Chapter 7 The Fatal Question: Whose Jianlibao Owns?

In the growth history of Jianlibao, there is a very curious question: why Li Jingwei was able to control his own desires, and did not let the company embark on the road of rapid expansion? In China's beverage industry, 1996 was a watershed year.Prior to this, there were very few heroes in this industry, and multinational companies such as Coca-Cola were carefully operating in central cities, and had not yet completed a nationwide layout.Outside the big cities, there are only a handful of national brands such as Jianlibao and countless local small businesses.After this year, the purified water market suddenly recovered. Companies such as Wahaha, Robust, and Yangshengtang, which had previously completed their original accumulation in the field of health care products, entered in large numbers.At the same time, Master Kong began to focus on tea drinks, and Uni-President Group launched low-concentration fruit juice drinks.Under the hype of advertisements and public opinion, the beverage market was suddenly enlarged.

However, what is puzzling is that Jianlibao, known as "China's No. 1 beverage brand", has always stayed on the sidelines and did not give a strong response during this extremely hot industry outbreak period.Although the company has followed suit and launched "Tianlang" brand purified water and "Chaode Neng" functional drinks, etc., none of them have become the main products, and its main product is still "alkaline electrolyte drinks".The beverage market is a conceptual market driven by popularity. When several big companies in the industry start to promote a concept together, most distributors and consumers will be induced to go there.In this process, companies that do not participate in or catch up with this trend are likely to be forgotten or unable to obtain the huge profits created by "popular concepts".As an industry leader, Li Jingwei turned a blind eye to the general trend of beverage popularity, and even when the sales scale of other companies was about to surpass Jianlibao, he did not take major countermeasures, which is really intriguing.

There are probably only two reasons that can be explained: First, Coca-Cola-style self-confidence.Li Jingwei believes that a can of Jianlibao is enough to beat all invincible opponents in the world.He has shown his admiration for Coca-Cola on many occasions. This company has achieved the dominance of the world's number one beverage brand by relying on a mysterious formula that has remained unchanged for a century.Jianlibao has the reputation of "Oriental Magic Water", so it can naturally repeat the myth.Therefore, instead of fighting with competitors, it is better to stick to the "magic water advantage" that cannot be competed, move steadily, and grow gradually.

It is also based on this consideration that Li Jingwei has always cherished the Jianlibao brand for many years and has never taken risks to do things that may cause harm to the brand.At the same time, he also spent a lot of effort to develop overseas markets.As early as 1991, Li Jingwei registered and established a branch in the United States, and tried to sell Jianlibao in supermarkets across the United States.Around Christmas in the second year, he even planned a news event that the first lady of the United States and the second lady had a drink of Jianlibao together.At that time, the US presidential election was in full swing. Presidential candidate Clinton’s wife Hillary and vice presidential candidate Al Gore’s wife were doing campaign activities in New York. Jianlibao provided all the drinks for the election campaign. The photographer took the opportunity to take pictures of the two wives A photo of drinking Jianlibao together.This photo was first published in the "New York Business Daily", and then "sold back" to the country. It immediately caused quite a stir just like the "Oriental Magic Water" news back then. At the end of 1993, Jianlibao was placed on the round conference table of the United Nations Security Council. After that, there was naturally another round of news.

In 1994, on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of its establishment, Li Jingwei announced that Jianlibao would enter the home of Coca-Cola - the US market.Jianlibao opened its own office in New York and bought an office building in the famous Empire State Building for $5 million.Li Jingwei smugly declared to American reporters that the sales volume of Jianlibao in China was the sum of Coca-Cola and Pepsi.Now, he will use this can of "Oriental Magic Water" to conquer American consumers. Li Jingwei's rhetoric did not become a reality. Jianlibao has never really entered the mainstream market in the United States. For many years, it has only appeared in some small Chinese supermarkets in Chinatown, and its contribution to the company's operating performance is negligible.However, the wave after wave of dazzling and efficient news hype has made Jianlibao's reputation more and more louder day by day, creating a brand communication effect that is difficult to evaluate its value.It caters so strongly to the rising national pride of Chinese people that Jianlibao has become a symbol of national brands in the minds of many consumers.In this regard, Li Jingwei, who is good at news and public relations planning, has achieved enviable success. Ten years later, Li Jingwei broke with the local government. Jianlibao was repeatedly ravaged by several capital players, almost to the point where it was difficult to continue production. Its unique brand charm was planted at this time.

Another explainable reason why Li Jingwei cautiously avoided fighting in the drink war is that it is much more subtle and sensitive. In fact, as early as around 1994, Li Jingwei was already considering the ownership of the property rights of the enterprise.Jianlibao is nominally a local state-owned enterprise in Sanshui, but in fact it is Li Jingwei's independent business. "Without Li Jingwei, there would be no Jianlibao." This is an ironclad fact.But in terms of ownership of property rights, this company has nothing to do with him.Sanshui is a remote and barren county in southern China. Before Jianlibao became famous, it was almost unknown to people from other provinces. For quite a long time, the profits and taxes paid by Jianlibao have always been the pillar of Sanshui's local finance. to eighty percent.A local literati once wrote a couplet: "Three waters flow and three waters are rich in rice cement and magic water; dragons pass on from dragons to people, and human beings gather together strong men." Among them, "magic water" and "strong man" are respectively It refers to Jianlibao and Li Jingwei.In the first 10 years of his business, Li Jingwei was a hero in the eyes of the people in Sanshui and the God of Wealth in the eyes of the local government. Local officials also spared no effort in supporting Jianlibao, giving preference to land allocation for enterprises and various preferential policies.A reporter recalled: "In many local ceremonies, the secretary of the county party committee and the county magistrate sat in the middle, and next to him was Li Jingwei, and then it was the turn of other government officials."

Although Li Jingwei was very grateful and proud of this kind of unparalleled respect and love, it did not untie the knot of property rights in his heart. Over the past 30 years, the growth of Chinese enterprises has always been accompanied by the awakening of entrepreneurs' awareness of property rights, which is fully demonstrated by Li Jingwei.He has long realized that the state-owned system cannot allow Jianlibao to maintain continuous vitality in the fierce market competition.There is no doubt that local governments are inclined to enterprises, but various restrictions are equally serious.For example, in order to achieve the employment rate, Sanshui County clearly stipulates that Jianlibao employees must ensure that the proportion of Sanshui people accounts for 45%, and the importation of various nepotism occurs every month.In an interview with a reporter, when talking about Jianlibao’s management system, Li Jingwei once patted his desk and said with excitement: “Jianlibao is like this desk. The middle ranks with unstable morale and slack behavior can easily break their legs, and my little capital can easily be eaten up.”

It is this kind of deep-seated anxiety that made Li Jingwei start to rethink the growth path of the company after 10 years of entrepreneurship.In the mid-to-late 1990s, as some state-owned enterprises showed "strength" in the market competition, the government began to try the policy of "retiring the state and advancing the private sector". State-owned capital will gradually withdraw from the competitive field, and operators will be forced to The assets of the business are allowed to be purchased in a variety of ways.In Li Jingwei's view, the beverage industry is undoubtedly a 100% competitive field, and the clarification of Jianlibao's property rights is completely in line with the central policy.In South China at that time, some well-known enterprises had already started various experiments.At the end of 1996, Li Dongsheng, the founder of TCL, a well-known home appliance company, signed a decentralized management agreement with the Huizhou Municipal Government.According to the agreement, Li Dongsheng's team will ensure that the value of state-owned assets increases by 10% every year, and the government promises that the management can purchase the value-added part of the company's equity in a certain proportion.In Beijiao Town, Shunde City near Sanshui, Midea Group, which produces small household appliances, was sold as a whole to its founder He Xiangjian and his team.

This information undoubtedly made Li Jingwei very excited.In his blueprint, Jianlibao will seek to be listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. In this process, the equity issue of the management team will be resolved once and for all.At the same time, he decided to invest 1 billion yuan to build Jianlibao Building in Guangzhou, and then moved the company's headquarters from the remote and complicated Sanshui. Therefore, "stock listing and building landing" have become the two most important strategic tasks of Jianlibao.Before these two goals are achieved, Li Jingwei is obviously unwilling to let the scale of the enterprise suddenly expand.He knows very well that if Jianlibao's scale is larger and its benefits are better, then the cost for him and his team to buy this company will be higher, and even the possibility will be lower.

This is a reasonable inference: Li Jingwei's control of Jianlibao's growth rate is intentional under a major plan.