Xiang Wenbo, President of Sany Heavy Industry: Construction machinery companies need to seize new opportunities for change

Source: Economic Daily

Under the background of the "14th Five-Year Plan" and the 2035 Long-term Goal Outline proposing to "consolidate and strengthen the foundation of the real economy" and "deeply implement the strategy of manufacturing power", how can Chinese construction machinery enterprises implement the requirements of the 14th Five-Year Plan with practical actions, and how to undertake major missions in building a new development pattern? The Economic Daily reporter interviewed Xiang Wenbo, president of Sany Heavy Industry, on related topics.

Reporter: The outline of the "14th Five-Year Plan" proposes to "consolidate and strengthen the foundation of the real economy" and "deeply implement the strategy of manufacturing a strong country". What does this mean for the construction machinery industry?

Xiang Wenbo: The planning outline puts forward this goal, reflecting the great importance that China attaches to the manufacturing industry. China's construction machinery industry has a good development environment, since last year, the fight against the new crown pneumonia epidemic has achieved major strategic results, and actively promoted the implementation of major decisions and deployments such as "six stability" and "six guarantees", ensuring stable external conditions. There are more than 10 Chinese enterprises in the world's top 50 construction machinery enterprises, which is because the Chinese market provides a good soil for development.

The demand for construction machinery in China's market will continue to increase. Entering the aging society, the labor force, especially the labor force entering the traditional infrastructure industry in the city, is decreasing, and the process of machine substitution in the industrial field is accelerating, which provides a broader space for the development of the construction machinery industry.

Reporter: What is the direction of future innovation of construction machinery enterprises? How can construction machinery companies make efforts in digitalization?

Xiang Wenbo: The future trend of construction machinery is unmanned, electrified and intelligent, which will promote great changes in the industry. Sany Research Institute has established an electrification institute, an intelligent institute, a simulation institute, and the company has also set up an electrification product division, which is actually a change in organizational structure caused by the development of new technologies. Sany innovation focuses on electrification, digitalization and intelligence, and will continue to increase investment in these areas in the future.

Technologies such as electrification, digitalization, and intelligence are reconstructing the global economic system and lowering the threshold for traditional manufacturing. Relative to the traditional construction machinery enterprises to develop, must complete the digital transformation. At present, Sany's unmanned and intelligent new products have been listed, but they have only just started. In the next step, Sany Heavy Industry will promote comprehensive digital transformation and become a digitally driven company. According to the plan, in the next five years, Sany Heavy Industry will reduce the number of blue-collar workers to 3,000 and the number of engineers to 30,000.

Reporter: Innovation is inseparable from talents, how should construction machinery companies attract and retain talents? How to promote innovation in the construction machinery industry?

Xiang Wenbo: There are two key factors in innovation, one is funding, and the other is talent. Especially now that we have entered the period of digital transformation, the biggest blockage in the innovation of construction machinery enterprises is still talent, such as the lack of talents in digitalization, algorithms and software. How to cultivate talents according to the needs of enterprise development, including a new generation of industrial workers, is no small challenge. Trinity now has its own academy, which used to focus on developing their skills, and now it will pay more attention to strengthening their knowledge structure.

In the long run, the innovation of construction machinery enterprises can only rely on independent research and development. Because new technologies in different industries and different fields must be combined with construction machinery. If there is no deep understanding of construction machinery, it is impossible to achieve innovation without effectively combining software and hardware. Construction machinery enterprises to have the awareness of crossing the digital divide, most of the people who understand construction machinery do not understand new technologies such as digitalization, people who understand new technologies do not understand construction machinery, only by filling the gap between the two fields can we promote innovation, so the research and development work still depends on the construction machinery main engine factory to do it.

Reporter: Under the new development pattern, do construction machinery enterprises still adhere to the road of internationalization? How should construction machinery companies seize the international market?

Xiang Wenbo: In fact, the current economy has been globalized, the general trend of internationalization will not change, and the trend of anti-globalization is contrary to economic laws. For example, almost all of the world's leading excavator manufacturers have opened manufacturing plants in China, and the Chinese market is already part of the global market. Chinese construction machinery enterprises compete with these international brands in China, and they also compete with these enterprises when they go to the international market, so in the process of economic globalization, the essence has not changed. From the perspective of enterprise development, internationalization helps enterprises to improve their ability to resist risks. If the market of a company is too concentrated, the ability to resist risks is not enough, and it must take the road of internationalization to build a world brand.

Construction machinery enterprises layout of the international market, there should be new changes. Taking Sany as an example, in the past, the focus was on developing countries, such as Africa, Southeast Asia, South America and other regions, and the next step will be to focus on developed countries, including Europe, the United States, Canada, Australia and other countries and regions.

Sany has clarified the internationalization strategy and proposed an internationalization route led by me to ensure the implementation of the strategy. The concept of me as the mainstay, one is that the first person in charge is Chinese, which is more convenient for communication and exchange, and it is convenient for the strategy to land; the second is to establish channels based on me, and the channels that relied on agents in the past were still limited, and insufficient channels would lead to a gap in cognition. In addition, we emphasize that international development, service should be the first.

In this great new era, Sany will fully promote and take the lead in realizing the three major transformations of electrification, intelligence and digitalization, and lead the transformation and upgrading of China's construction machinery industry, China's manufacturing industry and even the world's manufacturing industry. (Economic Daily reporter Liu Jin)