"Wahaha Zongqinghou is a model of civilian entrepreneurship and represents the contribution and strength of China's private economy. He is the best witness and witness of reform and opening up, and the context of an era is very clear and typical to him. ”
Yang Yiqing (Director of Zheshang Museum, Professor of Zhejiang Gongshang University).
Zong Qinghou started from pedaling a tricycle, and by 2017, he had accumulated sales of 500 billion yuan and a tax revenue of 52 billion yuan in the 30 years since he started his business. In 2015, when Chairman Zong Qinghou turned 70 years old, Wahaha's total profits and taxes exceeded 100 billion. If nothing else, by 2024, Wahaha's total tax revenue may reach 200 billion. In 2015, 70-year-old Zong Qinghou said at the Chengdu National Sugar and Wine Fair, "I have to work for another 20 years", and now the words are still in my ears, and the 80-year-old Zong Qinghou has gone, which makes people sigh and sigh!
He may be the "latest to start, the lowest start" in the group of big entrepreneurs.
In 1987, 43-year-old Zong Qinghou contracted the school-run enterprise distribution department and began to embark on the road of entrepreneurship. It should be one of China's big entrepreneurs who "started the latest and started the lowest".
He is probably the most diligent entrepreneur. In his seventies, he still worked more than ten hours a day.
In 2015, Chairman Zong Qinghou gave a lecture to the new generation of Zhejiang entrepreneurs at the Zhejiang Entrepreneurs Museum: If I don't go on a business trip, I will arrive at the office at half past six in the morning and leave at half past eleven in the evening. That means he works 17 hours a day! That year, he was 72 years old. And every day.
He is probably the most frugal entrepreneur. China's richest man spends 50,000 yuan a year.
At the peak of a few years ago, Wahaha had a tax revenue of more than 6 billion yuan, a net profit of more than 8 billion yuan, and a total profit and tax of 15 billion yuan. He said in public several times that his personal consumption is about 50,000 yuan a year! Secretaries and assistants are often absent on domestic business trips, which means that you have to do your own luggage and change your boarding pass. Several times I was photographed by other passengers taking the economy class of the plane and the second class of the train**.
Wahaha is probably the most humble of large corporate headquarters. The office building has been living in an old house in a residential area for 36 years.
The headquarters of Wahaha Group has long lived in No. 160 Qingtai Street, near the old railway station of Hangzhou, which is a six-story old house in the old residential area in the 80s of the last century. This is probably the most humble headquarters of a large company in all of China! It was not until the end of last year that the office was moved to the new headquarters building.
Chairman Zong Qinghou's pragmatic entrepreneurial spirit, hard work style and unique management style are typical among Chinese entrepreneurs and Zhejiang businessmen.
Zong Qinghou is a model of civilian entrepreneurship, his life has changed times, sharing the dividends of reform and opening up, and he is also an excellent representative of Zhejiang businessmen who are "in the right place and in the right place".
Born before the liberation of Zong Qinghou, he went to the countryside for 15 years in his early years, got married at the age of 367, started from scratch at the age of 43, and topped the list of the richest people in Chinese mainland three times. Zong Qinghou is a model of Chinese civilian entrepreneurship, and his success is the product of "the right time, the right place and the right people" - the result of the hard work of all employees gathered by the "time of the day" + the spirit of Zhejiang businessmen + "family culture" of reform and opening up.
After 37 years of focusing on the main business, sticking to the industry and hard work, Zong Qinghou's focus on pragmatic entrepreneurship (the 4000 spirit of Zhejiang businessmen) is the internal driving force to support the sustainable development of the enterprise.
Zong Qinghou has been in business for 37 years, and has always adhered to the industry and is a traditional food manufacturing industry, rejecting the "hot, outlet" industry in various periods, and only making "a bottle of water" from beginning to end. Wahaha's management style, corporate culture, office space, product name, packaging, advertising, etc., reveal a pragmatic and even simple style everywhere, and focus and pragmatism are an important foundation for the steady development of an enterprise.
Zong Qinghou's insistence on the "four nos" principle of operation and management - no listing, no loans, no vice presidents, and no real estate" reflects his confidence and exploration of Chinese-style management.
Wahaha has not been listed so far, has not had a loan (on the contrary, it has a bank deposit of 20 billion yuan), and it was not until 2016, in the 29th year of its establishment, that the position of deputy general manager was established for the first time. These "four noes" must not be the mainstream of enterprise management, let alone the standard answer, but Zong Qinghou relies on this "four noes" principle to become bigger and stronger. This is a useful exploration of enterprise management and business model diversification, which shows that there is no unified standard for enterprise management, as long as it conforms to the actual management mode of the enterprise, it will have vitality.