Interview with Li Ruifeng: New Great Wall Motors, go to the front desk

Great Wall Motors is busy!

On April 25, Great Wall Motor's WEY brand, tank, Haval, Euler, and Great Wall cannon were on the same stage for the first time, and more than 20 products such as WEY Blue Mountain Intelligent Driving Edition, Tank 700 Hi4-T, new generation Haval H6, new generation Haval H9, 2024 Haval Raptor, 2024 Ora Good Cat, and Great Wall Shanhai Cannon Hi4-T were unveiled at the Beijing International Auto Show.

On the eve of the auto show, founder Wei Jianjun broadcast live for the first time in Baoding, and received more than 58 million views on the "Automobile Culture" platform alone.

"The founder's IP has natural traffic and value," Li Ruifeng, chief growth officer of Great Wall Motors, responded on April 25: "The Wei brand is named after Mr. Wei's surname, borrowing the founder's IP earlier than many manufacturers, but to what extent the founder's IP is borrowed, there needs to be a degree." At the auto show, Li Ruifeng had more things to talk about, and he was emotionally excited, which indicated that the combat effectiveness of Great Wall Motors was returning.

The boost of executive live streaming

At present, the automobile market is involuted, the competition has been fierce, the founders of the company have come to the forefront, in the eyes of the outside world, this is to be an Internet celebrity, in fact, this is to win strength for the enterprise, more directly to deliver more core content.

Li Ruifeng believes, "Whether it is intelligent driving live broadcast or as a voice, it is very valuable, and there will be some live broadcasts of Mr. Wei in the future." In the Internet era, under the new consumption habits and marketing models, the chairman of the board of directors plays an exemplary role in experiencing and perceiving the changes of the Internet, which will have a very great boost to every sector of our traditional company's research, production, supply and marketing. ”

For traditional car companies, touching the Internet used to be a pass, and live broadcast is an untouchable forbidden area. With the surging traffic brought by live streaming, it is actors and stars who are attracted first, and live streaming of corporate executives has only recently become a trend.

Li Ruifeng, chief growth officer of Great Wall Motors, believes that "executives are also netizens, to perceive changes, and then to promote some model reforms, or to change the original traditional practices, the role of reference and value is greater, we can't just look at the founder to follow the trend or follow suit, I think we have to look at this change from multiple dimensions." Indeed, in the live broadcast of Wei Jianjun's NOA test on April 15, he brought more intuitive information and decision-making to avoid information distortion, such as setting a flag on the spot: Great Wall Motor's intelligent driving should enter the first echelon of the industry.

"Now a lot of information is more flat, and sometimes for our old marketers, we feel that a lot of things are meaningless and valuable, but users and consumers don't know, so how to reflect the functional configuration and technology of the product in this kind of scene in an experiential way, which is a big change. ”

Li Ruifeng said, for example: if the new H9 needs product knowledge training, the previous model is that Great Wall Motors finds an agency to conduct product technical training with course courseware, and the dealer training lecturer comes to conduct training, and the dealer then rehearses the actual scene and then receives the customer, and the follow-up must continue to check the results. "New media live broadcast does not need these, under the product framework, everyone is a marketer, he can broadcast all the selling points of this car on the Internet. We don't need to use this funnel chain and knowledge attenuation to train. When a new product comes out, do it in the face of customers' questions, which forces everyone to have a sense of the camera, and when facing questions from netizens, you will inevitably become an expert. ”

The Internet marketing model allows people to move from the comfort zone to the front desk, "the things we were unwilling to study deeply, accepted the torture of more people, in the era of competition, not only the product, the value, the most important thing is to make real changes."

The reset power of the seven middle platforms

Some changes are changes in thinking, some changes are changes in cognition, and Great Wall Motors' changes are more thorough, overturning the reset change.

In Li Ruifeng's view, this is the process of reshaping. The cognitive system, the growth system, and the organizational system all need to be improved. "We are now making some adjustments in the headquarters organization, in the introduction of the AB corner, only in the competition can we change the method, in the important areas of the AB angle, each other to come up with plans to compete with each other, instead of looking for a person to lead everyone to find a new model and method. ”

At the end of 2020, Great Wall Motors began to promote the organizational structure of the combat unit and the middle and back office, and two years later, Great Wall Motors integrated the brand again and adjusted it to 4 combat groups and 5 middle platforms. Wei Jianjun once interpreted this: this is the 3.0 version of the organizational structure of Great Wall Motors - in the 1.0 era, Great Wall Motors is in the entrepreneurial period, and the decision-making is extremely flexible, but it lacks forward-looking and planning; in the 2.0 era, Great Wall Motors has formed a functional organization with elites as the core, but the coordination between various parts is the biggest problem.

Automobile culture learned that the organizational change of Great Wall Motors has been carried out again in April, the number of middle platforms has been expanded to seven, and the new media live broadcast operation center and commodity management center have been added, which are served by the deputy general manager and above, such as Chang Yao took over as the person in charge of the user operation platform, Zhang Ruiliang replaced Li Pengcheng as the person in charge of the sales and service platform, Ni Yaxin was appointed as the person in charge of the terminal operation platform, Huang Yue was appointed as the person in charge of the new media live broadcast operation platform, and Yang Yanqing served as the person in charge of the commodity management platform. Among them, Zhang Ruiliang served as the general manager of North China, and Ni Yaxin was the director of the sales management department of Ola. The person in charge of the middle office this time is basically promoted from within. For example, Yang Yanqing, who served as the head of the commodity management middle platform, became acquainted with the automobile culture on July 16, 2020 at the Shanghai press conference of the "Jizhi luxury coupe SUV" WEY VV7 GT brabus (limited to 300 units, priced at 258,800 yuan), and was the deputy general manager of Haval Technology at the time.

At present, Great Wall Motor has a total of seven platforms: public relations and communication, user operation, sales and service, digital intelligence, terminal operation, new media live broadcast and commodity management. The seven Great Wall Motors reported to Li Ruifeng.

Li Ruifeng believes that the middle office of commodity management is the most important. "It turns out that they are all middle platforms, they are all matrix management, and the brand battle group plays the role of our operational commander. At present, there are seven middle platforms, the most important of which is the commodity management middle platform, which is responsible for the definition of global commodities and the overall system of domestic and foreign strategic mentality. ...... Therefore, the integration of overall resources has been realized around the role of 'one great wall' at home and abroad."

"The user operation platform, sales service platform and terminal operation platform have been changed last year. Li Ruifeng went on to explain, "The up and down connection and linkage between corporate brands and sub-brands and models are part of the functions of the public relations and communication platform." The new media live broadcast operation center is a live broadcast center that runs through manufacturers and distributors, and it is the official media communication matrix in the future...... These are some of the organizational reforms. ”

In terms of results, the middle office must have professional ability and systematic ability, Li Ruifeng believes that "this year's change may be deeper than the recognition in 2023, and the level and dimension of learning are more saturated."

Automobile culture believes that Great Wall Motors continues to expand the middle platform, from the new energy era of the "price war" further put forward requirements for organizational efficiency. It is not difficult to see that the previous boiling "resignation incident" is more likely to be that the middle and senior management cannot adapt to the rhythm of the transformation of Great Wall Motors, and the expansion of the middle platform is actually a forward-looking layout that is fully moving towards the front desk, and the requirements for cognition and ability are indeed not what they used to be.

The upward force of Great Wall Motors

On March 26, Wei Jianjun posted for the first time in 13 years after founding a Weibo account; on March 28, he appeared at the Xiaomi car press conference, and exchanged tanks 700 Hi4-T and Xiaomi SU7 with Lei Jun; On April 25, at the Great Wall booth of the Beijing Auto Show, Wei Jianjun met with Lei Jun's old friends who came to "see you in Baoding!"

Lei Jun and Wei Jianjun have quite different personalities, but they are obviously more familiar with each other. When asked when they formed their friendship, a senior person from Great Wall Motors can be sure that "Wei Dong and Mr. Lei have known each other for more than 10 years."

Li Ruifeng agrees with Wei Jianjun's insight advantage, which is the invisible wealth of Great Wall Motors. Mr. Wei's love and obsession with cars is widely known, and he is also the only chairman who has not changed from an OEM in 34 years. His understanding of the entire automobile industry, his insight into the competitive situation, and his strategy are clearer and more stable in the current price value war. ”

Automobile culture observation found that Great Wall Motor's gross profit margin and average revenue per vehicle are showing an upward trend. This means that with the adjustment of product structure, Great Wall Motors has continued to make breakthroughs in the mid-to-high-end market and has a stronger product premium ability. Great Wall Motor's first-quarter financial report also confirms this judgment.

On April 24, Great Wall Motor Company released the first quarter report of 2024, with operating income, net profit attributable to the parent company, and non-net profit deducted in the first quarter of 42.860 billion yuan, 3.228 billion yuan, and 2.024 billion yuan respectively, an increase of 47.60%, 1752.55%, and 1032.88% year-on-year, respectively. As Mu Feng, President of Great Wall Motors, said at the beginning of this year, "2024 will be a year of more volume, with volume configuration, volume price, and volume channel." But we are still the Great Wall that is not afraid of rolling. ”

Mainstream brokerages also believe that Great Wall Motor's operating performance has improved steadily, mainly benefiting from the hot sales of new energy vehicles, the increase in export volume and the optimization of sales structure. "Looking ahead, the company will accelerate the transformation to the direction of intelligent new energy, boost sales with new car launches and marketing system reforms, and superimpose high export growth, which is expected to promote the continuous optimization of its own sales structure and drive a steady increase in profitability."

The Great Wall, which is not afraid of rolling, wants to be the "Great Wall of the World".

At the Beijing Auto Show, Great Wall Motor invited nearly 1,000 foreign dealers and media to hold the Great Wall Motor's 2024 Overseas Dealer Conference, and released six brand launches at the Beijing Auto Show.

"The Great Wall Company is sincere and true, and Mr. Wei focuses on a truth. Li Ruifeng finally sighed. (Written by丨Autocul)