On November 12, 2023, Kunshan, on the morning of the third day of the 2022 China Automotive Chain Summit and the 8th Lingxuan Award Ceremony, Du Lin, general manager of the overseas business of Zhejiang Fute Technology Co., Ltd., delivered a keynote speech entitled "Opportunities and Challenges from International Localization to Local Internationalization".
In his speech, Du Lin proposed that there are three main ways for enterprises to go overseas, the first path is to go overseas and sell products abroad;The second path is for the industry to go overseas and build factoriesThe third path is to go overseas with the organizational leadership culture.
In the process of going overseas, we will face many challenges such as unclear strategic positioning, lack of global vision and management system, how to integrate with what overseas customers think, and the resilience of the first chain.
He believes that if everyone does ecological integration together and can go to sea together, the probability of success will be higher.
The following is a transcript of the speech.
Thank you!After listening to Mr. Wu Sheng's speech, my blood was surging. The title of my talk is "Opportunities and Challenges from International Localization to Local Internationalization", and I still have a lot to Xi in the midst of this challenge.
I have been in this industry for 20 years this year, and I have been working in foreign companies for the previous 18 years, doing the work of international localization of foreign companies. In the past two years, it has been a private enterprise. Foote is a private enterprise that makes OBC, DCDC, and on-board charger devices, and we have some experience to share with you in the process of moving from local to international.
I would like to share with you from several dimensions:
The first one, Mr. Wu also mentioned a lot of things about dragging family and making quick money, many times as a business operator, we have to think about what is our original intention to do this, why do we go to sea?
Second, in the process of accompanying the development of the automotive industry in the past 20 years, we deeply feel that the process of great changes in the automotive industry such as electrification and intelligence has brought us a window period to accelerate the expansion of Chinese enterprises.
Third, I would like to share with you the challenges encountered in the process of local internationalization, it can be said that we are still in dire straits, and I would like to introduce to you some of the pitfalls that we have gone through.
This is the ** I took at the Paris Motor Show in October last year, when the epidemic was not lifted and we were already over. At that time, we participated in the Paris Motor Show and took a picture at the booth of our customer Renault. At that time, we were with customers and a few colleagues in **, why did we go to sea?Is the Chinese market saturated?Involution?We're going to look for opportunities overseas?We're going to make some quick money?Are we going to spread the risk of our world?Are we in order to go public?Do we do it for valuation, or do we have the ambition to make China's national auto industry go global?I believe that it is also to improve myself and achieve more car people.
I believe that everyone here has a lot of ideas, and I think the original intention is very important for us entrepreneurs or when we do it in the enterprise, which determines how far we will go and to what extent.
When it comes to opportunities, in the past few days, everyone has talked about electrification and intelligent networking, what does this picture mean?In 2023, the latest sales data of new energy vehicles in China is about 9 million, accounting for 60%-70% of the world's share. There is no doubt that such a growth trend will persist until 2030.
The penetration rate of new energy vehicles in China has reached nearly 40% this year, 16% in Europe this year, and 12% in the United States. That is to say, in such a period of major industry change, taking advantage of China's new energy penetration rate or industrial scale, we can now feed back to foreign countries under the premise of effective window period and advantages, or we can use our own value to provide more competitive products for foreign OEMs and the automotive industry.
In fact, I have communicated with many overseas OEM friends over the years, and the OBC department of a company was only established in June last year, these foreigners have been working in a company for twenty or thirty years, and they are studying gears and mechanical devices, and the Germans are very, very focused on precision machining and cannot be surpassed. But when the voltage changes from 12V, 24V and 48V to 800V, and the current continues to increase, they say, this knowledge is not reserved, what should I do?
Another data is that 80% of the world's engineers in our power electronics industry are Chinese, and they already have such reserves. Therefore, in such a large transition period, we have seen some foreign customers accelerate their transformation in the core technology field. As we all know, half of the battery market is provided by China's top manufacturers, so the process of accelerating their transformation is also very painful.
After three years of the epidemic, "a friend of mine from an overseas OEM factory joked with me that we slept for three years, and you worked for three years." Since this year's Shanghai Auto Show, they have been under great pressure, so I can now say that I have been receiving overseas friends every week to see the situation of our Chinese ** chain.
These are the main messages, the principal mentioned that we have to export 6 million vehicles a year, the proportion of new energy vehicles is also increasing, and the domestic share of joint ventures has also declined rapidly in recent years. and the tide of Chinese-funded reverse joint ventures has also kicked off, in this context, the compound growth rate of exports is more than 50%.
Our products are exported to Europe, so we are very concerned about European policies. On September 13, the European countervailing investigation began, and I think that's a good thing, because we're big enough to attract Europe's attention and be noticed by them.
There is a path in the past 20 years and the next 20 years, and when I think back to 20 years ago, when I joined a large international company, the process of going out is similar to that of now.
The first path is to go overseas, I sell products abroad, do a little better, bigger, on-site support needs a marketing team, I have to establish a marketing team.
The second path is to build factories in Eastern European countries such as Hungary and Bulgaria, as well as Mexico, Southeast Asia and many other places, how can we build an effective industry to support our overseas strategy?
The last path, in fact, is the most difficult, is to organize the leadership culture to go overseas, just now Mr. Wu mentioned the integration of many cultures, I feel that this is the most difficult, which should be combined with the requirements of the global industry chain operation.
Speaking of challenges, I have summarized the following challenges that I have encountered now:
The first is to think clearly about strategic positioning. What the hell are you going to make quick money?Or do you want to go the long term?Strategy is actually a choice, there is no right or wrong choice, but you have to choose well, are you making quick money?If you still want to drag your family to make old money and make money for a long time, you have to think about it clearly. We need to be determined and not waver all the time. Foreigners still recognize the **chain and **businessmen who can always accompany them to grow.
The second is the lack of a global vision and management system, many uncertainties and environmental challenges, and the transformation of culture, thinking, and talents, including a change from a foreign company to a private enterprise, which also has many interesting places and challenges.
Third, how to integrate with what overseas customers think?This requires openness, diversity, inclusion, and an understanding of local legal, tax, and financial compliance.
The last one is the toughness of the ** chain, which is a very important point that tests our manufacturing industry.
When it comes to challenges, the front is more about appearances.
Returning to the individual itself, everyone here is an entrepreneur, a boss, and a leader in a certain field, but I believe that everyone has their own cognitive limitations, behavioral inertia and idol baggageA while ago, I talked to the big coffee, how to have the agility of learning Xi, emotional agility and cultural agility to meet this kind of challenge?
At the beginning of September, under the leadership of our class leader and with the support of our principal, the students of Lingxuan Phase 3 went to Renault for in-depth exchanges. I very much agree with what the principal said, and I am very grateful to have such a platform, and I am grateful to the principal, so that we can do ecological integration together, and we can go to sea together, I believe that the probability of success will be higher, thank you!