FOTILE Mao Zhong Group: Chinese Style Management Should Be Parallel With Confucianism.

In the field of manufacturing products in China,

As an entrepreneur of science and engineering, poor talkative and consistently low-key and pragmatic, Mao Zhongqun, President of FOTILE group, went against his father in 1996. He set up a business composed of professional managers team and realized the pition from a family business to a modern one.

In the more than 10 years of cultivation, there has been no low-end market; no business has extended to the kitchen and electric industry; no listing has been considered.

In the background of strong foreign investment entering the Chinese market, as a newly rising local high-end brand, FOTILE is forming a positive collision with foreign brands.

How to pass

Combing brand positioning to meet foreign investment challenges

"No enterprise in the world can say that today's practice is the best. It must be improved every year, every month and even every day. Enterprises are always the same. They can only move forward."

China business newspaper: at present, FOTILE group has occupied 80% share of the high-end brand market of kitchen electricity, but from the development trend, the company seems to enter a period of adjustment.

Under such circumstances, what problems should the company focus on to solve?

Mao Zhongqun: at the end of last year, I put forward a goal, that is, keep forging ahead in building high-end brands.

It has always been a relatively general statement - the first brand of high-end kitchen electricity.

Last year, we clearly announced to the outside world that our business goal is: China's high-end kitchen electricity experts and leaders.

After that, all of our work will focus on this position.

This is the need to keep pace with the times, and we need higher standards and higher standards tomorrow, but it does not mean that there will be problems in the past.

For example, 5 years ago, without SIEMENS, we would not feel any special competitors. Now, with the entry of SIEMENS, as a very successful foreign brand in the Chinese market, we will have a contest with the brand. So from this perspective, we need to set our goal higher, so that we can compete with SIEMENS.

Management is like performance. FOTILE made its performance management in 2001. Its core idea is to keep improving because no enterprise in the world can say that today's practice is the best. It must be improved every year and even every day, and the enterprise is always like this.

China Business Daily: but in the past 3 years, some foreign brands have entered the Chinese market with strong strength and occupied the market with more than 50% growth rate. How do you view the current market structure of the kitchen and electric industry?

Mao Zhongqun: compared with SIEMENS, in the high-end market, FOTILE's market share is nearly two times that of him.

We are now focusing on the high-end market, and our competitors are SIEMENS. We seldom consider other brands.

The brand of SIEMENS has great influence on Chinese consumers. Our market growth rate is 20%, SIEMENS is more than 50%.

Such challenges are intangible.

In terms of brand marketing and terminal image, SIEMENS also has some places worth learning.

I think the first thing to compete with SIEMENS is to seize the product. Second is to seize the advantage of brand marketing, the third is to highlight the image of the experts, fourth is to improve the service level, and the fifth is to form a characteristic culture.

{page_break}

Good faith makes good management.

"We must combine western management with local culture, which is a good management mode. Management must take cultural background into consideration."

China business newspaper: the challenge of competition with foreign enterprises often comes from the level of management. What do you think is the most important work for a company that has formed a modern enterprise management system?

Mao Zhongqun: what I think is the next strategy and the building of corporate culture.

Unlike ordinary enterprises, FOTILE is still at the slogan level. We hope to really create a desirable corporate culture, including how to integrate Chinese and Western culture, form management with Chinese characteristics, and even form management theory to promote, just like Japanese management mode and German management mode.

We are also trying to do this work, which is open and difficult.

China business newspaper: what you learn from management is western management. What have you learned from the management of the world's top 500 companies?

Mao Zhongqun: I think the company should manage in the first ten years, and the benchmark is multinational company.

I studied western management in the first ten years. By learning MBA in 2000, I naturally thought of improving the management level. The fastest way to improve it is to directly dig the top 500 talents in the world.

In fact, in the process of communicating with them, I learned a lot from books. From them, I can learn some western management concepts and methods.

I think we must combine western management with local culture. Management must take cultural background into consideration.

China is now learning the western MBA, which is obviously temporary. China must have its own management mode, so we need to consider these things ahead of time.

China business newspaper: the difference of management culture between China and the West stems from a difference of basic values. When you introduce professional managers of some top 500 world companies, he will inevitably conflict with the inherent management culture of China. What are the effects of such conflicts? How do you achieve cultural integration?

Mao Zhongqun: after careful analysis, you will find out why Americans use the set of management methods and management tools to basically manage their own enterprises, but the same tools and methods have been taken by Chinese enterprises, but the effect is not obvious.

This is reflected in the cultural differences. In fact, to manage an organization well, we must grasp both hands, grasp the system construction, learn some things of American management, and make it institutionalized, standardized, streamlined and standardized. The other is grasping values and beliefs.

These two hands are indispensable. Now China's enterprises, in addition to the use of institutional management, the other hand is actually lacking.

Chinese people generally have no values or beliefs.

Such an organization is really hard to manage, because you lack values and beliefs, and institutions alone can't work.

Because the premise of the function of the system is that there must be a strong supervision mechanism. The cost is enormous.

American enterprises do not spend much energy in this respect, because his social background is more than 90% of people believe in religion. This religious belief has basically built up the values of employees.

In China, enterprises need to do this job themselves.

Our approach is to find new values and manage them from our traditional culture.

In fact, in China's environment, the most difficult to implement is the most grass-roots employees.

In order to coagulate the morale of employees, we decided to raise the shareholding system for all employees, and stipulate that employees who have been employed by FOTILE for more than two years can enjoy the share of the company, which is, of course, not a real share, but a dividend right.

My idea is what to advocate. First of all, the company must do it. Otherwise, the enterprise culture will never be built.

China business newspaper: how to form an enterprise management system with Chinese characteristics? Japan has their management characteristics. At present, China seems to have not yet. What do you think of the management characteristics of Chinese enterprises?

Mao Zhongqun: we must integrate the achievements of Western management with the excellent traditional culture of China, and how to integrate it well. This is a big topic.

The most important theoretical basis is "the virtue of Tao, the etiquette of the Qi, the shame and the grid".

This is a great idea and should be a core concept of Chinese style management.

In China, management should be conducted in a two pronged way. One is to educate employees by morality, values and beliefs; the other is to standardize employee behavior by etiquette and etiquette.

Shame and disgrace, that is, letting employees feel ashamed in their hearts can restrain their actions, and naturally do not exceed the scope of requirements.

In fact, apart from shame, there is also a sense of fear generated by the system.

It is also a combination of fear and great sense of shame.

A person with a sense of morality, today picked up 1000 yuan to hand in, may have picked up 10000 Yuan Yuan also to hand in, but if picked up 1 million yuan to test him very much, if picks up 10 million yuan, the moral sense does not have the function, when the interest is big enough, the moral management may be invalid, must have the corresponding system to make up for.

This is the Chinese way of "Confucianism and Legalism".

China business newspaper: does the fusion of Chinese and Western management culture have effect? What is the result?

Mao Zhongqun: can Chinese management always learn from Americans? Of course not.

I think management needs to grope and try according to the actual situation.

For example, the FOTILE employee handbook is divided into ABC classes for employees' behavior errors. Class A is the most serious and needs to be expelled; class B is a medium mistake; C is the lightest mistake, such as being late, leaving early, and so on. C error is in accordance with the past practice, that is, fines, 10 yuan, 20 yuan, 30 yuan, and almost eighty or ninety of enterprises in the world do this. This is the way of Western management.

Later we learned the Confucian concept of management.

That is to say, small mistakes are mainly based on shame to restrain employees' behavior, rather than relying on fines to make him afraid.

Now, if the employee has committed a C class error, the penalty will be gone, but his direct supervisor is going to talk to him. The purpose is to make him feel that this is not the right thing, and not to do so next time.

This measure was implemented in early 2009. After that, it was found that the total number of class C errors in 2009 was 50% lower than that in 2008, and this is still in the case of an increase in the number of employees.

This is the example of Confucian management over Western management.

{page_break}

Starting a business with my father

The thin face is more solemn than the others.

As a real Zhejiang businessman, Mao Zhongqun's important label is concentration and paranoia.

"No listing, no OEM, no price war."

Mao Zhongqun's "three no" principle was destined to be different from other enterprises at the very beginning.

After 15 years of development, FOTILE brand has only one category of kitchen electric products, and the other brand of water heater and cabinet products is used.

Product category is so few, just reflects the company's business philosophy is different.

And this alternative is also an important factor in achieving its development.

As an entrepreneur, Mao's personal factors play an important role in the development of enterprises. He has overturned the tradition from the very beginning: he did not take over his father's lighters business, and abandoned his father's biggest brand asset "flying" trademark.

He cut off the traditional inheritance path of Chinese traditional family businesses from the very beginning.

Before making FOTILE, my father and I had three laws, one of which was to stipulate decision-making power to me, because FOTILE is a blank and new business, and the responsibility of this business is also in my future.

My father agreed, so it should be said that there is no shift in the traditional sense. More exactly, it is a joint venture. The creation of FOTILE is a process that I co founded with my father.

Mao Zhongqun told China business newspaper reporter.

Perhaps the right thing has been done at the right time.

The 5 million generation of venture capital from the previous generation, as a considerable financial support, provided fuel for his brand to enter the fast lane.

In 2010, FOTILE's sales performance exceeded 2 billion yuan, and still maintained a leading position in the industry.

As the founder of FOTILE, Mao Zhongqun called herself "just sticking to FOTILE's original position and working hard."

15 years of business experience did not make Mao Zhongqun smooth and sophisticated. When talking with others, he was still angry and even shy.

Many bosses drink coffee and alcohol Bureau, but he likes drinking tea and reading ancient prose. Many of his bosses love to play golf, but he practises Shaoxing opera at home.

Mao Zhongqun's personality does not seem to fit in today's young entrepreneurs, but he will never change. The persistence and judgment of strategy has brought FOTILE's growth with strong personal characteristics. In his own words, "I am very stubborn in my bones, I have my own judgement on things and I believe this is right."

On the first floor of FOTILE administration building, there is a nearly 200 square meter classroom similar to "private school", called "Confucius hall". The executives of the company come here every week to exchange experiences and make bibliographic recommendations. Mao Zhongqun hopes to popularize Confucianism as a cultural value.

Nowadays, every employee in FOTILE group will read the Scripture in fixed time, from "disciple rule" to "three character scripture" and then to the Analects of Confucius, many people can recite it.

In fact, the establishment of "Confucius hall" in 2008 is precisely the embodiment of a bottleneck for enterprise management itself.

According to Mao Zhongqun, the western management mode will change more or less in China because there are differences in values.

Sinology, however, has always been a better tool for education, and it is beneficial to employees' values.

This is the attempt of management concept "integration of Chinese and Western".

In a sense, the steady growth of FOTILE depends largely on Mao Zhongqun's personal influence.

As he himself said, "any organization must run well, half of its system and process, and half of its people.

If the process is improved, if there is no qualified person, it will be no use.

"Why is it always important to talk about the past and the future? Let's not talk about my position. Even if the ministers of the next departments are very well established, the former people will be mobile, and they will be replaced by an incompetent department head. The performance of this department will soon decline and people will always be very important."

Well, according to this statement, it will be very difficult for FOTILE to have a "Jack Welch" character.

Does this mean that the management mode and the road of modernization of Chinese private enterprises are still in the stage of babbling?