Tian Wenhua: Grasp the core of the crisis

According to the latest data released by the zero-point survey, half of the enterprises in Beijing and Shanghai are in a state of crisis. And among the senior managers of Chinese enterprises, 72.7% are of low crisis identification ability, 9.4% are of medium crisis identification ability, and only 18% have high crisis identification ability.

When crises such as "DuPont Teflon Incident" and "Giant Calcium Incident" appeared in the Chinese market, more and more managers found that foreign crisis management experience was useless in China; domestic companies' crisis response The method is even more lackluster.

In April 2004, due to the mistakes of the staff of the Fuyang City Center for Disease Control, Sanlu infant milk powder was included in the "blacklist" of 45 substandard milk powders. The news was reprinted by hundreds of media across the country. Tian Wenhua, chairman of Sanlu Group, led Sanlu employees to take action as soon as possible, and used crisis management methods in line with China's national conditions to help the company successfully overcome and transform the crisis.

At 7:00 on April 22, 2004, when you learned that Sanlu baby milk powder was falsely reported as substandard milk powder, what was the first action you took?

I immediately contacted Cai Shuwei, vice chairman and executive deputy general manager of the group, and asked him to go to Fuyang to resolve the matter. Going to work at 8:00, we held an emergency joint meeting of the party and government to set up a leading group, which consists of an IT support group, an information intelligence group, a telephone consultation group, a data support group, and an advertising group. At the same time, deputy general manager Zhang Zhenling was sent to Fuyang to lead the publicity and quality inspection personnel. It can be said that the senior managers of Sanlu Group attached great importance to this incident as soon as it appeared.

In the face of a sudden crisis, the company acted quickly and decisively. How do you "do not panic"? Does the company have a crisis management mechanism?

As soon as this incident came out, I intuitively judged that I must have made a mistake: we are the first company to develop breast milk powder in China. Since 1993, the production and sales of milk powder have ranked first in the country for 11 consecutive years, and the Sanlu series of milk powder All of them have passed the national tests. So far, more than 20 million children have grown up on Sanlu baby milk powder, and many families have grown up on Sanlu baby milk powder for two or three generations.

Sanlu makes food. Food is related to life and health. Any slight error can lead to catastrophic consequences. Therefore, we must get to the bottom of the truth in the shortest possible time. On April 22, we received a certificate from the Fuyang Center for Disease Control for our work mistakes.

The Sanlu Group survived this catastrophe with great strength. The Group has a crisis incident handling plan. But this crisis is purely external and comes from the relevant administrative functions. The hype of the administration and the news media has put a great deal of pressure on enterprises.

Media relations are the focus of crisis management. After the local media broke the wrong news, how do you use the media to correct the wrong?

When the Fuyang City Center for Disease Control showed us the proof that Sanlu's infant formula was "blacklisted" because of their own work mistakes, we decided that we must let the news media know as soon as possible.

We started to do two things. One is to prepare materials, including the proof that the "blacklist" of Sanlu baby milk powder issued by the Fuyang City Center for Disease Control and Prevention is a false alarm, and our own writing about Sanlu There are three materials: an explanation of the fact that baby milk powder was falsely reported as a substandard product, and an introduction to Sanlu Group; the second is to urge relevant parties in Fuyang to publicly explain the truth.

We learned that on April 23, the "Fuyang City Leading Group for Comprehensively Carrying out Special Rectification of Fake and Shoddy Milk Powder and Industrial Food" will hold a press conference. The two vice presidents who dealt with the incident in Fuyang thought it was a good opportunity. By contacting the leaders in charge of the press conference, relevant parties in Fuyang clarified the truth for Sanlu Group at the press conference, and apologized to the media and Sanlu Group. We seized this great opportunity for news media PR.

What is the focus of your work with the media? Are the invited media all authoritative media with national influence?

The principle of our dealings with the media is honesty. We have always believed that the vast majority of news media, especially the mainstream news media, uphold justice. Sanlu Group's production management, product quality, and market sales are all open to the news media. Let me explain to you here that all the journalists who attended the press conference on April 23 were invited by relevant parties in Fuyang City, and we did not invite any reporters individually. "To solve the bell, it is necessary to tie the bell to the bell." The relevant parties in Fuyang rectified the name of Sanlu infant milk powder at their own press conference, which is more objective and the effect will be better.

In the face of human error by administrative and law enforcement agencies, how do you handle your relationship with the government?

Adhere to the principle of "reasonable, beneficial, and restrained", use communication skills, be neither humble nor arrogant, and strive for reason. Not only consider maintaining the image and authority of the government, but also resolutely safeguard the interests of enterprises. And at that time, under the pressure of many parties, he expressed his understanding of the work mistakes of the relevant functions and law enforcement departments of Fuyang.

At that time, some public relations companies and some people suggested to defend the interests of the company through legal proceedings, but you did not adopt it, and even expressed understanding of the pressure from relevant government officials. How did you think about it?

As things have happened, any complaints and accusations can only exacerbate the antagonism between the two sides, and will not help resolve the crisis at all. Sanlu Group produces dairy products and processes more than 1,000 tons of milk every day, involving the interests of hundreds of thousands of dairy farmers.

We know that the first problem to be solved at this time is to correct the name of Sanlu infant milk powder and quickly restore market sales. Therefore, we seized all the time to communicate and exchange with relevant government personnel repeatedly, to understand each other's difficulties, and to strive to find a commensurate point for both parties. Facts have proved that under the circumstances at the time, this rational action with a view to the overall situation worked well.

How did you help defuse the crisis through the government?

Since this crisis was entirely caused by human error of the relevant departments in Fuyang, the public apology from Fuyang only gave Sanlu Group justice and innocence in terms of public opinion. We believe that in order to completely solve the crisis of the enterprise and truly restore the reputation of Sanlu Group, a higher and more authoritative administrative department must correct the mistakes of the relevant departments of Fuyang City. So the company carried out government public relations activities in Fuyang and Shijiazhuang. The working group that went to Fuyang did everything possible to find the leaders of the State Council investigation team that went to Fuyang to report the truth of Sanlu's victimization; our headquarters reported the situation to the State Council and relevant departments level by level through the governments of Shijiazhuang City and Hebei Province.

With our efforts, from the State Council to the provinces and cities, we have done everything possible to resolve the crisis for Sanlu. On the fourth day after the incident, the State Food and Drug Administration and other four ministries and bureaus issued the document "Emergency Notice on "Sanlu Milk Powder Relevant Issues", requiring all localities to allow the normal sales of Sanlu milk powder.

On April 29, the company donated milk powder worth 450,000 yuan to infants who suffered from poor-quality milk powder. At this time, Sanlu had not yet been fully "named." Why would a company do this? What message do you want to convey to consumers?

Although Sanlu milk powder is allowed to be sold as a document issued by the Fourth National Bureau, but because it is a confidential document, the effect on the market is not obvious. Sanlu has invested a lot of manpower, material and financial resources to operate the market, but the recovery of the market is very slow. In order to show that we have the strength to weather this crisis, the company decided to donate 450,000 yuan worth of baby milk powder to help the weak.

Although the company tried its best to recover the losses as quickly as possible, the false alarm on the 22nd had a great impact on the company. Can you disclose the exact amount of the loss?

Within half a month after the crisis began, Sanlu's direct economic losses amounted to more than 20 million yuan. The entire incident caused a direct loss of more than 100 million yuan to Sanlu.

We know that Sanlu not only survived the crisis, but also improved its brand reputation through the crisis. What has the company done after the crisis to improve its brand value?

As soon as the Fuyang crisis took a turn for the better, we realized that this was actually an opportunity for the dairy industry to reshuffle. Therefore, while solving the crisis, the headquarters of the group issued orders to business directors and managers in various places to quickly seize the market previously occupied by fake and inferior milk powder, and to develop Sanlu distribution outlets to townships and villages. This step has laid a solid foundation for the rapid recovery and expansion of Sanlu's market sales in the future.

Through a lot of hard work, milk powder sales gradually returned to normal in August, and began to increase in September and October. October and November created the best level in history for the same period. The production and sales of milk powder in 2004 are expected to increase by 10% year-on-year. %above.

---Jenny Ding