**: 21st Century Business Herald.
On February 25, Wahaha Group released an obituary: its founder and chairman Zong Qinghou passed away due to ineffective medical treatment.
This has made the market pay attention to the future of Wahaha Group in the post-Zongqing era.
On February 28, Zong Qinghou's daughter said at his memorial service, "In the hands of my father, Wahaha has successfully found a way to survive, and for me, this road is a climbing road that I am determined to complete my father's legacy and live up to the heavy responsibilities and expectations on my shoulders." Once, his shoulders were my watchtower to see the world, and now my hands will be his pen cultivators to continue to write the legend of the drink. ”
At present, Zong Fuli has held important positions in many Wahaha Group companies and has become the best person of Wahaha Group.
A person in charge of a family office said that the most important challenges for Zong Fuli in the future are quite large, one is how to consolidate Wahaha's market share in the beverage market in the face of the strong rise of new tea beverage companies, the second is how to continue to deepen the young group market, and create a stronger foundation for the future of the company, and the third is how to continue to cater to market demand, innovate on the product side, and avoid being caught up by competitors.
In addition, the capital market is also concerned about whether Zong Fuli will operate the listing of Wahaha Group to create stronger capital reserves for the company's future development. He said bluntly.
It is worth noting that Zong Qinghou began to cultivate Zong Fuli's "** ability" early.
In 2007, Zong Fuli started her own business.
Today, Hongsheng Beverage Group, built by Zong Fuli, has developed from a production line to an enterprise with 20 production bases, more than 40 subsidiaries and more than 100 production lines across the country, and once ranked among the top 500 private enterprises in China's manufacturing industry in 2020.
In the eyes of many industry insiders, in addition to having rich experience in business management, as an important representative of the female inheritance of her father's business, Zong Fuli also needs to show the advantages of female "** people".
Some scholars have pointed out that compared with the inheritance of the father's business by the son and the inheritance of the father's business by the daughter, the daughter will show the three characteristics of tolerance, power control and integration in coordinating the interpersonal relationship of family members, and it is easier to establish a better atmosphere of sharing and cooperation with the family members, and the daughter's tolerance will lead to fewer conflicts among the family members, so as to successfully realize the smooth inheritance of the family business. In addition, in the process of business management, the son is more autonomous, independent and competitive, while the daughter pays more attention to interpersonal communication and interdependence. In the corporate decision-making process, the son emphasizes rationality, while the daughter strives to be reasonable. Therefore, compared with the son inheriting the father's business, the relationship between the daughter and the father of the family business is more harmonious, which is conducive to the continuation and inheritance of the business philosophy of the family business, as well as the convergence of interests among the members of the family business.
An expert who has been studying the inheritance of family businesses for a long time bluntly said that there are several cases of women inheriting their father's business, whether it is Yang Huiyan, the daughter of Yang Guoqiang, the founder of Country Garden, or Liu Chang, the daughter of Liu Yonghao, the founder of New Hope, and Zong Fuli, the daughter of Zong Qinghou, the founder of Wahaha, these successful cases have a common feature, that is, the founder of the enterprise cultivates the awareness and ability of his daughters early, so that they can participate in business decision-making for a long time to overcome some shortcomings of women in decision-making, so as to lay a good foundation for women to inherit their father's business.
It is important to note that female fatherhood is becoming more and more common in the global context.
Previously, EY's survey of global family businesses showed that about 70% of global family businesses surveyed have considered having their daughters as the next CEO of the company. The reason for this is that women's leadership and strategic roles are positive for business. Especially in corporate boards, women can expand and enrich the expertise, experience and quality of decision-making on the board.
At present, there are more women involved in the management of family businesses, but there are still relatively few women who can successfully achieve the first place, one of the important reasons is that the traditional patriarchal culture of Chinese enterprises is still inherited. The expert noted.
Li Xiujuan, a professor of management at China Europe International Business School, believes that her daughter is a good choice for family business. "Women inherit their father's business" requires parents to have a correct consciousness, give a sufficient buffer period, and gradually cultivate their daughters' comprehensive grasp of influence, command, decision-making, learning ability, execution, and foresight, and finally confirm their value to the family.
Visual China Zong Qinghou cultivated Zong Fuli's ability early.
On December 9, 2021, Wahaha Group released a personnel news on its official website, that is, Zong Fuli became the vice chairman and general manager of the group, and his father Zong Qinghou still served as the chairman of the group.
In the eyes of the outside world, this indicates that Zong Fuli has begun to comprehensively improve the daily operation and management of Wahaha Group.
Prior to this, Zong Qinghou had been focusing on cultivating Zong Fuli's ** ability.
In 2005, Zong Fuli returned from studying abroad and worked within Wahaha Group. Two years later, Zong Qinghou spun off Hangzhou Hongsheng Beverage Company, which is mainly engaged in food and beverage production and processing, to his daughter Zong Fuli to operate it alone.
Under the guidance and assistance of a number of senior beverage practitioners, Zong Fuli quickly began to expand the factory and update the production technology. 2007 During 2008, Zong Fuli quickly built an industrial chain matrix of machinery manufacturing plants, beverage packaging plants, dairy production plants, food and beverage manufacturing plants, etc., to undertake the beverage production needs of Wahaha Group and other enterprises.
Today, Hongsheng Beverage Group, which was built by Zong Fuli, has developed from a production line to an enterprise with 20 production bases, more than 40 subsidiaries and more than 100 production lines, and once ranked among the top 500 private enterprises in China's manufacturing industry in 2020.
Zong Qinghou has affirmed Zong Fuli's ability many times, believing that Zong Fuli has increasingly become a mature entrepreneur.
In recent years, Zong Qinghou has begun to let Zong Fuli gradually manage more and more businesses of Wahaha Group. In 2018, Zong Fuli served as the public relations director of Wahaha Group. At that time, Wahaha was entering a bottleneck period of development. In 2018, Wahaha Group's operating income reached 468900 million yuan, although the previous five years of decline stopped, but compared with the peak revenue in 2013 7827.8 billion yuan, there is still a certain gap.
Zong Fuli quickly made adjustments, including changing the brand ambassador - using younger stars as corporate brand ambassadors to cater to the preferences of many younger groups. At the same time, in response to the changes in the entertainment preferences of young people, Wahaha is increasingly "appearing" in League of Legends, Douluo Continent, Station B, trendy toys, movies and other fields, striving to win the favor of more young people.
Zong Fuli once said that the mobile Internet era has broken the boundaries of the traditional retail industry, the competition of traditional consumer goods companies has intensified, and at the same time facing the challenge of innovation, the company's adjustment to market changes is relatively sluggish, and changes need to be made.
In the eyes of many industry insiders, these measures have indeed injected new development vitality into Wahaha Group, and also made Zong Qinghou more confident to hand over the management of the enterprise to Zong Fuli.
A person from Wahaha Group told reporters that in the past two years, Zong Fuli has been responsible for managing more and more Wahaha Group businesses, and she herself is also very hardworking. Zong Qinghou mainly supported her "behind the scenes" - instilling her past business experience and helping her "avoid detours".
In his opinion, there is a certain difference in the management style of the father and daughter, compared with Zong Qinghou's hands-on style of doing everything in the early days of entrepreneurship, Zong Fuli relies more on teamwork and modern enterprise management mechanism, so that everyone can contribute more strength in their own positions, and then form a joint force to promote the development of the enterprise.
The person in charge of the family office believes that after the daughter inherits her father's business, the development model of Wahaha Group may undergo some new changes compared with the past, and more cross-border cooperation, more refined production, and more diversified online-offline integrated marketing will be popularized within Wahaha Group, making Wahaha more suitable for the competitive landscape in the new market environment.
A woman's journey to China inheriting her father's business.
Zong Fuli smoothly "**Wahaha Group, there are still few women in the field of inheritance of their father's business in China.
As early as 2018, PwC released a survey report showing that although the proportion of female members in management of family businesses in Chinese mainland (26%) exceeds the global average (24%), the proportion of women serving on boards (15%) is much lower than the global average (21%), and only 15% of second-generation members working for family businesses are women, lower than the global average (23%). This means that there are more women working in family businesses in the mainland, but relatively few women succeed in taking over, and most of the daughters of family businesses often hold positions that are not necessarily important in the family business.
In Europe and the United States, when family enterprises choose the best people, they will not consider gender issues, but pay more attention to who is really suitable to become the best person in the enterprise. Moreover, a large number of studies have shown that compared with the son inheriting the father's business, the daughter inheriting the father's business often has three advantages: first, the daughter, as the first person in the enterprise, pays more attention to balancing the conflict between work and family, especially when solving the internal contradictions of the family business members; Second, women's resilience, perseverance and rigor are also conducive to family businesses coping with competitive pressures and challenges, and even reduce the probability of making wrong decisions. The third is the affinity of women, which can also bridge the gap between family business members and external professional managers and ensure that the development of family enterprises is relatively stable.
The reporter learned that in recent years, the number of mainland entrepreneurs considering their daughters has begun to increase. These founding generations also realized that in order to successfully realize the inheritance of their father's business, on the one hand, they need to cultivate their daughter's ability as soon as possible, especially to shape her bold, resolute and calm character, and help her accumulate rich business management experience and a broader vision; On the other hand, they need to do it themselves, "support" their daughter's various business decisions for a long time, continuously improve her "prestige" in the family business, and pave the way for the smooth inheritance of the family business.
However, many entrepreneurs have also found that it is not easy for a daughter to inherit her father's business - because it is easy for a daughter to choose to give up because it is difficult to properly balance the relationship between family and career. At the same time, the conflict with the elders of the family business, as well as the modern management concept advocated by the daughter, is incompatible with the traditional management culture of the family business, and will also become an important factor for them to give up.
To some extent, the process of cultivating a woman to inherit her father's business will be more difficult than that of a son inheriting her father's business. First of all, the first generation needs to give their daughters a sufficient buffer period or transition period, which can gradually cultivate their comprehensive grasp of influence, command, decision-making, learning ability, execution, and foresight according to the characteristics of women's personalities, and gradually improve their best ability, as well as the balance of family and career, etc., so as to pave the way for the smooth landing of women's inheritance of their father's business. The head of the aforementioned family office pointed out.
Author: Chen Zhi Editor: Li Yumin).