Chapter 8 Chapter 2: Halfway through the Great Era (Part 2)

Regarding the demise of the Delong Empire, we can find out countless reasons and reasons, and can easily attribute the failure to the ambition and unscrupulousness of entrepreneurs. For other companies with similar situations, we can also use the same conclusion to give them Footnotes are added to the story, but there is only one fundamental reason: There is an absolute conflict between enterprises operating in accordance with the laws of a market economy and the economic order organized in accordance with the laws of a planned economy. Introduction to the theme: Abnormal new concept - the big game without restraint - the unified culture - the commercial civilization that advocates conquest

In today's world economy, those who ignore China have all but disappeared. In the next ten years, the most important issue for the whole world is how to get along with a powerful China. Regarding this issue, we don’t need to be secretive. In fact, with China’s vast territory and large population base, it is only a matter of time before China surpasses Germany to become the world’s third largest economy. Compared with this, what we need Interpretation is a more pressing question. This question is: In the past ten years of development, have Chinese companies reached the moment when they are looking for their own direction?

There is no doubt that in the future competition, no matter whether it is a country or an enterprise, the way of wealth growth will no longer come from natural resources, but from human intellectual energy and new models inspired by new ideas. This principle is easy to understand. In the past industrial age and mass production era, we could exchange energy, manpower, and material consumption in exchange for economic benefits. In this regard, China has a unique advantage. We know that there are finite resources available, and that even our proudest source of labor, the labor force, faces the limit of overuse, so that the input-driven economic growth model experienced a primitive After the capital accumulation process, it will naturally encounter a long and narrow bottleneck, so the marginal effect of income begins to work quietly.

This kind of assumption is not based on wind and shadows. This is the case with Japan around us. In terms of resource-based industries, its small territory cannot compete with China, India, and Southeast Asia, and this requires Japan to start from its successful tradition Transformation in the mode. Similarly, we are also facing such a problem. The economic growth model that is overly dependent on input has to some extent caused the flattening of China's economic development. Looking at the large-scale enterprises in China, it is difficult to find any one that has really formed a fine-grained Wealth creation model, and this objectively requires us to get rid of the shackles of old concepts as soon as possible and find a new path to wealth creation.

On the other hand, some forward-looking entrepreneurs have already discovered this problem. In the eyes of these entrepreneurs, Chinese companies must find the source of future profits. They even realized that profits not only come from a good product with a lower cost, but also from the strength of the company itself. This is a logic that hardly needs to be demonstrated, and it is a law of economics that even college students can understand. Concepts need to be integrated, and industries need to be reorganized. It seems to be common sense that we have known for a long time. However, due to the effect of one or several hidden laws, such a simple truth is distorted into an extremely complex appearance, and the new concept born from it also presents a deformed form.

In the Chinese business world in the past ten years, many hard-working entrepreneurs seem to have lost their way in an instant. Most of them began to indulge in the pleasure of growth brought about by capital operation, but forgot What is the real and reliable way to make money. Thus, in the past ten years, we have witnessed many mythical rises, and at the same time heard more loud crashes of business empires. The year 2000, what this point in time means to us depends entirely on our understanding of it. We can assume that it is the end of an old era, and we can also assume that it marks the beginning of a new era, but in any case, it should not be the starting point of a big game.

In the warm spring of 2000, the name Tang Wanxin seemed to have become a prominent symbol of China’s economy that day. It can be said that no matter who writes the history of China’s economy, Tang Wanxin and his Delong Group are destined to be recorded in it. Since 1996, the Delong Group, which is located in the northwest border, has successively controlled several listed companies, thus becoming the consortium-type enterprise with the most listed companies in the Chinese capital market. The listed companies that have cooperated with Delong once reached as many as 40 many. With a huge increase of more than 1000%, Delong has become the number one market maker in China's capital market in just a few years. Such a growth rate is extremely rare even in the economic history of the world.

Contrary to what all of us imagined, Tang Wanxin, the helm of Delong, is not entirely a gambler who lacks strategic vision. On the contrary, in Tang Wanxin's view, the global industrial structure is undergoing a huge evolution, and China cannot Avoid becoming the most important role among them. The problems of traditional industries lie in backward systems, outdated ideas, and scattered investment. Therefore, if they can be optimized and integrated, it will bring about a new economic take-off. If we put aside the tragic fate of Delong later, we must admit that in China 10 years ago, entrepreneurs with such a vision were rare, and it coincides with our analysis today.

As far as China is concerned, the largest space for economic development has always been in traditional industries, not only 10 years ago, but also today, even 10 years later. Even the most demanding and unconventional economists must admit that only traditional industries can maximize the advantages of China's labor force and resources; only traditional industries have the largest mature market, a market that does not need to be developed and explored. The market, and only traditional industries, will avoid risks on the road of development as much as possible. This is a first-class strategy, but in the process of implementation, step by step, it turned into a low-level gamble, and a big game of capital without restraint.

As of 2002, Delong Group stretched out its hand and invested precious funds in the heavy-duty automobile industry, supermarket chains, tourism, animal husbandry, and planting. At its peak, Delong Group had already controlled 120 billion yuan of Assets, with more than 500 companies and 300,000 employees in more than 20 fields, if you want to find the largest private enterprise group in China, then there is no other place for Sheidelong. Except for Tang Wanxin and his staff, no one knew that behind this bustling scene, Delong was like an overblown balloon. With just a light poke, everything would disappear with a bang.

History always shows its magic in a dramatic way. The heyday of Delong is the moment when Tang Wanxin is full of ambition. Such a moment is also the moment when this business empire is on the verge of collapse. The Delong Group has forgotten an important point: profit is the foundation. A capital operation without profit is tantamount to speculative gambling. Moderate rapid crashes of the game. Almost overnight, with the country's macro-control and the bank's tightening of loans, the capital of the Delong Group evaporated instantly. For Tang Wanxin and the Delong Group, it meant that the industry-finance integration strategy was in vain. For the Chinese economy In other words, it means the ashes of a future business empire. The collapse of the Delong Empire is by no means an accidental phenomenon. In fact, in the past 10 years, almost all Chinese companies have been playing unrestrained games, large or small. Regarding this point, you can even temporarily put down the book and turn on the economic channel on the TV, and you will definitely find that the vast majority of domestic entrepreneurs are talking about a plan that is about to be implemented or is being implemented in the same tone. ; No matter how many tricks these plans sound, there is only one core - diversified development. In the next ten years, we can predict almost effortlessly that the vast majority of enterprises in China that have completed primitive accumulation will successively extend their hands to these fields: automobiles, real estate, real estate, finance, education, insurance , medicine, there is no doubt that the profits in these fields are the most impressive, but how many companies can survive in these fields is still an unknown unknown. We can find countless reasons and reasons for the collapse of the Delong Empire, and can easily attribute the failure to the ambition and unscrupulousness of entrepreneurs. For other companies with similar situations, we can also use the same conclusion to their stories Add a footnote, but there is only one fundamental reason: There is an absolute conflict between enterprises operating in accordance with the laws of a market economy and the economic order organized in accordance with the laws of a planned economy. As far as this point is concerned, it is not only the cause of the "Delong phenomenon", but also the driving force for the integration of concepts in the new era. When the long-term planned economy binds the creativity of enterprises to a minimum, such attractive growth opportunities in the capital market cannot escape the eyes of entrepreneurs. Many companies that have achieved business performance within the scope immediately started the process of listing and adding value, without considering market risks at all, and are no longer willing to pursue corporate profits in a down-to-earth manner. They only pin their hopes on the operation of the capital market. Create a new round of myths. In this sense, the sorrow of Delong, and even the collective sorrow of many enterprises, lies in their premature involvement in a game. The game itself is harmless. The problem is that in a game with imperfect rules, there may be The cards were reshuffled and re-liquidated. In such a game, they played too selflessly and without any restraint, and the final result could only be a crushing defeat. This is the collective fate of Chinese enterprises. Even in another ten years, as long as the above-mentioned dual-track conflicts still exist, the road to diversification is doomed to be full of thorns. Give up what you can't, and do what you can to the extreme. Such a saying that often appears in inspirational textbooks is actually the best choice for the growth of Chinese companies. It is not difficult to do these things in ten years, and the difficulty is not that ten years is too long, but that it is seriously inconsistent with China's unified culture. Then, what is the unified culture, what is its representation, and the impact of such a traditional culture on entrepreneurs and enterprises, we need to focus our attention and find answers in patient exploration. In Chinese history, there has been a serious "great unification" complex. If you observe mainstream historical books and film and television works, you will find that this flavor is extremely strong. We are obsessed with Qin Shihuang's "six kings are all together, and the four seas are one", and we admire the false "illusion of prosperity" in the Tang Xuanzong era. With such a complex, we even praised Genghis Khan and the Eight Banners tribe's "staking enclosure". Such a phenomenon is not difficult to understand. In the long history of the empire, if a dynasty can make the minorities who want to submit or even refuse to submit to them, maintain a high degree of centralized politics, maintain a vast territory and strong national power, then the ruler must be You Dao Mingzhu is a king like a sage and a symbol of political prosperity. In order to represent the scene of "great unification", the rulers of the past dynasties would perform ethnic minority songs and dances vigorously when they ascended the throne or held various national celebrations , entertained and rewarded the leaders of ethnic minorities with courtesy, and even decorated the atmosphere of peace at all costs. Such values ​​have been inherited in one continuous line in Chinese political thought, and have gradually radiated into all fields of social life. Because of this, even though we have entered a new stage of civilization, we still cannot get rid of this deep-rooted "" "Great Unity" complex. We will not discuss the gains and losses of history for the time being. However, as far as the commercial field is concerned, the complex of "big unification" and the diversified expansion of enterprises for this may seem to be meritorious deeds on the surface, but they are difficult to achieve in secret. Escape from peril. First of all, for an enterprise, "growing bigger" is not necessarily a good thing to celebrate. For example, Delong was once the largest private enterprise in China, and many companies have put forward the slogan of entering the world's top 500. They have opened subsidiaries, branches, offices and other branch structures all over China at a speed faster than the plague. , However, due to the rapid progress and the lack of solid follow-up work, the management chain has become extremely fragile, so that even the slightest disturbance at the top will produce a result similar to the butterfly effect, triggering a major earthquake across the board. Second, the road to diversification will inevitably lead to the dispersion of resources. Take Delong as an example, it has been involved in more than 20 industries, and Sanjiu Pharmaceutical, which is famous all over the country, has also developed the operation idea of ​​"eight major industries, eight diamonds". Even the earlier stage of Nande Group, from production From luncheon meat to hot pot chains, from Confucian business universities to launching satellites, this kind of business scope is obviously beyond the capabilities of an enterprise. Again, diversification must mean fighting on multiple fronts. When an enterprise's projects spread all over the country and overseas, it will inevitably deal with various local governments. In an era when private capital has not yet been respected, it is difficult for an enterprise to obtain government assistance and support once a crisis occurs. Finally, and the most deadly point is that the road to diversification has brought about a tightening of the capital chain. We can see that all failed enterprises start with a financial crisis. When entrepreneurs try to rely on mergers and acquisitions to achieve rapid expansion of enterprise scale, there will inevitably be a phenomenon of "everyone in the world owes nothing" to the dispersion of creditors. , and it is difficult for private enterprises to get loans, which makes their debt costs much higher than that of state-owned enterprises.A short loan is often extended indefinitely. Such a model is obviously extremely dangerous. In the era of old and new system changes, Chinese enterprises have obtained unprecedented opportunities. Compared with the old step-by-step operation mode, these opportunities come too fast and too many, so that many enterprises are attracted by the colorful temptations in front of them. There is simply no way to focus on one area and excel in it. However, only concentration is the only way to profit. For example, Coca-Cola focused on Coca-Cola and then became the leader in the beverage industry. Volkswagen focused on automobiles and was able to stand for a long time. At that time, the best guarantee for the source of profit is to achieve specialization first and then globalize the business.