industrial overlord

Chapter 658 The Conspiracy in the Seaside Town
Saint-Tropez is a scenic French town on the Mediterranean coast, which has what is known as the most beautiful beach in France.Every summer, countless rich and famous people gather here, the sea is dotted with private yachts, and the air seems to be full of luxury.

It is still late winter, and Saint-Tropez has not yet ushered in its golden tourist season, and the town seems a bit deserted.In a villa for tourists to rent near the sea, a group of mysterious guests lived in these few days.I say they are mysterious because these people came here from all over Europe, but they didn't come here to enjoy the scenery on the sea, but they got into this villa that was rented in advance when they came, and they came out occasionally, but they walked in a hurry , all of them had serious expressions on their faces.

These people are executives from more than [-] large equipment manufacturing companies in Europe. They came here at the invitation of Khedira, Marketing Director of ALK Group in Germany, to discuss how to deal with threats from competitors in emerging economies.During several days of closed-door consultations, one name that was repeatedly mentioned by executives was China's Hanhua Heavy Industries.

"Two years ago, I reminded everyone that Hanhua Heavy Industry is an opponent worthy of our vigilance. It will pose a serious threat to our European companies. It is a pity that at that time, everyone did not give my advice. Enough attention. Now everyone can see the evil consequences of our arrogance."

In the large living room of the villa, Khedira spoke to the room full of colleagues with his German candor.

Khedira is not a likable person, he has overconfidence.He calls this confidence his foresight, and he often uses it to criticize subordinates, peers, colleagues in other companies, and sometimes even his own boss.

At the Frankfurt Equipment Exhibition two years ago, Khedira did mention to these colleagues sitting in the room that they should be vigilant against Hanhua Heavy Industry. As he said, this kind of reminder has suffered from everyone. Cold reception.Today, he repeats his old words, which has a taste of reckoning after autumn. What makes people feel depressing is that everyone can no longer ignore his words this time, because his prophecy has indeed come true.

In the past two years, the global market share of European equipment manufacturing enterprises has continued to decline, and their market share has been eroded by similar enterprises from so-called "emerging economies" such as China, India, and Brazil.Among them, the enterprises from China are the most powerful and the most ugly...

When Chinese enterprises seize the European enterprise market, they have two magic weapons, one is all customer-centric sales principles, and the other is naturally low prices.

Everything is customer-centric, which is what European companies always talk about, but in actual implementation, it is not the case at all.For example, a country in Africa wants to purchase a set of equipment from a European company. In addition to discussing technology and price, European companies sometimes have to add some other requirements. For example, the use of equipment requires the permission of surrounding residents. What freedoms, what rights, etc., the local government needs to promise.

For European companies, it is very necessary to do so.Europe is a place that represents the universal value of human beings. When selling equipment, it is natural to sell the universal value along the way. Otherwise, how can we let those backward nations understand the advancement of our great Europe?

But once it is replaced by a Chinese company, all these troubles will be gone.Chinese companies like to say "business is business", and they never tie equipment sales and politics together.In fact, this kind of thinking is also very normal: I am just a seller of equipment, why do I get involved in politics?Whether the local government buys equipment and builds enterprises, whether the people are happy or not is their internal affairs, can we control it?
As a result, those countries that cannot buy equipment from European companies have turned to Chinese companies.Seeing this situation, European manufacturers cursed and said that Chinese manufacturers did not fulfill their social responsibilities. The sales representatives of Chinese manufacturers simply pretended to be low-educated and could not understand the European bird language. You can say whatever you like. I only know how to make money. The last word.

As for the price, it is the big killer of Chinese manufacturers.No matter what kind of good things, as long as Chinese manufacturers are selling them, they can be sold directly at a cabbage price.The prices of machine tools, fertilizer equipment, petroleum equipment, and power generation equipment have all been crushed by the Chinese.At such a price, the Europeans will not be able to recover the cost, not to mention the profit. Who is interested in producing it?

More than ten years ago, there was still a relatively large technological gap between European manufacturers and Chinese manufacturers.Many products cannot be manufactured by the Chinese. Those developing countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America who want to buy such equipment can only stretch their necks and wait for Europeans to slaughter them.But now, the technology of the Chinese people has developed, and the ability to replace products has been continuously improved. Although some technologies are not yet at the level of European companies, they are barely enough. Coupled with cheap prices and good services, users from various countries will naturally Turned to China.

In addition to the markets of developing countries, the markets of developed countries such as Europe and the United States have also begun to be invaded by the Chinese in the past two years.Two machine tools with similar performance, the one made in China sells for 10 euros, and the one produced by a European company sells for 50 euros. Can users not decide which one to buy?Of course, you can say that the service life of Chinese machine tools is not so long, the precision is not so high, and it is not so comfortable to use, but for an ordinary small factory, are these requirements so important?
No one knows how Chinese products erode the market step by step.Judging from the sales rankings of various types of products, Chinese manufacturers may only occupy three or two positions in the top 10, and European manufacturers still occupy the bulk.But if the list of all products is collected in one place, people will be surprised to find that the Chinese are almost unwilling to let go of every market, and every product can find a supplier from China.

The most frightening thing is that if you compare these sales rankings between years, you can see that the rankings of Chinese companies on the rankings have always been on the rise, improving by one position every year.If this trend continues, it will be just around the corner for them to reach the top position.

The decline in market share will naturally bring about a decline in operating income, followed by losses.The ALK company, which was once glorious, finally suffered a large loss on the books last year. It was this loss that woke up the president of ALK who was still sleeping in the old European dream. Rope's trip.

The companies that came to Saint-Tropez at the invitation of ALK have some similarities with ALK in the past two years. The market has gradually shrunk and the companies have turned from profit to loss.The executives remembered Khedira's warning two years ago, and after carefully checking the company's sales report, they finally reached a consensus: it's time to curb the expansion of Chinese companies.

"Mr. Khedira, I admit that you did remind everyone to pay attention to the problem of China Hanhua Heavy Industry two years ago. But you said that everyone did not pay attention to this matter, but it is unfair. In fact, all European companies In the past two years, we have not given up on technology research and development, and have taken effective measures to strengthen our competition with rivals in emerging economies. It should be said that these measures are effective." Marko, vice president of Giessen, Germany, frowned He retorted to Khedira that he really couldn't stand Khedira's preaching tone.

"Have you taken any effective measures?" Khedira said, "As far as I know, Gissen also suffered a loss in the last fiscal year, right? Although it was a small loss, it was the first time that Gissen had in the past 20 years. A loss occurred for the first time.”

Marko said: "What you said is true, but isn't your ALK company suffering more serious losses? Mr. Khedira, since you have such a brilliant foresight on this issue, why didn't you let ALK out of the predicament?"

"We have taken measures, but..." Khedira did not continue.

He remembered the attack on the Hanhua equipment ship that he had planned last year. Such a thing should not be mentioned to others.The Chinese crew dared to resist the pirate attack, which was something Khedira never expected.

After hearing the news that the pirate attack failed and the pirates who participated in the attack were killed in revenge, Khedira was so shocked that he didn't sleep well for almost a month.He was worried that he had been exposed. When he saw a Chinese figure on the streets of Germany, he couldn't help worrying that it was a Chinese agent who had come to seek revenge.

After going through a lot of painful suffering, Khedira had to admit that he was just a helpless salesman. He was too young to play this kind of violent game. Played once.

"Of course I have long seen the threat of the Chinese to European companies, including the threat to our ALK Group. However, I am only a sales director, and our board of directors did not accept my warning, just as you did not accept My warning is the same. ALK’s loss has sounded a wake-up call for all of us, and it also proves that my warning is very prescient.” Khedira said bravely.

"Okay, let's stop arguing about this issue." Julian, the vice president of the French Ladour Industrial Group, said, "Mr. Khedira, you didn't invite everyone here to show off your brilliance to everyone, did you?" ?We all know very well that the competitiveness of emerging economies cannot be ignored. You don’t need to explain this to everyone. How to deal with competition from them is what we should discuss here.”

(End of this chapter)