Reporter Zhang Shuo reports from Beijing
"We're not just going to sell the car, we're going to get the demand back. Li Sheng, general manager and deputy secretary of the party committee of FAW Jiefang, who said this, is confident.
The direct reason is that in 2023, FAW Jiefang's operating income will be 63.905 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 66.71%, the net profit attributable to the parent company will be 763 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 107.66%, the vehicle sales will be 241,700 units, a year-on-year increase of 42.11%, the overseas market sales will be 45,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 60.7%, and the new energy market sales will be 7,200 units, a year-on-year increase of 164.5%......
The deeper reason lies in the fact that today's FAW Jiefang has undergone multi-dimensional reform and reshaping, completed the transformation from business-driven to innovation-driven, and continues to move towards a dynamic and growing leading enterprise.
FAW Jiefang is a leading commercial vehicle enterprise in China, as the "eldest son of the national car", it has witnessed the earth-shaking changes in China's automobile industry from 1956 to the present, and has also personally written the rise of China's national brands from introduction to innovation, from following to leading. In recent years, in the face of turbulent market changes, FAW Jiefang has inherited the pioneering spirit of its predecessors, continuously strengthened change, gave full play to human potential, and encouraged every employee to have the belief and momentum to pursue innovation and change.
"The hard-won achievements are inseparable from FAW Jiefang's belief in innovation and change as one of the major strategic measures and its commitment to change as a life project. Regarding the "answer sheet cheats" in 2023, Li Sheng gave such a bottom answer in an exclusive interview with reporters from media such as "China Business Daily".
Observing a growing enterprise in different business cross-sections, we can get a glimpse of the water temperature and changes in the industry, so as to outline a gradually clear direction and practice path of the commercial vehicle industry.
Talking about market trends and new energy layout: users have changed greatly, and products have come into being
Although the freight environment in 2023 has improved compared with 2022, road freight rates continue to be sluggish, and the industry is still running at a low level. In this context, for the next 3-5 years of the development trend of the heavy truck market, Li Sheng said: on the whole, the future global market environment may face continuous competitive pressure, but thanks to the significant increase in China's product recognition overseas in recent years, the future mainland medium and heavy truck exports have reserved space;
According to FAW Jiefang, from the perspective of the domestic market, the mainland commercial vehicle market is changing from high-speed growth to high-quality growth, environmental governance, trade-in, emission standards and other policy guidance has further stimulated the renewal of the market, bringing a lot of incremental opportunities to commercial vehicle companies; The rapid rise of high-horsepower will also bring a certain increase to the market.
Li Sheng said: "Based on the above analysis, we predict that in the next 3-5 years, the number of medium and heavy trucks will basically remain at 1.1 million to 1.2 million. ”
As for the current hotly discussed new energy layout, FAW Jiefang emphasized that the transformation of energy is an inevitable trend in the field of commercial vehicles, and as early as 2021, FAW Jiefang released the "15333" new energy strategic plan. In the future, FAW Jiefang will continue to increase investment in new energy.
The specific practice path is, first, to build a diversified and stable new energy supply chain in an all-round way.
Secondly, we will continue to build cooperation channels with government departments and leading central enterprises in the industry, combine strong forces, complement each other's advantages, share resources, and jointly promote solutions that meet customer needs through the layout of special vehicle bases, cooperation with bodywork enterprises, business model innovation, etc., and build a new type of government cooperative relationship with the help of all resources and platform advantages, expand market channels and customer resources, and help improve market competitiveness and sales.
Thirdly, we should integrate vertical resources, build an ecological chain, continue to find breakthroughs and cooperation points in various dimensions, and build a new alliance.
Finally, we will continue to create specialized products that meet various scenarios, comprehensively improve performance, quality, weight and cost through core independent assembly and system application, and empower FAW Jiefang New Energy Products to continue to lead the technology. At the same time, we will build a new platform, expand the market segment of long-distance trunk lines, give full play to the core competitiveness of extreme energy saving, high reliability, intelligence and rapid energy replenishment, and combine innovative business models to help the success of new energy exclusive platform products, and become the global commercial vehicle technology leader, standard setter and value creator in the E era.
Talking about new products, price wars, and breaking the path of volume: new quality productivity is a big article for innovation for the core
If you want to continue to lead the development of the industry, you need to use products to speak, and products are the "weapons" of enterprises on the battlefield.
A good product is a "cannonball", but whether an enterprise can succeed or not is much more than that. FAW Jiefang said that competition will always exist, but the industry must have healthy competition, FAW Jiefang does not fight a price war, but to solve the problems of users from the whole life cycle. He emphasized that FAW Jiefang brings value-added value to users, rather than winning users by price. According to reports, FAW Jiefang this year continued to improve profitability efforts, including the establishment of the aftermarket, organizational changes, marketing changes, etc., and all of the above are the "shells" of FAW Jiefang's future competition, FAW Jiefang is not afraid of competition, but embraces healthy competition.
New quality productivity is the strategic engine to promote high-quality development, and in the final analysis, it is to do a good job in innovation. Not long ago, FAW Jiefang landed on CCTV as a practical exploration sample to accelerate the formation of new quality productivity, behind which is the practical exploration and achievements of intelligent manufacturing to drive enterprise transformation and break the involution.
Li Sheng said that an important way to solve the involution is to use the new quality of productivity to solve the relationship between productivity and production relations. According to reports, FAW Jiefang has made all-round efforts in four dimensions: first, transformation and upgrading of traditional industries. According to rough statistics, FAW Jiefang's branches and subsidiaries, as well as manufacturing bases and parts companies have completed upgrading and transformation during the "13th Five-Year Plan" period, with a cumulative investment of more than 10 billion yuan. Why do we need to invest in and transform this kind of new quality productive forces? That is, we must reduce costs and increase efficiency, and launch an offensive in terms of efficiency, efficiency, and quality. As far as the J7 smart factory is concerned, FAW Jiefang can save 118 personnel in a single shift, while improving operational efficiency by 27%, labor productivity by 11%, and quality problems by 50%.
Secondly, in terms of digital application innovation, FAW Jiefang has also built an industrial Internet around intelligent manufacturing, that is, "one network, three streams, four platforms, and four integrations". One network: industrial Internet, three streams: order data flow, product data flow, manufacturing data flow, four platforms: digital process platform, manufacturing operation platform, logistics execution platform, intelligent decision-making platform, four integration: R&D and process integration, process and manufacturing integration, order and manufacturing integration, IT and OT integration.
Through the development and application of technologies in the fields of autonomous driving, AI artificial intelligence, and Internet of Vehicles, FAW Jiefang has continuously enriched the product matrix of intelligent commercial vehicles, realized the application of smart vehicle products in trunk lines, ports, sanitation and other scenarios, demonstrated a new height of smart vehicle products, and made transportation and logistics smarter and safer.
Finally, to build the "second curve" of electrification, intelligence and networking, FAW Jiefang has built a R&D base around "four countries and nine regions". It is reported that FAW Jiefang will complete the construction of Qingdao R&D base at the end of April and open it in June.
Talking about going overseas and Huawei: to be "world-class" and "century-old store"
"Localized development is the trend of the future, and in another 5 years, foreign sales may exceed that of domestic ones. When it comes to the prospect of going overseas, FAW Jiefang gave a confident answer.
According to reports, FAW Jiefang layout overseas investment and construction of factories, the establishment of a number of branches abroad, on the one hand, is to improve the convenience of local production, and more importantly, to lay out the localization of development, which is one of the signs of the real automobile power. In addition, it is necessary to go deep into the "hinterland" of the automotive industry - the layout of Europe, FAW Jiefang has done vehicle tests in Latin America, Southeast Asia and even Eastern Europe, which has been unanimously recognized, and FAW Jiefang is even higher than some European and American brands. In order to better achieve the above goals, FAW Jiefang has deployed its industrial chain, suppliers, finance, services and other ecosystems overseas, and the establishment of Jiefang International is also an important part. In the view of FAW Jiefang, after 5 years, foreign sales are likely to exceed those in China.
In addition, regarding the cooperation with Huawei, which has attracted much attention, Li Sheng said that FAW Jiefang has cooperated with Huawei for many years, not only in autonomous driving, but also in big data, converged communication, organizational reform, system reform, etc. In October last year, FAW Jiefang and Huawei integrated their respective superior resources and established in-depth cooperation in AI model technology innovation, intelligent driving, and intelligent cockpit.
Deepening the practice of social responsibility and improving ESG governance are inevitable requirements for the automotive industry in the new era. FAW Jiefang said that FAW Jiefang, as a subsidiary of China FAW, bears political, economic and social responsibilities, especially FAW Jiefang, as a pivotal enterprise in the commercial vehicle industry, is committed to becoming a benchmark for ESG in the commercial vehicle industry, and is determined to drive the industry to develop in a green, environmentally friendly and sustainable direction, which is the original intention of FAW Jiefang's ESG work.