Chapter 74 Chapter Eighteen Thirty Nine: The "Last Failure" of Traditional Chinese Medicine

On August 7, 1985, Bijia Mountain on the outskirts of Shenzhen was overgrown with thatch and desolate everywhere.Zhao Xin first lay in a dog shed made of iron. He used a shovel as a pillow and a military uniform as a quilt, sleeping on his body.From the cracks in the pried iron sheet, he could see the vast starry sky in the south.He was 43 years old that year. Zhao Xinxian is the director of the Pharmacy Bureau of Nanfang Hospital affiliated to Guangzhou First Military Medical University.He was ordered to set up the Southern Pharmaceutical Factory on Beacon Hill.There are 6 hospital employees and 8 hired workers who followed him, one of whom is his wife.This small team composed of soldiers naturally has superhuman passion. It took them 7 days to install a pulverizer that would take others a month and a half to install, and they dug a motor-driven well with a daily pumping capacity of 1,200 tons in 20 days. In 3 months, 150,000 earthworks were leveled, and two standardized workshops were built.

At that time, China was immersed in the carnival of business, and there were many large and small pharmaceutical companies in the pharmaceutical industry. There were more than 200 pharmaceutical factories in Guangdong Province alone.It is not easy for Zhao Xinxian, who is in his early years, to create a new world in this "Red Sea". At this time, all he has is the 5 million yuan establishment fee allocated by the hospital.Zhao Xinxian decided to build the best production line in China.He conceived a set of automatic production line of traditional Chinese medicine, which combines the three processes of extraction, concentration and drying in the production of traditional Chinese medicine into one. From feeding to production, the whole process is automated, pipelined and sealed. The dosage for 200,000 people twice a day, while the whole workshop only needs 9 workers, and only 3 workers per shift.Of the 5 million yuan allocated by superiors, only 500,000 yuan was originally for equipment purchases. Zhao Xinxian risked violating financial discipline by arbitrarily taking all the money from building staff houses to buy new equipment.With independent innovation and boldness, he successfully built China's first automatic production line of traditional Chinese medicine.

Zhao Xinxian still has a treasure in his hand, which is the traditional Chinese medicine formula for stomach medicine.He got this recipe from his fellow countrymen in the countryside of northern Guangdong a few years ago. The raw materials are samya bittern and jiulixiang, which are unique to the south, which have miraculous effects on treating stomach problems.He and the professors of Gastroenterology Department of Nanfang Hospital worked day and night to develop it into a pure Chinese medicine compound granule.In order to name this stomach medicine, Zhao Xin smoked 5 packs of cigarettes in two days, and finally named it "Sanjiu Weitai".

Chronic gastritis is the most common chronic disease among Chinese people. The stomach medicine market is very large, and at the same time, it is also mixed and chaotic.Zhao Xinxian is not only good at building factories and R&D, but also ingenious in marketing.He does not sell products around like other manufacturers, but puts on a neat and dignified military uniform, and goes to major central cities to hold "academic lectures".In the eyes of the business community and the public, the military and military hospitals have always had a good reputation.Zhao Xinxian naturally took the lead in terms of credibility and authority.He invited health bureaus, medicinal material companies, major hospitals and news media from all over the country to talk about the pathology and pharmacology of "Sanjiu Weitai".Zhao Xinxian traveled to 10 cities in a month, held 10 academic reports, and there was a "three-nine whirlwind" wherever he went.When he returned to Shenzhen, the orders had been tracked down like a snowflake.In the first year of setting up the factory, Nanfang Pharmaceutical Factory realized a sales revenue of 11 million yuan.

In terms of advertising and marketing, Zhao Xinxian had two inventions.He is the Chinese inventor of taxi top box advertising. In 1988, he occasionally caught a glimpse of a taxi with an advertising light box on its roof in an American movie.The next day, he negotiated with taxi companies in Guangzhou, and installed the top-box advertisements of "The King of Stomach Medicine, Sanjiu Weitai" on more than 400 taxis.These cars run around town and spread surprisingly well.This form of advertising quickly became popular all over the country, and even Hong Kong passed the legislation two years later.Zhao Xinxian is also the founder of celebrity endorsement advertising.It was also in this year that he persuaded the famous old film artist Li Moran to advertise the product: "In our line of work, life is irregular and often suffers from stomach problems... Sanjiu Weitai is a good medicine for stomach problems. Manufacturing fake stomach medicines , is an immoral behavior and should be condemned by the society." This semi-functional, semi-public celebrity advertisement was broadcast on CCTV, and immediately caused a sensation.People began to discuss whether celebrities can advertise, and how much Li Moran received from the company. These controversies troubled the unexpected Li Moran, but the reputation of "Sanjiuweitai" became bigger and bigger.

By the end of 1988, the output value of Nanfang Pharmaceutical Factory had reached 1.8 billion yuan, and realized profits and taxes of 400 million yuan. It ranked 82nd among the 500 largest industrial enterprises in the country, and became the most famous and profitable Chinese medicine company in China at that time.At that time, none of the companies such as Haier, Lenovo, and Vanke, which were founded almost at the same time as Sanjiu, had sales of more than 1 billion yuan, and Huawei and Wahaha had only been in business for less than a year. Around 1989, Zhao Xinxian launched a series of traditional Chinese medicine products including Zhuanggu Joint Pills, Zhengtian Pills, and Dermatitis Pingping. Their sales exceeded 100 million yuan within one year.No one in the country can shake the capability of Nanfang Pharmaceutical Factory in the development and market operation of traditional Chinese medicine.In a sense, it was one of the most successful market-oriented businesses throughout the 1980s.

The rapid rise of Nanfang Pharmaceutical Factory made Zhao Xinxian a dazzling new star in the Chinese business circle. In April 1989, the General Logistics Department of the People's Liberation Army recorded the second-class collective merit for Nanfang Pharmaceutical Factory, awarded Zhao Xinxian the title of "Excellent Army Entrepreneur", awarded a second-level hero and model medal, and made "About Learning from Comrade Zhao Xinxian" to the whole army. decision". In September, Zhao Xinxian was awarded the title of "National Model Worker" by the State Council.

If Zhao Xinxian's business talent is a little amazing, then the "Three Nine Mechanism" formed by his strongman attitude was even more sensational back then. Just like many Chinese companies, entrepreneurs play the role of the first element during the start-up period, and their management ability and personal charm become the key to the success of the company.In the miraculous rise of Nanfang Pharmaceutical Factory, Zhao Xinxian's talent is undoubtedly the most decisive. Gradually, he has formed an irreplaceable absolute authority within the company. In October 1991, the General Logistics Department of the People's Liberation Army invested 100 million yuan to buy Nanfang Pharmaceutical Factory from Guangzhou First Military Medical University. In the second year, the pharmaceutical factory was renamed Sanjiu Group.The General Logistics Department of the People's Liberation Army implements the most relaxed system of personal responsibility for legal representatives in the management of Sanjiu Group.The method is that the General Logistics Department of the People's Liberation Army fully delegated power to Zhao Xinxian, and clearly stipulated in the documents for establishing the enterprise group that only Zhao Xinxian was responsible for the value-added and safety of all the assets of the enterprise.In the Sanjiu Group, Zhao Xinxian is the general manager and secretary of the party committee. There is no deputy general manager under him. The group headquarters only has three organizations: the party affairs department, the finance department, and the personnel department. There is not even a president's office. There are two secretaries who handle specific matters.Zhao Xinxian proudly called this management setup "one-person mechanism".

The Sanjiu management model was unique among all state-owned enterprises in China at that time, even unimaginable.It breaks through the shackles of the rigid state-owned system on enterprises, and the result is the real separation of government and enterprises, thus solving the long-standing problem that has been difficult for state-owned enterprises to solve for more than 10 years.This is the system design that all state-owned entrepreneurs dream of.For many years, they were trapped in the system, like a "caged lion".It is precisely because of this that Zhao Xinxian forced himself to break free from the ropes reasonably and legally, so that the growth of the enterprise has always been firmly controlled in his own hands.For quite a long time, the Sanjiu Group has enjoyed various institutional advantages of state-owned enterprises on the one hand, and on the other hand has maintained the space for free growth by relying on the "Three Nine Mechanism".

The most dramatic scene about the "one-man mechanism" occurred in September 1992.Zhu Rongji, who was the vice premier of the State Council at the time, visited the Sanjiu Group and was very satisfied. Before leaving, Zhu Rongji proposed to take a group photo with the leaders of the pharmaceutical factory.He said to Zhao Xinxian: "Old Zhao, call your deputy factory directors to take pictures together." Zhao Xinxian said: "Vice Prime Minister, I don't have a deputy factory director here, and I am the only leader. I am the factory director, secretary, and general manager." Engineer all in one."

This detail was included in the report by the reporter, and Zhao Xinxian's "one-person mechanism" immediately became a good talk in China. In 1993, CCTV edited and broadcast a set of TV feature films introducing the reform experience of state-owned enterprises. The first one was "Haier Experience", and the second one was "Three Nine Mechanism". In August 1994, "People's Daily" continuously published long newsletters about the speed of March 9, the mechanism of March 9 and the spirit of March 9 in an important position on the headline of the front page. This kind of report with strong political meaning fully affirmed Zhao Xinxian's Reform achievements. Objectively speaking, until the moment Zhao Xinxian retired, he had been firmly in control of this state-owned enterprise.In the following 10 years, the story of Sanjiu was full of ups and downs like a roller coaster, and its success or failure can be described as "one person succeeds and one person loses". At least until the mid-1990s, Sanjiu was invincible because of its excellent products and advanced mechanisms. "Sanjiu Weitai" is really an excellent and profitable product. In the next 20 years, it has hardly been updated, and it can bring 1 billion yuan in sales and hundreds of millions of dollars to Sanjiu every year. In the stomach medicine market, there has never been a more successful product than it. "An overly good product often gives entrepreneurs more opportunities to make mistakes." This is the most embarrassing of all business laws. On May 1, 1995, the first billboard of a Chinese company was erected in Times Square, the most prosperous and commercially significant place in Manhattan, New York. Next to international brands such as Coca-Cola, Sony, and Toyota, "999 The neon advertisement of "Sanjiu Pharmaceutical" is very eye-catching.Zhao Xinxian made a special trip to the United States to hold a press conference. Standing under the billboard, he was interviewed by dozens of Chinese and American media, talking freely and eagerly.This should be the proudest moment in his entrepreneurial career.The next day's "New York Times" reported: "This is the first time that a Chinese company has made a Chinese advertisement in the commercial area with the highest advertising density and influence in the world, and a new advertising language has emerged in Times Square. --Chinese." In the next few years, when many people went abroad to Manhattan, they must visit this 39th billboard, which became a landscape for Chinese companies to enter globalization.Thirty-nine, let people see the dawn of the revival of traditional Chinese medicine.