Cao Dewang’s founding history is like a wild horse, although sometimes it will fall into the valley, but soon you can see him turning with a vigorous posture and a more rapid speed.
Repeated defeat
The rural entrepreneur who came from the mountains of Fuzhou had suffered several storms.
It is said that during the People's Commune, he took thousands of dollars to Jiangxi Funer, and he was unfortunately detained with speculative crimes. All his savings were almost lost. After contracting the glass factory, he was captured by the “adversaryâ€. The correct handle was reported as corruption. The lawsuit was brought from the county to the center and was eventually found guilty.
After Saint-Gobain took over in Fuyao Glass in 1996, it intended to use Fuyao as one of the many processing bases in Asia. Unexpectedly, after three years, Saint-Gobain’s investment was lost and it was decided to withdraw its capital. At that time, everyone thought that Fuyao was going to go bankrupt and sold its shares one after another. On the contrary, Cao Dewang insisted on buying Fuyao shares at a high price, and later became Fuyao's largest shareholder.
In 2004, Fuyao won a ppg dumping complaint. PPG agreed to help Fuyao to produce high-tech float glass production lines in a cooperative manner. Fuyao has since entered the threshold of high-end automotive glass.
Cash transformation?
Cao Dewang's latest topic is: plan to donate all his shares (70%) to set up a charitable foundation. Cao Dewang will serve as the first president of the charitable foundation. Some people think that this is Cao Dewang's channel for cashing after the tradable shares are lifted. Others believe that this is an economic recession. Fuyao stimulates the stock price through good news.
In fact, although Cao Dewang started to actively prepare for the cold winter as early as in late 2007, today Fuyao still faces multiple pressures. Between 2007 and 2008, Fuyao's debt ratio continued to rise. By the end of 2008, it has reached 63%.
The market contraction has brought about an increase in inventory, and the increase in inventory has added to the cost pressure. In the factory building in Fuqing, there are wooden shelves filled with windshields of cars. Layers of glass fill a few hundred square meters of warehouse space.
The automotive industry is in recession, and the bankruptcy tendencies of the three major automobile giants, such as General Motors, mean a reduction in demand for Fuyao. The declining domestic construction industry directly led Fuyao to shut down the Hainan factory. In Cao Dewang’s opinion, focusing on making automotive glass will become the focus of future business, and the real estate industry has no tomorrow.
However, Cao Dewang is also not optimistic about the domestic automobile industry. “The cold current has only just begun. Throughout 2009, Fuyao will face multiple internal and external pressures.â€
In the early 1990s, Cao Dewang visited the Ford Motor Museum. There, he saw that there were tens of thousands of automakers competing in the US auto industry a hundred years ago, and today there are only three automakers. He suddenly realized that to be a century-long enterprise, not only to look at strategies, but also to learn to follow the trend. “Only by learning to observe the general economic situation, can a businessman gain opportunities for development.â€
Inward survival
If you have the opportunity to pass through the Fuqing Industrial Zone, you will see many young people who appear to be about 20 years old during lunch time and are walking in the canteens wearing uniform grey overalls. Thousands of people live on the land surrounded by Castle Peak. There are dozens of dormitory buildings and digital reading rooms in the distance.
Xiaoguan, who graduated from the Heilongjiang Agricultural Bureau, is a new employee who has just entered Fuyao for one and a half years. After attending Beijing Fuyao’s management training for cadres, he became deputy director of a factory in Fuqing Flat Glass. Although his monthly salary is only 2,500 yuan, he has a clear understanding of the initial lean manufacturing and 6SIGMA concept.
“People in our factory, although with low academic qualifications, are concentrating on glass products for ten years. This is why professional managers need to spend a day to understand things. He can understand this in a minute.†It is Fuyao's basic source of low-cost operation.
Fuyao's success lies in that when the global economic crisis has just begun at the end of Qingping, Cao Dewang has foreseen the pressure of stagflation caused by high costs and rapid market expansion. On the one hand, Fuyao achieves cost reduction through internal implementation of lean manufacturing and 6SIGMA management, and maintains a stable quality system. On the other hand, Fuyao boosts growth by increasing its overseas market share and entering the maintenance market.
Kejo Roll Forming Machine Co., Ltd. , http://www.shformingmachine.com