Chapter 24 3. The industrial spirit is the spirit of suffering

In March 2006, at the National People's Congress, Dong Mingzhu from Zhuhai, Guangdong, around the theme of "innovative development", submitted a proposal to advocate the promotion of "industrial spirit" in Chinese enterprises. In terms of technology research and development and independent innovation, do more practical things, talk less empty words, and fight for a long time to endure loneliness; on the other hand, you must pay more attention to the fundamental needs of consumers, actively assume social responsibilities, and use corporate power to promote social development. "Industrial spirit" is the only concept proposed by Dong Mingzhu in the business world for many years.Now, it is well known that although my country is known as the "world's largest manufacturing country", it is not yet a "world's manufacturing powerhouse". According to the National Bureau of Statistics, my country's manufacturing value-added rate is only 26.6%.In this regard, Dong Mingzhu bluntly said that under the conditions of domestic labor and land resource cost advantages, many enterprises use pure "commercial spirit" to determine their development ideas, leading to the pursuit of short-term interests.In addition, according to figures released by the Ministry of Information Industry, the profit rate of China's home appliance industry in 2005 was 0.61%, which was on the verge of loss.Galanz achieved sales of 12 billion yuan in 2005, but only made a profit of 10 million yuan.Under the leadership and implementation of many home appliance hypermarkets such as Gome and some large home appliance companies, the local home appliance industry, which has been "strewn with corpses", staged several price wars every year, and the market was full of false prosperity.However, home appliance retail chains such as Gome and Suning achieved the highest turnover in history in 2005, while their profit margin was only a little over 2%.The huge entry fee, promotion fee, and long payment period from the supplier contributed as much as 20% to this meager figure.Compared with the figures of international home appliance retail chains with a profit of more than 5%, local retailers should feel ashamed.In the past trading games, although the channel controllers grabbed profits from the manufacturing companies, they did not become the real winners, nor did they find their own glory.The absolute pursuit of profit is the biggest characteristic of business spirit.Dong Mingzhu said that due to the lack of supervision of business ethics in our society and the lack of spirit in the entire society, this pursuit of money has been magnified to the extreme.Everyone only pays attention to the result and not the process. As long as they can make money, they will use all means.This is especially true in retail and manufacturing.Numerous cases have shown that if everything is guided by the spirit of business, neither retail enterprises nor manufacturing enterprises can become the real winners.To break the vicious cycle of "low prices - under-price bidding - trade frictions - restricted exports - shortage of funds - limited improvement of product structure", Gree must have independent technology and marketing at the same time. technology; while Dong Mingzhu is well-known in the industry for his vigorous marketing methods, and the two complement each other perfectly.But in this way, people talk more about Dong Mingzhu.Facts have proved that in China's refrigeration industry, Dong Mingzhu has always regarded industrial spirit as the development creed, but how many people really understand the meaning?If we understand Ford's story, we will find how similar Dong Mingzhu and Ford are.Ford gave up his stable job again and again, and conducted research and experiments again and again, just because he had a dream of a car that didn't need a horse.After the car was built, he conducted research and experiment again and again, and finally invented the epoch-making assembly line production, all because of his other dream, to make every American, rich or poor, Can drive a Ford.Gree is not like this. When everyone is on the road of diversification and expansion, it insists on the road of specialization and concentrates on making air conditioners well. Isn't the purpose also to let consumers buy good air conditioners?More than a hundred years ago, Ford achieved success because of its persistent "industrial spirit".

Today, more than a hundred years later, doing business and doing things also requires industrial spirit.Industry and commerce are different.This is a building built with thought and sweat, part by part.The height of the building depends on the firmness of the foundation.Therefore, luck and speculation are useless here. Only by adhering to an "industrial spirit" and advancing step by step towards the ideal can we move towards the future. "I think I am lonely, at least in China's refrigeration industry. I have always regarded the 'industrial spirit' of doing things down-to-earth as one of Gree's development creeds, but how many people really understand the meaning?" It is Dong Mingzhu's speech after reading "Henry Ford's Autobiography". This industrial spirit is simply the spirit of suffering.Dong Mingzhu's loneliness comes from the "practical" thinking of Chinese people.The reason why Dong Mingzhu likes Ford is because Ford is precisely a person who "lacks" this kind of practical thinking.The proud Dong Mingzhu dared to confide her heart: "In the United States, where there are many smart people, there is only one Ford who invented the car. Similarly, in the fast-growing Chinese industrial world, it is difficult to find a bosom friend who is sympathetic to Gree." Reform and opening up Since then, with the overall impetuousness of the society, most enterprises in China are using "commercial spirit" to guide the development direction of enterprises, all for the purpose of making money, and completely abandoning the spirit of being responsible to society.In fact, this is not only a phenomenon in the business world, even some local government departments, driven by purely economic interests, ignore the coordination and overall development of society.Many people will be puzzled by Dong Mingzhu's approach. As a person who runs a business, it is enough to do a good job in the business and let the business make money. Why do these unrealistic things?Besides, it is a problem of the whole society and cannot be solved by one person.In the eyes of many people, Dong Mingzhu is too unrealistic.Dong Mingzhu's understanding of "industrial spirit" should mean less empty words, more practical actions, wholeheartedly paying attention to consumer needs, actively assuming social responsibilities, and using the power of enterprises to promote social development. All actions must be responsible for the future To put it simply, it is the "spirit of suffering".With this "industrial spirit", people's power and wisdom can be infinitely aggregated to achieve the greatest degree of independent innovation, create a national brand, promote the development of China's manufacturing industry and economy, and connect with the world.

This is Dong Mingzhu's understanding, and it is also the goal that Dong Mingzhu has been tirelessly pursuing.In Dong Mingzhu's mind, those who are truly engaged in industry must be practitioners of "industrial spirit", that is, they have ideals, ambitions, and a sense of social responsibility, and are willing to give up immediate interests for these.Those who are truly engaged in industry will regard promoting social progress as the core of their careers, rather than simply making profits.To develop in contemporary China, what is needed is this kind of real industrial people and their "industrial spirit". They also need to make profits, but not just for profits. Their profits come from the core technology realized by independent innovation development of.On the surface, both commercial spirit and industrial spirit need to pursue profit, but as Dong Mingzhu said, we can't just look at the result and not the process.If you look at the way of making profits, you will find the essential difference between commercial spirit and industrial spirit.Different from business, industry is directly and closely related to science and technology, and the spirit of industry is an extension of the spirit of science.Compared with the commercial spirit, the industrial spirit pays more attention to credit, fair competition and long-term interests.This point, we can see the shadow from the development track of Gree for many years.The dedication to "industrial spirit" has made Dong Mingzhu and Gree's running more powerful. Behind them, more and more people of insight have begun to join the queue to follow. "Do things first and then make money," Dong Mingzhu often said forcefully to dealers: "You can't sell Gree today, sell other brands tomorrow, and then sell another one. Air conditioners are not easy to sell, so sell washing machines; washing machines are not easy to sell, sell them. Refrigerator. I want you to be a Gree air conditioner for the rest of your life." Gree dealers across the country were asked by Dong Mingzhu to "absolutely agree" with Gree's corporate culture.Dong Mingzhu wants to push her industrial spirit into Gree's channel with an unquestionable attitude.Dong Mingzhu did this because she saw the great adverse consequences of "commercial spirit".In other words, what the commercial spirit brings to everyone is not a win-win situation, but a loss-making situation for both sides.Dong Mingzhu has always emphasized that the industrial spirit is actually the "spirit of suffering". Of course, this sentence is too simple.After all, a business has to maintain a basic profit in order to stay afloat.Therefore, we must see that behind the "spirit of suffering losses" emphasized by Dong Mingzhu is actually the concept of concentrating on doing things and serving consumers sincerely.When the air-conditioning industry is used to relying on price wars to occupy market share, Gree is obsessed with industrial manufacturing in obscurity. Brand-name compressor motors, high-quality galvanized steel sheets, and threaded copper pipes do not cut corners on materials at all, which is the expression of industrial spirit.It can be said that the industrial spirit is not only a "spirit of suffering losses", but also contains a persistent and innovative spirit.Dong Mingzhu said that too much emphasis on commercial spirit can easily make enterprises lazy, which is not unreasonable.In order to make money, all kinds of means are used to the extreme. Enterprises that like to make money by "shortcuts" naturally ignore the research and development of products, and finally develop the habit of laziness.I always want to make huge profits in a short period of time. After a long time, the technology of the product cannot keep up with the demand of the market, and it will eventually be eliminated by the market.From the perspective of short-term benefits, the industrial spirit is indeed a "spirit of suffering", because enterprises must endure loneliness and invest huge sums of money in technological development, all of which will not see benefits in a short period of time.But it's all worth it in the long run.Under the guidance of this spirit, Gree has achieved great success, and is receiving more and more attention and praise.

On the evening of January 20, 2007, in the selection results of "2006 CCTV China's Economic Person of the Year" announced, for the first time, a veritable "world champion" appeared.Dong Mingzhu, the proposer and advocate of "industrial spirit", won the title of Economic Person of the Year.This laurel crown has far-reaching significance. Judging from the results of the selection, this list is full of modern contexts such as capital, environmental protection, and internationalization. As the head of a traditional manufacturing company, Dong Mingzhu can be included in the list. Performance is inseparable.Dong Mingzhu stated that the goal she pursued in her life is to make Gree a world-class brand-name product and the pride of the Chinese people.In fact, for more than ten years, Dong Mingzhu has adhered to the belief that "a responsible person must dare to stand at the forefront of the trend; a responsible enterprise must serve the country and benefit the society with industry", and has built Gree into a sales force in 2006. A world-renowned enterprise with a turnover of more than 20 billion yuan and four major production bases at home and abroad, Gree Electric Appliances has been the champion of domestic air-conditioning production, sales, sales, and market share for 12 years. In 2005 and 2006, it was ranked in the world The champion of air conditioner sales has created a profit and tax of 6.5 billion yuan for the country and created a miracle in the home appliance industry.Today, when the commercial spirit is rampant, she still sticks to and holds high the banner of "industrial spirit" that is willing to suffer losses, does not fight price wars or concept wars, and honestly makes products and services.In a sense, the election of Dong Mingzhu represents the evolution path of Chinese manufacturing to high-end manufacturing after going through the initial assembly manufacturing stage.As the award speech said, "After 10 years of hard work, she will never compromise, stay focused, and create a world record with 'Made in China'. She makes the world applaud the Oriental Pearl Tower: a good product, made in China." Gree's sense of social responsibility , also manifested in the stock market.As a listed company, Gree has been operating in accordance with the normative behavior of listed companies.It neither violates the relevant regulations of listed companies, nor does it use listed companies as cash cows to siphon money like so-called major shareholders of some listed companies.At the beginning, Gree raised only 700 million yuan, but now Gree has distributed more than 1.6 billion yuan in dividends to shareholders. In the process, Gree's net assets have risen from about 10 million yuan to nearly 3 billion yuan.Whether it is a shareholder or Gree, this is a win-win process.In addition to returning returns to shareholders, Gree Electric also considers the sustainable development of the enterprise.The entire operation of Gree Electric Appliances has not required bank loans since 1997. The production base it built in Chongqing created more than 30 million yuan in taxes for the state and local governments that year.At the same time, after Gree built a factory in the west, it experienced a functional change from "blood transfusion" to "blood production", which drove the local supporting industries and solved the problem of reemployment for 3,000 people.The actions of love each time show that as a company with a sense of social responsibility, Gree has made efforts in supporting various social welfare activities and repaying the care and support of the company from all walks of life.A respected entrepreneur must be one who cares about the society.This is true of Ford, so is Bill Gates, and so is Li Ka-shing.Today's culture is tomorrow's economy, and today's economy is tomorrow's benefit.

The competition in the 21st century is destined to be a competition of cultures. In the long river of history, everything will perish, only culture will survive.