"Wuling's magic car era has passed, relying on a single product sales to solve, cover up all the problems is no longer possible, we are facing an unprecedented situation of responsible competition, we have changed from the market leader to a catch-up! ”
On February 18, the first working day of the Year of the Dragon, Lv Juncheng, general manager of SAIC-GM-Wuling Motors, issued a message for the 2024 New Year of thousands of words.
Among them, the leader who has just "full moon" not only paid tribute to Shenyang in the letter, but also was particularly "sober" about the challenges faced by the company at this stage.
A month ago, the outside world was generally surprised by the sudden official announcement of SAIC-GM-Wuling's new "** person" who took over Shenyang.
The first is that his name has hardly appeared in the list of "hot" candidates in the ** opinion, and the second is that for this new head with a strong technical background, both inside and outside the industry are doubting whether he can lead Wuling to achieve a new breakthrough from quantity to quality.
To this end, Lu Juncheng took the lead in giving his own "direction for breaking the problem" in this letter, which is - "seeking truth from facts", "fighting slow with fast" and "leading with cost".
In the view of Kung Fu Motors, there are both inheritance and innovation, and the goals and directions are also very clear, with a typical "science and engineering man" thinking.
According to public information, Lv Juncheng has been engaged in vehicle design and research related work for a long time, and has successively served as CAE manager, chief engineer, vehicle integration director of SAIC-GM-Wuling Technology Center, deputy general manager of the technology center, secretary of the party committee of the technology center, general manager of the technology center, member of the party committee and deputy general manager of SAIC-GM-Wuling Automobile Co., Ltd.
If you look at the background alone, Lu Juncheng's "technical master" resume can be described as "the same" as his predecessor Shenyang, and I believe that SAIC-GM-Wuling also hopes to continue the company's "technology" DNA and create a more evolutionary Wuling brand image.
(1) Understand technology and management, this "technical master" is not ordinary
On January 19 this year, when SAIC-GM-Wuling officially announced that Lv Juncheng would take over from Shenyang as the general manager of the company, this name failed to attract much attention inside and outside the industry for a while.
Although he has been working in SAIC-GM-Wuling for nearly 14 years, due to the nature of his work, Lu Juncheng, who has been "hidden" behind the scenes, has obviously not been able to leave an impression in front of ** and the public.
However, speaking of the story between Lu Juncheng and Wuling, it can be described as a "typical" of mutual achievement and mutual rush.
At the end of 2007, Lu Juncheng, who was studying for a doctorate at Wuhan University of Technology, came to SAIC-GM-Wuling for an industry-university-research project. At that time, he was in charge of the CPIP research project of the clutch, which was also his doctoral project.
However, as graduation approached, Lu Juncheng encountered a problem in his graduation project. At that time, he ran into walls in Wuhan due to a problem in the manufacture of prototypes of tooling fixtures.
In the end, with the help of a master in the trial production workshop of SAIC-GM-Wuling, Lv Juncheng finally succeeded in making a sample of tooling fixtures and graduated successfully.
This incident not only made Lu Juncheng have a lot of good feelings towards Wuling, but also made him determined to start his career at SAIC-GM-Wuling.
After joining Wuling, Lu Juncheng not only showed excellent business ability, but also began to emerge in building and leading the team.
In June 2010, the leadership abruptly transferred Lu Juncheng to the newly established CAE department as a manager. At that time, Wuling was just starting out in the CAE field and had a difficult task, but Lu Juncheng conceived three development paths: specialize in technology, lead a team, or both.
In the end, he chose the most difficult technology to specialize in and built a very strong technical team from talent to business scope.
In 2015, the "five-star collision" result of Baojun 730 made Lv Juncheng famous and became a shining "technical business card" of SAIC-GM-Wuling and even Liuzhou.
In that year, the 7-seater family car "Baojun 730" won 54The score of 4 points was evaluated as "five-star", becoming the first MPV model to achieve "five-star safety" within 100,000 yuan, which not only filled the gap of "five-star safety" of Guangxi automobiles, but also achieved a breakthrough in the milestone of Guangxi automobile safety.
It can be said that in the cultivation and evolution of SAIC-GM-Wuling's positive R&D strength, Lv Juncheng is definitely the key No. 1 person. His work experience and personal growth over the years have also been deeply bound to Wuling.
Looking at the current automotive industry, there are actually very few "top leaders" who really understand technology and management. I believe that Lv Juncheng is undoubtedly the most suitable leader and implementer of where Wuling will go in the future and how to realize one technical route after another.
(2) Technological breakthrough, Baojun or become a key target?
In 2023, SAIC-GM-Wuling will sell a total of 1403066 vehicles throughout the year, a year-on-year decrease of 1231%。The glorious era of "2 million +" seems to be gone.
In the face of increasingly fierce competition in 2024, Lv Juncheng also clearly understands that the era of Wuling Shenche has passed, and it is no longer possible to solve and cover up all problems by relying on the large sales of a single product.
To this end, in order for Wuling to win this competition, Lu Juncheng proposed that it must meet the challenge with a "more realistic", "faster" and "more accurate" attitude.
The first is "emancipate the mind, which is what it is". Lv Juncheng asked Wuling people to tell the truth, do practical things, talk about practical results, and learn from benchmark car companies, partners and channels;
The second is to "unify thinking and fight slow with fast". Lv Juncheng pointed out that in 2024, Wuling should achieve "fast decision-making, fast collaboration, and fast process", and the source of fast is to truly achieve "2C", which is also one of the "keywords" that Shenyang has been mentioning.
The second is the cost leadership and distinctiveness. Lv Juncheng pointed out that cost is Wuling's magic weapon to win, and it is necessary to continue to eliminate redundancy through scenario-based and simplify the road; "Different" is to be achieved through the comprehensive layout of the five major architectures and the creation of five major technology brands.
The specific content of the "five architectures" and "five major technology brands" is the key content that Wuling will release this year, and Kung Fu Motors speculates that this is also likely to be Lu Juncheng's "debut".
It is worth mentioning that in this New Year's message, Lv Juncheng also specifically mentioned the new goal of the Baojun brand - to become a popularizer of new energy "people's heart" technology, and also to become the growth point of the company's new quality productivity.
As the first "highlight moment" ushered in by Lu Juncheng after joining Wuling, Kung Fu Motors also expects this new "number one" to inject new vitality into the development of this brand and help the company's new energy transformation.
In 2024, SAIC-GM-Wuling's new energy vehicle production and sales KPI will be 700,000 units, and the pressure on Lu Juncheng's shoulders can be imagined.
Although SAIC-GM-Wuling's new energy vehicle sales achieved a "good start" in January this year, with the help of Wuling Starlight and Wuling Binguo star models, it reached 410,000 units. But this also means that Wuling will have to achieve monthly sales of about 60,000 units per month in order to complete this KPI.
This Lunar New Year, Lu Juncheng was not idle. On the first day of the Lunar New Year, he led the company's first-class chain management team and relevant leaders to visit the battery and chassis company. The purpose is to ensure the delivery capacity of Wuling Starlight this year, and not drop the chain at a critical moment.
In October last year, SAIC-GM-Wuling played two "technology cards" in the form of a "technology evolution day", "Wuling Lingxi Hybrid" and "Shenlian Battery", intending to comprehensively refresh the brand's technical image.
Although Lu Juncheng did not appear at the event that day, from this event, we can actually get a glimpse of Wuling's "evolutionary direction" - to comprehensively reverse the impression of the brand in the minds of consumers that "focus on sales rather than quality", and use technology to achieve a breakthrough.
There is no doubt that Lu Juncheng, the "technical master", will be the best person to carry the banner of attack.
(3) Kung Fu shooting
After graduating, Wuling directly appointed me as a manager, which may take about 5-6 years to take up in other companies, and the trust and respect of SAIC-GM-Wuling made me determined to take on this responsibility. When he first joined Wuling, Lu Juncheng once said.
Looking back on Lu Juncheng's work experience in Wuling all the way, "breaking first and then standing" can be described as a major keyword. In the eyes of Kung Fu Motors, this may also be the main reason why Wuling finally decided to make it the "helmsman" of this giant ship.
Since Lu Juncheng took office, the first knife of reform has been waved to the marketing center, and you can get a glimpse of its "governance" direction after taking charge of Wuling - sales is no longer the main direction pursued by Wuling, but product marketing must be combined with innovation, respond to market demand more quickly, and make products that people can afford, use, and use well.
As a "post-70s", 46-year-old Lu Juncheng is in the year of fighting. In the end, we will wait and see whether he can lead Wuling to complete the transformation in this competition and break into a new track.