The drastic adjustment of the organizational structure has gradually ushered in phased results. With the joining of the marketing "iron lady" Wang Fengying, Xiaopeng's marketing system has undergone subversive changes, and the difficulties and challenges in this are probably only known by Xiaopeng himself.
At the end of this phase of adjustment, Xpeng appointed a new senior executive and added three new departments: enterprise process planning department, enterprise project management department, and enterprise committee operation, in order to promote its internal cross-department collaboration and improve efficiency.
The automotive circle in 2023 seems to be more volatile than ever, and everyone is curious about whether Xiaopeng can find his original position?
Text | Xu Qing, Xie Yunli
Edit | Li Huanhuan
Operations | Madrigal
Each person Auto exclusively learned from multiple sources that on April 14, Xpeng Motors issued a new personnel appointment announcement, and involved the organizational adjustment of the financial platform and the president's office.
The relevant appointment email shows that Gu Yuanqin is the vice president of financial platform operation and management, fully responsible for the company's operation and management business, and reports to He Xiaopeng, chairman of Xpeng Motors, and Gu Hongdi, president of Xpeng Motors, on a solid line.
According to Tianyancha, Sina Finance and other information, Gu Yuanqin is a post-60s generation, former chairman of Guangdong Yichuang Technology Co., Ltd., and became a director of Guangzhou Haige Communication Co., Ltd. after Guangzhou Haige Communication Group acquired Yichuang Technology.
According to the power plant's report, Xpeng set up a financial platform in December 2022, and the most important purpose of setting up a financial platform is to control costs and expenses more granularly and improve the ability of financial system compliance.
The financial platform can be regarded as a middle platform, and the most important part of the platform is the financial BP department, and the various teams under this department connect with different business centers of Xpeng and assist each business center to formulate and implement business plans.
In this adjustment, Xpeng once again emphasized "cost control": the responsibilities of the new operation and management team cover Xpeng's full-process business operation and cost management, as well as manpower, investment, enterprise operation management, cost control and overall planning.
The transfer of the financial platform to Gu Yuanqin shows that He Xiaopeng attaches great importance to this executive.
At the same time, Xpeng Motors' President's Office added three departments, including the Enterprise Process Planning Department, the Enterprise Project Management Department and the Enterprise Committee Operation.
Among them, the core of the enterprise process planning department is responsible for breaking down the walls between departments, establishing cross-professional, cross-business, cross-department processes and systems, and improving management and operation efficiency. The leader of the organization is LC Mi, and the team members include Huang Ronghai (concurrent), Gu Jie (concurrent), Fu Jun (concurrent), Zhang Fengbo (concurrent), etc., reporting to He Xiaopeng.
▲ He Xiaopeng, chairman of Xpeng Motors. Photo / Visual China
The enterprise project management department is responsible for the tracking, recording and feedback of cross-professional, cross-business and cross-departmental projects, the leader of the organization is Zhang Fengbo, and the team members include Fu Jun (concurrently), reporting to He Xiaopeng.
The Committee Management Office is responsible for the overall management of the virtual committees. In October last year, Xpeng initiated a large-scale organizational structure and personnel adjustment, in which five virtual committee organizations were established: strategy, production planning, technical planning, production and sales balance and OTA committee. The newly established Committee Management Office is located on top of the Virtual Committee, which is responsible for the physical operation of the Virtual Committee and follows up the implementation of relevant management decisions. The head of the organization is Fu Jun, who reports to He Xiaopeng.
This time the organizational structure adjustment can also be seen that Xpeng pays more attention to the collaboration between internal departments and is eager to improve internal cohesion and work efficiency.
On the other hand, the addition of Gu Yuanqin is also inextricably linked to Xiaopeng's determination to abandon high-precision maps.
Compared with ordinary navigation maps, HD maps have higher absolute accuracy and relative accuracy, which is an essential tool to assist car companies to achieve high-end intelligent driving, and some car companies will develop high-speed navigation assistance driving functions based on HD maps.
In the past many years, HD maps have contributed to the advancement of autonomous driving technology for car companies. But the other side of the coin is that high-definition maps require a lot of time, manpower, capital and other costs for mapping, and the higher the accuracy, the higher the price. According to the "Intelligent Networked Vehicle HD Map White Paper" and 36kr reports, some high-definition map authorization fees are about 200-1000 yuan per vehicle per year, and the service fee is about 100-500 yuan per vehicle per year.
Therefore, the abandonment of high-definition maps has recently become the direction of efforts of more and more car companies. At the beginning of 2023, Li Xiang, CEO of Ideal Auto, said in an internal letter that urban NOA navigation assisted driving that does not rely on high-definition maps will begin to land at the end of 2023; At Huawei's spring press conference, Yu Chengdong also revealed that the upcoming M5 will be equipped with an intelligent driving solution that does not rely on high-definition maps.
Xiaopeng also has plans for this. In January this year, some media reported that according to He Xiaopeng's plan, in 2023, Xpeng XNGP will abandon high-definition maps and cover 50-100 cities in China.
Guangzhou Haige Communication has quite a relationship with Xiaopeng. According to a research report released by CITIC Securities in 2017, in May 2017, Hager Communications became Xpeng's partner, helping Xpeng "develop China's first Beidou intelligent driving car navigation system, which has reached 20 cm lane-level accuracy."
Xpeng wants to abandon high-definition maps in the navigation system and save costs, and Gu Yuanqin's work experience in the navigation field may help Xpeng achieve its goals faster.
At the same time, the addition of Gu Yuanqin also marks the end of Xiaopeng's last round of organizational restructuring. On April 12, Xpeng Motors responded to Blue Whale Motors, saying that "the phased organizational structure adjustment has been completed." ”
Since October last year, Xpeng's organizational structure has been adjusted frequently, and the range of action has been very large. Xpeng has established three new product matrix organizations: E, F and H platform product matrix. On January 30, 2023, Xpeng announced that Wang Fengying officially joined Xpeng Motors as president. She will be responsible for the company's product planning, product matrix and sales system, and report to He Xiaopeng.
After Wang Fengying's arrival, the four sales areas of eastern, northern, southern and central were abolished and adjusted to 25 communities. The directly operated stores and authorized dealers in each community are supervised by the person in charge of the community. He Xiaopeng once revealed that Xpeng Motors' sales will sink from the first- and second-tier markets to the third- and fourth-tier markets.
Xpeng's organizational structure adjustment in the past six months has begun to show results: on the one hand, it has reformed the sales system and the delivery data has rebounded. According to official data, Xpeng Motors delivered 7,002 units in March 2023, an increase of 17% month-on-month.
In addition, Xpeng has revealed that with the launch of P7i and the rapid opening of delivery, the increase in store-to-visitor flow will also promote the increase in G9 delivery. At the same time, the completion of G9 production capacity climb can also bring about an increase in delivery.
On the other hand, Xpeng's internal collaboration is more efficient, while reducing the cost of technology research and development.
According to Yicaijing, after the structural adjustment in March, all R&D, production and supply chain systems of Xpeng Motors directly reported to He Xiaopeng. He Xiaopeng said that a clear roadmap has been set to reduce the cost of software systems such as autonomous driving by more than 50% and the cost of hardware systems (including power systems) by 25% by next year.
The phased organizational structure adjustment came to an end, and then Xiaopeng continued to emphasize its own technical attributes.
Previously, on March 31, Xpeng opened the full-scene assisted driving system XNGP to Xpeng G9 and P7i Max users on the basis of the G3's automatic parking, P7's high-speed navigation assistance driving NGP, and P5's navigation assistance driving NGP, which is Xpeng's second-generation intelligent driving assistance system.
According to official information, Xpeng will release a new technical architecture on April 16, and next week will bring a new mid-size coupe SUV, as well as the new P7i of the ultra-smart coupe and the ultra-fast charging all-intelligent SUV G9 to the Shanghai Auto Show.
▲ Xpeng G9 sales booth. Photo / Visual China
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