An obscure road in Wangjiaba, Chongqing, is the place where Zuo Zongshen made his fortune.
At present, there are large factories in Banan District of Chongqing.
Its property: Zongshen Power City Zuo Zongshen 1952 was born in Shanghai; The Great Leap Forward Movement in China from 65438 to 0958 AD made Zuo's family move to Chongqing. During the Cultural Revolution, Zuo Zongshen, like countless young people in China, received labor training in the countryside. After the Cultural Revolution, he returned to the city and worked as a kiln burner in Chongqing Porcelain Factory. In the early 1980s, China began to carry out reform and opening up, and the upsurge of doing business in the sea swept the land of China. Zuo Zongshen resigned from his official job in Chongqing Porcelain Factory, which was regarded as an "iron rice bowl" at that time, and began the first step of his business career.
He first went to Hebei, Shandong and other places to sell martial arts novels, do fruit business and sell clothes, and made the initial "primitive accumulation". But bad luck, bad weather in the fruit business; The fruit rotted on the road; I was cheated for selling clothes again, and I didn't even have a fare to go home.
Zuo Zongshen, who suffered many setbacks, was in great pain. He said: "The depressed mood made me want to give up my ideal for a time. I was almost 30 years old at that time. As the saying goes,' people don't learn art when they are over thirty'. I wanted to spend my life like this, but I didn't expect it to become attached to motorcycles. "
Under his wife's repeated persuasion, Zuo Zongshen learned motorcycle maintenance from his brother-in-law. From the embarrassing scene of unpacking a young man's car for the first time, to the exquisite technical interpretation of judging whether there is anything wrong with the car and where it is, he has eaten up the unbearable pain of ordinary people and practiced the superb skills of motorcycle maintenance. 1982, my wife vacated the house facing the street in Wangjiaba, Banan District, set up a shed of cow felt outside, and started a motorcycle maintenance business in Zuo Zongshen.
1990 By chance, a friend in Guiyang asked him to go to the motorcycle factory run by No.5 Middle School in Nan 'an, Chongqing to buy a three-wheeled motorcycle. There, Zuo Zongshen found that the business of the school-run factory was very good, and the hotels around the school were crowded with people waiting to pick up the car. I didn't know that the supply of engines was very tight until I asked. Zuo Zongshen thought: Repairing motorcycle engines is familiar to him. Why not assemble a few by himself? After making up his mind, he exchanged views with the director of the school-run factory and was recognized by the director. A few days later, the factory director personally came to the door and ordered 100 engines from him.
Since then, Zuo Zongshen has been out of control.
Zuo Zongshen's market research is very primitive-carrying a Yamaha two-stroke engine from a construction factory and traveling all over the country to 59 engine manufacturers. The answer is that this thing is in short supply. In those two months, he took his apprentice and traveled north and south with his engine on his back, and visited dozens of enterprises. In order to reduce expenses, he takes the train every time he goes out. Once he went to Hebei, because he didn't get the ticket, there were many passengers on the bus. "I stood for three days and three nights, and my feet were swollen. I couldn't stand it anymore, so I laid a newspaper on the aisle and slept. "
Talking about motorcycles in that heroic era, with glory and dreams, a group of people grew up rapidly with passion, intelligence and a deep grasp of "China characteristics".
After 10 years of technology and capital accumulation, 1992, a humble Zongshen company was established, and Zuo Zongshen had its own space to gallop. He saved 200,000 yuan and raised 300,000 yuan to set up Chongqing Zongshen Motorcycle Technology Development Co., Ltd. In this way, a mechanic stepped into the threshold of motorcycle industry.
At that time, the 70CC engine developed and produced by Zongshen was a great success in the market, but Zuo Zongshen was under great pressure: Zongshen Company was out of breath because of the pressure from competitors such as Jialing, Jianshe and Wangjiang.
Zuo Zongshen silently waiting for the opportunity to come. Soon, the state allowed private enterprises to start engines. Zuo Zongshen breathed a sigh of relief after obtaining the motorcycle engine production license.
In the past two years, 1994 and 1995, China motorcycle engines performed surprisingly well in the market. In those two years, almost all enterprises producing engines made money. Zongshen Company also quickly completed the capital accumulation.
At that time, Zuo Zongshen's biggest gain from running the market was that "quality is more important than anything else". He said that 99% of Zongshen's engines are not quality, and only the remaining 1% can be done well.
Zongshen Group pursues refined management. In a short period of seven or eight years, Zuo Zongshen has transformed from a mechanic to a rising star in the domestic motorcycle industry, ranking among the top five domestic motorcycle 10 companies. Nowadays, the benefits of several well-known state-owned motorcycle manufacturing enterprises in Chongqing are increasingly stretched, but Zongshen Group is full of vitality, expanding its scale and carrying out technical transformation. Zongshen Group is now one of the largest motorcycle manufacturers in the world, with an annual output of 1 10,000 vehicles and employees of10.8 million. The total sales amount ranks first among private motorcycle enterprises in China, and it has become a large-scale private science, industry and trade (high-tech) group integrating R&D, manufacturing and sales, with an annual output of 6.5438+0.5 million motorcycles and 3 million engines. In addition, Zongshen Group also owns the first international motorcycle team in China.
At present, the average profit rate of China motorcycle industry is less than 5%, and many people in the industry call China motorcycle industry a "sunset industry". Zuo Zongshen is one of the staunch opponents. He believes that China's motorcycles have at least 10-20 years of life; The main market for motorcycles is in rural areas. Although there is a great demand in the rural market, farmers' income is low and their purchasing power is weak, resulting in "overproduction". Zuo Zongshen believes that the peak of consumption of low-grade motorcycles in the rural market has not yet arrived.
Zuo Zongshen aims to produce 2 million motorcycles and 3 million engines every year in the next five years.
Personal Honor Zuo Zongshen is currently a member of Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, a member of the Standing Committee of the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce, a vice president of the Asian Manufacturing Association, a vice president of the Chongqing Federation of Industry and Commerce (General Chamber of Commerce) and a vice president of the Chongqing International Chamber of Commerce. He has successively won the first Outstanding Contribution Award for Revitalizing Chongqing, Mundell World Manager Achievement Award, Charity Donation Award of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, China Glory Career Medal, Top Ten Chongqing Merchants, Top Ten Innovative Figures in China Manufacturing Industry, Top Ten Leading Figures in China Manufacturing Industry, and National Excellent Socialism with Chinese characteristics Career Builder.