Life is a wilderness, not a track.
Text: "Chinese Entrepreneur" reporter Deng Shuanglin
Editor|Li Wei
Header image source: Visual China
"Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what the next one will taste like. In the movie "Forrest Gump", Forrest Gump's mother said a sentence that has inspired countless people around the world.
Drafting: Xiao Li
Only by treating business as an infinite game can we fully enjoy the unknown taste of chocolate. Infinite gaming is a business philosophy that many entrepreneurs appreciate.
"A finite game is designed to win, while an infinite game is designed to keep the game going forever. A finite game is played within the boundary, and an infinite game is played within the boundary. A limited number of games have a definite beginning and end, with a specific winner, and rules exist to ensure that the game will end. There is no definite beginning and end, and there is no winner, the goal of the infinite game is to bring more people into the game itself, thus continuing the game. This view of James Cass, the author of "The Game of Finite and Infinite", is regarded as a guideline by entrepreneurs such as Wang Xing.
The theme of this year's business Mulan is "Infinity", because Infinity is becoming a more obvious trait for female entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs - they are not bound by age, gender, and role, and constantly seek self-breakthrough and innovation, and challenge the ceiling of their careers. They are not defined and refuse to be labeled, just like the classic line in the movie "Barbie": magic happens when you believe in yourself, Barbie can be any character, girls can be anyone they want to be.
In 2009, China Entrepreneur magazine released the data of China's influential business Mulan for the first time, and more than 200 outstanding women were selected as "Business Mulan of the Year", and tens of thousands of female entrepreneurs entered our field of vision.
The business map composed of women is more colorful: self-made entrepreneurs, women in science and technology who embrace the spirit of innovation, women who have risen from the grassroots to the core management, and second-generation women and husbands and wives in enterprises. They gradually shed the aura of their parents and spouses, and re-anchored their life positioning and business goals. The tracks they are involved in are becoming more and more diverse: from traditional consumption and manufacturing, to cutting-edge technology, biomedicine, venture capital and other industries.
In the era of uncertain business, it is more necessary to pursue the spirit of infinity.
From this year's Chinese business Mulan candidates, we have heard many stories of "infinite life" -
Guan Yuxiang, the 85-year-old founder of O.R.G. Technology, has completed the annual goal she made last year: to pay more than 10 billion yuan in taxes for the country; Chen Lingmei, the 78-year-old founder of Winner Fashion, resolutely took charge of the future trend of the clothing industry at the age when she should have retired and retired, and took time to shoot short videos every Saturday.
The roles are infinite, from "Hello, Li Huanying" to "Hot and Hot", Jia Ling continues to create surprises - she can be a comedian, a co-founder of Big Bowl Entertainment, a screenwriter, a director, a boxer, and a fitness coach. The most powerful impact of "Hot and Hot" comes from the mutual reflection inside and outside the play: Jia Ling really lost 100 pounds in reality.
In her planning, Bloomage Biotech should be a biotechnology company driven by synthetic biology innovation, and should not only stay in the comfort zone of medical beauty. In order to implement the new strategy, she did not hesitate to put the "brakes" on the medical aesthetic business, which contributed most of the revenue, and started a period of rectification.
The identity is unlimited, and He Chaoqiong also has a new identity. In addition to the vice chairman of the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce and the chairman of Xinde Group, she became the image ambassador of Bijie cultural tourism in March this year. Between the exchanges and cohesion between the Mainland, Hong Kong and Macao, the inheritance of intangible cultural heritage and the development of the cultural and tourism industry, Pansy Ho plays a unique and important role as a bridge with multiple social responsibilities on her shoulders. In an interview at the end of 2023, she stressed to China Entrepreneur that the development of the cultural tourism industry requires two-way communication skills, and more bridges should be built and interaction should be strengthened.
Pansy Ho Source: Visual China
Women in business have used their own experiences to prove that every dimension is an infinite game. They were also depressed and physically and mentally exhausted, but even if the road ahead was uncertain, they never stopped exploring. The lack of limits on themselves eventually led them to leap and shatter the dome.
Time for friends
Fearless of time, unlimited strength, is the best footnote for women in the business world. Among the candidates for Mulan in China's business community this year, there are post-80s, post-70s, post-60s, post-50s, and even post-30s, but age has never been the threshold for them to attack.
Chen Lingmei, who single-handedly founded "Winner Clothing", could have retired after the company went public in 2014, but at that point in time, all walks of life began to talk about digital transformation, Chen Lingmei realized that the upstream and downstream information of the garment industry is blocked, and the degree of informatization and intelligence is low, which is likely to be the invisible bottleneck of the development of Winner Fashion.
In order to solve these practical problems in the women's clothing industry, 72-year-old Chen Lingmei decided to start a new business. She registered a new company, Shenzhen Yingling Zhishang Garment Technology Co., Ltd., hoping to use Internet technology to improve the intelligent efficiency of the garment industry and let information flow.
This is just the beginning. After starting a business again, Chen Lingmei successively founded the clothing brand "Ying Zhishang" focusing on online channels, focusing on intelligent customization brands, realizing three-second tailor-made clothes, and developing a "long standing without getting tired of high heels".
Chen Lingmei is 78 years old this year, but she is still active in the front line of entrepreneurship. She doesn't accept old age, and she never feels old, and the product development and sales of "standing for a long time without getting tired of high heels" are led by her personally. Every Saturday, she also finds time to shoot short videos of dressing, in which she, like young fashion bloggers, energetically shows her style in front of the camera and introduces the materials and fabrics of her clothes.
In April 2023, Guan Yuxiang, the founder of O.R.G. Technology, disclosed his annual goal: "I especially want to pay 10 billion yuan in taxes for the country (cumulatively) by the end of this year." In 2022, we will pay (cumulatively) 9.436 billion yuan in taxes. At the time, she was 84 years old.
Guan Yuxiang did it. Recently, Guan Yuxiang told "Chinese Entrepreneur" that in September 2023, ORG achieved the goal of "cumulative total tax payment exceeding 10 billion yuan" ahead of schedule.
Guan Yuxiang Source: Interviewee
With advanced technologies such as powder recoating and substrate thinning, ORG met the packaging needs of consumers and enterprises at that time, and entered the first echelon of domestic metal packaging step by step. Nowadays, coated iron, "metal cans + universal cans", prefabricated vegetable packaging, etc., are the future direction of ORG.
Informalization
What is the personality of a successful business woman?
In the past, there have always been people who list the common characteristics of successful women, such as self-discipline, hard work, independence, tenacity, etc., but this is not a fixed formula. They are unlimited and free, allowed to be themselves, and allowed to love life while fighting for their careers.
Liu Chang, chairman of New Hope Liuhe, plays many roles, is a daughter, a wife, a mother, and the person in charge of the enterprise.
In the past few years, others feel that Liu Chang has suddenly become transparent. But she thinks that this is a process: one day, she lost the scale and no longer weighs herself every day, one day, she lost the blood oxygen monitor and blood glucose monitor, and one day, after the idea of cutting off the long hair that she had kept for more than ten years in a dream, she immediately took action. She is throwing off the baggage that others have given her, and she is also reconciling with herself. "You can say whatever you like. Liu Chang said.
Her body may have lived in a number of "Liu Chang", rebellious, hot, direct, and sensitive little girls, qualified successors cultivated by her father, and mature and stable adults who occasionally pulled out of the family dinner table and suddenly appeared in the dead of night, overlooking the panorama. Her ego, ego and superego, under the rubbing of things and times, are now Liu Chang.
Liu Jingjing, the founder and chairman of Jiahe Yipin, began to start a business in his first year of college, and during the most "exaggerated" period, there were more than a dozen stores within 200 meters on the street at the south gate of Tsinghua University.
Liu Jingjing enjoys a busy moment, in an interview with "China Entrepreneur", she said that from the end of last year to the present, she has been busy leading the team to learn lean management in depth, "very busy". Sometimes I studied from 9 a.m. until late at night for seven days in a row.
While working hard for his career, Liu Jingjing said that he also loves his family and life very much. Her original intention in studying the "Yellow Emperor's Neijing" was to make herself and her family eat healthier. Two years ago, Liu Jingjing opened a camping manor in Miyun, and "broke eggs" with friends under tents and on the grass, and never got tired of it.
Li Ke, executive vice president of BYD Co., Ltd., has been playing boxing in recent years. For her, half an hour of boxing is equivalent to running for two hours. Boxing is also the epitome of Li Ke's attitude towards life, she values efficiency: "Human life is limited, you have to use your limited life to do the happiest and most worthwhile things." ”
Efficiency is also the key word that summarizes BYD. Since joining BYD in 1996, Li Ke has single-handedly built a sales system, led a team to establish overseas offices, and has expanded its territory in the Americas, Europe and other regions over the years, laying the foundation for BYD's overseas business.
In 2023, BYD's overseas sales of new energy passenger vehicles will exceed 240,000 units, which will maintain the No. 1 performance of Chinese new energy vehicle brands in going overseas.
Li Ke often puts the word "happy" on her lips, and she very much agrees with Buffett's concept of "tap-dancing to work". She often tells the young people in her team to choose what they like to do and what they like to do.
"Although there will be pressure, challenges, and many obstacles, the goal is there, and what you think about every day is how to achieve the goal and conquer this 'mountain'. If you can't attack the front, you can attack the side, and if you can't attack the side, you can also attack the back, in short, there are 1000 ways to achieve the goal. Never give up, you will always succeed. Li Ke said.
Trip.com CEO Sun Jie is also busier. After three years of extraordinary difficulties in the travel industry, Ctrip achieved net operating income of 44.5 billion yuan in 2023, a year-on-year increase of 122%. In addition to the company's economic benefits, Ctrip's social value is also an important indicator that Sun Jie has been paying attention to.
"Becoming a valuable company to society, partners and employees is the goal that Ctrip has always focused on. Sun Jie said. As one of the few female executives in a domestic listed company, she has also been actively advocating for women to have more equal career development opportunities.
Sun Jie has always believed that in the workplace, both men and women have their own unique values. For female employees, Ctrip continues to provide them with better welfare protection and more equal opportunities for career development. In the past, she has promoted more than 30% of female executives within the company, which is much higher than the average 20% of female executives in domestic Internet companies.
In her spare time, Sun Jie likes all kinds of sports, skiing, marathon, and mountaineering are all ways for her to constantly challenge herself. "They keep me energized, and I hope to go to every city in the world, exercise, work, and live in these cities, and then bring Chinese tourists to the world, and bring global tourists to China, this kind of life and work is the direction of my efforts." Sun Jie told "Chinese Entrepreneur".
Sun Jie has always practiced a principle - work is to live a better life, and when you live an infinitely wonderful life, work will have unlimited motivation.
Protagonists on different stages
It is most appropriate to use Jia Ling to explain "unlimited roles". Cross talk actor, comedian, director, these are all her, but these are not enough to define her.
In the Spring Festival of 2021, a "Hello, Li Huanying" was born, and Jia Ling created a box office income of more than 5 billion yuan. At that time, she experienced her first transformation: in addition to being an actor, she also became a director and screenwriter, breaking the shackles of roles. In this year's "Hot and Hot", Jia Ling brought more possibilities to the audience and once again challenged the ceiling of her career.
Jia Ling Source: Visual China
This time, she deliberately stripped her humble appearance, and explored the inspirational and feminine power of small people in her new work. In the theme song "Everything Is in Time", Jia Ling in the past is in the same frame as Jia Ling after losing 100 pounds. This is a transformation of roles, but also a transformation of life.
At the critical moment when the founders of the first generation of private enterprises retreated behind the scenes, the emergence of a number of female "second-generation" successors is also particularly eye-catching.
These business women refuse to be simply defined as a "second generation", especially to be framed by gender. For Mulan in the business world, they are the protagonists of business and life, starring in their "hot" life.
As the daughter of Zhao Yifang, the founder and chairman of Huace Film and Television Group, Fu Binxing also has a spiritual identity with her mother in addition to the mother-daughter relationship: "Watching them start from scratch and struggle all the way, this spirit has been planted in my heart since I was a child. ”
Fu Binxing inherited his mother's business sensitivity and strategic determination, and actively laid out and implemented the group's new scientific and technological innovation strategy to meet the new challenges of the intelligent era. Rather than being limited by the role of the "second generation", Fu Binxing wants to inject the culture and vitality of young managers into Great Aim and the United States.
In the two years since Fu Binxing took over as president of Great Aim Film and Television Group, Great Aim has produced popular dramas such as "To a Windy Place", "Walking to the Wind" and "All the Way to the Sun", the main theme drama "Our Decade", and the main investment and control film "Ten Thousand Miles Home" won a box office of 1.5 billion yuan, becoming the box office champion of the 2022 National Day file.
And, of course, Meng Wanzhou. On September 30 last year, Meng Wanzhou officially ended her six-month tenure as Huawei's first rotating chairman. During her shift, she did not have many opportunities to appear in public, but she continued to push forward Huawei's existing strategy with determination.
The title of "Huawei Princess" is easy to ignore Meng Wanzhou's own ability and determination. She has entered the top decision-making level of Huawei, and her new battle has just begun.
Break boundaries
One cannot choose one's origin, but one can choose to stand still or keep walking. There is a group of women in the business world who bravely choose to take the next step, even if they are in a quagmire and uncertain about the future, and they are constantly learning, absorbing and never missing an opportunity. Their potential is unleashed.
On March 20, Zhou Qunfei, chairman of Lens Technology, as one of the important representatives of Apple's supply chain, met with Apple CEO Tim Cook in Shanghai. At the scene, Zhou Qunfei showed Cook a number of Apple product components, and Cook said that the Chinese supply chain represented by Lens Technology is "a model that pushes the limits of possibilities every day, and makes us look forward to future opportunities."
Lens Technology, founded by Zhou Qunfei, became Apple's supplier partner in 2006, mass-producing glass protective screens for the original iPhone. However, before starting the company, Zhou Qunfei was just an ordinary female worker in a factory.
At the end of the 80s of the last century, Zhou Qunfei, who was from a poor family, entered the society early and came to Shenzhen to break through, working in a watch glass processing factory during the day and studying at night at night. In the 90s, the watch glass processing factory where Zhou Qunfei worked was expanded. But the factory was stopped halfway through construction, and the boss was ready to withdraw the investment. Zhou Qunfei found the boss, recommended himself, and decided to try it himself.
Starting from making watch glass, she has been in the special glass industry for more than 30 years, and now she has led Lens Technology to become the "mobile phone glass king".
also has the experience of "part-time work" Wang Laichun.
At the end of the 80s of last century, 21-year-old Wang Laichun went to Shenzhen to work, when China's consumer electronics industry was just at the moment of take-off. After nearly 10 years of working in Taiwan-funded enterprises, Wang Laichun started as a small worker on the assembly line and worked his way up to the section manager who managed thousands of employees. In 1997, Wang Laichun started his own business, starting from the production and sales of electronic connecting wires and connectors.
In 2011, Wang Laichun's business ushered in a turning point. This year, Lixun Precision entered the Apple supply chain for the first time through acquisitions, and Wang Laichun believes that "flying with the phoenix will produce a handsome bird". Since then, Luxshare Precision has become one of Apple's core suppliers, and her business territory has also expanded rapidly.
Wang Laichun Source: Interviewee
After more than 20 years of development, Luxshare Precision is no longer a simple "Apple foundry" role. "I think foundry has no soul, but providing solutions to customers has soul. In an interview with "Chinese Entrepreneur", Wang Laichun responded to the label of "OEM Queen".
Twenty-nine years ago, 17-year-old Yang Lijuan would never have imagined that the hot pot restaurant called "Hai He", which poached her and changed jobs, would one day become China's largest hot pot chain;
It sounds like this is a cool drama of the big heroine "upgrading and fighting monsters", but if you count the past, you will see the stumbles of every step: she once pioneered in the market where she was unfamiliar with her life, and tried her best to "gnaw" the first store in Xi'an, so that Haidilao took the first step to "open to the whole country"; 21-year-old She encountered a disturbance from guests, suppressed the panic, and led her employees to confront more than 60 big men with sticks;In 2011, she was promoted to Haidilao COO, just when Haidilao "broken" During the critical period of the organization, she shouldered the turmoil of change on her shoulders, and 10 years later, she took over the burden of CEO and initiated an unprecedented large-scale adjustment of Haidilao.
Yang Lijuan Source: Interviewee
After drastic reform and restructuring in the past two years, Haidilao's performance has ushered in strong growth. "In 2023, we have indeed achieved good results in stages, and performance is a result, and it represents a working state. Yang Lijuan said in an interview with "Chinese Entrepreneur", "But neither I nor the team are far from being able to breathe a sigh of relief, because there are still more challenges and difficulties to face, which may be the fate of the enterprise." ”
Life is a wilderness, not a track, and the pursuit of infinite people has ultimately changed the world.
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