Wang Jiafen: Learning to re-imagine

Wang Jiafen, 2002 EMBA of China Europe International Business School, currently Chairman of Bright Dairy Group

With the spirit of reimagining , go to EMBA to seek the password to restore glory

Farm work→government civil servant→company general manager→post chairman and general manager of the company's joint-stock system→on-the-job EMBA study→resign as general manager , the current chairman

Leading Bright Dairy to come from behind, successfully surpassing its competitors, and once won the top spot in the national market.

"Heaven and Hell Are on Earth" is not a New Year's film, it is the 2007 budget report of a branch of Bright Dairy. On the occasion of the New Year, Bright Dairy, which has walked through "heaven" and "hell", made the determination to "gamble" in this warm winter in Shanghai.

"There are two kinds of bets. If you don't prepare, it will be a mess, but when you prepare scientifically, what's so scary?" On the phone at 12 o'clock in the middle of the night, the chairman and general manager of Bright Dairy comforted her like this. The branch manager also persuaded himself.

This is Wang Jiafen. In 2003, she watched Yili take the top spot in the bright Chinese dairy industry with sales of 6.299 billion yuan. "Either don't do it, and do it well." She thought so when she was transferred from the Shanghai Farm Bureau to the Milk Company in 1992, and she didn't plan to leave when she came. This year, when Wang Jiafen fulfilled her promise again, her first big move was to resign as the general manager and push the "young and strong" professional managers to the front desk.

Wang Jiafen in front of the public has always been short-haired, capable, and dressed in a simple and elegant professional suit. The shrewdness of Shanghai people and the tenacity of women are reflected in her body. However, she will stop at any time, and take out a pen and paper to quickly write down all the "knowledge" she thinks, hears, and sees.

With this "live to old, learn to old" energy, at the age of 17, she worked hard under the oil lamps on the farm, and at the age of 53, she completed the CEIBS EMBA program. Now, daring to trade new people for herself, and daring to "bet" tomorrow with profits, is what she learned.

Darkness before the light

To learn too fast is not a good thing. Bright employees in North China and Northwest China used to complain about this. Because "cold chain" dairy products, which account for 99% of the European and American markets, often cannot find enough supermarkets with freezers in them, or they can't reduce prices if they are piled in cold storage. Seeing that the wages of Yili and Mengniu are higher than their own, they can't figure out why Guangming doesn't focus on "normal temperature milk".

It wasn't until the Bright brand celebrated its 50th anniversary early last year that the debate over two different ways of sterilizing dairy products died down. The pasteurized milk that Guangming insists comes from "pasteurization", which is the strength of urban dairy companies; another kind of "ultra-high temperature sterilization" normal temperature milk is the first choice for base-based dairy companies such as Mengniu and Yili. Pasteurized milk needs to be based on a higher-tech "cold chain", which can not be interrupted from the factory's 4 ℃ production, refrigerated logistics, merchants' freezers to buyers' refrigerators.

In 2006, Bright put forward "Focus on Freshness". In fact, since 1992, it has been building the country's leading "cold chain" core technology.

In 1992, Wang Jiafen came to France to study in just one month after taking office. Danone's modernized dairy farms and dairy product factories stunned her compared to the farm where she had been deputy secretary of the party committee. At that time, Bright took the lead in introducing the concept and technology of "fresh milk" from France. This is Wang Jiafen's first major decision after she came to Guangming, and it is also the first step for her to apply what she has learned in Guangming.

However, in 2003, Bright, who had been number one for many years, was overtaken by Yili, who mainly focused on room temperature milk. Subsequently, Mengniu, which also started in Hohhot, grew at an astonishing rate. Did Wang Jiafen learn wrong?

The dissent from the board of directors and the accusations from the outside world swarmed for a while, but none of them could shake Wang Jiafen's confidence in "freshness". Although 1992 was the first time she went abroad in her forties, the shock brought by that advanced concept was real, not the dizziness caused by jet lag. She never doubted it.

Transfer to Yili Mengniu, or go your own way? The darkness ahead is finally bright after two years.

In May 2005, at Bright's regular strategy seminar, shareholders "unanimously agreed that the company should still focus on the cold chain product strategy that it has adhered to in the past". In January 2006, the company wrote this into its marketing strategy. Wang Jiafen said the reason is very simple, "This is Bright's advantage, and cold chain products represent the future." In 2006, Yili and Mengniu also began to invest heavily in the cold chain field, where Bright is the leader.

"In the past two years, we still discussed room temperature milk and fresh dairy products below. Now we don't discuss it anymore, and a high degree of unity has been achieved from top to bottom, because the past few years have proved that the war to cater to room temperature milk is only a matter of It will die faster." Wang Jiafen is proud of her ability to learn ahead of time, waiting for the "east wind" that is about to blow in China's "fresh milk" market.

Darkness and light always follow. Just when Guangming saw the strategic direction, another bigger test awaits the graduate of CEIBS' 2004 EMBA class.

During her EMBA study, she was in her 50s and she always put her opinions into her homework without reservation, even if it violated the teachers and teaching materials. That's why she says she "has a limited chance of getting a high score". This time, the voices of others were deadly.

On June 5, 2005, the first episode of Henan TV's Economic Life Channel dragged the light into a darker "hell". The next day, newspapers of all sizes in the country almost didn't waste this good topic: Bright Dairy's expired milk was returned to the furnace and repackaged and then re-entered the market for sale.

Three days later, Wang Jiafen said in an interview, "We have sent people from Shanghai to Zhengzhou to investigate, and it is impossible for Guangming to do this." In front of the camera, she made a vow, but she was a lot haggard. The darkness brought by "returned milk" has just begun.

On the 10th and 13th of the same month, "premature milk" broke out in Hangzhou and Shanghai, the bases of Guangming. After the official investigation, Guangming had to admit that "Zhengzhou Guangmingshanmeng Dairy Co., Ltd. has used the stocked products to pass the inspection and reused production within the shelf life", and apologized to consumers for the first time.

The fate of Wang Jiafen and Guangming plummeted to the bottom. In the second half of 2005, Guangming was in a hurry in various markets. Looking at the half-price light in the supermarket and no one was interested, she began to doubt herself like never before. On the board of directors, she sincerely expressed "I am willing to take responsibility" again and again, and even agreed to find "a more international president" to replace herself.

However, Wang Jiafen is Wang Jiafen. In the 1970s, she worked, took care of her children, and studied TV by herself as a junior. From "Iron Girl" to "Iron Lady", there is no hurdle she can't overcome.

Learning to "re-imagine"

The "problem milk storm" made her lose herself for a while, and then made her discover where the "darkness" before the light came from.

The lesson Wang Jiafen has learned from this is, "We will put more emphasis on valuable companies in the selection of expansion targets." More importantly, she believes that "the Zhengzhou incident was not because of the speed, but because Growth is slow. When we acquired the Zhengzhou company, our speed actually slowed down. Just like driving a car, sometimes problems occur because of slowing down."

Slow, or "profits support growth" are actually true It is the "successful" experience she has learned from enterprise joint ventures over the years.

In 1992, Wang Jiafen, who first came to the dairy company, was inspired by Comrade Xiaoping's "Southern Tour Speech" and dared to be the first in the world to introduce foreign capital into this old state-owned enterprise, and set up four joint ventures at once. What Wang Jiafen thinks about is not just the capital of these multinational bigwigs. "In this round of cooperation, I think it has brought me to a very high platform. I fully understand how a large company and a multinational company operate." Now Guangming has "divorced" from these multinational companies early, Because "we have developed, but they can't keep up with our development."

"Cooperation - Learning - Beyond" became her most frequent phrase. She formed a joint venture with Danone for the sake of learning and insisted not to be controlled by it. From these established multinational companies, she sees the importance of governance structure and capital appreciation.

As for the former, she has attracted senior management talents from foreign companies since 1999, and her salary is much higher than that of bright old employees. The so-called "double-track compensation system" and management's shareholding have been innovatively learned by her one by one, allowing her to give way to professional managers today with confidence.

Wang Jiafen is also convinced of the latter. For many years, he has followed the rational expansion route of high profit and low growth rate, and has always disdained the "extensive growth" of the grassland duo.

Perhaps Reimagining prompted her to rethink what she had learned. This is a new book by Tom Peters following "Management Revolution" and "The Pursuit of Excellence".

Wang Jiafen, who keeps reading one management book every month, recommends this book to all middle-level companies. In January last year, the strategic seminar for the 50th anniversary of the "Bright" brand was under the name of "Re-Imagination, Centennial Brightness". At the meeting, she proposed, "We have to reimagine, reimagine the market environment, reimagine our industry, reimagine our business. Most importantly, reimagine our consumers."

Anytime "reimagine our business." It's never too late to imagine". From joint venture partner to competitor, Wang Jiafen began to relearn and imagine the future. TV University, Master of East China Normal University, and CEIBS EMBA, this is how she learned in her previous life.

In 2006, she publicly overturned her previous insistence, "Looking back at our financial strategy, we were too conservative. We felt that profit was the most important thing, but in the process of comprehensive implementation, some places still seemed conservative. In fact, If there is no growth, there will be no profit." The bright future is heaven or hell, she said, "The general manager is not the general manager if he does not gamble."

Starting this year, the countdown to Bright Dairy's 5-year high volume plan begins. At the end of last year, she had made a bold statement, "to grow at a rate of more than 30% every year", "to compete for the position that Bright should have in the market". So, on January 26, 2007, shortly after Guangming let go of "gambling", she chose to resign as general manager.

Some comments pointed out that this is a small step back for Wang Jiafen, and a big step forward for the bright. After her retirement, her dream of seeing "the whole country is bright" has been realized step by step starting from optimizing the governance structure.

What to insist on and what to give up, Wang Jiafen, who "knows the destiny", always knows best. Rather than saying that she is a "gambler", it is better to say that she is a good student in her life.

Attachment: Resume of Wang Jiafen

1968-1990: He went to the countryside to work on a farm in the suburbs of Shanghai. He was the deputy secretary of the farm party committee.

1990-1992: Director of the Industrial Division of the Shanghai Farm Bureau.

1992-1996: General Manager of Shanghai Dairy Company (predecessor of Bright Dairy), elected as Deputy Director of International Dairy Federation (IDF) China.

1996-present: Chairman and General Manager of Bright Dairy Co., Ltd. (a joint venture between Shanghai Dairy Company and SIIC Holdings). Resigned as general manager in January 2007.

2002-2004: On-the-job study EMBA of China Europe International Business School.