The new Autobots contend | Wei Jianjun: a battle for himself and himself

Text/ Wang Shuaiguo Great Wall Motors safely survived the literal "next year" in Wei Jianjun's mouth, and also achieved good results.

In July 2020, when Wei Jianjun had completed 30 years of taking over Great Wall Motors, he did not deliberately emphasize his achievements in the past 30 years, but replaced the celebrated birthday party with a reflection, and put forward the soul question of "Will Great Wall Motors survive next year".

Behind the question of the soul reveals that Wei Jianjun, as the head of the domestic automotive industry's own brand head enterprise, faces the concerns caused by the market entering the stock period, the acceleration of the "new four modernizations", the downward price of luxury cars and the rapid rise of new car-making forces.

This concern is reflected in Geely Li Shufu, Changan Zhu Huarong and GAC Zeng Qinghong. After the failure of the "Blue Plan" proposed in 2015, Li Shufu formulated a new new energy plan for Geely in 2021; at the same time, Zhu Huarong and Zeng Qinghong were also accelerating the electrification strategy, Changan's high-end intelligent electric vehicle brand finally came out after years of preparation, and GAC New Energy changed its name to the Aeon brand and announced independent operation a year later.

Promoting electrification has become the most important issue facing all self-owned brand leaders in 2021, and there is no one. This is a challenge and an opportunity for independent brands that have been catching up with international automobile manufacturers in the field of fuel technology.

At present, BYD Wang Chuanfu has become the largest new energy vehicle overlord in China because of its early bet on the new energy vehicle market. In 2021, BYD sold 730,000 vehicles in the whole year, of which more than 590,000 were new energy vehicles, and the penetration rate of new energy nearly doubled year-on-year to 81%.

SAIC-GM-Wuling achieved an annual sales of almost 395,000 units with the Hongguang MINI EV, rapidly increasing the new energy penetration rate from 21% in 2020 to 57.7% in 2021.

In this electrification war, Wei Jianjun, who once led the Great Wall Haval brand to lead the rise of China's SUV market, took another road, with Euler as the main force, and gradually increased the penetration rate of electrification and intelligence in the five major categories created. According to the data, in 2021, the sales volume of Euler, the main brand of Great Wall New Energy, increased by 140% year-on-year to 135,000 units, and the penetration rate of new energy increased to 10.7%.

There is no doubt that Great Wall Motors' 2021 will be brilliant. This is not only reflected in the sales growth of Euler's individual brands, in 2021, Great Wall Motor's overall sales reached 1.28 million units, an increase of 15.2% year-on-year; overseas sales of 142,800 units, an increase of 103.7% year-on-year. This is the result of Wei Jianjun's renewed efforts after reforming the Great Wall.

As with the pickup truck route in the 1990s and the SUV route in the 2010s, this time, Wei Jianjun still adheres to his own differentiated development concept. In the past two years, Wei Jianjun's most remarkable achievements are two, one is to open up a different path in the new energy market - focusing on the female market, and the other is to continue the low-cost domestic alternative route that has been confirmed in the pickup truck and SUV market, and move this strategy to the off-road market.

In March 2021, Euler, who wears the aura of the first independent new energy vehicle brand in China's mainstream independent car companies, finally found a way of his own after 3 years of exploration in the new energy vehicle market.

At that time, Euler released a new brand positioning, positioning the car brand that loves women more, declaring that it wants to establish the right values for the industry to treat female users.

Small size, cute shape, and more emphasis on women's needs in the internal configuration have become Euler's significant labels in the new energy vehicle market. Led by Euler, Chery, Nezha, Dongfeng Fengxing, Jianghuai Sihao, etc. have "followed the trend" and created a new "she economy" phenomenon of automobile consumption in the domestic small car market.

The Great Wall is getting longer and longer, and each brand category is the "beacon tower" of the Great Wall, burning fiercely, becoming a symbol that the Great Wall is always alert and always attacking.

But the brand flame that Wei Jianjun cares about most is weakening. In 2016, Wei Jianjun launched a high-end SUV brand named after his surname, WEY (now renamed Wei Pai). This is a new growth engine created by the Great Wall in the field of SUVs with market advantages.

According to the official introduction of the Great Wall, Weipai is the first independent luxury brand in China created by Great Wall Motors, which gathered an international R&D team of more than 1,600 people and lasted four years. But after the first two years of hot sales, by 2019, the development of Weipai suddenly muted. By 2021, its sales will fall from 140,000 in 2018 to less than 60,000.

"There is no problem with Wei brand's products, which technology is leveraged. Wei Pai did not sell well after the transformation, only because the ability to engage in marketing and the whole concept was not as good as Wei Xiaoli. At a recent small media communication meeting, Wei Jianjun's rare anger conveyed the unwillingness of traditional brands to lose to new car brands.

In Wei Jianjun's view, this is a loss in non-core competitiveness. Although it turns out that in the era of new car manufacturing, "engaging in marketing and the whole concept" has become an important productive force. The Great Wall itself is practicing this law, and in 2021 the Great Wall can even win the annual marketing award. Its frequency of dissemination in brand and model promotion is enough to make many traditional car companies look forward to it.

However, as the price of innovation and competition, the climax and overturning of auto companies in marketing in 2021 are staggered, and the hot search continues throughout the year. The Great Wall was not spared, and this may also be one of the growth tests that Wei Jianjun had already anticipated.

However, the tank brand that has just become independent from the Wei brand and the Euler brand that has been operating independently have a commendable marketing performance in 2021.

From the economic and technical aspects to reduce the off-road threshold, on the one hand, so that more off-road enthusiasts can afford to drive off-road vehicles; on the other hand, to add more intelligent configurations for off-road vehicles, reduce the difficulty of operation of off-road vehicles. Tanks with iron man tenderness as the brand proposition attracted a wave of loyal fans.

In 2021, with the Tank 300 model alone, the Tank brand contributed 84,600 sales to the Great Wall and occupied more than 50% of the Chinese off-road vehicle market share. In the 1990s, the Great Wall pickup truck swept the Chinese market.

These achievements did not completely dispel Wei Jianjun's sense of crisis, and he set a window period of three to five years to impact the global leading position. "If we think we've succeeded, every successful past can stumble over the future; if we don't see disruptive change, it must be us who are subverted; if we don't dare to break through the rules, then the rules will soon become a cage of creation."

The clear perception of being in a moment of "subversion" is what keeps Wei Jianjun awake at night, and he has hung his fate and the fate of the Great Wall in one place. "I hope that the future Great Wall Motors is changing, using thirty years of accumulation to meet the great changes at this moment, and when the life of the enterprise is hanging on the line, it will also hang its own life on it." I think this is the 'sincerity' that enterprises should have, there is no way out, only to see the way out. ”

The alarm bell in Wei Jianjun's brain has never stopped, when the survival crisis and the dream of a market value of 100 billion collide, the solution stimulated by the "urgent" needs of two different dimensions is to set a huge goal of leaping forward. On June 28, 2021, as the first Chinese car company to release its 2025 strategy, Great Wall Motor announced that by 2025, it will achieve sales of 4 million vehicles, 600 billion yuan in revenue, and 80% of new energy. This is another "alarm" that Wei Jianjun has drawn up for himself.