The "old godfather" in the seasoning industry, the national brand Wang Shouyi thirteen incense, why is it not fragrant now?
Wang Shouyi Thirteen Spices and Wang Gan Ma Chili Sauce used to be the twin stars of China's seasoning market, they have excellent quality, good reputation, and almost every family must have them, which can be called the "North Qiao Feng" and "South Murong" in the seasoning industry.
In the 21st century, the twin stars seem to be drifting apart – Wang Gan Ma's chili sauce is thriving, and Wang Shouyi's thirteen incense is gradually declining.
The decline of Wang Shouyi's thirteen incense mainly lies in the intensification of contradictions within the business family.
At that time, the 60-year-old Wang Shouyi started a business and applied for a business license with a 100-yuan bill, opening the road to self-made.
At the beginning of the business, he could only produce seasonings by himself, and all the other business work was handed over to his second son Wang Yinliang.
At the insistence of Wang Shouyi, Thirteen Spices has always adhered to the business tenet of "genuine" and "small profits but quick turnover", with a profit of only 8 cents per box, but it has become famous for its product integrity and has become a well-known all-purpose seasoning.
In the 90s, Wang Yinliang advocated the registration of the thirteen incense trademark to ensure the long-term development of the brand, although this was approved by his father, but it caused a dispute over the trademark design.
Wang Yinliang believes that the use of his father's avatar is conducive to brand promotion and anti-counterfeiting.
The conservative Wang Shouyi objected, but finally gave in, and sure enough, consumers quickly remembered the portrait of Wang Shouyi on the red packaging of Thirteen Spices.
With excellent quality and high popularity, Thirteen Spices quickly dominated the seasoning industry, and its sales exceeded 100 million yuan at the end of the 90s of the last century.
In 2003, when the founder Wang Shouyi died of illness, he made a will to his children and grandchildren, asking the heirs not to go public, play with capital, diversify and speculate in real estate.
Everyone agreed, but Wang Taibai, the eldest grandson who returned from studying in the UK, had a strange idea, he had long been determined to become a billionaire before the age of 30, and he had a lot of complaints about his grandfather's concept of "small profit management".
Sure enough, Wang Taibai invested a lot of corporate money in British real estate, but lost a lot in the 2008 financial crisis.
After returning to China, he repeated the mistakes in the domestic real estate market, and the frenzied investment eventually led to a loss of more than 400 million yuan, which almost dragged down Thirteen Xiang.
He did not wake up because of this, but instead ran a hot pot restaurant across the border of Thirteen Spices, although this move attracted a lot of brand effect customers at the beginning, but the sales situation was unsustainable after all, and it ended in nothing.
His bold and reckless advance almost buried Thirteen Xiang, and on a par with him, there was also Wang Yinliang's overly conservative business strategy as the second-generation leader.
Wang Yinliang strictly adhered to his father's last wishes, and he focused almost all of his work on anti-counterfeiting, busy registering various similar trademarks under the name of Thirteen Fragrances, while neglecting brand promotion and innovation.
Consumers are gradually aware that the spices of thirteen spices have a limited shelf life, cannot be stored for a long time, and the product style is old, which is difficult to meet modern tastes, and a variety of cost-effective alternatives have emerged in the market.
Under the double pressure of internal and external troubles, Wang Shouyi's thirteen incense sales plummeted, and he lost his former leading position in the seasoning industry.
The rise and fall of Wang Shouyi's thirteen incense shows that the development of enterprises can not be extreme, and the impulsiveness and conservatism of the younger generation will also kill a brand, and the golden mean is a good prescription for long-term operation.
The new monarch, Wang Taibai, did not understand the risks, did not listen to the ancestral teachings, and insisted on breaking the red line to try to realize his ambitions quickly.
Wang Yinliang, the old ruler, was too steady, did not keep pace with the times, and missed the critical period of transformation.
A brand needs someone at the helm who values both wisdom and courage, neither being weak because of conservatism, nor getting out of control because of rashness.
Only by balancing boldness and steadiness can an enterprise survive for a hundred years.
