With the end of a generation of legendary entrepreneur Zong Qinghou, an unprecedented and deeply rooted commemoration was set off online and offline.
The reason why people miss a private entrepreneur so much is not only because of the contribution made by Zong Lao to the society during his lifetime, as well as his gentle and charitable character, but also because they are actually bidding farewell to an era, an era of achieving dreams, and an era of passion and unrestrainedness.
The new leaves of the forest urge the old leaves, and the front waves of the flowing water make the back waves.
With the departure of Zong Lao Xian, Zong Fuli, the only daughter and only heir of Zong Qinghou, naturally became the focus of public attention.
On March 6, Zong Fuli, general manager of Wahaha Group, appeared at the annual meeting of China Beverage Industry Association. This is Zong Fuli's first appearance in public after her father Zong Qinghou died of illness on February 25, and it has attracted much attention for a while.
Compared with Zong Fuli's influence in the industry, people are currently more concerned about: whether the current female president, who is worth 80 billion, can smoothly take the helm of Wahaha's 10 billion empire? Can the family business be carried forward? Can he inherit his father's social responsibility and family and country feelings?
Perhaps, we can follow the growth trajectory of this ** person and find the answer.
Zong Fuli was born in 1982, that is to say, Zong Qinghou only welcomed his beloved daughter at the age of 37, what is the secret in this?
Zong Qinghou was born in Suqian, Jiangsu Province in 1945 after Zong Ze, a famous general of the Song Dynasty, and moved back to his ancestral hometown of Hangzhou with his parents when he was 4 years old.
In 1963, after graduating from middle school, Zong Qinghou went to Zhoushan, Zhejiang Province to become an educated youth. The 15 years of Zhoushan Salt Works were the best age in Zong Qinghou's life, but they were also the bleakest and hopeless times for him.
In the past 15 years, Zong Qinghou has had many opportunities for marriage and love, but he is determined to return to the city for fear that he will take root here, so he is determined not to consider marriage.
In 1978, after returning to Zong Qing in Hangzhou, he was already a 33-year-old unmarried man. is old, has an average family background, and doesn't like to talk, so it's naturally difficult to find a partner. In this way, after more than a year, after being introduced, the 35-year-old Zong Qinghou met the 31-year-old Shi Youzhen (who is also an educated youth who returned to the city), who is also an "older leftover girl", and only then can he complete the life event of marriage.
In January 1982, Zong Fuli was born. Regarding the origin of this name, one theory is that Shi Youzhen at that time especially liked the female star Wang Fuli, because she named her daughter Zong Fuli. There is also a saying that Fuli's homonym is "welfare", and the couple hopes that their daughter will be blessed and beneficial.
Zong Qinghou and his wife, who are middle-aged and have a daughter, are full of love for their daughters, but when Zong Fuli was young, it was the stage when her father's career took off, and she was busy flying every day.
At that time, Zong Fuli didn't know that her family was starting to become rich, she only knew that her parents were busy all day, and her dinner was often solved in the canteen of her father's company, and she obediently finished her homework after eating.
Perhaps it was this experience that developed her more independent character. In 1996, 14-year-old Zong Fuli graduated from junior high school, and she took the initiative to ask to study in the United States. In this way, the only daughter of Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai, who crossed the ocean alone, came to San Marino, California, USA to study in a boarding school, and could only return to China during the winter and summer vacations.
At this time, Zong Qinghou's career territory is continuing to expand, and his thoughts and guilt about his daughter are increasing day by day. In order to take care of her as much as possible, in 1997, Zong Qinghou invested in a canning factory in California, USA. But even so, the take-off career in China still makes it difficult for the couple to take care of it, and there is still not much time to accompany their daughter in the United States.
After graduating from high school, Zong Fuli was admitted to Pepperdine University in the United States, majoring in international **.
In 2004, Zong Fuli returned to China after completing her studies. The 8-year study abroad career has made Zong Fuli, who is already independent, more confident. So far, many people think that it is a big pity that the 42-year-old Zong Fuli is not married and infertility, but you can see her idol, since she was a student, she has admired Song Meiling and Hillary, hoping to become a female leader like them.
Therefore, for her, the "little thing" of marriage is completely casual, and it is the icing on the cake, and she does not have it and does not linger in her arms.
said that when she returned to Zong Fuli and returned to China, in 2005, she entered the grassroots management of Wahaha under the arrangement of her father. Zong Qinghou, who was 59 years old at the time, was ready to train his daughter as a ** person at this time, because he was ready to retire after another ten years. "When I'm 70 years old, I can help my daughter on a horse and give her a ride, and I can relax a little. ”
Zong Fuli did not live up to her father's expectations, she is different from the generally delicate only daughter in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai, and also different from the pampered rich second generation. The first one to come and the last one to go every day, stay on the front line and communicate with the employees, and soon become familiar with the production links and processes.
Maybe he wants to exercise his daughter's ability to stand alone, or maybe he wants to test his ability. A few years later, Zong Qinghou spun off Wahaha's Hongsheng Company, which was engaged in beverage processing, and let Zong Fuli take the helm alone, responsible for her own profits and losses.
He said "self-financing", but which old father can really let go? Therefore, while sending his daughter to office, Zong Qinghou selected a group of sales, finance, and administrative personnel to help the "princess" get on the horse.
Compared with her father's "nanny-style" protection, she would rather take some detours and suffer a little than hide under her father's wing, because it is not conducive to her own growth.
In addition, Zong Fuli, who graduated from the "professional class", and her father, who is a representative of the older generation of traditional entrepreneurs, have differences in business management concepts.
For example, Zong Qinghou has always advocated family culture, "uniting small families, developing everyone, and serving the country". He regards his employees as his family, and also believes that Wahaha is where it is today, and it is also achieved by his own "family culture".
However, Zong Fuli believes that she can learn from her father spiritually, but in management, she has her own model, and she wants to create a different beverage empire. She adopts a Western management model, strictly follows the rules and regulations, and downplays positions and titles. Employees who do not do well and do not train well will be dismissed directly.
In less than a year, most of the right-hand men sent by his father were not very suitable for Zong Fuli's management style, or could not keep up with Zong Fuli's rhythm, some were transferred, some were dismissed, and some were invited to leave.
And his old father, who pursued a family culture, silently "** the employees who left her."
Although the old father didn't understand, he still restrained himself and let his daughter do it freely. Without constraints and constraints, Zong Fuli vigorously promoted reforms, expanded industries, and innovated marketing.
Facts have proved that after ten years of hard work, this traditional workshop, which originally had only one beverage canning line, has developed into an enterprise with more than 40 subsidiaries and more than 100 production lines.
In 2014, Hongsheng Beverage Company entered the top 500 private enterprises in China, ranking 420th, with an annual revenue of about 10 billion yuan, and its performance is quite extraordinary.
Zong Fuli herself is ranked eighth in Forbes' "China Business Women List". A year later, with a net worth of $3 billion, she became the third largest young man in Asia.
So far, the old father has gone from not worrying and understanding his daughter to not interfering or objecting, until he is impressed with his daughter and is proud of his daughter.
In 2018, Wahaha had a business crisis, and Zong Qinghou, who was 73 years old at this time, was in urgent need of arms, so Zong Fuli returned to Wahaha and served as the head of the group's brand public relations department, aiming to lead Wahaha's brand upgrade.
Returning again, Zong Fuli's business philosophy is still very different from her father. In the meantime, the most striking example is the replacement of spokesperson Wang Leehom, because "he is old and has aesthetic fatigue". once aroused criticism on the Internet, and Zong Fuli was even abused by Wang Leehom's fans for a long time.
Until December 2021, when Wang Leehom collapsed, some netizens said that "the whole network owes Zong Fuli an apology", saying that her decision-making was prescient.
As a post-80s generation, Zong Fuli has all the characteristics of the post-80s in this period, young, energetic, and a little stunned at the same time. She has a deep relationship with her father, and once said that "he is a god-like being". But on many occasions, she did not shy away from expressing her disagreement with her father's philosophy.
Zong Qinghou has always been praised for his "family culture" and has a human touch, but Zong Fuli does not agree with her father's "patriarchal" style and believes that the company should rely on the system to run.
She disdains her father's traditional sales channels, which were once recognized by Zong Qinghou as the core competitiveness of Wahaha to survive, but she is outdated and now the world of e-commerce. To this end, she developed a Habao platform herself.
For the capital and listing that her father rejected and even hated, Zong Fuli liked it very much.
My father is well versed in China's national conditions, sophisticated, and good at dealing with ** at all levels. But her daughter Zong Fuli couldn't understand the Chinese-style human society at all, resulting in "unadaptability".
The quality that my father admires the most is "perseverance" and does not bow his head when faced with difficulties; And Zong Fuli admits that she is a person who is not easy to persevere.
Some people say that Zong Qinghou is a "living fossil" of China's reform and opening up, because he has experienced complex changes in the times, and his entrepreneurial story is very representative. And the appearance of her daughter Zong Fuli has another metaphorical meaning.
Many people are optimistic about Zong Fuli's innovative spirit and modern enterprise management thinking, and many people are not optimistic about her, feeling that she does not understand China as deeply as her father, and she is immature after all.
As the saying goes, a generation has a generation's mission, Zong Qinghou started from scratch, with strong perseverance and perseverance, forged a 10 billion empire, Wahaha's development is rapid and extensive; The confrontation between his daughter and his concept may mean that the development of Chinese enterprises is facing a journey from barbaric growth to specialization and intensive cultivation.
Time is so fast, and so fair, that the story of the previous generation is over, and then the story of the new generation is born.
Whether Zong Fuli can better inherit Wahaha, let's wait and see!