Chapter 23 Looking at management from Dugu Qiubai's swordsmanship

Dugu Qiubai has never officially appeared in Jin Daxia's works.However, his name appeared twice, once in Li and once in Li.His name has always been connected with the highest level of swordsmanship. Dugu Qiubai is a fledgling man with strong martial arts skills, but he lacks self-confidence and experience, so he brought a sword that is as hard as clay to strengthen his courage.With the increase of experience and self-confidence, the further improvement of technology, relying too much on the sword that cuts iron like mud is not conducive to the improvement of personal level.Dugu Qiubai switched to using a soft sword that is difficult to control and has more changes, the purpose is to choose the easy and the difficult, and improve his own skills.When he has mastered the difficult skills, he abandons them. Although he is known as "accidentally injuring a righteous man", it is more because the skills are too fancy and the internal strength cannot be improved.In order not to rely on fancy skills anymore, he used an iron rod weighing seventy or eighty catties as a sword, and wielded the big iron rod through internal force, making the iron rod swing freely like a light and agile sword.He often challenges himself at the pinnacle of success, breaks through the limits one by one, and finally achieves "not stagnant in things, plants, trees, bamboo and stones can be swords. Since then, he has been intensively practicing and gradually progressing to the realm where no sword is better than a sword."Such bravery really made us all admire him.

What would happen if Dugu Qiubai himself was poor in martial arts and walked around the rivers and lakes with a sword?What would happen if he didn't have the self-confidence and experience he had cultivated when he walked the rivers and lakes with a sword, and directly took a soft sword to cross the world?What would happen if he didn't master the essence of sword moves with the soft sword, but directly held the dark iron epee to fight people desperately? The boss of a company likes to learn modern business management ideas very much.In addition to his frequent participation in various types of business management studies, he also encourages employees to learn more about business management theories.He often organizes various learning for employees, and as soon as he hears new management theories, he will immediately promote them in the enterprise.

The company started to implement the concept of "customer satisfaction" very early on.Their products are aimed at a more professional market, therefore, in addition to sales skills, after-sales service is also very important.At that time, the after-sales service of most of the peers was just tinkering, but this company first proposed a guarantee; the "replacement" strategy used by users.This move really increased their market share, and the situation was very good. In the third year, serious quality problems emerged.At the beginning, the after-sales service personnel worked hard to replace them.Slowly, the after-sales service department found that the cost of replacement was too high, so the after-sales service department had to ask the sales staff to ask the customer for the replacement cost.

The products of other companies have caught up.With stable quality and low price, they quickly captured the market.The company found that half of the price of their products was so-called overhead, which was too high.In this way, their cost is about the same as the lowest transaction price of others.How is this going? We know that it is definitely not wrong to attach importance to the concept of "serving customers". Why did this enterprise encounter a situation where it cannot continue? "Management" as a noun was first used in the country's army, and the real business management theory started from the stopwatch.As Taylor circled the business with a stopwatch, he created the first real business management practice.In the following ten years, Henry Ford brought us to the modern age of big industry, and Chaplin's humorous performance fully demonstrated the life in this modern age.Over the next decade, Sloan discovered the importance of organization.Then Follett put forward the theory of humanized management, and Maslow further analyzed the five levels of human needs, and put this level of view into the enterprise; then, Deming created the method of quality management, and introduced it in Japan It was a remarkably successful one.In the past 100 years, new management theories and management ideas have emerged almost every decade, and human management has entered a stage of high development.

At the end of the 19th century, Western industrial technology developed rapidly, new products emerged one after another, and end users in the market were dizzying. With technological and product advantages, most enterprises faced a state of short supply.Some excellent companies began to think about how to earn more?It is impossible to raise the price. Although the supply of the product exceeds the demand, there are still other companies supplying the same product, and competition still exists.At this time, whoever starts to reduce costs first will have an advantage. Taylor's efficiency management is to reduce labor costs by improving work efficiency; Ford's large-scale production is to achieve the purpose of cost management by decomposing the process and speeding up production.These management models are still being learned and imitated by many enterprises.

Cost management is the basic skill of an enterprise. If an enterprise cannot even control its own costs, how can it be competitive to compete with other enterprises and compete for the market with other enterprises?Only when the cost management can pass, the enterprise will have the opportunity to compete on the big stage of the market.A company without cost management means that people who don't know martial arts walk in the rivers and lakes, and they will be killed as soon as they make their debut.Unless the foundation is very strong, for example: have some monopoly products, or have some patented technologies.With these combat strengths, they may be able to hold on to some markets at a certain stage, and some of them may even develop.However, without good cost management, even if it develops, it can only develop in a very short period of time.Only by doing a good job in cost management can we have sustainable basic competitiveness, otherwise we will be eliminated by the tide of the market immediately.Those who are the first to reduce costs will quickly dominate the market.Because costs are low, they can drive competitors out of the market with lower prices.

Some sensitive enterprises have found that the cost can no longer be reduced to a certain extent, and the profit margin must be guaranteed, then the basic market price is determined.Everyone is around this price, how to enhance competitiveness?The range of choices for users is gradually expanding, and their requirements are gradually increasing.It is no longer possible to sell them something of ordinary quality, they have to choose. Japanese companies invited the American Deming and began to focus on quality. TQC is a product of that era, which was in the 1950s.The most effective "Deming quality management", which blooms inside the wall and smells fragrant outside the wall, was invented in the United States and spread in Japan, which led to the rapid development of the Japanese economy.The American auto industry has been taken over by Japan for most of the country. It is because the United States did not discover Deming until 1979 and discovered that he created the Japanese economy today.So western business managers found their own Gospel, and they began to fanatically pursue the improvement of quality.

Quality management on the basis of cost management is like a sword that cuts iron like mud and is invincible.The frugality of Japanese old-fashioned entrepreneurs laid a solid foundation for their cost management. With the help of Deming's quality management, Japan's economy was even more powerful, and it developed rapidly. It was almost invincible and approached the United States. In the United States in the 1950s, the core of the popular management theory was the concept of "marketing".Marketing has brought about a new American dream. With the right marketing methods, you can go from a poor boy to a millionaire, with houses, cars, tickets, etc. waiting for you. The emergence of marketing theories such as "marketing mix", "4P theory", "7S framework" and so on, made Americans feel fanatical.Americans believe that low cost combined with good marketing means success.They completely forget who the product is for and what the user needs.It was not until the rapid development of Japanese companies in the United States that Americans suddenly realized.

When Dugu Qiubai's swordsmanship experience reached a certain level, he began to use soft swords.When the cost and quality management of the enterprise have reached a certain stage, the enterprise should pay attention to the concept of "marketing".But the Americans don't realize this. They are only engaged in marketing without doing a good job in quality management.They think that since customers are not willing to come, let us attract customers, let us guide customers to buy!They run marketing activities throughout the entire process of the enterprise, and various marketing strategy theories rise rapidly, become popular all over the world, and appear to be very effective at a certain stage.With the rationality of the combination of marketing strategies, some companies quickly surpassed other companies, while some companies that still believed that "the emperor's daughter will not worry about marrying" were silently left behind.

There is nothing wrong with marketing strategy.Not only is it not wrong, the marketing theory of that era was very effective, and it still has a very important role until now.Just like the soft sword of Dugu Qiubai, it is both beautiful and aggressive when used.However, if there is no deep internal strength and solid basic skills, not only will it not be able to hurt others, but it will also hurt yourself.The same is true for marketing without the basis of cost management and quality management. Not only will it not succeed, it will even harm itself. The customer is not a fool in the end. At the beginning, he may be attracted by dazzling marketing methods, but in the end he will find that what he needs is a product that is cheap, easy to use, and can solve problems immediately.He was buying a value, not rhetoric.

A smart enterprise is like when Dugu Qiubai used the dark iron epee, "the epee has no edge, and the big tricks don't work."They discovered the magic weapon of enterprise survival - "customer satisfaction", four words include everything.Finding customer value and trying to meet customer demand for value is the ultimate goal of corporate marketing.Those companies that have been moving in this direction intentionally or unintentionally have gradually come to the fore, and finally those companies that have not noticed customer value or just noticed it are left behind. Now look back at the businesses mentioned earlier in the article.It has not done the basic work of cost management; it is like Dugu Qiubai rushing out of the rivers and lakes before he has practiced martial arts well.It does not pay attention to quality management, just like Tokgo Qiubai did not have a suitable sword to defend himself when he first came out of the arena.It develops the market by simply increasing the commission of marketing staff, fails to do a good job in marketing management, and then immediately wants to do a good job in customer service; People risk their lives.Although it was quite bluffing at the beginning, in the end, there was no way out except to be stabbed to death. In fact, the growth of any person or thing has certain rules.We must step from one step to another, from one stage to another, step by step, and every step must be taken.Especially for enterprises, in today's highly competitive social and ecological system, if they do not advance step by step in a down-to-earth manner, they will often be eliminated soon. The development of the basic capabilities of enterprises also follows certain rules.From cost management, to quality management, to marketing management, to the final customer satisfaction, we develop step by step.If you jump over a certain stage rashly and directly reach the next stage, the final result will inevitably be a waste of time and money, and the gain outweighs the gain. In the process of modern enterprise development, there are many theoretical experiences and models that can be learned and used for reference, such as "Harvard Management", Philip Kodler's marketing management, Porter's competition theory, and the popular Blue ocean strategy, etc., and many tools, such as 5S, 6 Sigma, ISO9000, etc., have brought great benefits to many enterprises.However, when learning to use these skills, models, and theories, does the company clearly know which stage it is currently in?Which stage of the problem does this theory or model solve?Are there any problems that have not been solved before the problems that these theories want to solve? The cost control is not done well, and the quality is desperately grasped. The more we do, the more we find that the cost is ridiculously high. While the quality is high, the price is also high, and there is no market for the product.If the quality work is not done well, it will go to marketing. The more correct the marketing strategy is, the greater the market sales will be, and the final negative impact will be greater. In the end, it will often make a fortune quickly and decline quickly.But the previous work is not done well, and I want to satisfy customers. The price and quality are far from the needs of customers. How can customers be satisfied with after-sales service alone?The management learning activities of some enterprises seem to be vigorous, but in fact they are blind people riding blind horses. GE can become a century-old enterprise with a long history, not because it has implemented 6 Sigma.From its establishment to today, GE has undergone changes again and again, implementing a set of different management models, and gradually improving GE's internal management system.Without the accumulation of past changes and some mature management foundations, the implementation of Six Sigma can only be empty talk.When Chinese companies learn from GE's successful experience, if they don't consider which stage their company is in, no matter what advanced management experience they use to learn, it will not only have no effect in the end, but will also cause great harm to the company. harm. In the development history of enterprise management, the four links of product cost, quality, sales and service are indispensable and must be experienced, and must be experienced in order.If you don’t learn a good management method based on the actual situation of your own company and the stage the company is in at that time, even if you learn it well, even if it seems to be effective for a while, it will inevitably waste money and waste in the end. Of course, the time for China to implement a market economy is very short, and the time for Chinese enterprises to develop is also very short. If it is the same as the western business circles, it only completes the practice of a management idea every ten years. If we go through all the links completely, then we will always lag behind the West.We can shorten the time for us to change in various links by learning from the mature management experience of the West; in some links, we can even carry out simultaneous changes.However, we should never have the luxury of skipping certain hoops. When learning the management practices of other companies and the management theories of others, in addition to paying attention to respecting this law of development and learning appropriate methods at the right time, one more thing to pay attention to is: Each stage of development has its own unique political background, legal background, interpersonal relationship background, and market background. In addition, the leaders of different companies have different values, the cohesion of the middle management is different, and the professionalism of ordinary employees is different. Different, etc., these backgrounds all influence the real content of an enterprise's advanced management practice.These various backgrounds influence the effects of successful management theories and management models.If you blindly learn its management model from a high-efficiency company, or simply copy the management theory that other companies have proved to be effective, without careful analysis, find out the real success model of the other party, and At the same time, looking for content that is suitable for your own business is undoubtedly a toddler in Handan. In the "Chishu" chapter of the ancient Chinese strange book, it is said: "Chishu refers to spring growth, summer growth, autumn harvest, and winter storage. The heaven is right, and you can't do it but go against it. Those who go against it will succeed and fail." The Way of Heaven In this way, we cannot intervene casually, violate it, and violate the laws of nature. Even if it seems to be successful for a while, it will inevitably fail in the end.Therefore, we should first understand the law of development of enterprise management practice and respect the law of development of enterprise management practice.According to the development trend of the development law of enterprise management practice, reasonably study and use various management theories, management models and management methods, so that the operation of the enterprise can develop healthily and orderly.