Chapter 9 Chapter Seven Life and Death Choices

Su Xiaohe, a financial writer, said: "Whether in China, whether you are investing or doing business, whether the relationship between the government is handled well is a very important criterion for judging success or failure." Partner Shen Nanpeng revealed the secrets at the corporate level: "It doesn't matter whether the government supports or does not support any investment. The most important thing is whether the company has market competitiveness. Because the government supports only A group of enterprises, and there is still a process of survival of the fittest among this group of enterprises. Who can do better, I believe it is a problem of execution, which is also a problem of competitiveness."

A successful enterprise does require decision makers to correctly interpret macro policies, but excellence in management fundamentally determines the future of the enterprise. In 1996, people generally felt that the economy was hot and human relations were cold.Everyone knows that in this turbulent age, the way of interpersonal communication is undergoing a sharp transformation along with the changing peripheral environment. The unification of prices has caused state-owned enterprises that used to rely on price subsidies to become powerless overnight: 34,000 state-owned enterprises have seen their profit margins drop by more than half.The immediate consequence is bankruptcy and layoffs.In the northeast, Tiexi, Shenyang, which was once regarded as China's "Ruhr area", is silent after nightfall; in the south, foreign-funded and private enterprises are full of vitality and abundant sources of income.An official from the Northeast went to the South to take up a new post. When he arrived, he said: "Our state-owned enterprises in the Northeast were all brought down by your small bosses here."

In the era of universal poverty, people have never felt such emotions.This year, it is already a buyer's market, with a severe surplus of products, and efficient economies will undoubtedly capture a greater market share.State-owned enterprises have gradually faded out in this competitive landscape, and can only rely on financial blood transfusions to support them. Domestically, Sichuan Changhong launched a bloody price war under the leadership of Ni Runfeng, forcing foreign home appliances to lose their hegemony in the Chinese market.A man named Wang Hai set up his own anti-counterfeiting company, and consumers began to consciously use the law to protect their rights; in June, Sitong Lifang, the predecessor of Sina.com and one of the earliest commercial Chinese websites in China, was officially launched; at the end of the year, the Chinese stock market plummeted .Angry stockholders tore up People's Daily, which published an article saying that "the situation is going well."

Disappointed shareholders don't know that the description of "People's Daily" this time is not too much, because the GDP growth of that year reached a staggering 9.6%.The national economy successfully achieved a "soft landing", which not only suppressed inflation, but also maintained rapid economic growth. People who support change are very moved.It was such a piece of news: The play "Shang Yang" was staged at the Poly Theater in Beijing, and an official in the audience burst into tears. His name was Zhu Rongji.Chinese reformers are facing the law of their ancestors and the shackles of history. In the painful and difficult reform, the ancients and the present have endured humiliation and even sacrificed their lives for righteousness.

Against such a background, Metersbonwe also ushered in the first serious crisis since the establishment of the company - personnel shock. Those who "leave" are Hong Wei and Li Zheng, who started their business together with Zhou Chengjian. The background is the period when Bonwe was founded two years ago and began to transition to a modern enterprise. Before 1997, Metersbonwe Group did not have a vice-president position, but Hong and Li were undoubtedly Zhou Chengjian's "right-hand men".In those two years, Zhou Chengjian explored "virtual management", and the most important thing for the enterprise was to develop products and build channels.Hong Wei is in charge of the construction of the sales network, and Li Zheng is in charge of product development. In March 1996, the two left Metersbonwe Group together to join Gaobang Group, another casual wear company.

Hong Wei later said to the media about his departure: "I was immature at the time, and I was a little spirited." After two years of starting a business, Zhou Chengjian turned from a self-employed business to a modern enterprise system, and Hong Wei couldn't adapt to the enterprise for a while. transformation. "In the process of creating new things, our understanding and tolerance are different." For example, the newly established performance appraisal system at that time caused a strong backlash: "I am a veteran, but I also have to accept the appraisal?" The young and energetic manager Ren left Bonwe in order to prove his qualifications and talents. At that time, he thought: "I can do a good job in Bangwe, and I can also do well in another casual wear company."

The subsequent story became dramatic. Hong Wei, who failed to start a business, returned to Metersbonwe from 1999 to 2001, which can be described as "two in and two out". For Zhou Chengjian, it is rare for outsiders to understand him.In 1996, when human relations were cold, this entrepreneur with great ability and temper was still continuing his iron-fisted business ideal, and it was inevitable that some people would leave.However, the sadness of parting does not have the melancholy of a poet, but more uncertainty about the future. After experiencing the first unexpected personnel crisis, Zhou Chengjian temporarily lost his sadness due to the favorable background.

In March 1997, Beijing International Fashion Week, the predecessor of China International Fashion Week, was held.Then, the National Textile and Garment Industry Work Conference officially put forward the strategic declaration of "Famous Teacher Project" and "Famous Brand Project".In the same year, in the work report of the China Garment Association, the famous "three names" (famous enterprises, famous teachers, and famous brands) project was formally proposed, which established the development direction for China's famous clothing brand strategy; at the end of the year, the representatives of the first national clothing designers The conference was held in Beijing, and the first China Fashion Designers Expo was held in Beijing.

The future of the apparel industry looks beautiful, but Smith Barney's own problems are coming one after another.Because of Zhou Chengjian's personality of "not allowing others to have ideas, only allowing me to implement them", most of the management staff left when the company was most difficult. This was the well-known second personnel shock. The loss of important personnel in just one year dealt a heavy blow to Zhou Chengjian at that time. In 1997, five management employees including Lin Haifeng, Yang Changjiang, Yang Zhiqing, Zheng Yunjie and Tong Ke "rebelled" from Zhou Chengjian at the same time, and headed by Lin Haifeng went out and founded a consulting company.Today, the consulting firm is long gone, and the same people are still in the casual wear business.

This incident of "collective flight" by the management made Zhou Chengjian a "polished commander" for a while.In that year, Bangwe also encountered a cold wave of funds.Personnel, capital and other issues gathered together, making 1997 a "threshold" for the development of Bonwe.It can be said that the second personnel shock occurred under the background that the enterprise encountered new obstacles and heavy internal pressure.Overcoming this difficulty, since 1998, Zhou's enterprise has entered the fast track of development. Zhou Chengjian's ability to cross this hurdle is undoubtedly admirable.But how he got through the difficulties, the details of which have never been known.According to people familiar with the matter, in terms of funds, Zhou Chengjian found foreign aid later.In terms of personnel, Zhou Chengjian took a big move in 1998: spent more than 3 million yuan to buy 20 sets of commercial houses and distributed them to 20 out-of-town employees with outstanding performance, and issued property rights certificates for them.

After learning from the personnel crisis in 1997, Zhou Chengjian hoped to rebuild his credibility among employees, so that they would trust and recognize him, and feel that the company has hope.This incident caused quite a stir at the time, and its impact was no less than that of the management's "collective flight" event itself in 1997. It finally returned to calm, but after less than a year of good times, a test in a more grand sense came again.Every important season, there will always be various tragic emotions permeating. Earlier this year, Zhu Rongji officially became premier.He got 98% of the vote.At the press conference the next day, he said with great sadness: "Whether there is a minefield or an abyss in front of me, I will go forward without hesitation, do my best, and die." His grief and indignation are not without reason: the Asian financial crisis is raging; the three rural issues have not been solved for a long time; Was secretly summoned by Zhongnanhai to discuss real estate issues.Half a year later, the welfare housing allocation ended, the housing loan system was launched, and real estate became a super weapon to stimulate domestic demand; Great Wall Telecom, Junan Securities, Sanjiu Pharmaceutical, etc. have developed into industry giants. On the other end of the business spectrum is a massive clean-up. The army has all withdrawn from business activities, "taxes are being raised to support soldiers", and the army is completely fed by the emperor.At the same time, enterprises run by the armed police, the public security bureau, and other state agencies were also cleaned up and rectified.This project is huge and involves many interests. Within half a year, it was banned by order, which made people pay tribute to the wisdom and courage of the third generation leadership. What is even more amazing is the financial resistance in Hong Kong.A group of international speculators such as financial tycoon Soros continued to attack. Starting from Thailand, the foreign exchange and stock markets of the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia and other countries plummeted all the way.Hong Kong has become the next destination for financial bigwigs. One summer in August, the war broke out. In the following week, the battle was brutal. The Hang Seng Index plummeted all the way to 6600 points, and the total market value evaporated by 2 trillion Hong Kong dollars.After this round, with the support of Zhu Rongji, the Hong Kong government brought huge foreign exchange funds into the stock market and futures market to directly confront speculators.Two weeks later, speculators frantically sold the market, the Hong Kong government accepted all orders, and the turmoil in the Hong Kong city ended. Zhang Wuchang's comment reveals the mystery: "The Chinese government speaks out and supports it, and in the end those speculators were scared away." After the turmoil, there must be adjustments.Especially the financial industry, the master key of contemporary society, the adjustment of finance has led to the reshuffle of all walks of life.Correspondingly, China's garment industry has entered a two-year adjustment period.The Asian financial crisis hit China's garment exports hard, and exports showed negative growth. In the next few years, the Chinese government adopted a proactive trade policy, allocated 20% of the textile and clothing quotas in the United States, Europe, Canada, and Turkey to self-exporting industrial enterprises, and opened up industrial enterprises to the quota areas. The way of self-operated export and the measures to encourage self-operated export also pointed out a new direction for the development of clothing export. At the same time, the issue of homogenization of the domestic market has also been brought up on the agenda for the first time. From 1997 to 1998, the textile industry faced a critical situation of turning losses into profits.Through reducing volume and increasing efficiency, reducing debt and increasing capital, optimizing structure, and industrial upgrading policies, the industry has undergone large-scale streamlining, which provides enlightenment for all garment industry practitioners: the garment industry must innovate and upgrade. While state-owned enterprises and collective enterprises are speeding up their restructuring, leading private enterprises are also taking the opportunity to explore new enterprise system models.Shanshan and Youngor have been listed in Shanghai one after another, large enterprises have begun to reform their internal mechanisms, and more rising stars with great development potential are thinking about how to embark on a development path superior to their predecessors. Channel innovation, brand innovation, and variety innovation are on the horizon, and "casual wear", "franchising" and "designer" have become hot words in the industry overnight.After being in a downturn and hovering for two years, the industry gave birth to new ideas and new concepts. Next, different companies embarked on different development paths, and the industry also took on a completely different look. In 1998, the roaring flood gradually disappeared, and the global stock market recovered from the Asian financial crisis.Some people lamented that the good old days are back. At the end of the 20th century, some people were not optimistic.A popular Nostradamus prophecy says that the Earth will suffer Armageddon and inevitable destruction.After the prophecy failed, it was rumored that the American Cassini spacecraft was about to collide with the earth, and it carried 32 kilograms of cobalt-238, which was enough to make the life on earth extinct.After the rumors failed again, everyone began to talk about the "millennium bug", a dangerous "bug" that would cause the electronic control systems of nuclear powers to collapse and eventually destroy mankind. These prophecies were ultimately self-defeating. In the real world, the most weighty topic of the year is Sino-US relations.The agreement between the two sides on China's accession to the WTO has been negotiated for many rounds, and the goal has been approached several times, but the United States has designed to obstruct it. On May 8, five missiles fell into the Chinese embassy in Yugoslavia, killing three Chinese journalists.The Americans insisted it was a misoperation.This time, with the tacit approval of the government, people in China took to the streets to demonstrate.They yelled out the grievances that have been accumulated for a long time and have no way to vent in a long-lost way. American institutions and companies in China have become the preferred targets of the excited people. Of course, the top leaders of the central government are clear: China and the United States need each other.Local officials on the southeast coast were even more anxious. They needed American businessmen who could bring them lucrative incomes.The differences and contradictions between the two countries were finally reconciled two months later. The Chinese and American football teams entered the World Cup finals, and the United States won on penalty kicks.Clinton pays tribute to the "clang roses" from China. On October 1, 1999, Tiananmen Square held a celebration for the 50th anniversary of the National Day. On December 20, the city of Beijing celebrated the handover of Macau.A few days later, another grand ceremony was held at the China Millennium Monument to welcome the new millennium.Many people say that "the 21st century is the century of the Chinese people". Although naysayers insist that the future is still uncertain, 1999 was the first year of China's commercial real estate, and also the first year of China's E-era.By the end of the year, China had 8.92 million Internet-connected computers with 22.5 million users. Smith Barney's informatization road has been fruitful this year. In fact, information system construction is the soul of Metersbonwe's virtual business model.How many orders should be placed with which supplier, and how many products should be dispatched to which region, all are coordinated and monitored by the enterprise information system.From the moment Metersbonwe was established, it began to establish an enterprise information system. Since 1996, Metersbonwe's information system has been upgraded three times, and the cost has exceeded 100 million yuan. In 1995, it took two weeks for Metersbonwe to manually process a complete order, 45 days for the settlement cycle of financial transactions, 1.05 times of inventory turnover, 5 orders per day per person, and 15 days for order delivery.From the end of 1995 to 2000, Metersbonwe compiled commodity coding standards, warehouse management systems, retail and distribution management systems for specialty stores, financial management systems and e-commerce platforms, production purchase management systems, and office automation systems. The establishment of a series of information systems has reduced operating costs, improved efficiency, strengthened upstream and downstream management, and helped Metersbonwe form a virtual business model in which production and sales are outsourced, and the headquarters conducts brand operations on an information technology platform. . By 2000, Metersbonwe only needed 2-3 days to process a complete order, shortened the financial transaction settlement cycle to 3 days, increased the number of inventory turnover to 3 times, and increased the number of orders processed per day to more than 50. The lead time is reduced to 8 days. Entering the new century, with the opening of exclusive stores across the country, outsourcing factories are also scattered across the country, the number of branches and agents has increased, and the information flow has become more lengthy, resulting in many links, long processes, slow speed, incomplete data, etc. question.Based on the new-generation information system of industrial chain integration, Smith Barney has entered the preparation stage. The Metersbonwe industrial chain integrated information system consists of three parts, the ERP of the processing plant, the internal management system and the information system of the specialty store. These three systems are both independent and highly integrated with each other. Supply manufacturer enterprise resource management system (MBFAC/ERP), which is an ERP system specially designed and developed for OEM processing plants for independent management in the factory; Metersbonwe's internal enterprise resource management system (MB/ERP), which is an ERPII system to help enterprises manage their brands well and integrate social resources; The enterprise resource management system (MBAGT/ERP) of the agency store is a system designed and developed for the agency for independent management within the agency. After the three major systems are connected, a complete "virtual enterprise" supply chain management platform has been formed.This huge "virtual enterprise" is commanded by Metersbonwe's 40-person core team at the headquarters.Agents place orders with Metersbonwe through the e-commerce website, and Metersbonwe places orders with factories through the system. The planning management office and marketing department of the headquarters control the operation of the entire supply chain.The planning management office can clearly understand the sales status of each specialty store, and change production orders at any time according to these figures, and the marketing department is constantly optimizing these figures. This system highly integrates Metersbonwe's internal management of production procurement, logistics distribution, distribution and retail, and finance. Internal systems are highly integrated. In this way, Metersbonwe has established a high-efficiency and low-cost supply chain management platform.After the implementation of this system, the time for Metersbonwe to complete a complete order processing has been shortened to 2-3 minutes (real-time), the financial transaction settlement cycle has been reduced to 2 minutes (real-time), and the number of inventory turnover has increased to 7 times. Lead times are reduced to 2 to 4 days. In 2005, the average operating cost of Metersbonwe's autumn and winter clothing was reduced by 18%. Metersbonwe's third information system upgrade finally appeared after it went public in August 2008, and upgraded its own information system again.This is to support the subsequent efficient development of the enterprise, so that the enterprise information system can adapt to the multi-brand strategy, the in-depth market layout, the development of network marketing, and a higher level of supply chain management integration. The content of the upgrade is mainly reflected in: on the basis of cross-supply chain, large-scale integration, and real-time business systems, strengthen the construction of enterprise business intelligence data analysis systems, strengthen the construction of planning business support systems and financial systems, and realize the optimization of product design links. In 2009, the system continued to be upgraded and the key work was further involved in finance, personnel, production and supply chain, master data management platform, BI and other fields. As Zhou Chengjian said: "When everyone adopts a virtual business model, I will start to seek changes and industrial upgrading. The future competition of the apparel industry will be the competition of the entire supply chain." And this competition between supply chains , largely reflected in the upgrading and optimization of information systems. American futurist Negroponte wrote at the end of his shocking book that was published almost at the same time as Smithsonian: "As business becomes more and more globalized and the Internet grows stronger, fully digitalized offices will also appear." , his prophecy is like a spell full of mirror images. Among those wild and unconstrained descriptions across the world, he inadvertently hit this private clothing enterprise in Wenzhou, China.