Changan Automobile goes north and east

On June 7th, Hefei, on June 8th, Nanjing, after that, Nanchang, Harbin... Fly to Paris on July 7th, in the summer of 2010, Xu Liuping, President of Changan Automobile Group Co., Ltd. Urged non-stop. Don't think that this Changan president is doing firefighting work. Since he has been the coach of Changan Automobile for 5 years, this kind of mobile office has become his normal. He stays at the Changan headquarters in Chongqing for 1/3 of the year, and travels around the country for the other 1/3, and the remaining 1/3. Patrol abroad. The reason why his time needs to be divided like this is because his territory has extended from the headquarters of Chongqing to 10 urban areas in China and three countries of Britain, Italy and Japan. The 10 domestic urban areas are Changan's layout to expand production capacity and close to the market, while the three overseas bases undertake the heavy responsibility of technology research and development.

"Building a world-class automobile enterprise" is Xu Liuping's dream to take command of Chang'an, and the domestic and international layout is the operation steps to realize his dream. China is becoming the mainstream market in the world, therefore, Xu Liuping's dream is based on the local market. To become a local powerhouse, it is the only way to do it on a large scale.

If large-scale automobile production capacity is centralized, it will bring great cost and management pressure to logistics, road transportation, etc. According to Changan's data, an off-site production car costs about 1,000 yuan more than a local production car logistics costs. In addition, the car is a product that needs to be responsive to customer needs. Therefore, whether from the perspective of shortening the logistics radius or from the perspective of agile response to customers, expanding our horizons to places with strong market demand and arranging local production and local sales is an effective way to scale up and enhance competition. way of power.

Actually, by the end of 2009, several relatively mature bases in Changan had contributed to the production and sales scale of nearly 2 million vehicles, once pushing Changan Automobile to the top 3 in China's automobile ranking. Changan has been awkwardly staying in the position of the old 4 for many years.

Expanding Chang'an's territory from north to south

When Xu Liuping took office, Chang'an already had a large triangular territory of Chongqing Chang'an headquarters, Nanjing Chang'an and Hebei Chang'an. This big triangle has guaranteed Chang'an's status as the king of micro-cars for several years. However, around 2006, Shanghai GM-Wuling, with its dedication to the market and attention to consumers, eroded Changan's territory step by step, and finally pulled Changan down from the throne.

How to regain the throne? In the market of diversified mini-car products, to win back consumers, we must be as close to them as possible and meet their individual needs. Obviously, it is the most effective way to build factories in areas where consumers gather and produce according to their orders. However, the market with strong demand is easy to find, but it is not easy to build a local factory, because automobile is an industry that has high requirements for spare parts supporting resources and logistics services. The ideal way is to acquire and own these resource enterprise.

The opportunity has finally come. At the beginning of 2009, AVIC Group, whose main business is aviation manufacturing, intends to adjust its automobile resources. AVIC's Hafei, Changhe Automobile and Changan Automobile have no overlap in resources and can complement each other in market structure. If these companies are acquired, Changan will expand the site from Heilongjiang, along Anhui and Jiangxi to Shenzhen on the basis of the big triangle. . For these resources, Changan approached AVIC.

On November 10, 2009, Changan Automobile announced the reorganization of Changhe and Hafei Automobile. Since then, Xu Liuping has been busy with post-acquisition integration while deploying Changan's strategy on the acquired site. For example, on the basis of revitalizing the Hefei Changhe OEM, Changan invested 3 billion yuan in Hefei to build a mini-car production base with a maximum production capacity of 400,000 units. Hefei has always been a favorite city in Chang'an. First of all, it gathers the demand for 70 or 80 mini-cars in two or three surrounding provinces. In addition, due to the development of automobile manufacturers such as Jianghuai and Chery for many years, Hefei and its surrounding automobile logistics and The supporting resources for spare parts are also relatively mature. Of course, there are also abundant car-making talents. Coupled with the construction of high-speed rail and roads, the transportation in Hefei is also in all directions. It only takes 40 minutes to reach Nanjing from Hefei, and about 3 hours to Shanghai. .

Restructuring the assets of AVIC, Changan not only acquired the Hefei base, but also important towns in the micro-car market such as Heilongjiang, where Hafei is located, and Jiangxi, where Changhe is located.

As of July 2010, Changan has deployed 10 major vehicle manufacturing bases across the country, including Chongqing, Heilongjiang, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Hebei, Anhui, Shanxi, Guangdong, Shandong and Beijing.

Prepared to take the initiative to attack

These expansion moves seem to be following the trend after Changan reorganized AVIC, but in fact they have been planning to take the initiative for a long time. As early as 2000, Yin Jiaxu, the head of Changan at that time, realized the special requirements of automobile products for logistics and market, and formulated and implemented the expansion strategy of "going north to east". The Chang'an Nanjing base built in 2000 and the Chang'an Hebei base in 2003 are the implementation of this strategy.

Changan Automobile Group Co., Ltd. Vice President Song Jia was the first general manager of Hebei Changan. At the beginning of 2003, Song Jia came to Dingzhou, Hebei with a vice president in charge of technology. With the help of part of the manpower and other related resources of Hebei Shengli Bus Group acquired by Changan, he started the construction of the new base and market expansion.

The reason why we chose Dingzhou, Hebei instead of Baoding, where Shengli Bus is located, is because Dingzhou is only more than 200 kilometers away from Tianjin Port, which is convenient for products to be shipped on ro-ro ships. Therefore, in addition to being positioned as a minivan manufacturing base covering the "Three Norths" (North China, Northeast China, and Northwest China), the Dingzhou base is also positioned as an export production base.

Deploying product manufacturing bases where the market is booming is only the first step. To respond to the market in a timely manner, a sensitive decision-making response mechanism must also be established. As a pioneer in Chang'an at that time, Song Jia was fully authorized in Chang'an, Hebei. For example, he can make some adaptive improvements to the product according to the needs of the local market. Although this kind of decision has to be reported to the headquarters in the end, he can execute it "first and then". This high-efficiency operation prompted Hebei Changan to become profitable within a year, and seven years later, the annual production and sales volume reached 240,000 vehicles.

Hebei Chang'an and Nanjing Chang'an bases are the earliest experimental fields for Chang'an's outward expansion. The success of these two bases has added confidence and experience to Changan's continued expansion. Over the years, Changan has established a series of standards and systems in management, and explored a group management method that balances control and authorization. If the two earlier bases were relatively independent and autonomous in management, then the current new base has taken out a relatively mature management system to replicate locally since its inception. In addition, over the years, Changan has consciously sent many reserve cadres to Changan's two joint ventures, Changan headquarters and external factories for temporary training. The managers sent to new bases in Changan's expansion basically come from such talent pools . Chang'an, with its military culture, also has an efficient advantage in dispatching cadres. According to Song Jia, "After studying the personnel proposal today, I will talk to you that night, and leave for the destination the next day. Generally, the cadres who are sent have no Dissent."

It is precisely because of such cultural genes, coupled with Changan's long-standing market-driven awareness and various preparations that they have been able to actively seize market opportunities to move north and east.

Xu Liuping dreams of building a world-class enterprise.