Li Ping, a native of Hunan, is in charge of Zhuzhou diamonds.

Zhuzhou Diamond Cutting Tool Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Zhuzhou Diamond") has been the focus of the industry since its establishment, and the China market has always been a battleground for the global tool industry. The rapid rise of Zhuzhou Diamond has made competitors nervous, and its triumphant overseas strategy has also caused some headaches for foreign counterparts, and all kinds of rumors about the cooperation between this global emerging tool industry and foreign capital are always endless. In the past two years, there has been a lot of news about the cooperation and negotiation between Zhuzhou Diamond and Swedish sandvik Company. Unexpectedly, as the general manager of Zhuzhou Diamond, Li Ping frankly confirmed the cooperation intention of both parties. This negotiation, which started in 2005, is still going on, and both parties have even involved the details of the contract. Zhuzhou Diamond has a deep historical relationship with sandvik Company, and Li Ping is also a witness to this history.

1978 16-year-old Li Ping entered the powder metallurgy major of Central South University of Technology as the first batch of college entrance examination candidates after the Cultural Revolution. Regarding the choice of the year, in Li Ping's own words, "There were really not many ideas at that time." He just wants to go back to Zhuzhou after graduating from college, preferably to Zhuzhou Cemented Carbide Factory (hereinafter referred to as "Zhu Ying"). Everything has come true. Four years later, at 1982, he was assigned to Zhu Jian.

At that time, Li Ping would never have thought that he would become the general manager of Zhuzhou Diamond today, and would lead an enterprise to the leading position in China within a few years.

After entering Zhujing, the young Li Ping started as a team leader, served as section chief, workshop director, marketing director and technology development director, and served as the director of Zhuzhou No.3 Branch Factory from 65438 to 0999. Perhaps it is "once the sea was difficult for water." Looking back on the past, Ping Li always felt that he didn't seem to make any progress and didn't have many ideas before 1999.

This third factory is also the prototype of Zhuzhou diamond. The third branch plant originated from 1986, when Zhuzhou introduced 300 tons of indexable cemented carbide blade production line and its technology from sandvik company with low-interest loans provided by the Swedish government. This historic cooperation laid the foundation for the later Zhuzhou Diamond.

At that time, Zhu Ying sent more than 60 people to sandvik for three months as interns, and Li Ping was one of them. A native of Hunan, he gradually began to get in touch with the technologies and concepts of the world's advanced enterprises. Later, from 65438 to 0989, Li Ping went to Japan as an international trainee in the Japanese government's plan to support developing countries.

At the end of 1980s, when China's automobile industry was just beginning to move towards joint venture, people with innovative spirit and fighting spirit longed for joint venture and cooperation with international tool giants. They expect to achieve greater development and enter the international market in this way. However, due to control rights and other issues, the two-year negotiation with sandvik Company ended in failure. Then, in 1994, Zhu Ying began negotiations with iscar for four years. 1998 Asian financial crisis, at the last minute, made iscar unexpectedly acquire Teguke, and then adjusted its Asian strategy. For other reasons, the two sides still failed to get together.

Zhu Ying finally gave up the joint venture and they decided to start their own business. On February+20065438 1 day, Zhu Ying decided to build a cemented carbide production line with high starting point, high standard and high performance in another place, and set up a diamond industrial park construction headquarters, with Li Ping as the chief commander. History gave Li Pingan an opportunity, and he seized it firmly.

Thinking that I was truly independent from now on, I obviously felt completely different pressure from the original deputy director and director, and there was no retreat after everything found him. "If the decision is right, the company will go the right way, if the decision is wrong, it will go the wrong way. I slowly began to think about what to do, including industries and products, and I have a deeper understanding since then. "

Zhuzhou Diamond Integral Carbide Tool Production Line

In 2002, Zhuzhou Diamond Tool Co., Ltd. was formally established and Li Ping was appointed as the general manager.

Due to the great integration of immigrants and surrendered officials in history, Hunan culture has a powerful eclectic function. With this spirit, Zhu Ying dares to boldly introduce advanced equipment and technology, digest and absorb it, and dare to actively engage in joint ventures and cooperation, so that his skills can be used by me; Li Ping also has this spirit. Years of study, training and overseas inspection have given him the most extensive thinking about products and technologies. Li Ping said, "Today, I have a profound understanding of cemented carbide production." And he also brought this understanding and confidence to Zhuzhou Diamond.

At that time, the investment in Diamond Industrial Park was as high as 270 million yuan. Zhuzhou diamond seems to be in the right place at the right time, but like any new enterprise, it is also facing a huge task of opening up the market, which is by no means easy. In the first year of formal production, Zhuzhou Diamond only earned 50 million yuan in sales revenue.

Ping Li felt that it was the most difficult time for himself and the company. "At that time, I was very happy to have two or three million sales revenues every month." For Zhuzhou Diamond, which is in its initial stage, it is absolutely impossible for a user to lose it. Any user who reduces orders will make Li Ping anxious. Li Ping, all major customers and distributors, visits twice a year. In any case, the sales revenue of 50 million yuan is obviously not enough to support the development of the company.

However, the change in numbers is unbelievable. It seems that the 200 million yuan in 2004 is not satisfactory, but it jumped to 660 million yuan in 2006, 960 million yuan in 2007, and the figure in 2008 is estimated to reach 65.438+06.5438+0 billion yuan. This speed is amazing. Li Ping relies on two trump cards in his hand, which he develops and sells in one hand.

At the beginning of the company's establishment, R&D followed closely and invested hundreds of millions of yuan. Now the annual R&D expenditure is close to 50 million yuan. Today, six years later, this company with a total of more than 1000 people has more than 1000 people in the R&D center, and the equipment used in R&D is the same as that in the production line. Paying attention to R&D has benefited Li Ping and Zhuzhou Diamonds a lot. In recent years, Zhuzhou diamond has gradually approached the international advanced level in the research and development of cemented carbide and the internal quality of products.

At the same time, the sales investment is also quite strong. Over the years, we have always attached great importance to the construction of the marketing system, and the annual sales investment is as high as 50 million yuan. Now Zhuzhou Diamond has more than 20 sales regions in China, with more than 100 marketing staff. The remuneration of its marketing staff is directly linked to the performance, and there is no upper limit. Li Ping said with a smile: "Now some regional managers may earn more than me." He firmly believes that no one in the industry has a better sales model than Zhuzhou Diamond.

Zhuzhou diamond research and development center

Of course, whether R&D or sales, such a large investment will also benefit from the full support of Zhu Ying and the Board of Directors. Li Ping seems to like to use "No one is better than me …", and he is also proud of the ownership structure of Zhuzhou Diamond. "There are probably not many companies in China that are more reasonable than us, including listed companies." Zhuzhou Diamond was an innovation in system before it was formally established. At that time, several foreign capitals were introduced and the equity structure was specially designed. Two important principles are: the largest shareholder must not exceed 50%, and the management must hold shares. At present, hundreds of individuals, including key employees, hold shares, which undoubtedly makes them more loyal to the company. The board of directors pays attention to the profit level of the enterprise, and the decision is really made by the management, giving the management full autonomy.

Dare to be the first, dare to be the first in the world, is probably the proper meaning of Hunan people's spirit. Zhuzhou Diamond dares to break through the institutional constraints and innovate the company structure, and dares to learn from the advanced global marketing concepts to innovate the sales model. Li Ping repeatedly stressed: "The talent problem is the key issue of enterprise development." He dares to invest huge sums of money to attract, train and retain talents.

Returning to the topic of joint venture and cooperation, I'm afraid Zhuzhou Diamond is not as eager for joint venture and cooperation as it was then. In fact, since the establishment of the company in 2002, Zhuzhou Diamond has held cooperation negotiations with Kenner and Iscar respectively, but in the end there is no result. No one can say for sure the future direction of the ongoing negotiations with sandvik, because with the current status of Zhuzhou Diamond, this is no longer a simple matter between the two companies. Moreover, Zhuzhou diamonds have placed too many people's national feelings.

But for this issue, Li Ping's mentality is very open. "If we have a joint venture, it will be a good thing for the development of domestic metal processing, and everyone will be improved after the introduction of technology." He cited the joint venture and cooperation in the color TV refrigerator industry in China as an example. "From the beginning, two or three joint ventures have continuously introduced technology and trained talents. Today, we have become the world's largest home appliance supply base. " He firmly believes that from the perspective of industry development, joint ventures and cooperation will play a very good role in promoting.

In Li Ping's view, the future of the industry is that as long as one enterprise is promoted, other enterprises will also be promoted accordingly; Moreover, cutting tools will inevitably develop with the development of automobile and steel industries in China. The development of foreign tool industry also confirms this point. Sandvik rose with the development of Swedish cars and steel. There are famous tool brands in almost all developed areas of automobile industry, such as Sweden, Yamagata, Germany, Walter, Vidya and ingersoll, Japan, Mitsubishi and Toshiba, and South Korea, Tektronix. "It is only a matter of time before there will definitely be 2 3 families in China in the future."

For the rapid development of Zhuzhou diamonds in recent years, Li Ping feels that it is really related to the good manufacturing situation in the country. They just kept up with this development situation, plus good institutional mechanisms and great courage. Nowadays, enterprises are running on such a track, and people seem to expect Zhuzhou Diamond to pursue victory and accelerate capacity expansion. However, Li Ping is not impatient. He calmly withdrew from everyone's excitement. At the end of last year, few people realized that there would be economic problems this year. However, Li Ping found some problems from a large number of orders, requested to reduce the sales plan for 2008, and put forward an early warning to all sales regions.

Today, Li Ping realizes that this situation is just another opportunity. Zhuzhou Diamond can stop to solve the internal problems of rapid development in the past two years, including unstable product quality in the past development process. Zhuzhou Diamond is a new enterprise after all, including some management problems. If we don't stop to rectify, if we want to continue to expand, the internal mechanism will definitely go wrong. "When you win, you often can't see your own problems. If you are hot-headed, you will bring yourself down and pay for it. We still have many problems, and there is still a big gap compared with foreign advanced enterprises. "Li Ping seems to be completely different from the arrogant general manager.

He has always stressed: "Many companies want to be big and invest everywhere when they make money. We should focus on our products and not engage in other things. Only by focusing can we do our best, and we cannot blindly expand. That will cause the company's sales revenue to increase more, the profit to be thinner, and the enterprise will pay a heavy price. The development of enterprises should be scientific and conform to the laws and needs of market development. "

Openness is an attitude of absorbing and learning from all advanced cultures. We have learned this word from Wei Yuan, a native of Hunan. Without openness and the spirit of taking the world as our responsibility, Zhuzhou Diamond is not enough to have today, and Li Ping is not enough to have today.

Huxiang culture has always been eclectic in the whole process of its formation and development, and its historical process has always been in a non-exclusive and inclusive state. It is also for this reason that it is difficult for people to find a clear definition of Huxiang culture, and Li Ping can't say it clearly. His straightforward answers to some questions may better reflect the spirit of Hunan people.

Reporter: The enterprise has been very successful these years. It should be said that you are also very successful personally. Do you have any creed or motto?

Li Ping: To tell you the truth, I really haven't thought about it for many years. Sometimes new employees will ask me, what is the corporate culture of Zhuzhou Diamond? I can't say clearly. For such a new enterprise, her corporate culture may need to be understood slowly.

As for success, to be honest, I have no specific ideas. First of all, we must have such opportunities, and then we must have ideas, understand the industry, understand products, and build brands and market channels.

Reporter: What books have you been reading recently? What kind of experience and feelings do you have?

Li Ping: Speaking of books, I want to emphasize that I like a magazine, Chinese and Foreign Management, very much. There are many new management concepts and ideas, which are refined by entrepreneurs' years of experience. A short paragraph is very enlightening, but I don't like long articles.

As for books, I have read some popular books in the past two years, such as Win, The World is Flat, The Foundation is Evergreen, From Success to Excellence and so on. I have an understanding that some things, especially books that are often published, may not be suitable for us. That is the experience and experience of others at their most mature time. For example, if you can't achieve greater development after maturity, you must think about how to adjust, but you can't follow their methods before maturity, otherwise you will fail. Survival should be a question of survival. When you are struggling for survival, you can't adopt other people's mature process reengineering and internal reform. How can you rebuild your own process before it takes shape? I mentioned "process reengineering" in the past, but later I found it wrong. This is an immature performance. Fortunately, I corrected my mistake as soon as possible. Therefore, after reading these books, we can learn from them, but we can't copy them. We must clearly understand the positioning of our own enterprises.

Reporter: What is your future goal with Zhuzhou Diamond?

Li Ping: I think as long as we do this position well, as for the company's goal, we hope to enter the ranks of world-class enterprises within a few years. In the next few years, if we want to achieve 2 billion yuan during the Eleventh Five-Year Plan period, we will implement it according to this goal. But we may have to adjust next year, and we don't want to be infinite. There is a price to be paid for being bigger, and the profit of the enterprise may be sacrificed.

Li Ping: I have done sales and research and development. I know this business very well and have a lot of feelings. I know what to do. It can be said that history gave me such an opportunity, and I just seized it. I feel very fulfilled now. In fact, I often say that "the winner is king and the loser is the enemy". Looking back on the investment in previous years, I will be surprised by some bold decisions. Of course, this is also forced by the market. If you don't develop yourself, you can't survive in the market.

Author: Zang

Original load: metal cutting