Chapter 13 Haier: Walking in the fog

Review background: On September 8, 1998, Zhang Ruimin, CEO of Haier Group, asked a strange question at the middle-level cadre meeting of the group: "How can a stone float in water?" Finally, he and his colleagues gave the answer to the question: speed can Let the stone float in the water.Thus, Haier started a "business process reengineering" revolution. Four years later, the time came to 2002. In this revolutionary battle, Haier encountered a lot of doubts. First of all, it came from the "business process reengineering" itself. According to Zhang Ruimin himself, in the past four years, Haier's organizational structure Has been broken 40 times and rebuilt 40 times.If every break and reconstruction is compared to labor pains, then Haier suffers more than 10 labor pains every year in the "business process reengineering", so Haier's internal doubts continue.The second is Zhang Ruimin's own doubts.In the past, Haier's management used Panasonic and GE as teachers, but only in business process reengineering, Haier has no one to learn from.Zhang Ruimin, who has always been courageous, also showed no confidence in this issue. He even said: "At the beginning, when we proposed business process reengineering and market chain, we just thought that this general direction was correct. How to take each step is not everything. It is like a god, calculated in advance.” When Zhang Ruimin and Haier were lingering, all walks of life also paid a lot of attention and doubts.Under such circumstances, Zhang Ruimin accepted the invitation of "Chinese Entrepreneur". After in-depth interviews and investigations within Haier, the two reporters made a special issue about Haier, comprehensively answering Haier's thinking on social doubts.The title of the frontispiece of this issue is "Is Zhang Ruimin Stupider Than Us?" ", the title of the main article is "Haier: Walking in the Fog", because Zhang Ruimin himself compared business process reengineering to exploring and moving forward in the fog, without direction, and crossing the river by feeling the stones.

In fact, as the best entrepreneur in China, Zhang Ruimin’s IQ is unquestionable. Under his leadership, Qingdao Small Household Factory, which originally lost more than 1 million yuan a year, has become China’s home appliance empire. He himself is also in the same process In it, it is constantly being sublimated and deified.It’s just that more people are willing to believe that Zhang Ruimin is a human being, and as long as he is a human being, he will make mistakes. People’s question at the time was whether Haier’s business process reengineering was making mistakes. When we look at this revolution today, the answer is self-evident.Haier is still the same Haier. In terms of management that Zhang Ruimin has always been proud of, after undergoing business process reengineering, it is still alive.Just as Liu Donghua, the president of the "Chinese Entrepreneur" magazine, said: At that time, Haier was questioned only because Haier occasionally dropped a few bricks when building an advanced building, but the completion of that building was the most important thing.

Haier and Zhang Ruimin attributed the general doubts about Haier to the result of fierce competition in the home appliance market. "Chinese Entrepreneur" found that many things that people don't understand about Haier today may be related to Haier's "business process reengineering" that started four years ago and is still going on today. On Saturday, June 22, 2002, in Haier University, whose architectural style resembles Jiangnan gardens.Since 1999, the Haier Group Senior Managers Training Conference held here every Saturday morning has never been shaken.Group CEO Zhang Ruimin and President Yang Mianmian appear on time every week to analyze cases and interact with more than 70 business department and above cadres of the group.It is said that if Zhang Ruimin wants to go on a business trip or go abroad, he also takes Saturday morning as the axis, for example, he leaves on Saturday afternoon and returns the next Friday night.It can be seen that Zhang Ruimin himself attaches great importance to this meeting.

In fact, this regular meeting was specially set up by Haier Group to promote the business process reengineering that started in September 1998.At the meeting, each department should report their current status of work, what problems they have, and which aspects they will recruit in the next step. The so-called "demonstration terminals" should introduce their experience, and the "problem terminals" should publicly reflect.In the words of Chai Yongsen, executive vice president of the group and head of the Overseas Promotion Headquarters, "See if you are doing it, know how to do it, and do it innovatively."

However, at the training meeting on June 22, Zhang Ruimin took advantage of the time after the training to analyze some recent media and public opinions on Haier. "The transactions between listed companies and business flow and logistics are legal, reasonable, and fair. Some people don't know how the company should operate, and they only rely on their own imagination... Some people say that Haier can cut prices, and that it can sell more, and it can still sell more. Do I need to be taught? In fact, I want to drag Haier into the water..." Zhang Ruimin refuted those doubts one by one, positively or negatively, in his usual concise and unquestionable tone.

In the end, he said: "Just as Chairman Mao Zedong led the weak Red Army to conquer China, it is to 'surprise and attack', that is, to 'play cards not according to common sense'. If you play cards according to the rules in the book, you will never win. So Who is stupid depends on the final result. If we do it, the reporter is wrong; It’s not the media that can bring us down, it’s us.” Two days later, on June 24, Zhang Ruimin accepted an exclusive interview with a reporter from a newspaper under the Xinhua News Agency in Room 203A of the Haier Group Center Building, and once again responded to some doubts and speculations about Haier by public opinion.In this interview, Zhang Ruimin revealed, "The real situation of Haier's capital is: the asset-liability ratio is 55%; Bank of China, China Construction Bank, Agricultural Bank of China, etc. have granted Haier a total credit line of 10.2 billion yuan; Bank of Communications, China Merchants Bank, Huaxia Bank, Industrial Bank, etc. The credit line is 10 billion yuan. The so-called "credit line" means that as long as I sign, I can get a loan. But we only loaned 1/5 of the above credit line. If the funds are cut off and the quality of the assets is poor, then I can let it go Don't you want a loan?"

In July of the same year, in an interview with a reporter from the "Chinese Entrepreneur" magazine, Zhang Ruimin attributed the general doubts about Haier's real situation and strategic effectiveness to the fierce competition in the home appliance industry. "The mentality of the Chinese is: If you can't beat him, you trip him. This mentality is very bad." "We are silent now, and we are not very happy to talk, not because of what they said, but now that the trick has not been completed, and it is halfway through, how meaningful is it to say?" Haier before 1998 can be seen clearly.People can use their fingers to analyze the trump cards of Haier’s 10-odd falcons: star service, good management, strong brand... The total score of these points, even Lenovo, which is regarded as the best company in China , I am afraid that he is three points inferior to Haier.The success or failure of Haier's diversification is different in the industry, but there is no doubt that Haier started with refrigerators and diversified its products through mergers and revitalization of "Shock Fish", becoming the well-deserved leader of Chinese white goods.At this time, Haier, whether it is its management experience or its diversification strategy, is still widely studied or interpreted by the business community in the country.

However, it may be from the last two years of the end of the 20th century that Haier entered another development track and logic among Chinese home appliance companies. "Speed", "valuable orders", and "logistics", some very rich and fresh words and ideas began to be tied to Haier's chariot, which tried to operate at a high speed with "zero operating capital".Many things that people don't understand about Haier today may be related to the "business process reengineering" that Haier started four years ago and has not yet completed. Diversification and scale growth have brought increasingly acute problems to Haier.The increase in the two indicators of inventory and accounts receivable made Zhang Ruimin see the "iceberg" in front of Haier (actually also China's home appliance industry).

He made up his mind to perform a major operation of "business process reengineering" on Haier.However, "everything is like walking in a fog." Zhang Ruimin's own feelings about Haier's "sudden growth" began when the group moved into the current central building in 1995. After entering the mid-1990s, Haier's diversified pattern became more and more obvious, and its scale grew very fast.In 1997 and 1998, there were four business divisions under the main body of Haier Group, which respectively produced the group's leading products refrigerators, freezers, air conditioners and washing machines.These headquarters have their own purchasing department, sales department and financial department respectively.

"When we started diversification, we simply wanted to turn the successful concept, culture and management model of refrigerators into a kind of module and transplant them to freezers, air conditioners, and washing machines. But each enterprise is an individual, and it always has its own personality. And uniqueness, it is impossible to be completely the same as a refrigerator. Even if it is completely the same as a refrigerator, operating so many refrigerator factories is not the same as operating a refrigerator factory. So, you start to let them develop independently, but when you really want to develop, there are many problems Yes, each company wants to do a good job subjectively, but objectively there will be some collisions.”

"Haier's market competitiveness has been affected," Zhang Ruimin said affirmatively. "After 1997, the problems brought about by diversification and rapid growth in scale were particularly acute." Although Zhang Ruimin still refuses to reveal the details, it is said that on Zhang Ruimin's desk, letters complaining about the kickbacks paid by the personnel in charge of the branch company's procurement have been written one after another, and on the other end, the accounts receivable have begun to increase.From the financial report of the listed company Qingdao Haier, it can be found that from 1997 to 1999, Qingdao Haier’s accounts receivable turnover rate dropped from 11.11 times to 4.96 times year by year, and the inventory turnover rate also dropped from 6.96 times to 5.97 times. It means that the proportion of accounts receivable in sales revenue is getting bigger and bigger, and the inventory is getting worse. In an exclusive interview with a reporter from the "Chinese Entrepreneur" magazine, Zhang Ruimin once again quoted the analogy he made many times: "At that time, I felt that Haier had grown up suddenly, but the clothes were still the same clothes. If we didn't change the clothes, Haier would be completely restrained." Under the original "clothes", "the group's resources were not shared. The brand image is not uniform, and each unit faces banks, sub-suppliers, and businesses on its own, and many problems have arisen, such as unauthorized external guarantees, causing potential risks to the group, and loss of control over receivables, etc." From 1997 to 1998, Zhang Ruimin thought about how to cure the "big enterprise disease" based on the "United Fleet" mechanism that Haier was once proud of. He considered the following points: First, it cannot become an economy with unified accounting like the old state-owned enterprise groups under the previous planned economy. It is very flexible and competitive; the second is to fundamentally solve the problem of inventory and accounts receivable from the whole system. In that year, the oncoming figure of the "Internet Age" gradually became clear and recognizable.With the help of the Internet, personalized needs may change the standardized and large-scale production methods of traditional manufacturing.Companies that cannot respond quickly to individual needs may be eliminated in the Internet age.This means that traditional manufacturing enterprises must break the existing production organization structure. In the past two years, it has only followed ERP into the field of vision of Chinese business circles, and most of them are only sold by consulting and software companies. BPR (Business Process Reengineering) was boldly picked up by Zhang Ruimin. Prior to this, Haier's management had used Panasonic and GE as teachers. This time, Zhang Ruimin found that there was nothing to learn from except in business process reengineering.Zhang Ruimin said to himself, "It's like walking in the fog".However, no consultants have been invited into the "Kingdom of Haier" to help it carry out this project with a failure rate as high as 80% in the global industry.Zhang Ruimin's reason is that outsiders' understanding of Haile cannot keep up with the changes in Haier. When Zhang Ruimin copied part of Hammer's book "Process Reengineering" published in 1993 and circulated it to the senior management of the group, it was the first time that most of the cadres in Haier came into contact with the concept of "process reengineering". Liang Haishan, who is currently the head of the logistics promotion department and vice president of the group, was the head of the air-conditioning business department at that time.He said that he focused most of his energy on sales and marketing at that time, although he also felt that there were problems with procurement, such as high procurement costs, many complaints, and a lot of sluggish materials in the warehouse, and the annual inventory of air conditioners would increase. 100 million, but Liang Haishan's response to this was how to suppress the inventory and how to dispose of it. "Process reengineering? I can't think of it. The first time I heard him talk about BPR, I didn't quite understand what it meant." At the regular meeting of middle-level cadres of the group on September 8, 1998, Zhang Ruimin formally proposed the concept of "market chain" process reengineering and the idea of ​​establishing an internal "simulated market chain" mechanism. The first step of the "market chain" is to organize the previously dispersed resources of purchasing, manufacturing, and selling into a whole, and unify them to serve the "Haier" brand.And this is mainly accomplished through the establishment of four major promotion headquarters.Among them, the Overseas Promotion Headquarters was established on December 14, 1998.Chai Yongsen, who is considered the most likely to succeed Zhang Ruimin in the future (of course Haier's public relations never admit it), will unify the export of the Haier brand.Immediately afterwards, the Logistics Promotion Headquarters, the Business Flow Promotion Headquarters, and the Capital Flow Promotion Headquarters were successively established.Logistics and business flow shoulder the mission of integrating general supply chain resources and global customer resources respectively, while capital flow ensures the unified entry and exit of group funds. This framework alone took over a year to integrate. In November 1999, the most critical concept - "order information flow" was launched. It is the center that drives the operation of logistics and capital flow. ) order, the logistics and capital flow began to revolve around the order. Since the production is completely made according to the order, after the product enters the commercial flow, it can achieve the cash and spot required by the group. Originally, the product divisions each had a set of procurement and sales processes, but their role in the new process was only the order executor between the group's logistics and business flow, that is, responsible for design and production. Zhang Ruimin admitted that he did not have a very detailed and complete plan for Haier's reconstruction at first. "At the beginning, we proposed 'business process reengineering' and 'market chain', but we just believed that this general direction was correct. How to take each step is not all predictable and pre-calculated. It can be said that it revolves around this every day. The big goal is thinking wildly. How can there be a fixed frame? Really not!" Zhang Ruimin's style is firmly opposed to doing research behind closed doors, "If you think everything through before doing it, all the opportunities will be delayed." There's one thing about saving Chrysler's Yacocca that Zhang Ruimin applauds.The subordinates told Iacocca that it would take a year to develop a new model anyway, and Iacocca said, "No, I need one day." Said to the subordinates: "Isn't this new? You have to do it for a year?" “Decisions that are right in themselves can be wrong if done too late, and in most cases there is no such thing as invulnerability. Sometimes even the best manager is like a little boy on a leash, He's just waiting for the dog to go wherever he goes," Iacocca said. Zhang Ruimin disagrees with the outside world’s view that Haier has never gotten rid of its over-reliance on Zhang Ruimin: “Of course, one person needs to make a decision in the end. Conversely, if they no longer trust the company’s leaders, then this leader is not qualified to wait any longer. In this position." On October 6, 2000, Zhang Ruimin gave a lecture at the International Institute of Management (IMD) in Lausanne, Switzerland with a case he had practiced for two years - establishing a "market chain".After the lecture, a professor of IMD asked him: "Why do you want to break the balance of the enterprise? Balance and order are the state that many managers strive to achieve, and we have always believed that things that have formed a system are very important for the balance and development of the enterprise. Necessary! What is your philosophy of breaking the balance?" In Qingdao, a seaside city with pleasant scenery and comfortable life, Haier's taboo of balance and enthusiasm for "revolution" seems to be incompatible with the urban atmosphere.Zhang Ruimin is the biggest creator of Haier, but also the biggest destroyer of Haier. At the age of 53, he has two main lines of business wisdom, one is derived from Western management and strategic thoughts such as Drucker and Michael Porter, and the other is derived from ancient Chinese philosophical thoughts such as Zhuangzi and Sun Tzu.Zhuangzi’s saying that “things grow old when they are strong” touched him deeply, and this alone is enough to make him a thorough follower of Schumpeter’s belief that “innovation is creative destruction”. "What we are pursuing is an orderly non-balanced structure. As long as the enterprise is open and exchanges information with the outside world every day, then the enterprise cannot be balanced. Once it enters a so-called balanced stage, low efficiency, lack of speed, etc. Enterprise diseases will follow." Zhang Ruimin said in an exclusive interview with the reporter of "Chinese Entrepreneur" magazine. Over the past three years of process reengineering, Haier's organizational structure has been broken 40 times and rebuilt 40 times. When the chariot named "Haier" bumped and charged into battle, some people expressed incomprehension and some felt uneasy. "Why did you break all the well-made ones? It seemed to have been cut horizontally. At that time, everyone couldn't turn around." Liang Haishan said. Even after vigorously promoting the process reengineering for one year, many cadres complained publicly or privately: "Isn't it selling well? What are you messing with? This is all messed up." Some senior managers of Haier directly asked him: " Didn't you say the group was like 'United Fleet' before? Now that we do it like this, we don't exist anymore." If there is no authority in an organization that no one can match and shake, and if there is no atmosphere of resolute following in an organization, then it will be dangerous to do process reengineering, ERP, or even just an uncomplicated organizational structure Adjustments can also push organizations and leaders themselves into situations of after-the-fact regret. But not Haier.Chai Yongsen said: "Before the process reengineering, Haier seemed to have a horizontal ditch in front of it, but everyone didn't notice it, so they ran forward desperately. Maybe one day they followed other home appliance companies and suddenly fell into it. It's normal. But in How do you know if there is a ditch in advance? Chief Zhang studies this." Haier's internal trust in "Chief Zhang" and Haier's culture is unbreakable, and it was tested when the sales of refrigerators and other products fell sharply in the first five months of process reengineering.At that time, "I didn't panic, but just studied how to solve it and prevent chain reactions within the group," Zhang Ruimin said, "It's like lying on the bed waiting for the wound to heal after a person has an operation. That's not a disease." Fortunately, the performance It bounced back quickly. Regarding the resistance within Haier—some because of the loss of vested interests, such as purchasing power or a certain official position; "You think it's good now. There will always be a day when supply exceeds demand! We now have a little advantage over others. Quality, service, and invention patents are not great things. They can easily catch up." "If it was the 'United Fleet' in the past, you were just a small sampan. It was impossible for each ship to buy food and replenish supplies by itself after docking. Just like McDonald's and Wal-Mart, their purchases must be unified by the headquarters. .But we don’t distribute them uniformly. If you have great personal ability, you can get more goods from the prescribed channels and make more money.” "If you really can't accept it, please find another job!" After the process reengineering, what has the internal "simulated market chain" trading mechanism established in Haier brought to Haier? 1.Make Haier into a number of small enterprises, so that the enterprise has both scale advantages and vitality. 2.While the growth of product sales is limited, Haier's business scale will grow at a high speed, and the growth space outside the manufacturing industry will be explored. 3.The connected transactions between the listed company Qingdao Haier and the Group in procurement and sales cannot be restrained. Investors have doubts about the standardization and authenticity of the transactions, but there is no evidence to confirm this suspicion. Compared with the general process reengineering in enterprises, the most wonderful and unique feature of Haier's reengineering may not lie in the unified and effective use of the resources of the entire group after the reengineering, or even in the order information flow as the operation center, but in the internal establishment A trading mechanism that interlocks and serves as a market has been established. One of Haier's most valuable assets in the past was its OEC management. OEC decomposes the operator's actions like the Taylor system, and the quantification of tasks is the basis for issuing indicators, assessing work quality, and implementing rewards and punishments. Some of Haier's management measures tend to make its employees willing to become cogs in its huge enterprise machine. What makes Zhang Ruimin feel dissatisfied and worried is that there is a contradiction between this screw spirit and Haier's current goal—to make the entire system of the enterprise close to customers and cater to the market. The direct cause of the "big enterprise disease". Zhang Ruimin once said that if he saw Jack Welch, he would most like to ask Welch two questions: One is how to make a large enterprise small, and the other is how to do finance for manufacturing enterprises. For the first question, Zhang Ruimin actually already has a partial answer. In Welch's words, the disease of a large enterprise is like wearing many layers of sweaters, the body is gradually cumbersome and the temperature of the market cannot be felt.Zhang Ruimin built an internal "simulated market chain" to take off the "sweaters" on every level, every functional department and employees of Haier, so that they can directly face the market even within the group. On the way to the Haier headquarters for an interview, the driver sent by Haier to pick up the reporter told the reporter that every time he took a car, in addition to the income of his tourism business department, he himself could also get a commission of 20 cents per kilometer, that is to say, He picked up reporters back and forth from the headquarters to the hotel, and after 50 kilometers, he got 10 yuan in his account.Which department uses the car and which department pays the expenses, and the rent of cars of different grades is also different. Huo Shengjun is the general manager of the International Trade Co., Ltd. - subordinate to the logistics promotion headquarters - its source of income is the price difference provided to each product business department after purchasing raw materials and parts. "I will desperately take advantage of the scale advantage of group procurement, form a strategic alliance with sub-suppliers, and further reduce the price on the basis of the settlement price I gave to the business department, and I will also introduce sub-suppliers to improve product technology and design , This is also a piece of my income." In 1999, the company cut the price by 500 million yuan, and in 2001 it cut the price by 1 billion yuan. The former planning center (now changed to the order execution promotion headquarters) used to be a management department, and the functions after reorganization were divided into guidance and service.Guidance is free, and services are available for a fee.For example, the E-Commerce Co., Ltd. under the Planning Center (established in April 2000 with a capital injection of 10 million yuan) signed a contract with the main process departments such as logistics, capital flow, overseas promotion, and business flow to do a project for it and maintain a machine , There is a certain fee standard, if the work is done well, the former can ask the latter for remuneration.However, once the human resources center receives complaints from customers in the main process and decides that the service level of E-Commerce Co., Ltd. is not in place, or that there is a problem with the attitude, the planning center will be deducted points, which will affect the ranking within the group that month. There is an ABC ranking for each business department every month, the top 10% are demonstration terminals, and the bottom 10% are problem terminals.The order of this ranking will directly reflect the income of employees in each department. "If they think our service is not good or the price is too high, they can choose an outside company to do the project or maintenance," said Liang Xu of E-Commerce Co., Ltd. "We can also invite bids for each project internally. You have energy personally, you can work more and get more money.” "We used to think more about professional things, but now we have a better idea of ​​what a company is and how to do it." Liang Xu said. Now, except for the corporate culture center - which is currently the only department in Haier that eats the "imperial food" - all departments under Haier have their own legal entities, which can independently calculate expenses and income.They are connected by the so-called "SST" mechanism - they can "claim for compensation" or "claim for compensation". If any link is not blocked, the finance will "trip". "The relationship between employees has changed. It used to be the relationship between colleagues and superiors - I can issue an order, convey a document, and ask you what to do - now it is a mutual market relationship. You give me 'supply' , I will pay you, and if I am not satisfied, I can complain.” Zhang Ruimin said. For example, before remanufacturing, if the equipment in the production workshop is broken, the equipment management department will come to repair it, but after remanufacturing, the equipment management department must ensure that the equipment is 100% in normal operation. As long as it is down for one minute, it will be compensated for one minute. It doesn't work.Even if the employees of the equipment management department work overtime, they still have to check and repair the machines during the equipment breaks. Zhang Ruimin believes that only by directly facing the market and letting the market replace the role of monitoring and management, can individuals be full of creativity and vitality. "The biggest problem in running an enterprise is how to keep the cells of each enterprise alive, and it doesn't live for one day or five days, it has to live continuously. If there are dead ones, new ones will come out. You Let’s see why Chinese companies can’t do what they’re doing, and that’s where the difficulty lies.” The future development of these subsidiaries is very imaginative.A series of group subsidiaries, including international trade companies and storage and transportation companies under logistics, and 42 industrial and trading companies under commercial flow, as long as they can provide social services, they are gradually not limited to targeting customers on the group.Haier's logistics and business flow now have a small number of customers outside the group. "Our ideal model is that the revenue from the group accounts for 1/3 of the total revenue and is listed independently." Liang Haishan, head of Haier's logistics promotion department, said. Zhang Ruimin said that he hopes that there will be such an atmosphere in the group. If they can find better customer resources or services, they can abandon the corresponding group departments (companies). Some public opinion said: "In order for the listed company to have a good performance in order to transfer cash, will the group company help it improve its performance? A large number of related transactions in the procurement, distribution, and sales links are enough to transfer income and inflate profits... ..." Let's take a look at the situation of those once brilliant Chinese home appliance listed companies. In 2001, Sichuan Changhong earned 0.04 yuan per share, ST Kelon lost 1.57 yuan per share, Shen Konka lost 1.16 yuan per share, and Qingdao Haier earned 0.77 yuan per share, the highest among all home appliance stocks. Chai Yongsen said: "Someone fell into a ditch, and we jumped over it, and others thought it was abnormal-how could you jump over it? How could you make money? The conclusion is: it must be fake!" Since the process reengineering, Haier's cash flow situation has been greatly improved, and its market competitiveness has been greatly improved. The listed company Qingdao Haier can still achieve outstanding performance when other home appliance companies have shown red and yellow cards.Zhang Ruimin himself has repeatedly attributed the rapid growth of Haier's turnover in the past few years to the process reengineering and "opportunities". "The opportunities in the past two years are mainly the development of overseas markets." In response to questions about Haier's development speed, Zhang Ruimin told reporters: "I don't want to explain this question, but I want to tell you a fact. Believe it or not, many of our managers work 70 hours a week or more, without holidays. , This is not one day, two days, one year, two years, but more than ten years." "If you believe in this fact, your doubts should not exist." "Because the company in question has related transactions, so if you think you have related transactions, there must be something wrong." Zhang Ruimin commented on the public opinion's questioning as "simplistic". He said, "The last thing to look at is the result. The football offense is very fierce, always hitting the goal post. It will always be zero. In the end, we still have to rely on the goal to speak." On the surface, process reengineering is to achieve zero inventory of products, but it is reflected that what finance actually pursues is zero inventory of funds.If the group's cash flow can be used centrally, it will be a fortune to carry out various capital operations on Haile and enter the financial field. The asset-liability ratio is not the indicator that Zhang Ruimin cares about the most. Dell and GE are Haier's references. In 2001, Haier entered six major financial industries in succession. In 2002, Haier bought the Greenwich Savings Bank Building in New York for US$14.5 million.But Zhang Ruimin denied that these investments put financial pressure on Haier Group.He once again confirmed to the reporter of "Chinese Entrepreneur" magazine that the debt ratio of Haier Group is 55%. Immediately afterwards, he expressed his disapproval of "until now some companies still believe that the most important indicator for testing finance is the asset-liability ratio". "In terms of funds, the biggest test is not whether you have invested hundreds of millions, but whether you will be trapped. The most troublesome thing for domestic companies now is that they are trapped by business and cannot collect money. Therefore, the asset-liability ratio is certainly an indicator. , but the most important thing is the quality of the assets, or the liquidity of the assets. Therefore, we made up our minds to reengineer the process at that time, which was to solve the problem of accounts receivable first.” When Haier first engaged in process reengineering, one of the important reasons why sales dropped sharply in the first few months was that Haier’s regulations did not allow distribution of goods, and must be cashed in stock. At this time, merchants may reject Haier’s products, but “you don’t I don’t give it, just consume it. Slowly, the order is asked to come up, and there is an order. It is equivalent to selling it first and then making it, and then you can cash in stock.” Chai Yongsen said: "Many home appliance companies seem to have shipped the goods, but they have not received the money. In fact, they have become bad debts and bad debts. There is a TV factory that became the first in 1999. How much is it losing now? A refrigerator factory was On a par with us, we have lost more than 2 billion yuan in the past two years. We now say that we are fortunate to have done so at that time, or else it would have been miserable, but if there is no good result today, no one knows that what we did was right.” "If you don't take this step, you will be killed by the bombing. You almost escaped. Haier started to make cash and spot products in 1998, and Kelon started to lose money in 2000, which is only two years away! How much advantage do I have over Kelon? What? Not much advantage." Zhang Ruimin sighed. After the process reengineering, Haier's newly generated accounts receivable is almost zero, and the existing accounts receivable except those left before the reengineering—some of which are difficult to recover—are overseas accounts.Zhang Ruimin is more at ease with overseas accounts receivable, because the overseas payment habit is to pay every six months, and the credibility is generally relatively high. According to Qingdao Haier's annual report, Qingdao Haier's accounts receivable turnover ratio has risen sharply year by year from 1999 to 2001, reaching 5.8, 7.3 and 14.65 respectively. On the supplier side, after three years of optimization, Haier’s raw material and spare parts suppliers have been optimized from the original 2,236 to more than 800, and only half of these 800 suppliers are existing. The proportion of suppliers accounted for 71.3%. "We now regard sub-suppliers as a kind of resource and form a relatively close strategic alliance, not just a buyer-seller relationship." said Huo Shengjun, who is in charge of the sub-supplier network of the Logistics Promotion Headquarters.The close relationship with sub-suppliers is naturally conducive to the delivery of Haier's procurement funds. "Our settlement for sub-suppliers is different. There is a letter of credit, and there is also a 90-day payment, but we will never owe them a penny, nor will it be one day late. 80% of the payments are made online." enough.You must know that Haier sells products in cash!The result of this is, "I can recover the payment that the user should give me before the payment period for the sub-supplier arrives. In this way, we can also achieve zero working capital, that is, zero occupation of working capital. The best in the world is Dell." Zhang Ruimin said. Haier just approved the establishment of the group finance company in June 2002, which is a strong support for Zhang Ruimin's ideal zero-capital operation.It can transfer funds within the Haier Group, and can also borrow, borrow, lend, issue bonds, and is even approved to operate foreign currency business. Haier Group was established in 1992. Soon, Zhang Ruimin and others realized the problem that a large amount of funds of various companies in the group were idle in different places but could not be pooled and utilized. In 1994, Haier applied for the establishment of a financial company, but because Haier is collectively owned, it has been waiting for 8 years. "The product pursues zero inventory, and so does the capital." Li Zhanguo, director of the capital outflow business department, said that he will be transferred from this department to the newly established financial company. "For example, if there is a fund flow of 3 billion yuan in the group, I can put 2.5 billion of it into other places that can add more value. Only 500 million yuan is left in the group, but the problem that the financial company needs to study now is, the account The most reasonable reserve fund in the world is 500 million or 200 million, of course, the less the better, but what if there is a payment crisis?" This financial company established with an injection of 500 million yuan aims to become the operation center of Haier's global capital in 2010.However, according to the operating experience of more than 70 group financial companies in the country, there are only a handful of financial companies that operate well, which depends on the operational capabilities of the financial companies and is also affected by the external financial environment.Haier's capital operation ability is being tested unprecedentedly. 在《中国企业家》杂志2001年12月评出的21位最具国际竞争力的企业家中，张瑞敏总得分排在第一位。资本运作能力一进入金融机构后，“能借助它们得到一些在资本市场上的指导。”张瑞敏说，比如现在海尔出口这么多国家、进入这么多国家设厂，各种不同币种之间的亙换，就是一个实实在在的课题。 实际上，海尔进入金融业的最大意义是让可观的现金流有地方运转。根据海尔提供的数据，现在集团流动资产的周转速度加快，从1999年的118天到2001年的79天，一年资金吞吐量高达干亿元，日均相互结算为3亿元。“CE搞金融有两个优势，一个是它的创新意识，一个是它的巨大现金流，”张瑞敏倒像是在说海尔，“如果企业现金流动慢，呆账、坏账多，搞金融非常危险，因为你老是想以金融来填补现金的短缺，最后把金融也拖垮了。” 谈到在金融业发展的一些设想，比如说建立海尔的金融控股公司，张瑞敏说：“现在对各种金融机构之间的结合都只是一些设想。设想说出来，他们一分析，说这些都是胡思乱想，我还得解释。不解释呢，他们又在网上说'你不要光是走自己的路让别人说吧，你一定要说话，到底是怎么个事儿！'还是不说了！” 张瑞敏声称，他担心的最大风险不在于金融业本身，而是中国未来几年资本市场的成长、放开会不会给海尔一些机会。“这是最麻烦的一件事。”他说，GE的利润主要从GE资本来，而GE资本的利润又主要从买卖企业来。“我们也想这么做，但把这些企业养肥之后往哪儿卖、卖给谁呢？没有这个环境。” “没进来不知道，一进来才知道光一个人事安排就要好几个月，比以前海尔碰过的那些国有企业难得多！”这是张瑞敏这位家电巨头进入金融业后的最初感受。虽然在一些审批手续上张瑞敏只能亦步亦趋，但是在选择海尔的金融人才时，他仍然强烈地张扬海尔的文化。“现在重金聘金融专家，对每一个来面试的人就是跟他谈文化：你能不能认同，认同就在这儿，不认同就算了，我可以不懂你的金融，但是你要懂我的文化。” 张瑞敏甚至一口认定，海尔做制造的管理和经验可以移植到金融企业里。“因为海尔制造的不是产品，制造的是人。这些人做的产品跟别人做的单在产品上的差异可能不是太大，但是做产品的人是不一样的。” 当海尔不局限于国内家电业，而走向金融、服务，走向全球时，它不能再依靠既有的家电企业文化来保驾护航了。 在2002年2月海尔集团中层干部会议上，张瑞敏总结了上一年的考评情况：“现在集团所管的事业部长以上的干部一共是58人，58人当中有13名问题终端，现在有3名被免职，有6名被降职，有4名在现职岗位上整改。” “从考评的结果看，有两个值得深思的问题。一、我們每年都对干部有升有降，但是今年降的占了很大的比例……二、这13人当中，除了XXX之外，都是对海尔作出过很大贡献的，在海尔都曾被评为优秀、先进、标兵，有的还被评为功臣。另外，他们都非常努力，但努力归努力，贡献归贡献，这些都属于过去了，现在要看的是市场效果，效果不行，不可能因为过去做了很多的工作就可以迁就。” 张瑞敏自豪于海尔造的是人而不是产品，事实上，眼下人的素质的发展与突破跟不上张瑞敏对海尔再造的要求，这恰恰是张瑞敏感到困扰却也无奈的地方。 “一开始，我也没有想到流程再造会要这么长时间。原来我想最多3年一定能完成，现在看还有很长的距离。设定的目标，认为这个月或者这两个月应该完成的，但到时候就是完不成，就是困难。”张瑞敏说，“表面上看，可能是基础工作、计算机管理等很多东西不到位，但本质上是人的问题，人的问题从表面上看是素质问题，但深层次上看又是自我挑战能力的问题。人的本性可能是有惰性的，但你现在必须战胜自我、天天创新，不要说下面的人，有时我自己都感到压力巨大。” 如果说组织结构这件“衣服”尚算好换，脱了就可以，但好比“器官”的海尔员工如何改造？建立“市场链”，给了员工一个创新的空间，但如何使他们在这个空间里始终保持良好的自我挑战状态，能够不断有创新的激情？ 海尔内部现在大力推行的SBU（英文“策略事业单位”的简称），是继内部模拟市场链后，将“企业”概念进一步缩小到每一个人身上的举措。记者见到物流推进本部钢板采购经理张永劭的《SBU经营效果兑现表》。在这个表上，列出了张永劭个人的经营收入、经营成本及费用、经营效果和个人兑现等项目，特别是成本及费用，列得极为详细，包括保险费、仓储费、工资福利费、办公费、利息费等16个小项。 “企业的资产分解到员工身上，比方说，你使用企业的桌子、电脑等都不是无偿使用的，让员工的收入和报表上的各项指标完全挂钩。企业有5万名员工，就有5万张表，这样企业每个人都必须创新，让每个人都成为一个公司，每个人都当老板，每个人都去整合资源，特别是整合所有人力资源，包括内部的和外部的，只要在世界范围内都可以整合！这样，整个企业就非常有力量。”张永劭这样认为。 张永劭在2001年年底采购了一些彩色钢板，结果因为订单被取消，积压在仓库中，2002年世界杯前，他提出了生产足球图案冰箱的建议，被冰箱事业部采纳了，如此这般，才消化了积压的彩色钢板。“我总算去掉了心头的一块大石头！”张永劭说。 现在，首先在直接面对市场的几个推进本部中，试着推广《SBU经营效果兑现表》。 然而，SBU只是充当一种激励手段呢，还是有可能通过它将“鼓励有个性的创新”真正内化为海尔的新文化？ “海尔是海。”可能再没有比张瑞敏的这句话更能准确地描述海尔的了。 海的性格是多面的，但最基本的一点，它是地球上包容度最大的自然生态。无论是对内对外，海尔其实都应有更开放的氛围和心态。国际化的海尔，应该更能认同这一点。