The company was founded in 1993 and was once the second largest in the world. Its business sectors range from aviation aluminum manufacturing to high-speed rail Fuxing body research and development, from ships and yachts to architectural aluminum templates, from special vehicles to all-aluminum furniture. Zhongwang Group's business scope has covered the world and various industries, but it is such a world-class aluminum R&D and aluminum manufacturing company with 93 internationally advanced aluminum profile extrusion production lines, hundreds of technology patents, and an annual production capacity of up to 1 million tons. In the past two years, it has been declining year after year and even becoming out of business. So, where does its problem lie? Where will it go next?
In 1993, it was established in Liaoning Province, China, focusing on construction aluminum profiles, and began to establish a nationwide distribution network;
By 2001, after multiple production capacity expansions, the production capacity increased from The 100,000 tons in 1996 quickly expanded to 300,000 tons in 2001
By 2004, industrial aluminum profiles entered the transportation field and began to export aluminum profile products to the United States
In 2005 , was the year when Zhongwang Group began to move toward glory. In this year, it began to supply industrial aluminum profiles to many companies under the Ministry of Railways, provide industrial aluminum profile products to the shipbuilding industry, and export industrial aluminum profile products to Germany and Australia.
In 2009, Zhongwang was included in the "Eleventh Five-Year National Science and Technology Support Plan Advanced Aluminum Processing Technology Research and Development Project" by the China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association. It was also this year that Zhongwang ushered in its peak - —
On May 8, 2009, China Zhongwang was successfully listed on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, and its industrial aluminum profile sales ranked second in the world. In this year, Zhongwang once became its own company at that time. This is the largest IPO in the world since the 2008 financial crisis. Group chairman Liu Zhongtian has become the richest man in the mainland with a net worth of 24 billion.
Since then, a fifth-tier city based in the three northeastern provinces that many people have never heard of has become a world-class aluminum profile R&D and manufacturing institution. It can be said that step by step, it has not only created the world's second largest Aluminum profile R&D and production has benefited one party and created tens of thousands of jobs.
It is said that the income of an ordinary worker at Zhongwang back then could reach 7,000-8,000 yuan. In 2009, this income far exceeded the average income in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. Many sales staff were earning Millions and more.
To this day, when talking about the glory of Zhongwang, they say they don’t know how many multi-millionaires they created. After that, Zhongwang Group continued its glory for many years, relying on inertia to sprint forward.
From 2016 to 2018, aluminum templates once occupied 85% of the national market, more than other companies combined;
Cooperated with BYD, BMW, Tesla, etc. at home and abroad Automobile manufacturers reached strategic level cooperation;
In September 2017, it successfully acquired Aluminumwerk Unna AG, a century-old German aluminum company. In October, it successfully acquired superyacht manufacturer SilverYachts;
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As can be seen from the above, Zhongwang Group’s business is still undergoing orderly expansion and extension, from the first strategic transformation in 2002 to 2016 The third strategic transformation in 2019. In the new energy era and in the environment where the country advocates energy conservation and environmental protection, such an enterprise should be more brilliant and more marketable than before. However, since 2019, Zhongwang Group has gradually performed There are various downward trends.
The return to A-shares was frustrated, and Hong Kong stocks continued to fall. The market value fell below 10 billion in 2020, and the group’s official website financial report announced a net profit of only 1.84 billion, which is still disputed.
So with so many advantages, so many brilliant achievements, and such a good market, why has Zhongwang Group experienced a decline in performance year after year? Why is there such a massive brain drain?
Where does its main problem appear?
Like all old traditional manufacturing enterprises, long production cycles, high production costs, loss of professional workers, long delivery cycles, and complex financial settlement procedures are important problems that cannot adapt to the market.
The most important problem stems from its system. Most of a large enterprise, especially an old enterprise, like Chinese enterprises, do not die from the market and market competition, but from due to its internal friction. Internal nepotism, factional fighting, and ownership of high-level interests have caused extreme chaos in the personnel structure and company system. If a company once falls into this vortex, the ship will no longer be able to sail, and sooner or later it will be emptied by personal interests.
As we all know, the domestic economic environment is getting better and better. For the aluminum profile market, its economic environment is far better than other industries. The price of aluminum ingots has increased from more than 1,400 per ton last year to more than 20,000 per ton this year, which indirectly shows that the demand for it in the upstream and downstream aluminum industry and surrounding industries has increased.
However, Zhongwang Group currently does not operate in line with market rules and rhythm.
The serious division of levels also creates a problem. What employees serve has changed from the original goal of the company to serving the leadership's preferences. In most cases, the leader's preference is completely different from market demand and market rules. From employees' blind obedience to the leader's preference, it evolves into the leader's blind confidence and nonsense. Unprofessional people direct professional talents, give random orders, and do nothing. The result is the loss of professional talents and the deviation from market rules and directions.
Some Zhongwang employees once said that by replacing the positions of Zhongwang’s middle and senior leaders and ordinary employees, perhaps Zhongwang’s performance will be even higher. Of course, there are objections to this statement, but it may also make sense to a large extent.
The links are bloated, the efficiency is low, and there is no complete, standard, and standardized management system. It is said that a company as big as Zhongwang Group does not have a set of ERP and CRM in use. Its contract signing cycle requires repeated manual communication in several aspects such as production approval, financial approval, legal review, etc., and the signing cycle lasts as long as 45 days.
There are countless problems like this. Zhongwang Group is a good company. It has created many brilliance and benefited the people. However, since it has continued to decline from the second place in the world to the present, its problems are not It cannot be solved. The most important thing is how it looks directly at these problems.
Eliminate factions and nepotism, establish mechanisms, introduce talents, conduct independent accounting, operate independently, speak with efficiency, let products return to the market, make mechanisms conform to the market, let talents return to the enterprise, and let useless big butts get out of their seats Get out of the way and let professional people do professional things, so that all processes are no longer subject to personal interference and subjective control. I believe that in this way, it will gradually usher in glory again.