Time is a magical measure. 30 years is only a moment in the long history, but for an enterprise, it has condensed countless entrepreneurial stories and condensed countless painstaking efforts and dedications.
Shenzhen Dongfeng South Industrial Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Dongfeng South") was born in Shenzhen, the forefront of reform and opening up, after four name changes, three equity changes, the company's positioning mission continues to evolve with the shareholder strategy, and the business map continues to improve in the market exploration. Over the past 30 years, Dongfeng South has gradually developed from a single property leasing to an automotive value chain integrated service group with four major business platforms: automobile marketing, automotive aftermarket, digital intelligence technology and investment management.
Today, when we look back on the 30-year development history of Dongfeng South and go through the torrent of history, we can still clearly see how an enterprise can leapfrog and write a new chapter with passion under the grand narrative of the times.
Start your own business, starting with property leasing
Dongfeng South was born in an unprecedented era.
Reform and opening up have made the whole of China a hot spot for innovation and entrepreneurship. In the nineties of the last century, Dongfeng Company responded to the call of the country and laid out the Pearl River Delta. In this place, the pioneering and innovative spirit is given more meaning for the new era.
This is also the starting point of the story of Dongfeng South.
A group of young entrepreneurs gathered in Shenzhen to prepare for the construction of Dongfeng Building and create a window for Dongfeng Company's foreign business activities in the south.
On February 4, 1994, Dongfeng Company set up a "window" enterprise in Shenzhen - Shenzhen Dongfeng Motor Building Property Company, with a registered capital of 3 million yuan, and its main responsibility is to promote the construction and operation of Dongfeng Building. In 1995, Shenzhen Dongfeng Motor Building Property Company was renamed Shenzhen Dongfeng Building Industrial Development Company, and the registered capital increased to 60 million yuan.
On May 6, 1995, the predecessor of Dongfeng South, Shenzhen "Dongfeng Building" was capped.
In October 1996, Dongfeng Building was officially completed. This 24-storey building is located in the bustling core area of Shenzhen - No. 2010, Shennan Middle Road, Futian District, Shenzhen, with a construction area of 27,212 square meters, covering an area of 3,766 square meters and a total investment of 1800 million yuan. With the completion of Dongfeng Building, the functions of Shenzhen Dongfeng Building Industrial Development Company have been transferred from the original infrastructure to full operation.
The early Dongfeng southerners took Dongfeng Building as the origin of their business and started their business from property leasing. When Dongfeng Building was completed and leased, it was just in time for the Southeast Asian financial crisis, and the real estate market was cold. In the face of difficulties, the entrepreneurial team recruited tenants through methods such as attracting investment, advertising and renting, and leasing incentives, and achieved breakeven with difficulty.
Seeing that bank loans are due one after another, the entrepreneurial team decided to find another way out and survive by carrying out **.
In December 1997, Shenzhen Dongfeng Building Industrial Development Co., Ltd. changed its name to Shenzhen Dongfeng Real Estate Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Dongfeng Real Estate"), and added China Dongfeng Import and Export Co., Ltd. as a shareholder, and the registered capital increased to 86 million yuan.
This year, Dongfeng Real Estate adjusted its business ideas - the property leasing business adopts a strategy of focusing on large customers and taking into account the highest occupancy rate, and actively explores the best opportunities, recruits talents with experience in truck business and financial management, and quickly forms a first-class circulation model based on steel and trucks, laying the foundation for the company's subsequent vigorous development of automobile sales and import and export business. Since then, it has also achieved capital return and income through the "barter" of qualification or product payment.
Entrepreneurship is struggling. Today, when we look back at the story of the entrepreneurial stage, Dongfeng South originated in Shenzhen, the forefront of reform and opening up, and the experience of entrepreneurship, innovation and wealth creation has driven Dongfeng South people to dare to try, be good at innovation, and pursue excellence in the entrepreneurial journey, and gradually temper and form the spirit of doing things with the characteristics of Dongfeng South.
Get on the right track and achieve large-scale car sales
Any success is no accident. Embarking on the road of automobile sales, why has it become the key to determining the fate of Dongfeng South? The fundamental thing is that it respects the laws of the market and grasps the opportunities given by the times.
In the 30-year development history of Dongfeng South, the incubation of Fengshen Automobile Project (the predecessor of Dongfeng Nissan) is a shining history. It is of great strategic significance to Dongfeng Southern, Dongfeng Nissan, Dongfeng Company and even China's automotive industry.
Under the strong promotion of a group of entrepreneurial elites, in 1999, Dongfeng Company's second passenger car project was implemented, and preparations were made for the establishment of Fengshen Automobile (hereinafter referred to as "Fengshen Automobile"). Dongfeng Real Estate fully incubated the Fengshen Automobile project, borrowed 100 million yuan from the Industrial and Commercial Bank of Shenzhen with Dongfeng Building as a real estate mortgage, and invested 57 million yuan to Fengshen Automobile on behalf of Dongfeng Company to ensure the smooth completion of the registration of Fengshen Automobile as planned, and subsequently raised more than 200 million yuan of working capital and 400 million yuan of credit line for Fengshen Automobile.
In the memory of Dongfeng southerners, the original Dongfeng Real Estate and Fengshen Automobile are almost inseparable two names. In the early days, many cadres and employees of Fengshen Automobile came from Dongfeng Real Estate. Everyone works in the same building in Shenzhen Dongfeng Building, regardless of you and me.
It was also in the process of actively participating in the Fengshen Automobile project that Dongfeng Real Estate found a business opportunity to reposition and start a business again.
In March 2000, Fengshen Automobile was formally established, and it was urgent to establish an automobile sales and service network. At that time, the domestic car market was basically monopolized by several joint ventures established earlier, and people in the industry were not optimistic about the Fengshen automobile project, and dealers also took a wait-and-see attitude. In this context, Dongfeng Real Estate bravely undertook the mission, was more far-sighted, and saw the huge business opportunities behind it, and took the lead in establishing 4S franchise stores in Shenzhen and Guangzhou, becoming the first dealer of Fengshen Automobile in the country.
On May 23, 2000, Dongfeng South established the first store of Fengshen Automobile (the predecessor of Dongfeng Nissan) in Shenzhen, and sold the first car of Fengshen Automobile on the same day.
Fengshen Automobile's first franchise store in the country is located in Buxin Road, Luohu District, Shenzhen, and Dongfeng Real Estate invested 2 million yuan to transform a simple old factory into an automobile franchise store. At that time, Fengshen Automobile did not have a store building standard to refer to, so it relied on a façade of a Nissan franchise store in Taiwan, China, and imitated it by "drawing a scoop according to the gourd". On May 23, 2000, Fengshen Automobile Shenzhen Buxin franchise store opened. On the same day, the sales order of Fengshen Automobile No. 001 was signed, and the owner Li Zhenhua received the car key of Fengshen Bluebird and became the first new car customer of Fengshen Automobile.
At the beginning of the opening, the brand awareness of Fengshen Automobile was not high, in order to be recognized by customers, the company organized more than 10 new cars to form a display team, and successively toured to Huizhou, Dongguan, Chaozhou, Shantou and Haikou. Everywhere I went, a large advertisement and report on the front page of the local newspaper "Fengshen Automobile entered a certain city" was published, and the popularity of the company's products increased rapidly.
Following Shenzhen and Guangzhou, Dongfeng Real Estate has invested in the construction of a number of "four-in-one" car franchise stores in Dongguan, Haikou, Beijing and other places, influencing and driving other dealer investors to join the Fengshen automobile dealer queue with actual business performance.
In the early business expansion of the company, customer awareness and market awareness can be seen everywhere. In 2002, the company organized the first large-scale "Hainan Boao Self-driving Tour" activity for car owners in Shenzhen, which was widely praised by customers. In order to jointly improve the quality of service, Shenzhen Buxin Store took the initiative to request to hold an experience exchange meeting in South China, which was also the first time that Fengshen Automobile carried out inter-regional benchmarking learning and exchange activities, and built the prototype of Dongfeng Nissan dealer regional exchange meeting.
In June 2003, Dongfeng Motor Dongfeng Nissan Passenger Vehicle Company (hereinafter referred to as "Dongfeng Nissan") was formally established, and Dongfeng Real Estate entered the Dongfeng Motor system. Since then, Dongfeng Real Estate has practiced the mission of "children", continued to closely cooperate with the strategic needs of Dongfeng Nissan, undertook the task of tackling key market problems, entered the designated area to increase the local market share as quickly as possible, and drove the improvement of the quality of Dongfeng Nissan's entire marketing network.
By the end of 2007, Dongfeng Real Estate had a total of 20 4S stores, and the profit of the automobile 4S store segment accounted for 31 percent of the entire company8%。Of these, 17 are Dongfeng Nissan stores, with 567% of Dongfeng Nissan's marketing network accounts for 129% of sales.
On the one hand, it is the rapid expansion and prosperity of the automobile sales business, and on the other hand, it is the in-depth layout of the automobile industry value chain, and the business scope is gradually extended to the upstream and downstream of the automobile.
In 2000, the company began the import and export business of KD parts of Fengshen Automobile. Since then, the company has entered auto parts manufacturing enterprises such as Hangsheng Electronics, Dongfeng Zhongke and Dongsheng Machinery through capital operation. In 2002, the company established Lianyou Technology and Fengshen Logistics, and gradually formed six business sectors: automobile franchise stores, import and export, computer software development, auto parts manufacturing, automobile logistics and property leasing.
Dongfeng South has also opened the road to a large-scale automobile comprehensive service group.
Cultivating system strength and moving towards large-scaleEnterpriseGroup
In the southern region, banyan trees can be found everywhere. This kind of tree, known as the "forest of a single tree", can grow many aerial roots downward, hang in the air, absorb moisture in the air, and gradually grow into pillar roots about the thickness of the mother tree, and then grow a huge crown and root system, multiplication.
The development of Dongfeng South has a similar vein to the growth of banyan trees. Based on the deep insight and forward-looking layout of the market, the branches of the business continue to expand to a broader scope, the business scale of the enterprise continues to expand, the system strength is further enhanced, and it is moving towards a large-scale automobile value chain integrated service group with cross-regional, multi-brand and chain operation.
Based on the cognition of the external market and the thinking of its own development constraints, the company began to systematically sort out the issues of development planning, strategic main line and management and control mode. In 2008, the company set up more than 30 basic management systems, focusing on improving the company's system strength and anti-risk ability by strengthening basic management and strengthening brand operation.
On July 1, 2011, Dongfeng South held a delivery ceremony for the 300,000th new car sold in total.
In October 2009, in order to adapt to the development trend of specialization, capitalization, scale and cross-regionality, the registered capital of the company increased from 92.5 million yuan to 300 million yuan, and the share ratio remained unchanged, and it was renamed Shenzhen Dongfeng South Industrial Group In December 2009, the company held a mobilization meeting for brand building and standardization activities. The company put forward the vision of "creating the first service brand in the automotive value chain", the mission of "creating value and seeking common well-being", the behavioral values of "innovation, enterprising, integrity and win-win", and the business philosophy of "professionalism, integrity and customer first".
In 2009, Dongfeng South issued the first version of the standardized document covering the sales and after-sales business of franchised stores, including 356 sub-processes and 2,804 steps, to promote its franchised stores to a new level in terms of service quality and service efficiency.
In 2010, Dongfeng South implemented regional management of the automobile franchise store sector, formulated a regional management organization model, and divided the national 4S stores into Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Dongguan, Beijing, Hainan, Zhejiang and Southwest 7 regions, and the general manager of the regional company was fully responsible for the daily operation and management of the franchise stores in the region.
According to the phased needs of the company's development, Dongfeng South systematically sorted out the internal resources, advantages and disadvantages of the enterprise for the first time, and established new development goals. In August 2011, Dongfeng South released the "T10 Strategy": advocating challenge (T), pursuing perfection (10), and striving to enter the TOP camp in 2015, Dongfeng South's total profit reached 1 billion yuan, Dongfeng Nissan sales accounted for no less than 10%, and there were more than 100 4S stores. At the same time, the "Dongfeng South Code of Conduct" was issued, which is the program and action code of Dongfeng Nanfang people, and the code of action for all employees to fulfill the corporate mission and realize the corporate vision.
In 2012, Dongfeng South set up a research group on the standardization of franchise store management system to integrate 122 rules and regulations for the practical application of franchise stores for each franchise store to benchmark and learn, improve and upgrade. Since that year, the Dongfeng Southern Franchise Store Standardization Service Competition has been held to make the concept of standardized service deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.
In the process of development and growth, the company has always been guided by market efficiency, maintained the stability of Dongfeng Nissan's marketing network, and continued to optimize the regional marketing structure. In the process of the development of Venucia's own brand business, Dongfeng South has invested fully in channel construction and marketing resources. In March 2012, the company took the lead in establishing Venucia's first franchise store in China, Shenzhen Dongfeng Nanfang Huachen store.
After the three years of brand building in 2010, management in 2011 and service in 2012, Dongfeng South has been comprehensively improved. In the process of fully participating in market competition, Dongfeng South has also explored a unique management model and gradually formed a standardized management system. In addition, it continues to innovate its business model, continuously output marketing plans with Dongfeng Southern characteristics, and take the lead in launching innovative marketing methods such as city tours, digital marketing, and heartfelt highways, so as to contribute wisdom and strength to the high-quality development of Dongfeng Nissan.
In 2013, the company's annual new car sales exceeded 100,000 units for the first time, marking that Dongfeng Southern officially entered the top camp of China's auto dealer groups in terms of sales scale and sales quality.
Expand new businesses and realize the development of the entire automotive value chain
Since 2014, the overcapacity of the domestic automobile industry has been further highlighted, the mergers and acquisitions in the field of automobile dealers have accelerated, and the trend of specialization and division of labor in the field of automobile services has gradually become clear.
Under the premise of ensuring "opportunity, ability, income, and asset-light operation", Dongfeng South has actively expanded new businesses, carefully laid out in the fields of emerging businesses and horizontal businesses, and achieved rapid development of new formats and new businesses such as financial leasing, insurance, second-hand cars, and Internet of Vehicles.
In January 2014, Dongfeng Southern moved its headquarters from Futian, Shenzhen to Huadu, Guangzhou, adjacent to the headquarters of Dongfeng Nissan. This greatly optimizes the company's management costs and communication costs, and helps the company's overall strategic development in the new era.
On November 6, 2016, Dongfeng Southern's cumulative new vehicle sales exceeded 1 million units.
In September of the same year, the second party congress of Dongfeng South was held in Huadu, Guangzhou. The conference comprehensively summarized the development achievements of Dongfeng South in the past five years, and proposed to strive to build Dongfeng South into an industry leader with the most complete value chain, the strongest brand power and the best benefits.
Since 2014, Dongfeng South's new business development has pressed the "acceleration button".
In November 2014, Dongfeng South entered the field of Internet automobile e-commerce and established Dongfeng Nissan Data Service***In March 2015, the company's "new generation" auto finance sector officially set sail; Two months later, the first intelligent in-vehicle system developed by Lianyou Technology, Venucia Smart Car Manager, came out, which opened the prelude to Lianyou Technology's entry into the Internet of Vehicles. In 2016, Dongfeng South sold more than 1 million vehicles; In the same year, Dongfeng Southern Insurance officially obtained a national license and opened up a new territory of auto insurance with new thinking. In 2017, Dongfeng South accelerated the layout of the second-hand car market and established a joint venture Chengyi (Guangzhou) Technology Development Service, which is responsible for the whole value chain business of second-hand cars such as Dongfeng Nissan's second-hand car bidding platform "Yichengpai". In 2019, Dongfeng South entered the field of travel and established Lianyou Travel Technology Service***
The above automobile level businesses have all landed in Huadu, Guangzhou, becoming a new growth pole for Dongfeng South's revenue and profits, which has a very obvious role in empowering and promoting the marketing sector, building an automobile life service ecosystem under the new "four modernizations" trend of automobiles, and helping Dongfeng South to transform from an automobile dealer and a first-class business to a comprehensive service provider in the value chain.
In 2018, China's auto market experienced negative sales growth for the first time since 1990, and Dongfeng South bucked the trend to achieve 20% sales of all brand cars840,000 units, basically the same as the same period last year, and the company's sales volume ranked 7th in the "2018 Top 100 Dealer Groups in China's Automobile Dealers Industry".
While constantly expanding new businesses, Dongfeng South has always adhered to the mentality of entrepreneurs, maintained the characteristics of "large companies, small institutions", and pursued the most concise composition and the most efficient operation mode. The company gives full authorization and trust to all business units, maintains the management model of "managing what should be managed, and letting go of what should be released", fully releases the vitality of the first-line market, and allows each grassroots business entity to give full play to its potential. However, at the level of investment, finance, personnel and risk control, it is not only fully authorized, but also maintains sufficient agility, innovative thinking and control.
Driven by the business philosophy of "business quality is more important than business scale", Dongfeng South has steadily grown, strengthened the system, trained elite soldiers, and sought new bureaus, gradually established a complete service system around the automobile value chain, and created a Dongfeng Southern Automobile Life Service Ecosystem.
Innovate and change, and accelerate transformation and upgrading
In the midst of the great changes in the automotive industry unseen in a century, with the rapid development of new energy vehicles, Dongfeng South has re-examined its own capabilities and accelerated the pace of transformation and upgrading.
At the end of 2020, Dongfeng Nissan formulated the "14th Five-Year Plan" development plan, and Dongfeng South participated in the entire formulation process of the plan as a member unit, and began to plan and formulate the "14th Five-Year Plan" development plan of Dongfeng South in line with the development mission of the new era.
On January 18, 2022, Dongfeng South's 2021 Annual Summary and Commendation Conference was held in Huadu, Guangzhou.
In 2021, Dongfeng Southern officially divided its business into four business platforms: automotive marketing, automotive aftermarket, digital intelligence technology, and investment management, clarifying the relationship positioning of the four platforms for coordinated development and mutual support, and determining the "14th Five-Year Plan" goal of Dongfeng Southern. The "14th Five-Year Plan" strategic plan is a systematic strategic plan formulated by Dongfeng South after the "T10 Strategy", which is more in line with the future development needs of Dongfeng South, and has become an action guide for Dongfeng South to comply with the transformation and upgrading of the new "four modernizations" of automobiles, repositioning and starting again.
In the field of automobile dealership, the core business, Dongfeng South adheres to the mission and responsibility of being the "child soldier" of Dongfeng Nissan, and takes the proportion of sales not to decrease, the proportion of the network to not decrease, and the market share of the jurisdiction not to decrease as the work criterion. In the face of the increasingly difficult situation of dealers' traditional sales and after-sales maintenance stores, Dongfeng South took the initiative to innovate and change, integrate the resources of various business sectors, and tap the market space such as second-hand car business, travel ecological synergy, and fast repair chain.
At the same time, in 2022, Dongfeng South will continue to promote digital transformation more vigorously, focusing on the two main lines of marketing and management, focusing on new marketing, ecological services and other fields, building a unified digital service platform, and supporting the implementation of Dongfeng South's medium and long-term strategies.
Since 2023, on the automobile marketing platform, the contribution of the sales of the three major brand franchise stores of Dongfeng Southern Nissan, Venucia and Infiniti to the three major brands of Dongfeng Nissan has continued to increase. In the digital intelligence platform, Lianyou Technology and Data Company have a deeper level of collaboration with Dongfeng Nissan in terms of intelligent networking, intelligent components, new marketing, data marketing, etc., and continue to contribute to the improvement of Dongfeng Nissan's product strength and marketing power. In the automotive aftermarket platform, Lianyou Travel, Chengyi Technology, Insurance ** Company and other units escort Dongfeng Nissan in terms of travel ecological construction, new car sales, second-hand car sales, insurance, etc.
As of the end of 2023, Dongfeng Nanfang has 39 holding subsidiaries, including 12,281 employees and total assets of 15.8 billion yuan, with a cumulative revenue of 3,862 since its establishment2.5 billion yuan, with cumulative sales of more than 2.4 million new vehicles.
On January 20, 2024, Dongfeng South launched the new 30-year expedition ceremony at the 2024 work conference.
In the process of high-quality development of Dongfeng South's cause, the Party Committee of Dongfeng South has always focused on the central task of production and operation, played the role of "setting the direction, managing the overall situation, and ensuring implementation", and made every effort to promote the development of the cause and strictly govern the party. Knowing the responsibility, taking responsibility and fulfilling the responsibility, the Dongfeng Southern Party Committee has always integrated the party's leadership into all links of the responsibility chain, combined with enterprise operation, management and governance, cultural construction, and honest practice, and helped the four major business sectors of automobile marketing, automobile aftermarket, digital intelligence technology, and investment management to go hand in hand and compete to bloom.
In the course of the development and growth of the enterprise, Dongfeng South earnestly fulfills its corporate social responsibility and strives to show its responsibility as a central enterprise. In March 2011, Dongfeng South set up the "Shenzhen Dongfeng South Love Public Welfare Association" to practice "donating 10 yuan for every new car sold and 1 yuan for every car repaired and maintained", and the funds raised were used to carry out social welfare projects. In addition to covering the 14 provinces of Dongfeng Southern Motor's marketing business, the public welfare projects carried out also cover Fang County in Hubei Province, Mashan County in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Gongjue County in ** Autonomous Region and Zhouqu County in Gansu Province and other counterpart counties of Dongfeng Company.
Originated from the east wind, flourished in the south, radiated the whole country, started a business in the opportunity, developed in the inheritance, and grew in the competition. Looking back on the 30-year growth history of Dongfeng South, it is not only an entrepreneurial process of hard work and courage to pursue dreams, but also a mental journey of judging the situation and innovating for change.
Over the past 30 years, Dongfeng South has formed an innovative spirit of daring to try and be the first. This kind of enterprise spirit has been precipitated and sublimated with the development of the times, and it has lasted for a long time.
Over the past 30 years, all Dongfeng Nanfang people have always maintained their entrepreneurial passion, and in the face of the changes of the times and market storms, they dare to challenge, persevere, actively innovate, forge ahead, and write a magnificent history of enterprise development.
The road is like a stone, continue to struggle. Standing at the new starting point of the 30th anniversary, Dongfeng Nannan people will continue to adhere to the passion for entrepreneurship, adhere to long-termism, and strengthen the belief in victory, so as to "survive first."
1. Victory first", accelerate the reform without hesitation, be reborn with the courage of Phoenix Nirvana, and rush to the next glorious 30 years!