Video Game Empire

() Throughout the 1980s, China's electronics industry was still in the stage of directly copying existing foreign products, and independent research and development innovation was almost zero. The most famous example is the story of "one dragon giving birth to nine sons" in the refrigerator industry.

A few years ago, there was a very strange phenomenon in domestic TV commercials, that is, the same foreign brand refrigerator commercial - Ariston was broadcast all day long. But if you compare carefully, each ad is different. Changfeng Ariston may be broadcast in the morning, and Changling Ariston will be broadcast in the afternoon. Looking at it tomorrow, it has become the Arctic Ocean Ariston, and the day after tomorrow it will be replaced by Meiling Ariston.

It's not that the company Ariston can do tricks and change an advertisement every day. But four or five years after China's reform and opening up, the income of ordinary people has increased considerably compared to the past. Therefore, the consumer demand of residents has become stronger year by year, and the first thing to do is to buy home appliances.

Stimulated by the strong demand, companies around China imported a large number of home appliance production lines from abroad around 1985. The US "Newsweek" even had a special report at that time: From Hong Kong to Japan, from Western Europe to North America, the world is full of Chinese people waving banknotes and searching for second-hand industrial equipment and production lines.

The Italian company Ariston is actually not a home appliance company famous for making refrigerators. The company's real strength is the production of domestic heating and hot water equipment. The result may be that the Italians are more shrewd. They keenly captured the business opportunities brought about by China's blind and disorderly introduction of equipment, and successively sold nine almost identical production lines to nine companies including Changfeng, Changling, Arctic Ocean and Meiling. Different domestic refrigerator manufacturers.

In the eyes of ordinary people in the 1980s, the quality of foreign products was far better than that of Chinese products. Therefore, in order to attract customers to buy their own products, these companies that introduce foreign production lines are also happy to put "Ariston" behind their own brands in advertisements, so that consumers mistakenly think that it is a Sino-foreign joint venture company. In fact, Ariston did not really invest in China except to make a fortune by buying production lines.

What's even more incredible is that nine companies like the refrigerator industry, located in the north and south of China, with factory scale and management level, use the same production line to manufacture almost identical refrigerators. In the next three years, all of them have Make money.

It can be seen that after the consumption demand of the Chinese people has been suppressed for decades, how terrifying the energy is when it burst out all of a sudden. To put it in a bad way, in China in the 1980s, as long as the factory could be started up, even a group of pigs would still be able to make a profit.

Since it is so easy to get money, companies naturally have no incentive to develop their own products. In fact, when the central government was formulating the policy, it was hoped that the market could be used for technology, and finally to achieve overtaking on the curve. However, doing research and development involves taking a lot of risks. The company's existing small life is very stable, and naturally most people are reluctant to take risks.

Therefore, even though the central government issued documents many times at that time, requesting to increase the level of localization of parts and components for TVs and other products, the effect has not been obvious. Knowing that after the 1990s, under the pressure of fierce market competition, in order to reduce costs, the home appliance industry represented by color TV began to work **** the localization of key components. It's a pity that at that time, crt color TV has entered the industrial twilight.

The domestic electronics industry, which is monotonous and has no core competitiveness, was hit for the first time in the last year of the 1980s. Last year, under the dual effects of the domestic political environment and economic regulation, the consumer confidence of residents suffered a huge blow. For the first time in decades, the Chinese have discovered that when the original products still cannot be sold, customers still have the right to shop around and choose slowly.

It was last year's blow that made China's business community finally realize that the era of a happy seller's market is gone forever. In order to survive, enterprises can only show their magical powers by crossing the sea.

Price reduction is a means, and independent research and development is also a means. The introduced production line will soon become outdated, and only if you master the technology yourself will you not be controlled by others. It was from the 1990s that a group of ambitious Chinese companies began to change from copying to imitation, and finally to independent innovation step by step.

And the reason why Liu Chang is so enthusiastic is that he has his own interests in promoting the importance of corporate innovation to Ni Hongzhi. He has never been a quiet person. This "restless" does not mean causing trouble, but that he is unwilling to live a step-by-step and mediocre life, and hopes to create a great career of his own.

Therefore, when Liu Chang joined Dongfang Commercial Company for less than three years, he chose to stay without pay to start his own business. Of course, he did not act recklessly just with enthusiasm and impulse, but after careful analysis and planning in advance.

At that time, he found that with the rise of the Nanhu Electronic Development Zone, Xinnan Town, which is the closest to the development zone, was bound to share the huge economic dividends and become a commercial center in the western part of the Deep Sea Special Zone that was not inferior to the urban area.

So when Xinnan Town was just in the ascendant, he opened a mid-to-high-end Cantonese restaurant with his friends Liu Wei and his wife, and it was a huge success. The profits of Chaojiangchun Restaurant are enough for Liu Chang to live a comfortable life in the Deep Sea Special Zone. But after he found out that the development potential of the restaurant was limited in the short term, he immediately chose to clear his shares and leave without hesitation.

And the reason why he returned to Dongfang Group and chose to work at Dongfang Venture Capital Company was naturally not for the dead salary. The first successful start-up before, made Liu Chang successfully promoted to a millionaire, and has completely realized his personal financial freedom. You must know that this is China in the 1980s, and the rarity of millionaires is basically equivalent to that of billionaires 30 years later.

In another time and space, as a window for China's reform and opening up, the most prominent role of the deep-sea special zone in the 1980s was as a transit point for China's foreign trade. However, under the influence of Dongfang Group, in addition to the booming import and export trade of the deep-sea special zone in this world, the electronics industry is also rising rapidly.

Under the huge magnet effect of Dongfang Group, hundreds of supporting enterprises, large and small, have flocked around the domestic industrial layout of Dongfang Group. With the influx of capital, technology and talents, the deep-sea special zone has also become a fertile ground for entrepreneurship. Among them, venture capital represented by Eastern Venture Capital plays a very important role.

As a member of Dongfang Venture Capital, Liu Chang personally contributed to the cultivation of several seed projects. Of course, while enjoying the sense of accomplishment of giving roses and lingering fragrance in his hands, his greater purpose is to better grasp the development of the deep-sea special zone industry.

In this regard, no one has more say than the Eastern Group. On the bright side, the Oriental Group does not seem to have participated in the formulation of the overall development strategy of the deep-sea special zone, but it relies on its own strong capital to quietly mobilize all aspects of the deep-sea special zone, according to its own layout. Step by step.

After seeing the development status of the deep-sea special zone, Liu Chang quickly made another move. He used the millions of funds in his bank account to invest in a small electronics factory. And the entrepreneurial product of this small electronics factory is the infrared remote control used on the TV. Liu Chang didn't have time to manage the factory himself, so he hired a professional manager to do it for him. But the most critical factor that determines whether the factory can survive, the order, needs his boss to figure out a way.

rca, a subsidiary of the Oriental Group, sells more than 8 million TV sets around the world every year, and each TV is equipped with at least one remote control.

This is definitely Liu Chang's most coveted customer, but it is not so easy for his factory to become a supplier of rca. You must know that from the deep-sea special zone to Hong Kong, Taiwan-Taiwan, and even Southeast Asia and Japan, there are countless companies that are eyeing the orders of the Oriental Group.

Therefore, Liu Chang is not in a hurry to reach the sky, but chooses his own company's customers over other companies in the deep-sea special zone. Relying on the contacts he had accumulated in the special zone over the years, he successfully obtained a large contract from the Lu Group.

You must know that inspired by the business ideas of the Oriental Group, many other Hong Kong companies have also begun to learn to outsource non-core businesses to third parties instead of taking everything by themselves. As one of the earliest Hong Kong companies to cooperate with the Oriental Group, the Lu Group is naturally the most affected.

The current Lu Group, on the one hand, is still the most important OEM for TV and computer monitor products of the Oriental Group, and on the other hand, it actively develops its own brands. According to the annual report released by the listed company Lu's Electronics not long ago, the total number of TV sets produced and sold by Lu's own brand has reached 2 million last year.

In addition to the order from Lu's, Liu Chang also received a surprise. Ni Hongzhi chose to produce Changhong's color TV remote controls and hand them over to his factory for OEM. You must know that outsourcing product production was almost unthinkable for state-owned enterprises in the 1980s.

Because more production tasks mean that companies can continue to add new jobs. However, for state-owned enterprises, recruitment is a very delicious cake in the basket of rights. A large number of children of employees need to arrange jobs, and the leaders of the local government and other related enterprises and institutions need to be taken care of. Therefore, a single recruitment can solve many problems.

As for whether it is not cost-effective to outsource the efficiency of your own production, that is not a priority that should be considered at all. As long as it can ensure that the factory does not lose money and everyone's wages are paid on time, it is enough. Anyway, no matter how good the company's efficiency is, the profits must be turned over to the state, and they cannot be put into individual pockets.

Therefore, in this big environment, Ni Hongzhi dared to hand over the remote control order to a small factory thousands of miles away, which is very courageous. It is precisely because of this that Liu Chang is very optimistic about Ni Hongzhi, not only because the other party sent him a lot of orders, but also because he found the other party's huge personality charm different from that of ordinary state-owned enterprise leaders.

It was after 1:00 in the second half of the night after Ni Hongzhi ate supper. He and Liu Chang talked about the new topic of corporate innovation for more than three hours, and they still felt unfinished at the end. On the topic of innovation, Liu Chang naturally has a right to speak. Because the core business of the Eastern Venture Capital Company he works for is to find novel ideas with investment value from the various project plans.

But for Ni Hongzhi, the supper with Liu Chang seemed to have opened up a whole new world for him. In his previous experience, the task of the enterprise was to arrange production in accordance with the tasks assigned by the planning department above. As for the development of new products, it was naturally the responsibility of specialized scientific research institutes.

After the backlog of color TVs began to appear in the factory last year, Ni Hongzhi kept thinking about the solution. The way he finally chose to reduce the price is naturally not the best choice. Although the government did not punish Changhong Company and himself in the end, his rule-breaking thorns are certainly not popular.

But if Changhong's products can achieve what others have and what others have, then he doesn't need to worry about his color TV not being able to sell. For example, he has a ready-made example in front of him.

At present, most of the production lines of TV manufacturers in China were introduced five or six years ago, mainly producing 14-, 16-, and 18-inch small and medium-sized color TVs. Because of the many brands and large production capacity, the competition in this part of the market is undoubtedly the most intense. In Huaqiang's color TV production line, the smallest size is 21 inches, its mainstream products are 25 inches, and the high-end 29 inches.

Because at the beginning of the construction of the production line, most of the planned production capacity of Huaqiang Company was for rca Company. And TVs under 20 inches have very little sales in the United States. Therefore, although the OEM orders obtained by Huaqiang are orders for low-end color TVs from rca, its production lines are already mid-to-high-end compared to the domestic market.

This has also resulted in the fact that the main competitors of the color TVs sold by Huaqiang Company are not other domestic companies, but foreign imported brands. Last year, the overall sales volume of the color TV industry shrank, but Huaqiang's sales remained basically stable.

This is because the families who can afford large-size TV sets are basically some of the families who got rich first in China, and they are relatively less sensitive to price. And because Huaqiang is a domestic enterprise, the TVs it produces save exchange rate costs and tariff costs, and are naturally much cheaper than competing foreign TVs of the same size.

Therefore, those consumers who are budget-conscious, for the sake of saving money, may have planned to buy foreign products, but now they choose to buy Huaqiang color TVs with the same excellent quality.

Therefore, although the domestic color TV sales shrunk last year, Huaqiang has been able to keep sales from declining by eroding the market share of a large number of foreign TV brands.

This is the advantage of leading technology. Ni Hongzhi lay on the bed of the hotel and thought of this, and his heart couldn't help but feel hot. He had already grasped the future direction of Changhong Company. And Li Huolin, the CEO of Huaqiang Company, who he used as a role model, was actually also tossing and turning! (To be continued.)