Chapter 14 13. How far can Chery go?

In March 2007, Chery became the monthly sales champion of the domestic sedan market for the first time with sales of 44,568 units, surpassing Shanghai GM's 4,497 units.In May, Chery QQ also ranked first in the mini-car market with sales of 12,639 units, breaking the myth that Xiali is the king of this market segment for the second time after March. As a leader in local car manufacturing, Chery has grown from a "wild child" that no one cares about in the past to a direct-line car manufacturer that is highly valued by the government today, and has grown into a banner of independent car manufacturing.Therefore, when Yin Tongyao and Chery gradually became the focus of attention from all walks of life, they began to adapt to their public image.

Chery's 10-year development process can be called a myth. With an average annual growth rate of 83%, Chery rose from the earliest obscurity to the fourth place in the domestic market in 2006. In 2007, Chery's public sales target was 400,000 vehicles, but its internal target was more radical than this figure - Chery even hoped to realize its ambition of becoming the annual sales champion in the domestic car market in 2007. Not only that, Chery has set a sales target of 1 million vehicles for itself in 2008.And at Chery's year-end summary meeting in 2006, Chery's executives put forward their determination to overcome the annual sales volume of 10 million vehicles in the long-term goal.You know, the current global annual sales close to 10 million only GM and Toyota.Apparently, the vision and ambition of Chery, a local car manufacturer, is shifting from "surviving" to "becoming a world-class car company".

Objectively speaking, Chery's development in the first 10 years has just caught up with the super-high explosive growth of the domestic car market, which is higher than the world average.In this market full of demand, those joint venture competitors enjoy the high profits brought by the products, and few people seriously challenge the local enterprises that rely on the low-end market to survive.Therefore, most local car manufacturers have survived by virtue of their cost advantages, and they are all doing well.For example, Chery sold 300,000 vehicles in 2006, an increase of 70%, while Geely also sold 200,000 vehicles, an increase of 34%.In addition, Brilliance and BYD, which have a small base, even experienced substantial growth of 79.6% and 472%.By May 2007, local brand models had accounted for 30% of the total sales. This wave of local car manufacturing seems to have successfully changed the foreign-dominated pattern of China's auto manufacturing industry.

However, is this a staged victory for local car manufacturers?Or the beginning of a more difficult journey? The continuous growth of local enterprises from the bottom of the market has allowed them to surround the "cities" through the "rural areas".Now is the time for them to win the "city" - conquer the mainstream market and enhance the brand value.Take Chery, which is at the forefront, as an example. According to the data of Li Feng, the deputy general manager of Chery Automobile Co., Ltd. in charge of sales, the average selling price of Chery in the first quarter of 2007 was 62,000 yuan, compared with 59,000 yuan in 2006 and 2005. and 53,000 yuan.In fact, Chery's plan is to raise the average selling price of each model by 10% every year before 2010, hoping that the average selling price in 2010 can be close to 100,000 yuan at best.

In 2007, the cars active in the market priced at 100,000 yuan were already the leading products of joint ventures, such as GM Buick Excelle, Volkswagen Golf, Bora, POLO, etc., but three years later, the cars that flooded this market segment must be more competitive Strong foreign brand models.Therefore, in the next three years, Chery will face off with foreign brands on a large scale. Can the young Chery really carry the hope of local car manufacturing?How far can the young Chery go? The resources are fair, and the model is difficult to play with new ideas. Chery is different because it chooses higher odds.

In late May 2007, a team of vice presidents including Chery's key business managers, led by Yin Tongyao himself, began to travel around Austria, Italy, Germany and the United States.Wherever they go, they can always be warmly received by local excellent "resources" ranging from car design, spare parts supply, to sales channels.These "resources" are clearly aware that these visitors from China carry huge checks for international purchases in their purses, because their faces are filled with continuous ambition. As more and more car manufacturing resources are opened up in the world, Chery's top-level visits with clear themes are becoming more and more frequent.This is Chery's seeding for its own new car research and development, and it is also Chery's search for alliance resources for itself.

"Chery's actions will scare everyone." After returning from the visit, Yin Tongyao, chairman and general manager of Chery, often couldn't hide his internal encouragement. Like all local car manufacturers, Chery also grew up in an environment where global car manufacturing resources are gradually opening up.Building a car in an open environment is described by the industry as "building blocks"—an Italian company is invited to do the modeling, a German company is invited to carry out the engineering design, and then various design drawings are purchased from spare parts companies such as Bosch, TRW, and Delphi. Auto parts and safety gear are specified, and the final vehicle is built.Because of this, some people think that building a car is as easy as building a PC.

But Yin Tongyao believes that "building blocks" is a very technical job.In his view, a car is not only a means of transportation, but also a carrier of life attitude, culture and art.If you want to form a car with Chery's characteristics, you must focus on "I"-accurately express your own definition of products and performance, and then use external resources to realize them with the Know-How of local technologies.So Chery hopes to use external resources, but never wants to rely on them or be at their mercy. Therefore, the use of external resources has been endowed with two meanings in Chery: one is to obtain specific products, and the other is to accumulate capabilities.This directly determines that Chery's standards for selecting external resources and capital investment are far higher than the industry average.And this high-input and high-risk "non-mainstream building block method" finally made Chery stand out among domestic car manufacturers.

When it first built cars, Chery was using international resources.It's just that at that time, the other party was asked to help build the car.Yin Tongyao even joked that he was a small contractor at that time, a primary school student in front of international suppliers.At that time, what the supplier said was what it said, and even if it felt wrong, there was no reason to refute it. After so many rounds of car-making experience, primary school students have gradually grown up, and Chery has become more active in utilizing external resources, and even started to guide suppliers in some fields.For example, a car sunroof supplier confirmed that Chery's design requirements for this part with international technical level have been put in place.

Chery's model of integrating resources to build cars has also gone through a process.Like other local car makers, when Chery first designed cars such as QQ and Dongfangzi, it mostly referred to off-the-shelf models.And this kind of reference not only brings "plagiarism" pressure to Chery, but also makes them feel limited.Because foreign related models are not designed for the Chinese market, many demands with Chinese characteristics cannot be realized in such a reference design. Chery is determined to solve this problem.In 2003, the domestic market turned from booming to downturn. Like almost all automakers, Chery’s life also began to be difficult due to the suffocated sales—the production line changed from two shifts to one shift, and some production lines even had to stop production.But even so, Chery invested heavily in September 2003 and March 2004 to invite Italian design company Bertone and Italian company Pininfarina to start the building of A1 and A3.

"These are two cross-generational products." Lu Jianhui, Chery's deputy general manager in charge of research and development, is very proud. "Compared with our previous products for the low-end market, their design starting point is relatively high, and they are oriented to the global market; at the same time, These two cars are all starting from conceptual design, which is a complete forward design product." Chery invested hundreds of millions of yuan in the design of these two cars, while before they developed a car, it cost several thousand at most. ten thousand yuan. This is a turning point that changed Chery's thinking on integrating external resources.From these two works integrating the world's top resources, Chery has seen hope. On the morning of July 4, 2007, Chery Automobile Co., Ltd. and the American Chrysler Group formally signed a strategic cooperation agreement at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing. A1 was selected by Chrysler as its first OEM product sold in the US market because it passed Chrysler's standard certification on its production system, development system and quality.And A3 will probably be another OEM product. Chery's ability to integrate external resources today is the result of Chery's "spending" a lot of money in research and development.Lu Jianhui believes, "Whether you have R&D capabilities depends on whether you are willing to invest and whether you have the money to invest." In Chery, Lu Jianhui is the easiest person to ask the boss for money. Enough to satisfy me, even in Chery’s most difficult time.” Chery’s investment in research and development is about 8% of the total output value every year on average, and the highest is 15%.Chery's current total output value is about 30 billion yuan, which means that Chery has invested at least several billion yuan in research and development.In addition, although both Lu Jianhui and Yin Tongyao denied the existence of Chery's large amount of loans.However, according to insiders, Chery's investment in R&D can be regarded as paranoid, because many of the loans it got from banks were invested in R&D, which will make Chery's R&D investment even more shocking. A R&D director of a local car manufacturer made no secret of his envy for Chery: "If I can control so much funds, our R&D capabilities will not be much worse than it." In fact, most R&D directors believe in Qian's energy.If you have money, you can choose the best design company, the best engineering consulting company, and the best supplier... With the help of these top resources, products can be upgraded quickly.Not only that, frequent dealings with masters can also improve one's own research and development awareness and ability. "Students trained by a prestigious school have a much better foundation than students from an ordinary school." The person who said this meant that Chery could cooperate with and apprentice with world-class companies, while his company could only choose those A third-rate or even a low-level company. In fact, Chery has indeed obtained a very high starting point and skills in some key products because it has studied under famous families.Such as their AVL engine.According to an engine designer of Chery, in the first stage of design, Chery engineers went to AVL Company to participate in the concept design and product design of those masters.After the current several products were produced, Chery people began to do it internally, simulating their design, calculation and analysis, and experimental methods.After several rounds of practice, the number of design parts that Chery people do not rely on foreign parties has gradually increased.Chery engine, according to Lu Jianhui, "has been designed to meet the Euro 4 standard and can reach the Euro 5 standard." "I want to cultivate all R&D capabilities." Lu Jianhui has a great appetite for controlling R&D capabilities.The Chery Automobile Engineering Research Institute led by Lu Jianhui has grown to a scale of 2,000 people and has 7 branches, including 3 vehicle research institutes, 2 engine research institutes, 1 transmission research institute and 1 basic public platform institute.This is the lifeblood of Chery, and most of Chery's project development is carried out here. The basic public platform institute with more than 400 people is the place where Chery's returnees gather, and it is also the department where Chery prepares technology for pre-research projects for the future.Toyota also has a similar technical reserve department.When Toyota develops new cars, it seldom starts with the most basic things. Those basic things have long been prepared in the technical reserve department and can be used when new cars are developed.Therefore, Toyota's new product development cycle is constantly shortened, and it can quickly respond to market changes. Apparently, Chery wants to do the same by investing in local public infrastructure at all costs. If Yin Tongyao chooses a wish for Chery that can be realized instantly, his choice may surprise many people.Because he will choose "let Chery have a complete core supplier system". For Chery, which regards Toyota as a role model, this strength of Toyota cannot be ignored.Because core suppliers are the basis for Toyota to maintain product quality, reduce costs, realize simultaneous development, and reserve technical capabilities, and it is also one of the key factors for Toyota to be invincible.Obviously, if Chery wants to go further, this element of competitiveness that cannot be established in a short period of time, or even achieved by "spending money desperately", naturally cannot be ignored. When building the first Fengyun sedan, Chery started building its own core supplier system.At that time, Chery and Taiwanese mold manufacturer Fuzhen jointly established Anhui Fuzhen Mold Factory, which is now controlled by Chery people.In addition, although Chery officials declined to comment, according to the reporter's investigation, Chery has also invested in other spare parts in recent years. For example, Chery has appeared in some auto parts companies such as air conditioners and electronic steering.According to a Chery supplier, there are more than 50 suppliers currently held by Chery, and they can be roughly divided into two categories, one is spare parts with relatively low technical threshold, and the other is spare parts that account for a relatively large part of the vehicle cost. Accessories.Part of their establishment is due to cost or business considerations, and the other part is for the research and development capabilities of spare parts.Since these spare parts companies have not been established for a few years, the quality or quality of their products is still not as good as those of joint ventures or sole proprietorships.According to Chery's internal sources, at present, Chery's low-end products use a relatively large proportion of these spare parts, while relatively high-end products use a small proportion.In other words, Chery's low-end products are not afraid of price wars because their costs are easy to control. However, when Chery started to move towards high-end products, this support point has not yet been established. Although Chery now mostly uses international spare parts resources to build its own high-quality cars, Chery has never stopped thinking about making spare parts for its own cars.Lu Jianhui said: "When we think that this product may affect our strategy, we have to invest resources and organize people to research and develop." In addition to laying out the spare parts chain, Chery is also extending its control over other resources.For example, Chery also extended its controlling hand to overseas market channels. In the early years, Chinese cars were sold overseas on the basis of low prices. Everyone also had the mentality of earning some money, but how important the overseas market is to Chinese car manufacturers, this issue is different for each car manufacturer. .On this point, Chery seems to be more persistent than other local car manufacturers. Judging from its capital control over overseas channels, Chery has put the overseas market at a strategic level for the first time. In the first half of 2006, Chery established its wholly-owned subsidiary in Russia and established a spare parts warehouse there, so the Russian market gradually became the main force of Chery's exports. From April to May 2007, the monthly sales there exceeded 4,000 vehicles . In the Middle East, another important market for Chery, Chery has established a sales management joint venture with a local company in Dubai, which is controlled by Chery.Chery lacks people who understand the Middle East market. The purpose of establishing a joint venture company is to use the localization experience of its partners to deeply develop and control the Middle East market. As for such an important market as the United States, Chery will not let go of any attempt.For example, Chery currently has two groups of people in charge of the US business, one group focuses on cooperation negotiations with Chrysler, and the other group is responsible for the joint venture with the US Quantum Corporation. Quantum Corporation of America is a subsidiary of Israel Corp. in the United States and operates shipping business.Chery people believed that a company that was going to bring them into the US market before was a "liar", but this one was not, because "this is a company with industry and financial strength".Quantum will invest USD 225 million in the joint venture and provide a deposit of USD 180 million. The joint venture between Quantum and Chery is controlled by Chery, and the general manager of the joint venture is Yuan Tao from Chery.The company mainly sells cars to the US market, Quantum establishes a local sales channel network, while Chery is responsible for product design and production, and the brand is also controlled by Chery.It is said that the joint venture production plant is built at No. 1 Songshan Road, Economic and Technological Development Zone, Wuhu City, Anhui Province, 4.2 kilometers away from Chery, with a planned annual production capacity of 150,000 vehicles. Obviously, in order to achieve the goal of transforming from low-priced cars to high-quality cars, Chery has realized the homework it needs to make up, and its layout on core suppliers and overseas market channels will become more and more clear. In the first 10 years since its establishment, Yin Tongyao positioned Chery's core competitiveness as "independent innovation, engine first, and 715 spirit". The so-called 715 refers to working 7 days a week, 15 hours a day.In the past 10 years, Chery people have worked more desperately and selflessly to pursue speed, and use speed to gain scale and scale to win survival.A few years ago, Yin Tongyao often talked about practice but rarely talked about strategy. He admitted that many things were done first and then thought. What he thought was to sell more cars and make more money, and he did not think of any strategic intentions.But today, Yin Tongyao began to seriously think about the goals for the next 10 years. "I hope that the Chery brand will become a world-class brand recognized by everyone; Chery will become a respected company; Chery's scale will make people feel important; Chery's products will be among the most advanced products in the world." Although these goals have not yet been clearly defined as systematic indicators, this means that the adjustment of Yin Tongyao's thinking and working methods has begun.In fact, Yin Tongyao does not deny that he is undergoing tremendous changes following the development of the company. "From caring about products in the past to caring about people now; from caring about technology in the past to caring about corporate culture construction now; from being an engineer in the past to being more like a parent now." When Yin Tongyao summed up these few words, he seemed to be thinking . A few years ago, Yin Tongyao was worried about the survival of Chery, and the survival of auto companies must depend on scale. Therefore, until 2004, he still emphasized that Chery must grow up and achieve a scale of 1 million vehicles in the next few years, otherwise It is possible to die.However, Yin Tongyao today believes that selling 100,000 or 80,000 more cars is not so important. In his view, enterprises must pursue profit, health and internal strength.If the internal strength is solid, external things will naturally come, such as sales.Yin Tongyao's subordinates believe that the reason why Mr. Yin has changed from emphasizing scale to emphasizing internal strength is because Chery has reached the point where it has to do so. "Without the support of these internal strengths, how can Chery realize so many models and so many grand plans?!" Yin Tongyao now believes that tangible things are supported by intangible things.He believes that this is how Toyota is successful. Now the car manufacturing resources are homogenized, the factories are also homogenized, and the products also know the general development path.The success of Toyota is the success of culture, not the success of products. The core of Toyota culture is respect for people and unremitting enterprising spirit.Therefore, Yin Tongyao began to pay attention to employee satisfaction, turning his attention away from sales and payment collection.Chery insiders believe that the reason why Yin Tongyao started arresting people is related to the fact that Chery has left many people since 2006.From the resignation of Xu Min, the former dean of Chery Research Institute, the first overseas returnee in the domestic auto industry, at least 10 key Chery personnel have resigned.It is even more difficult to count the resigned workers on the production line.A workshop master said that he didn't go to the production line for a week, and there were many new faces he didn't know. Chery employees are facing more and more external temptations.Employee turnover cannot be underestimated.And the ever-growing enterprise itself is also very thirsty for talents. Therefore, the problem of people is a problem that Yin Tongyao has to pay attention to. Today, Chery's arrangement of foreign technical talents also reflects Yin Tongyao's different understanding of virtual things such as management and culture. In the past, Yin Tongyao almost regarded the foreign technical talents who first joined Chery like Xu Min as "all-round talents", paid them several times higher than his own, and entrusted them with a large business stand to manage .Yin Tongyao said: "At that time, we needed talents very much, but our social status was relatively low and the scale of the company was relatively small. We could only attract them through generous treatment, but later found that some of them were specialized in business rather than management. "For the technical talents recruited now, Yin Tongyao emphasized that they should go to specific technical positions first, and then use their strengths after trial and adjustment. To make employees stable and have a sense of belonging, Yin Tongyao is working hard in two aspects.First, to meet their living needs, and at the same time, provide them with a sufficient working platform. In 2007, Yin Tongyao proposed the year of quality internally, and he started to grasp the quality by focusing on the life of employees, the factory floor, and the ventilation of the factory building.He believes that only by allowing employees to work and live in a more comfortable and satisfactory working environment can employee satisfaction be improved, and product quality be improved accordingly. Chery has entered the company too quickly in the past two years, so the company can only rent some simple employee housing outside for emergency.The conditions of those houses are very poor and there is no place to take a shower or wash clothes.Although these problems were not considered problems in the era when he started his business, after all, Yin Tongyao and other entrepreneurs also lived in small straw huts surrounded by mosquitoes.But Yin Tongyao still personally intervened, and made it an important task to build a dormitory for singles as soon as possible. In addition to life, Yin Tongyao is also actively building platforms of different sizes internally. For example, Chery was divided into different functional departments in 2005.Chery's manufacturing plant has also been cut into different pieces horizontally and vertically.The Chery Automobile Research Institute is divided into seven, and each project has its own system.With the help of these large and small platforms, Yin Tongyao hopes that every employee can use their strengths. From the previous 10 years to the next 10 years, from the start-up period to the promotion period, Yin Tongyao believes that some previous practices must be changed. For example, Chery can no longer pursue the speed and quantity of products on the market one-sidedly. "We are not producing products now. We need every product to help Chery improve its brand and change the image of Chery in the past.” Yin Tongyao decomposed this change into various aspects of R&D, manufacturing, quality and production management.Moreover, he also emphasized the need to improve a little bit, not to do it too fast or too big.However, this kind of change is a great challenge for Chery, which is in the inertia of entrepreneurship. People have become accustomed to doing big things quickly, and they don't have much awareness of actively pursuing the refinement of work. In fact, this kind of challenge also exists in Yin Tongyao.Accompanied by the rapid development of Chery, Yin Tongyao himself is like an engine running at full speed and can't stop, and he can't help but demand this from his subordinates.In the past, Yin Tongyao often went directly to the work site for a research and development problem, but now he sometimes cannot help urging the project progress directly to the R&D personnel involved, even though each project has a dedicated manager; Yin Tongyao in the past forced Due to the pressure of the market, the working method is simple and direct, and even uses high pressure and reprimands, but now he still sometimes does not give his subordinates much patience.Some subordinates understand him very well, "Chery has too many things to do, and he is very anxious", "He hates iron but not steel".However, some people disagree with this approach, "High pressure may guarantee execution, but it will definitely not achieve the best execution effect, because it cannot mobilize the enthusiasm of others." As one of Chery's entrepreneurs and leaders, Yin Tongyao has brought Chery from scratch, from small to large, to a 10-year-old enterprise with a scale of 20,000 people.Although Chery, with an annual sales volume of 300,000 vehicles, is still a small company in the eyes of Yin Tongyao, he also realized from the bottom of his heart that he could not appear on the first scene of everything as before, and the management was stuck to the end. Since 2005, Yin Tongyao has implemented SBU within Chery, and the entire enterprise has been divided into various functional departments.In 2006 after the division of the family, Yin Tongyao began to show his cards to his authorized person: "From now on, I will jump out of the detailed management of each business, concentrate on grasping the things at the enterprise level, and start to retreat more. Development is up to everyone to figure out their own way.” The risk of living in separate households is that each government cannot form a joint force. In fact, Yin Tongyao also has a lot of concerns about the problems after the separation of powers. He has always emphasized that the leadership team must be highly consistent as the company grows. Just keep training them.As for those who really disagreed with their ideas, he was also forced to take extreme measures such as elimination and replacement, although this may not be the result he hoped for. For Chery, which he created with his own hands, Yin Tongyao sometimes has a strong sense of crisis.At the off-line ceremony of Chery's 500,000th car at the end of March 2006, Yin once said, "I feel more and more that Chery still has many shortcomings in internal management, profitability, and capital utilization..."; "Bill Gates said that Microsoft is only 18 months away from bankruptcy, and I said that Chery is only 18 days away from bankruptcy." "Chery must be an offensive enterprise and must develop. If it is not crazy, it will die." But sometimes he feels very good, "Our products have not yet stumbled in the market. We have done one by one, and the target user group or representative meaning of each product has been accurately grasped." Developed to today's scale, Chery has long attracted many management consulting companies.But Yin Tongyao never believed in any consulting experience, and even bluntly claimed that "they are all deceptive".Therefore, almost no management consulting firm has been involved in Chery.Yin Tongyao's explanation for this is: "I am aware of Chery's problems, and we have to solve them by ourselves." There is no doubt that Yin Tongyao is an entrepreneur with a strong sense of autonomy.Of course, he also knows that Chery "must constantly challenge itself and overcome itself" in order to achieve its goals.And in saying this, he may be pitting himself against himself. Chery's growth in the past 10 years has been successful all the way, but Chery is also approaching its own limit. Although Yin Tongyao personally asked about the improvement of employees' accommodation conditions, many Chery employees still lived in dormitories where they could not take a shower or even wash their clothes; After the equipment worth millions of yuan broke down, there was no one to care for it for a week. "Yin Tongyao has many good ideas, but some of them can't be implemented at all, and some of them are greatly reduced after being implemented layer by layer." Many people in Chery have a deep understanding of this. Under the premise of limited resources, energy and experience, in order to survive, Chery devoted most of its investment to product research and development in the first 10 years of its business.However, when Chery is advancing towards an annual sales volume of 1 million vehicles or even higher, and needs joint management and system joint efforts, the shortcomings other than research and development begin to become more prominent.If these problems are not well resolved, then how far Chery can go down and how to go down will be marked with big question marks.Obviously, Yin Tongyao began to emphasize arresting people at this time, and began to emphasize the use of intangible culture to support tangible capabilities, which just showed the urgency of these issues. It can be said that in order to achieve the goal of the next 10 years, Chery must break through its first limit today. Yin Tongyao often emphasizes that without satisfied employees, there will be no satisfactory products.However, it is actually very difficult for Chery's managers at every level to have such awareness.A workshop director of Chery's engine branch once sternly reprimanded his subordinates for contradicting him, "If you don't want to do it, just get out."It is quite common in Chery for superiors to scold subordinates like this.This is the sequelae left by the excessive pressure during the entrepreneurial period.However, this almost cultural behavior has made many Chery employees feel uncomfortable. Coupled with dissatisfaction with their treatment and recognition, it is difficult for them to exert their enthusiasm and initiative to study their jobs effectively. .With the increasing temptation of the outside workplace, the chances of dissatisfied employees leaving their jobs are gradually increasing. On the one hand, the rapid expansion of enterprises requires more technology and talents; on the other hand, experienced employees are either diluted or left.Therefore, the contradiction between talent shortage and rapid development is particularly prominent in Chery. A car is a product that needs to ensure quality and quality, and what needs to be guaranteed is quality and quality consistency.To solve the consistency problem, Toyota adopts a standardized operation mode, that is, according to the goals of quality, efficiency, and cost, the operation of each station on the production line is decomposed to the most detailed state, and fixed in a standard form.However, the standardized operation in Chery's factory was still in its infancy from its construction in July 2004 to today, three years later. The reason for this situation is that the responsible person believes that, first, Chery lacks experienced workers.To do a good job of on-site analysis, you must have a group of veteran employees who are familiar with on-site operations. Only they can decompose the actions in a more scientific way and accept them for workers; The workshop has to walk 20 kilometers or move tens of tons of steel plates in one day. However, Chery's on-site workers said: "It's hard to say how many years I have worked here. Besides, the workload is so heavy every day, and I am exhausted at work. I don't have the energy to think about improvement." For workers' assessment, Chery still uses the piece-rate wage system at present, and fines are also adopted for employees who fail to meet the standards or violate other regulations.And these methods have long been abandoned in Toyota.In Toyota's view, the piecework method can only encourage employees to use resources destructively to achieve goals, and means such as fines are not conducive to effectively mobilizing the enthusiasm of workers.Toyota's assessment of employees mainly focuses on loyalty to the company, improvement, and initiative, etc., and it also uses more methods of inspiration, encouragement and appreciation for employees to make them feel recognized and respected.Because Toyota believes that once employees are mobilized, initiative can be brought into play. Toyota has a group of experienced old employees, and they are an indispensable resource for Toyota factory design and production line design.Thanks to their consultants, designers know how to design molds and fixtures in the most reasonable way, and also know how to put appropriate error-proof mechanisms in appropriate links of the production line.The reason why Toyota's new cars are on the market quickly and has gained a reputation for quality is not only due to its effective research and development reserves, but also the manufacturing guarantee after the new car is put into production is also an important part.Due to the reasonable design, they save a series of rework caused by unreasonable design, thus maximizing the guarantee of production efficiency and quality stability.Chery, which takes Toyota as its benchmark, also sees the success of these designs, but the lack of talents limits their actual behavior. "Employee skills are easy to cultivate, but people's hearts are hard to obtain." Kong Fanlong, deputy general manager of Chery who has been in charge of production management, believes that this is a common problem for Chinese companies. The culture is also different."However, Kong Fanlong revealed that he and other senior executives of Chery are reflecting on employee management issues, "rewarding employees in a timely manner, rather than suppressing employees." "If Chery wants to keep going, it must change the previous thinking that I am the only one who wins alone." A returnee who has worked in Chery for several years said.In his view, Chery’s management of employees is actually a domineering attitude. “The leader often says, ‘I have given you such good treatment’, as if all the employees are being given by him.” The returnee thinks , In fact, when paying employees to make employees profit, Chery is also reaping, and "Chery's managers lack this kind of thinking." Perhaps, the returnee's statement has his own emotions, but the win-win idea he mentioned is indeed a skill that a successful company must possess, especially a car manufacturer that relies on industry chain skills.This is especially evident in Japanese companies. The reason why Japanese companies can compete with American companies is because of their tight supply chain linkage capabilities, and the reason why their supply chains are dense is also because the OEMs, as the chain owners, have a win-win idea.For example, when it comes to cost reduction, American companies will say to their suppliers, "Go back and find a way for yourself," while Japanese OEMs will work with suppliers to find practical ways to reduce costs. Unfortunately, China's local car manufacturers have learned from Toyota for a long time, but they have not learned this idea, even Chery, the leader of local car manufacturers, is no exception.Many of Chery's suppliers have confirmed that every time they see Chery's procurement personnel, the first sentence they hear is always "you can make it cheaper", and they don't care about the cost limit of the parts themselves.A supplier who has dealt with Chery for three years said that Chery's car prices are lowered every year, and the pressure of this price reduction forces purchases to also lower prices every year. Therefore, low cost has become the first requirement for Chery's purchases.As for the means of price reduction, it is up to the supplier to solve it alone.而实际的降价，据行内透露，服务于本土造车的供应商，60%～70%都是通过偷工减料牺牲质量来获得的，因此，最后受损失的还是最终产品。 丰田之所以能与供应商坐到一起，是因为它把后者看成与自己一样平等。但是，奇瑞供应商却很少得到这样的尊重。 奇瑞采购公司最近刚刚搬家。原来的办公地点位于厂内一栋四层楼内。那里有一条通往奇瑞采购人员办公室的长长的走廊，走廊一边是一排窗户，窗户下面放了一排座椅。那排座椅常常成为供应商的争夺地，如果坐不上去，他们就要站在那里等待着奇瑞人员的“宣叫”，而这样的等待，往往需要很长时间。奇瑞目前有近1000家供应商，每天来的不下百家，而放在那里的座椅不过10多个。僧多粥少，大部分时候，大家都在那里站立等待，一位50多岁的供应商，就曾多次在那里一站半天，“尽管觉得很委屈，但也没有办法”，那位老者叹息到。 不过，另一位供应商却觉得站立等待实在算不了什么，一次，他与奇瑞合同谈崩后，坐出租车离开奇瑞到南京机场准备打道回俯，在他买完机票准备办登机手续时，却接到了奇瑞人的电话，让他马上回去接着谈。而他也只有乖乖退了机票折返回去。奇瑞所在的芜湖开发区距离南京机场单程一个半小时的车程。 “供应商恨死奇瑞了，但奇瑞产品销量大，所以他们也不得不给我们供货。”奇瑞一高层在内部曾经这么公开说道。 丰田面向未来的产品是跟它多年合作的供应商一起同步开发的，但奇瑞也没有因此而缺少同步开发的供应商。“你付钱给它，它不就给你开发了吗？”陆建辉认为这是很简单的事。然而，一位资深汽车专家却认为，“丰田的同步开发模式节省了彼此的沟通和磨合成本，而奇瑞这样开发则免不了这些。如果沟通不到位，即使是最优秀的供应商最后也未必能开发出你想要的产品。” 也许奇瑞高层已经意识到奇瑞供应商的管理问题。2007年3月，奇瑞任命一名在丰田采购部门工作10多年的干部作为奇瑞采购公司副总经理，把关供应商准入审核。而且，尹同耀还专门把奇瑞中高层召集起来，倾听这位熟悉丰田路数的副总经理讲经论道。另外，2007年的6月，奇瑞还撤换了采购公司总经理。但是，供应商并没有对此抱多大希望，“采购老总能做几年不是他自己能说了算的，因此，他不可能冒完不成降低成本任务的风险去实现多赢，去解决采购管理的深层次问题，除非在他的考核指标中有这样一条硬性规定。” 不光在采购层面要实现多赢，面对经销商时也应该有这样的思路。2004年底，奇瑞请来了曾经让北汽福田销量蹿升的李峰，作为奇瑞副总经理、销售公司总经理主抓营销。“李峰来之前，奇瑞没有营销。”尹同耀公开说。而李一上任就在内部强调与供应商建立和谐关系，让供应商赚钱，但是，在实际操作中还是有不尽如人意的地方出现。一位沿海地区的经销商就对奇瑞销售公司的一位副总经理很不满意，“我们去奇瑞陈述销售要求，他在那里边嚼口香糖边抽烟，间或接个电话，一付心不在焉的样子。”而奇瑞一位20多岁的办事人员也曾与中东一位比他年长10多岁的经销商吹胡子瞪眼。那位在自己国家地位相当高的经销商气极之下几乎想放弃奇瑞业务，要不是尹同耀及时出面，事情几乎就无法收场了。 尹同耀和奇瑞其他高层不可能亲历供应链的所有环节，因此，要实现多赢，必须要让奇瑞所有人都具备这样的思路和热情。但是很难想象，一个经常被上司斥责的人，会展开热情面对他的属下或客户。因此，如果逐层追究，多赢问题最后恐怕还将被追溯到最高“拥有者”那里。 奇瑞是谁的？这个问题奇瑞自己人也未必能回答清楚。 1995年萌芽在内部代号为“951工程”（国家九五期间安徽头号工程）中的奇瑞，是由安徽省政府和芜湖市政府下属的5家公司共同投资注册成立的。因此，即便是创业者之一，尹同耀在奇瑞目前的身份也是一个挣工资的职业经理人，当然他的属下也是一样。 一位奇瑞的“海归”对此感到很担忧：“大家都不是奇瑞的所有者，根本无法保证自己在奇瑞的未来命运到底如何，反而对失去职位的危机感很强。而这种危机感有时会阻挡他们接纳新事物，以及那些对他们职务造成威胁的思路或方法。哪怕这个方向是对的。” 奇瑞在研发领域就出现过这样的现象。根据奇瑞内部透露，有些海归的离开，就是因为他们对研发的改革思路触及到奇瑞惯性套路。奇瑞汽车研发习惯于短、平、快，奇瑞研发的创业者们常常习惯先把车做出来，然后再回过头来解决设计或工程中遗留问题。尽管这种方式做出来的车并不成熟，但他们却认为自己能快速应对市场，“我们比一汽、东风强多了”。然而，接受过正规研发训练的一些海归却认为，这种开发方式既浪费资源，又谈不上经验积累、流程规范，当然更谈不上出好产品了。于是，“意气风发”的他们开始动手更改相关做法。但这样的举动却冒犯了研发元老们，因为如果否定了以前的传统，那么元老们就意味着贬值，而奇瑞管理的原则是谁有能力谁上，如果承认了海归们的套路，那么元老们就有可能被替代，因此，对于这样的做法他们会坚决抵制。 在研发以外的部门，奇瑞也存在同样的问题，因此，有些地方按照奇瑞人的说法是“武大郎开店”，那些平庸的管理者带着同样平庸或者即使有能力也不敢施展的下属，制定出让人哭笑不得的管理模式，比如，生产线完不成任务，车间主任要受罚，但导致生产延误的设备维修科却没有多少责任。因此，车间主任都不敢得罪设备科，让它们维修设备时必须好言相求。另外，生产线上的工艺文件并不为熟悉现场的车间来审批，而是要由脱离生产线的技术部门审批。 自创建以来，奇瑞已经从德国、日本等先进企业请过不少管理专家，但他们带来的方法，有些在奇瑞根本执行不下去。2003年就来奇瑞传经授道的寺田真二，目前也没有推广得了他那一套东西。在来奇瑞之前，寺田在日本三菱汽车制造岗位待过30年。 市场在发展，奇瑞在提升，因此，奇瑞开疆者所擅长的那一套打江山的做法未必都能接着往下续延了。如何能让那些过时的做法让位？如何能敞开胸怀接纳先进的发展思路和手法？这已经成了奇瑞在“本土造车长跑”中遭遇的一个极限。 改变所有者缺位的机制，不失为一条解决之道。如果能通过改制让奇瑞的创业者成为奇瑞的拥有者，如果再能设计出一套合适的退出机制，让企业可以顺畅地新陈代谢，吐故纳新，那么，奇瑞的肌体将会逐渐适合长跑。 也许这个问题的答案，就将成为决定奇瑞未来究竟能走多远的关键。