Ding Wei Visits Beijing University of Science and Technology to Share A.O. Smith's Innovation

On the afternoon of March 21st, Ding Wei, Senior Vice President of the American AO Smith Group Company and President of the Chinese Company visited Beijing University of Science and Technology (hereinafter referred to as “Beijing University”) and served as a guest alumni forum. Prof. Dai Shufen, Party Secretary of Dongling School of Economics and Management, Beijing University of Science and Technology Professor Yan Xiangbin, Dean attended the forum. In the keynote lecture on “Innovation-Centered Corporate Culture Construction - From Slogan to Action”, Ding Wei shared the successful experience of AO Smith with the North University students. Innovation.

At the beginning of the speech, Ding Wei spoke of an interesting story: 'I met an old colleague before and said that when I saw Ding Wei as a simple and ordinary person, I now have to make such a large enterprise. This shows that there is talent in North University. People like to ponder, like innovation, are people who do things. ' In the laughter of the students, Ding Wei continued: 'AO Smith is also a company that attaches great importance to R & D and innovation, operating efficiency and operating quality. At the end of 2016, the United States " In Fortune Magazine’s “Global Business Leaders 50” award, Ajita, the CEO of AO Smith, was listed on the Fortune 50 list together with the CEOs of Facebook, Apple, Amazon and others. On volume, we talked with Apple. There is a gap between Amazon and Amazon, but we are very proud of it. That is the history of our company for 144 years. A company can still be so dynamic after operating for such a long time. It is because of our operating efficiency and the quality of our products.

Deeply cultivate the Chinese market with outstanding operating performance

High-quality, high-efficiency operations brought high returns on investment for AO Smith's investors. In his speech, Ding Wei talked about a set of data: The return on investment of listed companies in the manufacturing industry is generally 25%, even if In the worst years, the return on investment of AO Smith China is also above 100%. In the 20 years since its entry into China, AO Smith China has leapfrogged from a single category into a household appliance industry covering multiple categories such as hot water, clean water, heating, and air purification. Leading the brand, maintaining an average annual growth rate of 20% to 35%. Ding Wei, who has led the company's remarkable achievements, said: 'We achieved a break-even balance around 2001 and since then we have been making great strides, including the 2008 financial crisis. Also did not cause any substantial impact.

Last year, sales in China accounted for one billion U.S. dollars, accounting for one-third of the group companies. If we can maintain a growth rate of 15%, in five years, sales in China can reach two billion U.S. dollars. People's imagination. The media often call India the 'second China', but our sales in the Indian market have not exceeded 30 million US dollars last year. In China, it is only a prefecture-level city in Yancheng, Jiangsu, that broke 3000 Million Dollars. Everyone knows that if you start to buy a house in Beijing from 2008, your income will be very high, but buying a house is not as good as buying an AO Smith stock. From 2008 to now, AO Smith shares have risen nearly 20 times.

Build China's R&D team, pay attention to technological R&D innovation

AO Smith's outstanding business performance cannot be separated from his unremitting research and innovation in technology. AO Smith has been very concerned about R&D since the founders began. Several generations of 'head' people are engineers. Ding Wei, a student of science and engineering It also attaches great importance to technology and R&D. This is consistent with AO Smith's concept. In 2003, AO Smith China Co., Ltd. just ended its loss and began to build R&D centers in accordance with international standards. It basically expands every three to four years. This year, In May, the new phase of the R&D center will soon be completed.

“The biggest difference between AO Smith and other foreign companies is that our China R&D team is very strong. ' Ding Wei emphasized that 'many foreign companies have come to China and still rely on local R&D. The Chinese R&D team does some supplementary work. The companies abound, and the R&D capabilities of their Chinese teams are not much different from they were a decade ago. But AO Smith is different. Our staffing in R&D has demonstrated our absolute emphasis on R&D. AO Smith's R&D staff There are less than 700 people and over 500 people in China. This places great emphasis on the Chinese market and highly allocates R&D. It is difficult for many multinational companies to do.

Improve corporate culture values ​​and implement employee standards of behavior

AO Smith is a company that attaches great importance to the construction of corporate culture, and its unique management philosophy is also a guarantee for the company's long-term development. Ding Wei himself extracts a very important corporate culture value of AO Smith is 'four satisfaction': customer satisfaction, shareholders Satisfaction, employee satisfaction, social satisfaction.

'Customers, shareholders, employees, society, all four parties must be satisfied. We do not rank one by one and never harm one party to meet the other. In many corporate cultures in China, we often see 'fighting and loyalty'. Probably their founders came this way, so he asked his employees to form a kind of 'owner culture'. But if you take AO Smith's business philosophy into consideration, is this approach and 'employee satisfaction' possible? But what about the seamless connection? In fact, employees may care more about work being recognized, or work-life balance. Some companies open executives always like to open at night, it seems to be responsible for shareholders. But as an employee, who wants to be in eight hours? Outside of the meeting? AO Smith's approach is: In addition to individual special events, do not meet outside working hours. Then we share shareholders so cheap? No. Shareholders emphasize operating performance, not that you overtime work for one hour It's cheap. We emphasize the effect, not formalism.

There are often conflicts in the work. It is difficult to achieve four satisfactions. What is the biggest challenge for the company to achieve the four satisfactions? That is, it requires the company to have a strong profitability. So how does AO Smith's strong profitability come from? What is it? It is by innovation, value is by innovation.'

How to put 'innovation' such hollow values ​​into the standards of behavior of all employees? The most effective management method of AO Smith is the 'corporate values' project. This project has been done for 15 years and currently has 10 million yuan each year. Budget. Employees can nominate company values ​​without restriction, and as long as they are nominated, they can get WeChat red envelopes.

'Last year we collected more than 50,000 value nominations. After compiling valuable books and management's re-evaluation of selected values, each value can be worth 2,000 yuan worth of gifts. There are also two rounds of finalists in the selection of values. The winners will receive a budget of 8,000 yuan in Asia and a budget of 25,000 yuan in the United States. We do not talk empty-handed theory, twice a year corporate value activities, spend seven or eight million yuan each time to promote the value of construction, the value of these Reality.

From left to right, Yan Xiangbin, Ding Wei, Dai Shufen

Emphasize the construction of the system to protect the healthy development of the company

AO Smith attaches great importance to institution building and value promotion system, which is one of the outstanding systems recognized by senior executives. Why does everything require institutional protection? Ding Wei believes that the company requires steady development and that employees do not want to change to a new one. For the 'four satisfactions', we hope that each satisfaction has its own system to protect it.

In the front-line employees, the workshop team leader sees any behavior that is consistent with the values. As long as the behavior is publicized and monitored, he can directly send red envelopes. ' Ding Wei also specifically mentioned AO Smith's 'CI' system: 'Every employee can With suggestions for improvement and improvement, we have a dedicated CI management system. We will track and implement people in specific categories. We will award part of the economic benefits to the employees. The final sponsor and the implementation team will share the results. The economy we achieved with this system last year. Benefits reach 30 million yuan. How to stimulate employees' enthusiasm and sense of participation? For our front-line employees, through the CI system, an increase of three or five hundred yuan per month is very real.

During the two-hour speech, Ding Wei had a long conversation with the students on the site and gave them in-depth answers to some of AO Smith's curiosity and doubts. Many students said that this opened up a new look for them. From the point of view of the problem, the atmosphere was very lively. 'I talked with our Human Resources Department. After this lecture, we have to see how many resumes we can receive on the spot.' In the lecture, Ding Wei smiled and sent to the students attending the lecture. Invited. AO Smith opened a variety of recruitment channels at the lecture site. There are only dozens of paper resumes received.

The student who delivered the resume on site communicated with the A.O. Smith HR staff

At the end of the lecture, Ding Wei said, “We very much welcome the students who are interested in us to further understand us. I believe that Smith’s very solid business path and the doubling of its business performance in the next five years is also very reliable. Although there are various challenges in some regions, we have no real competitors at the company level. We are very confident in this.

YORK New Media Coolest Technology News

Scan code win award