This article is reprinted from the autocarweekly public account
Author: Karakush
Great people, from time to time, need to give themselves a run to calm down in life.
So – Wei Jianjun, the running man, is back again.
Last week, Great Wall Motors’ “Open Run” smart factory marathon started in the Dawangdian Technology Industrial Park in Baoding.
This area is like a city within a city for Great Wall Motors workers, with a residential community called “Haval City” (still a China’s annual excellent real estate project), an international school called “Great Wall High School”, and most importantly, the Xushui factory of Great Wall Motors, which is the company’s core production base in China. Haval and WEY are both produced here.
In addition to running on normal-sized roads, runners have to pass through the real intelligent production workshops and high-environment test tracks. This makes the Great Wall Motors marathon completely different from those plain and boring ordinary marathons outside, because it is the world’s first “marathon that runs into a car factory”!!!
The large-scale sports meet in the factory is not only due to the booming scale of 750,000 production capacity and more than 500 fully automatic robots in the cyber infrastructure, but also encompasses heavy physical activities directly in the workshop, which is something a typical factory cannot afford.
Factory running is not something that everyone can handle, especially not in Xushui. The Great Wall Motors Xushui factory is an environmentally friendly factory. According to reports, it classifies hazardous waste for 100% recycling and sealed storage, achieving “zero” pollution from hazardous waste. It also uses air conditioning air circulation reuse technology and can reduce CO₂ emissions by an average of 3,429 tons per year. This is currently the most important factory indicator for Great Wall Motors.
Last year, Great Wall Motors officially incorporated green into its mission and vision, requiring the implementation of the low-carbon environmental protection concept throughout the entire industry chain. Its production base, Yongchuan factory, in Chongqing has the same green specifications. This laid the foundation for the “Open Run” and also reflected Great Wall Motors’ hope to let everyone see a dignified and modern manufacturing process through the marathon.
In addition, Great Wall Motors also provided unmanned driving cars, unmanned supply stations, and self-developed intelligent following robots, intelligent distribution robots and cargo flatbed robots on-site to support the event services. It can be said to be quite intelligent.
In the crowd, it is hard not to notice Wei Jianjun, although he is also wearing a uniform race T-shirt and not running particularly fast. However, he is leading a unique team of over 100 Great Wall Motors executives, which is truly a special scenery.A few years ago, who would have thought that the hardy automaker, who always insisted on the “three specializations”, would become the environmentally-friendly, technologically advanced, and equestrian-loving enterprise that it is today. Wei Jianjun, who has gathered this trilogy of international leftist trends, seems no longer to be the iron-blooded boy from Baoding.
Change seems to have started with his last equestrian event in 2019.
It was just the first marathon of Great Wall Motors. Everything was still very inexperienced. Wei Jianjun ran all the way, while his assistant advised him not to push too hard. Two days later, he had to go to Russia to oversee the production of the Tula factory.
“Going out” was the top priority of Great Wall Motors and was visible throughout the year overseas. The Tula factory was even more important, as it was not only Great Wall’s flagship but also the first vehicle manufacturing plant built overseas by a Chinese automaker that included stamping, welding, painting, and final assembly. It was the first step in foreign exports.
According to someone who ran alongside Wei Jianjun at the time, his feet were cramping, but he still cheered himself on and persisted. For Wei Jianjun, faith was more important than physical strength and face. This may be true for all outstanding entrepreneurs.
“As the founder of Great Wall Motors, if the company’s products don’t go global when I retire, I will be very regretful,” Wei Jianjun said at the Tula factory production ceremony. “The future must be globalized, and auto brands that are not internationalized have no value and cannot survive. For the brand and the operation of the company, globalization strategies must be implemented.”
He not only made promises and slogans but also implemented them. That is why we now see a more international Great Wall Motors.
In April of this year, Great Wall Motors sold more than 3,000 new cars in Russian new car sales month, an increase of 606% year-on-year. The monthly overseas sales exceeded 9,000 vehicles, an increase of 349% year-on-year. Including the newly entered Egyptian market, Great Wall Motors’ overseas sales cover more than 60 countries, with a sales network of more than 500 stores. Wei Jianjun’s small target is to increase Haval’s overseas market share from 2% to 20% in five years.
This was only two years ago.
A lot can happen in two years, and just like this year, his sport shorts are not the same as the Mizuno shorts from two years ago, and the second Great Wall Motors marathon is no longer just for fun. The race specifications have completely changed. Not only has the number of participants increased to 5,000 people, but also the race has been upgraded from a half-marathon to a full marathon. It has been certified by the Chinese Athletic Association and upgraded from a self-organized race to an official one.
This is just like the changes that happened in Wei Jianjun and Great Wall Motors in the past two years: they resolutely no longer play their own little games, but throw themselves into a broader world to get real recognition and respect, and listen to the voice of the times and the people.
So we see Great Wall Motors, which has washed away its flashy and outdated image and returned as a young brand.
Starting from naming products through user voting and achieving explosive sales, Great Wall Motors quickly replicated itself, launching new products with magical names, which can be said to be the most successful car brand in marketing in the past year; at the same time, based on the characteristics of each product, a new brand matrix was integrated, demonstrating its strength in various segmented markets with the majestic attitude of “super aircraft carrier”.
Some friends may say that this is just lip service on traffic, and not worth worrying about. At worst, it can be considered a big step forward for Great Wall Motors to master the tricks. But it’s not just that.
First, with many products and brands, the industry used to advocate “having many children is good for fighting”, but the result was always the risk of the nine sons fighting for the throne and inevitably bumping into each other for market share. However, from the current sales volume, the positioning and style of the five brands’ models are becoming increasingly clear, and the growing trend in April can indicate that the grasp of the balance is beginning to take effect.
Secondly, these names like “Cat and Dog Love” and “Tank Cannon”, if they were changed to other brands, would easily appear out of place and unable to withstand the temperament of either cute, rotten or masculine. There are no lack of followers in the market, just like failed CP (couple pairing) lack inner feelings. Roughly speaking, products cannot keep up with the feeling that the brand wants to present.
Great Wall Motors has made an overall approach. This is thanks to the thinking of platformization. In 2020, Great Wall Motors released the “Lemon”, “Tank” and “Coffee Intelligence” technology brands, laying the foundation for this. Of course, ultimately, it was the result of not focusing on short-term profits and investing for many years. Today, the three major technology brands have taken five years to form and have a total investment of over RMB 20 billion.
It’s more than just time and money. Friends familiar with Great Wall may know that Great Wall Motors attaches great importance to investment in technology and talent and “is willing to spend a lot of money” on independent research and development. Importantly, the correct old concept, investing in the new direction of the times, focusing on both powertrain and layout of new-generation technologies such as autonomous driving.In December 2020, Great Wall Motors proposed the “331 strategy” for Coffee Intelligence Driving, aiming to become the leader of automatic driving in the intelligent era by achieving the first user scale in the industry, the best user experience evaluation, and the widest coverage of scene functions within three years. They plan to achieve full vehicle L3 level autonomous driving this year and L4 level autonomous driving in complex scenarios by 2022. At the same time, they completed investments in the intelligent chip company “Horizon” and will accelerate the construction of relevant capabilities through strategic investments, strategic cooperation, and independent research and development in the future.
Compared with many changes on the surface, the iteration within the Great Wall Motors enterprise is the more fundamental reason.
For example, last year, they completed the “subdivision” reorganization of the organizational form, forming a “one car, one brand, one company” model, abandoning those process-oriented operations, and forming a team consisting of personnel related to a single vehicle for direct connectivity with users. It is this flexible new architecture that supports wholehearted investment and lays the foundation for precise operation and market feedback for each independent product.
These things, taken separately, are actually just small things.
For example, last year, in addition to the existing R&D team of more than 15,000 people, Great Wall Motors also plans to introduce more than 10,000 talents from various industries with Internet genes worldwide. At the same time, in management, the “internal decoupling” has been implemented since last year to pursue parallel management. This matter became news because a formal internal document was issued.
The effect must be there: Only by rejuvenating from the root of the enterprise, fighting and thinking like an Internet company, can it be externalized in vision and tactics.
Wei Jianjun is not really good at running; most of his daily exercise is walking. Compared with running, walking is more of a long-term learning process. I think that the spirit of Great Wall Motors is perhaps what Wei Jianjun has developed: progress a little bit every day. Today we have talked about many changes, but only this core has not changed to this day. Progress every day, and then more than just a little bit.
This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.