"Xiaomi 12 officially benchmarks Apple and learns from Apple", counting the changes in Lei Jun's product concept

Today, the Xiaomi 12 series was officially released, as xiaomi's third-generation high-end flagship, the 12 series upgrades not only technology and configuration, but more importantly, experience.

In addition to various parameter improvements, the xiaomi mi 12 screen is 8% larger, reaching 6.28 inches, smaller than the iPhone 13, the grip is better, many users can hold it in one hand, perfectly reproducing the classic model of xiaomi 6.

At the same time, Lei Jun said on the social platform: "The Xiaomi 12 series officially benchmarked Apple and learned from Apple."

Lei Jun has always been known as "Rebbs", from the Internet model stirred up the manufacturing industry's "catfish", to Xiaomi became a giant in the mobile phone industry, Lei Jun's product concept has become a benchmark for all walks of life to learn.

This time, xiaomi 12 was released, and while launching an impact on Apple, Lei Jun's product concept was also more enriched from the original mobile phone to the high-end mobile phone. In this context, we have sorted out Lei Jun's past views on products and organizational management, and now we share them and learn together.

01, efficiency: the core of cost performance is not cheap

On the eve of Xiaomi's IPO, Lei Jun held a press conference at his alma mater, Wuhan University, at which he announced that "the comprehensive profit margin of Xiaomi hardware will never exceed 5%, and if it exceeds 5%, the excess will be returned to consumers."

In this way, Xiaomi, which lowered the mobile phone to the threshold of a thousand yuan, was able to set off a hole in the market.

The reason why Lei Jun is so solemn is because he is worried that after Xiaomi becomes a listed company, it will be "kidnapped" by excess profits and lose its original intention of doing "touching people's hearts and generous prices".

"I am confident that I can withstand such pressure, but I am worried that if one day I am not the CEO, xiaomi's management can continue to insist, think about it, and fix it in the form of legal documents is the best way," Lei Jun said at the meeting.

Xiaomi, which enters the market with cost performance, is often misunderstood by the public as cheap, which makes Lei Jun and other Xiaomi executives very distressed. "In fact, the core of cost performance is efficiency," explains Wang Xiang, a partner at Xiaomi Group.

20 years ago, because China's products were cheap, many people could afford to buy them and enter the global circulation system. "But these products only solve the problem of price, not the problem of quality, Xiaomi's original intention is to solve these two problems at the same time, and sell more good products cheaply to consumers," Wang Xiang said.

Facts have proved that Xiaomi has raised the competition threshold of mobile phones to a higher dimension, and many manufacturers have to improve their products to gain a foothold in the market. "This is Xiaomi's contribution," Wang Xiang explained, "if you don't make a good product, consumers are going to buy millet, which is almost the consensus of the industry."

As a "catfish" that stirs up manufacturing, Xiaomi has made more and more manufacturing companies "awaken".

How can Xiaomi still be cheap under the premise of ensuring quality? Wang Xiang's answer is "efficiency, you must have achieved the highest efficiency in all aspects, instead of sticking money in all the time."

Lei Jun said, "The cost and expense of ordinary commodities account for the majority, and the profit is only a narrow space, while Xiaomi has a set of high-efficiency models, in which 'explosive products' reduce the cost of manufacturing and services, new media reduces the cost of brands and markets, and e-commerce reduces the cost of channels and sales."

In 2020, Xiaomi's operating expense ratio is 11.2%, Apple's is 14.1%, and Huawei and Samsung's is more than 20%.

All along, the outside world's curiosity and summary of the millet model has not stopped, including the Internet seven-word recipe and Internet thinking mentioned by Lei Jun. But if you summarize the Xiaomi model in a short way, it is:

efficiency.

Using the thinking of the Internet to improve the efficiency of products, production, manufacturing, marketing and other links, it has no fixed method, it is entirely up to you to use this thinking to dig and discover.

02, products: to have faith, word of mouth is part of the faith

When Xiaomi began to make products, Lei Jun seriously thought about the standard. He remembered a book recommended by Liu Chuanzhi, "Evergreen Foundation", which contained content on how to run a century-old enterprise, and asked himself, "How to start a century-old enterprise?" ”

"Who has done it in China for a hundred years?"

He first thought of Tongrentang.

Tongrentang's training is "although the taste is expensive, it does not dare to reduce material resources, and although the concoction is complicated, it does not dare to save labor", which means to make products, although the materials are expensive, they must also use the best, and although the process is cumbersome, it cannot be lazy.

In other words, be authentic.

This sentence is easier said than done. In the whole process, there is the temptation of profit, there is the accumulation of fatigue, and the endless fake goods and inferior goods in the shopping mall are the reasons.

In order to ensure the realization of this goal, Tongren Tang's training also has a second sentence: "No one sees the cultivation, but there is heavenly knowledge in your heart", which means that everything you do is known only to your own conscience and God.

Teach people to be worthy of their conscience.

These two ancient precepts have greatly shaken Lei Jun, why has China always had the impression of producing counterfeit and shoddy products in the global system since the reform and opening up 30 years ago? Many people joke because Chinese are too smart to take shortcuts and cut corners.

However, Lei Jun firmly believes that if he wants to build a long-term business, he must use real materials and turn real materials into faith.

Like Tongrentang, there are two things: the first is real material, and the second is worthy of conscience.

Lei Jun further thought, is there a thousand-year-old enterprise?

Religion - in fact, faith.

Therefore, Lei Jun concluded that no matter how many years, in order to continue to operate an eternal business, it is necessary to have a concept and turn this concept into faith.

After thinking about these clearly, Lei Jun has developed a different path for Xiaomi, to make product materials, to use the world's best, exaggerated, to buy "expensive", expensive has a noble reason.

In this way, Xiaomi's processor uses Qualcomm, sharp screen, and even the world's largest platform - Foxconn, which is used in the assembly line, and the cost is also much higher than that of the same industry.

But Lei Jun believes that Chinese need good things, not just cheap things.

In the xiaomi start-up period to talk about partners is also a twist and turn, Lei Jun originally thought that making mobile phones like PC to buy a component on the line, but then he found that most of the mobile phones are electronic parts, which means that partners have to invest in research and development resources, to bear huge risks.

Xiaomi Assembly has been talking from the first place in the industry to the fourth place, no one paid attention to it, and finally the fifth IAC and Xiaomi's values are in line with the cooperation reached.

Just looking for a mobile phone supplier, Lei Jun spent 9 months, and afterwards lamented that "it is not easy to make a good product."

When Xiaomi's first product was made, the cost was 2,000 yuan, and the average cost in the industry was 500-600 yuan. The original product price was 1499 yuan, and a mobile phone lost 500 yuan, but Lei Jun felt that it was not conducive to the growth of the product, and later changed it to 1999 yuan.

A week later, at the press conference, it was a great success.

This has also become Lei Jun's concept, to seriously do a good job in products, to believe in word of mouth, word of mouth is part of the faith.

03. Talent: activate the organization, guard against arrogance and impatience

When the business is expanding rapidly, the biggest challenge in front of Lei Jun and the team is talent.

In April 2020, Zhou Shouzi, president of the international department of Xiaomi Group, called Lin Shiwei, who was still working in an investment bank, and asked bluntly, "Are you interested in working at Xiaomi?" ”

Counting up, Lin Shiwei was already "half a millet person" at that time. He has known Lei Jun for ten years, from the listing of YY (Lei Jun was the chairman of YY at the time) to the IPO of projects such as Cheetah, Xiaomi, and Kingsoft Cloud, Lin Shiwei has participated in different degrees.

After several rounds of conversation, in October 2020, Lin Shiwei was officially appointed as the CFO of Xiaomi Group.

In fact, Wang Xiang is also a Xiaomi who joined through Lei Jun's "circle of friends". When Xiaomi was just established, it was not easy to get Qualcomm's chip, and there were many "activities" of Wang Xiang in the middle, and every time Xiaomi's new product launch, he would go to the platform.

In 2015, he resigned as Senior Global Vice President and President of Greater China at Qualcomm and officially joined Xiaomi.

In addition, there are many industry elites who have joined Xiaomi in this way and formed the "Avengers" business executive team (ridiculed by the outside world).

Lei Jun has given full trust to these executives. Since joining Xiaomi in January 2019, Lu Weibing has been promoted within Xiaomi, becoming president of China in one year and partner for two years, and in March 2021, Lu Weibing once again became senior vice president of the group, in charge of the China region and international department.

Not only the senior management team, Lei Jun is also personally responsible for the "Young Engineer Plan", you know, according to industry practice, only to reach a certain rank, a certain level and have the opportunity to participate in equity or incentive plans.

However, Lei Jun posted that Xiaomi Group is "technology-oriented" and has always regarded the training and motivation of young engineers as one of the important tasks.

The incentive system is also one of the ways to "break" the disease of large enterprises.

Xiaomi has grown into a large company of tens of thousands of people, how to manage such a huge organization, let all employees maintain passion and innovation, and avoid the disease of large enterprises, is the problem of Xiaomi organization management.

"It is impossible for enterprises to achieve a certain scale and to do absolute flatness, what is flattening?" The essence of flattening is the rapidity of decision-making and the equal channel of opinion, the core is still efficiency, and the incentive mechanism is an effective means to activate the organization. Wang Xiang said.

Moreover, the rotation system implemented by Xiaomi can also motivate young cadres. At the end of 2019, Xiaomi officially tried the rotation system internally, and the department manager or vice president will be assigned to another unfamiliar position after working in a position for a certain number of years.

Wang Xiang stressed, "The purpose of this is, on the one hand, to allow managers to continue to learn new knowledge in new positions, on the other hand, to let the original team collide with new managers, constantly rub out new sparks, and maintain the flexibility and innovation of Xiaomi Group." ”

Lin Shiwei has the same feeling: "Xiaomi is an extremely complex business company, if you do not understand the whole, only focus on their own business, you may not see the entire dimension, the company still encourages everyone to run around, more in-depth understanding of the entire company."

It is precisely this flexible and innovative organizational management that ensures the two-way empowerment of talents and products.

Xiaomi Mi 12 is not Xiaomi's first high-end model, nor is it the last, but perhaps we can expect Lei Jun and the management team to further reproduce the perfect product behind sticking to the concept of products.

Looking forward to Lei Jun and Xiaomi!

Resources:

China Entrepreneur Magazine: Xiaomi Iteration: Car Building, Going to Sea and Lei Jun's Ambitions | Cover Story

Huangpu Employment: Lei Jun: 4 insights on entrepreneurship