Chen Feng of Wanan Technology: China's intelligent manufacturing of auto parts

Chen Feng, chairman and general manager of Wanan Technology, said: "China is the world's largest automobile producer and sales country, but we cannot say that it is an automobile power. How to make China move from an automobile power to an automobile power, so that Chinese enterprises can compete with those automobile giant enterprises on the world stage, this is the responsibility of Chinese automobile enterprises, and it is also the historical responsibility of our generation. ”。

Source: Manager Media's "Manager" magazine Reporter: Jiang Xin

From a family-owned company that produces auto parts, it has grown to a leading auto parts company listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange;

Become the first batch of national enterprises and institutions intellectual property demonstration units, national key high-tech enterprises;

He has served as the chairman unit of the Brake Committee of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers for two consecutive terms

The listed company with a market value of 5 billion yuan is Zhejiang Wanan Technology Co., Ltd. (002590. SZ; hereinafter referred to as "WanAn Technology"). The above achievements can not be separated from the helmsman of Wanan Technology - Chairman and General Manager Chen Feng, a Kochi entrepreneur full of feelings.

Get rid of the shackles of a family business

Chen Feng was born in 1978 in Zhuji, Zhejiang Province, the same age as China's reform and opening up. His father was a pioneer in China's private auto parts manufacturing industry, and founded the company in the 1980s, the predecessor of Wanan Technology.

Growing up in such an environment, Chen Feng has been very familiar with the auto parts manufacturing industry since he was a child, and the university is also a mechanical major. After graduation, he gave up the olive branch thrown by several units and returned to the family business.

At first, the workers turned away from Chen Feng. Everyone takes it for granted that the Shaodong family can't do such "rough work", it is nothing more than hanging up an executive position and filling up the number. However, everyone is wrong. Chen Feng plunged into the workshop and started from the most basic level of assembly work, which was seven or eight years.

"As an assembly worker, as a salesman, from the manufacturing sector to the sales sector, I have done all the core business sectors. Such an experience has been of great help to me in my later market research, business management, product research and development, etc. Chen Feng said.

This also laid a good foundation for him to later take the helm of Wanan Technology.

Spit on a stone and it will be wet at last. In 2007, Chen Feng, who was not yet 30 years old, completed an important step in his career, and the burden of the helmsman of Wanan Technology fell on his shoulders. At this time, Chen Feng is already familiar with the overall business, has advanced management concepts, and has an international vision, which is widely supported by employees.

Most of China's private enterprises are small in scale, and even a considerable part of them are workshop-style production, and the owners of enterprises also have the idea of "small wealth is security" in their thinking, and lack the motivation and belief to create a century-old enterprise. Chen Feng obviously did not want his family's business to follow such an old path.

Therefore, in the hands of this new helmsman, the family business with an annual output value of only 200 million or 300 million yuan began to undergo a magnificent transformation - from the completion of the shareholding system transformation in 2007 to the successful listing on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange in 2011, and then to the implementation of the international development strategy with the help of capital, Wanan Technology has achieved one breakthrough after another and driven on the fast track of development.

Nowadays, Wanan Technology's products cover chassis modules, braking systems, steering systems, drive systems, clutch control systems and other series of products, customers include the field of commercial vehicles and passenger cars, is a supplier of Volkswagen, Toyota, Volvo and other well-known car companies, while a large number of exports to Europe, America, Africa, Australia and Southeast Asia and other regions.

In the eyes of outsiders, Chen Feng is undoubtedly lucky. But Lady Luck favors only those who are prepared. In the three years of preparing for the company's listing, Chen Feng's pressure and workload exceeded the imagination of outsiders, and he finally passed one difficulty after another with his personal charm and excellent leadership and decision-making ability.

"During the preparation period for the listing, I took the team to the North Shanghai-Guangzhou Roadshow, and I spoke 24 times a week, two in the morning and two in the afternoon." Looking back on those days, Chen Feng spoke lightly, only his assistant knew, and in those days, because of fatigue, he could not even speak several times.

For his own struggle, Chen Feng explained: "No matter what others think, I position myself as '1.5 generation'. Today's achievements, we must thank the reform and opening up and the opportunities given by this era, and thank the fathers for their efforts to start a business. It is on the platform built by our parents that we have developed to this day. I was involved in part of the entrepreneurial process and contributed my strength in the process. ”

This "1.5 generation" is considering the centennial development plan of Wanan Technology. There is an old saying in China that "three generations of wealth are not rich", which is the "growing pain" faced by many private entrepreneurs in China. What Chen Feng is doing is to use the modern enterprise management system and combine the corporate culture genes of Wanan Technology to create a century-old national enterprise and a century-old Chinese brand.

Sharpen the technology forward-looking layout

With the ambition of building a century-old national enterprise, Chen Feng has been working hard to continuously elevate the enterprise to a new height and continuously improve himself.

As the chairman of a listed company, the busyness of various management affairs can be imagined. But no matter how busy he was, he took time to read, walk, and conduct professional study and scientific research. He has read extensively, most recently Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude. He is pursuing a Ph.D. from Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and his major is still his favorite mechanical manufacturing.

"For enterprises to continue to develop, they must be based on technological iteration and innovation, and must rely on technology research and development and high-end talents." Under his presidency, Wanan Technology has a nationally recognized enterprise technology center, a nationally recognized laboratory and a national postdoctoral research station, and has invested heavily in the construction of R&D centers in Beijing and Budapest, Hungary. Wanan Technology will invest more than 4% of its revenue in research and development every year, and constantly explore new technologies. Electric brake, wheel motor, intelligent driving, wireless charging, chassis lightweight Wanan Technology led by Chen Feng is deepening its tentacles into the top fields of the automotive industry, always practicing the true meaning of scientific and technological innovation and forward-looking layout.

As a technical expert, no matter how busy he is, Chen Feng requires himself to invest a certain amount of time and energy to participate in technology research and development every year. Under his name, there are 25 patents for inventions. Such as "a kind of solenoid valve for EBS braking system", "a solenoid valve for EBS braking system", "displacement sensor for brake valve and its EBS brake valve", etc., are the first in China. "Change to achieve accessibility, innovation to seek long-term". This invention patent not only embodies Chen Feng's scientific research efforts, but also transforms into new products, further enhancing the brand competitiveness of Wanan Technology.

"First-class enterprises sell standards, second-rate enterprises sell brands, and third-rate enterprises sell products." In industrial society, the importance of standards is self-evident. In recent years, Chen Feng has led Wanan Technology to formulate more than 90 national standards, industry standards and group standards for the industry, including national standards for wireless charging of electric vehicles, ADAS national standards, etc., which not only contributed to the development of the industry, but also allowed Wanan Technology to take the lead in the industry.

Adhere to the internationalization strategy

At the same time of creating a "hundred years of security", as a new generation of entrepreneurs in China's manufacturing industry, Chen Feng has a bigger dream in his heart, that is, to make "Made in China" become "Made in China", go out of China and go to the world; let China become an automobile power from an automobile power.

Based on the scientific research and judgment of the development trend of the "four modernizations" of the automobile industry, Chen Feng has been leading Wanan Technology to adhere to the international development strategy, create an international brand with global competitiveness, and let Chinese manufacturing go to the global market.

To this end, Wanan Technology not only laid out the European R & D center, but also carried out a number of international cooperation. In the field of automotive wireless charging technology, it has cooperated with WiTricity, a high-tech enterprise incubated by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States, and the current research results have been tested on new energy models such as Audi and Hongqi; and the Swedish high-tech company Hadlex has cooperated to develop the world's cutting-edge EMB technology, and has now established a manufacturing company in Suzhou.

With the help of the power of capital, it is another trick played by Chen Feng in the international layout. Through participating in overseas companies, Wanan Technology has entered the fields of wireless charging of new energy vehicles, new energy vehicle hub motors, Internet of Vehicles, and unmanned driving, and the effect has begun to appear.

Today, under the leadership of Chen Feng, Wanan Technology is on two domestic and international tracks, with capital and science and technology as the wings, making every effort to forge ahead and contribute to the high-quality development of China's automobile industry.

Due to his remarkable achievements and contributions, Chen Feng has won a number of government honors and industry honors. He is a member of the Standing Committee of the Zhejiang Youth Federation, the winner of the "Zhejiang Youth May Fourth Medal", the executive director of the China Young Entrepreneurs Association, the executive director of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, and was also named the 2008 Auto Parts Industry Leader and the 2016 Forbes China Best CEO.

However, compared with personal honor, Chen Feng is more concerned about the development of the enterprise and the progress of the national automobile industry. "China is the world's largest automobile producer and sales country, but we can't say that it is an automobile power yet. How to make China move from an automobile power to an automobile power, so that Chinese enterprises can compete with those automobile giant enterprises on the world stage, this is the responsibility of Chinese automobile enterprises, and it is also the historical responsibility of our generation. Chen Feng said.