"Comrade Zong Qinghou, founder and chairman of Wahaha Group, passed away at 10:30 a.m. on February 25, 2024, at the age of 79 ......An obituary was published on the official website of Wahaha Group, and the industry was shocked and spontaneously mourned. A business tycoon, an entrepreneurial model of the times, has left his lifelong passion forever. Until the last moment of his life, he still cared about China's economy, insisted on working in the ward, and practiced the original intention of "dedicating his life to the physical manufacturing industry".
How did the "cloth shoe boss" who only sit in second-class seats on the high-speed rail, only take economy class on the plane, and spend less than 50,000 yuan a year, the business legend who created the "Wahaha Empire" with his own hands, and the charity entrepreneur who insisted on "running a business for the benefit of the people" for 37 years, how did he leave a solid footprint in the development of China's economy and society in his life? Let's review it together.
Rise in the ordinary, make the tide in the times.
Dressed in a gray tunic, wearing cloth shoes, gray hair, a straight posture, and firm eyes, this is Zong Qinghou. The first impression of this "cloth shoe boss" is simple and frugal.
Born in Suqian, Jiangsu Province in 1945, Zong Qinghou sold popsicles, did farm work, and repaired dams in his early years, and only started his entrepreneurial journey at the age of 42.
In 1987, with a borrowed 140,000 yuan, Zong Qinghou contracted the distribution department of the school-run enterprise in Shangcheng District, Hangzhou, which had been losing money for many years, and made money by selling sodas, popsicles and stationery paper. In order to complete the task of handing over 100,000 yuan of profits a year, Zong Qinghou continued to expand the business scope of the distribution department, began to process pollen oral liquid, and exceeded the profit target, laying his confidence and foundation for bravely entering the original market economy.
In 1988, Zong Qinghou developed his first product, Wahaha Children's Nutrition Solution, in response to the problems of only children unwilling to eat and malnutrition. With the advertising slogan "Drink Wahaha, Eat is Fragrant" resounded all over the country, Wahaha Children's Nutrition Solution became an instant hit and became popular all over the country, and "Hangzhou Wahaha Nutrition Food Factory" was subsequently established in 1989. In just 3 years, Wahaha's output value exceeded 100 million.
In 1991, in order to expand the scale of production and meet the market demand, Zong Qinghou withstood the pressure of all parties and led Wahaha, a small school-run factory with only more than 100 people, to merge the Hangzhou Canned Food Factory, an old state-owned factory with more than 2,000 employees, at a cost of more than 8,000 yuan. Only three months later, the Hangzhou Tank Factory, which originally lost more than 40 million yuan, turned losses into profits, creating a miracle of "100-day merger", and Wahaha also achieved a historic breakthrough of "from small to large".
Zong Qinghou attaches great importance to efficiency, he often says: "Doing business is the same as fighting a war, when the opportunity comes, we must respond quickly and make decisions quickly." "In the entrepreneurial process of Wahaha from small to large and from big to strong, Zong Qinghou did not hesitate to devote his main energy to scientific and technological innovation and R&D activities. Under the leadership of Zong Qinghou, Wahaha has taken the lead in realizing the transformation and upgrading from automation to intelligence in the industry through the "three-step" strategy, and has also created a series of ace products recognized by the market, such as Wahaha children's nutrition solution, Wahaha pure water, eight-treasure porridge, AD calcium milk, and nutrition express. "Always half a step ahead of others" is not only the requirement of Zong Qinghou's daily management of the enterprise, but also the imprint and portrayal of his life.
In this way, with his keen business sense and accurate grasp of opportunities, Zong Qinghou created the Wahaha brand in the tide of reform and opening up, and built it into a leader in the beverage market in China and even the world, and he himself was also the "richest man" in the mainland three times.
Write "self-improvement" into the corporate motto.
Because it started as a school-run enterprise, Wahaha was often "looked down upon" in the early years, so Zong Qinghou put forward the enterprise spirit of "hard work, hard work, courage to open up, and unremitting self-improvement" from the beginning of his business. Zong Qinghou himself has also practiced this spirit of hard work and diligence to the extreme.
Zong Qinghou's daily work for more than 30 years, is every morning at more than 7 o'clock to the unit, night before getting off work, no holidays, tired on the bed in the office to rest, hungry on the company's canteen to eat, if you eat in the office, are simple three dishes and one soup.
Most of the "books" in Zong Qinghou's office are maps of China's provinces, and Zong Qinghou spends more than 200 days a year traveling around the country to maintain a keen insight into the market. In this way, step by step, Zong Qinghou personally ran out of Wahaha's "joint sales" model, and the "joint sales" network penetrated into counties, towns and villages across the country like capillaries, closely linking the interests of Wahaha and its distributors, wholesalers and retailers, and realizing "new products are spread all over the country in a week", which has become one of Wahaha's core competitiveness in the future.
In the international sensational "Dawa War", Zong Qinghou fought back with super psychological endurance and willpower under the threat of Danone's president threatening to let him "spend the rest of his life in legal proceedings", and finally won the war that lasted for two and a half years and defended the dignity of the national brand.
Zong Qinghou said, "Judging from the whole incident, many companies are afraid of lawsuits with foreigners. If you are reasonable, you can go all over the world. Don't be afraid of other people's. The more you are afraid of others, the more they will bully you. And now that China is getting stronger, it should no longer be bullied. ”
Development of children's nutrition solution, merger of canneries, Dawa dispute ......Over the years, Zong Qinghou has led Wahaha through one hurdle after another, growing from a little-known street factory to one of the leading enterprises in China's beverage industry. At present, Wahaha has nearly 80 production bases and more than 180 subsidiaries in 29 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions across the country, and has established a nationwide sales network, ranking first in China's beverage industry for 19 consecutive years, with a brand value of more than 50 billion yuan.
To run an enterprise is to seek the welfare of the people."
As the first generation of Zhejiang businessmen since the reform and opening up, Zong Qinghou has a painful experience of poverty, and the suffering of his youth makes Zong Qinghou want to change his fate and realize the value of life. In the process of overcoming obstacles on the road of business, Zong Qinghou has never forgotten to give back to the public.
Zong Qinghou said: "My life goal is very simple, that is, to run the enterprise well in a down-to-earth manner, so that employees can work with peace of mind and live comfortably, create more profits and taxes for the country, make a modest contribution to the prosperity of the nation, and do a responsibility for the realization of the Chinese dream." Over the years, he has always adhered to the concept of "running an enterprise is to seek benefits for the people", always carried forward the responsibility and morality of "serving the country by industry and being treated by the society", supported the development of the counterpart, was enthusiastic about public welfare undertakings, actively repaid the society, and spared no effort to eliminate poverty and achieve common prosperity.
In 1994, Zong Qinghou began to invest and set up factories in the western region, led Wahaha to embark on the road of industrial investment and industrial revitalization, and organized the company's cadres and employees with the most management experience and technical level to devote themselves to the development of the western region.
By the end of 2023, Wahaha has invested 8.7 billion yuan in 17 provinces and cities in the central and western regions of the country and underdeveloped regions, established 76 branches, and directly employed 13,000 people, which has strongly promoted the local economic and social development, and driven other enterprises to invest and set up factories in underdeveloped areas, helping the local people to embark on the road to prosperity.
As an entrepreneur who started from a school-run factory, over the years, Zong Qinghou has continued to pay attention to the growth of the next generation, and has donated to Hangzhou's "Spring Breeze Action" for 24 consecutive years, from donating to build infrastructure, setting up scholarships to strengthening investment in education poverty alleviation, and has so far funded nearly 500 million yuan in education.
Since 2007, Zong Qinghou has led Wahaha Group to donate 6.35 million yuan to build 23 hope primary schools and 100 sunshine playgrounds in underdeveloped areas in the central and western regions. In 2009, it invested 2 million yuan to launch the "Love Teaching Campaign", and recruited 100 volunteers from all over the country to teach in poor areas in Sichuan and Guizhou. In 2012, the China Poverty Alleviation Association jointly launched the Wahaha Nutrition Express "Nesting Action" to help children in poor areas solve the difficulties of dormitories, so that children can have their own warm beds, and donated nearly 30 million yuan to help build 52 schools in 8 provinces, 26 counties; In June 2021, in the context of Zhejiang-Sichuan pairing assistance, Zong Qinghou personally led the Wahaha delegation to Ganzi to visit and support the demands, and the 324 computers and 28 teaching all-in-one computers donated to local schools arrived one after another, which was praised by the local people in Ganzi as "Wahaha speed".
He is a firm practitioner of industrial revitalization, a warm dreamer who donates to education, and a philanthropist who helps the needy. In 2009, Zong Qinghou invested 10 million yuan to establish the "Wahaha Charity Association", with the purpose of "great love without borders, Ze by the society, let love be everywhere", specializing in the operation of charity and public welfare activities, so that Wahaha's public welfare behavior can continue to develop, and many times when the country and society encounter natural disasters and public crises as soon as they donate money and materials to tide over the difficulties.
As the first. Ten, ten.
1. Deputy to the 12th National People's Congress, Zong Qinghou paid attention to people's livelihood issues, actively spoke out for the people, and "dared to speak the truth and reflect the truth" became his distinctive image. Along the way, no matter how many years have changed, he still has not changed his original intention.
Zong Qinghou's life is a legendary life of integrating personal talents into the turbulent process of reform and opening up, and a life of leading the "drumbeat" of the enterprise to always resonate with the pulse of the development of the Chinese times. He not only created a strong brand, but also shaped a kind of hard work, forge ahead of the enterprise spirit, a kind of drinking water to think of the source, selfless responsibility. He has created a legendary course with wisdom and sweat, and his name has become a heavy milestone in the history of the development of China's private enterprises.