integration and wonderful summary of his more than 40 years of practical experience and theory.
AfterwordSong Zhiping, born in Shenze County, Hebei Province in October 1956, is currently the president of the China Association of Listed Companies, the chairman of the China Enterprise Reform and Development Research Association, and the part-time dean and professor of several universities. Song Zhiping has witnessed and participated in the whole process of China's reform and opening up, and is a participant, practitioner and explorer of reform practice, and has won the "Golden Globe Award for Outstanding Entrepreneurs in China", "Yuan Baohua Gold Award for Enterprise Management", "Person of the Year in China's Economy", "Global Chinese Economic Leader", "Medal of Chinese Enterprise Reform in the 30 Years of Reform and Opening-up", "Business Leader Influencing the Process of Reform and Opening-up", "Lifetime Achievement Award of Fortune CEO", and "Lifetime Achievement Award of Chinese Business Leaders" and many other awards. In the past ten years, Song Zhiping has devoted himself to research and writing, and has successively written and published "Enterprise Words", "New Machines and New Bureaus", "Enterprise Myths", "Business Success", "Three Fine Management", "Sharing Mechanism" and other works. The just-published "30 Articles of Management" can be described as the most practical practical guide and pocket book for Chinese entrepreneurs, concise and concise. Someone once asked Song Zhiping what kind of epitaph he hoped to leave to himself, and he said: I hope I am"A person who looks into the distance for the enterprise".