What is the methodological relationship between the business operation and corporate management of multinational corporations?

Exploring the management and operation of multinational groups (2003- 12- 12)

—— One of the investigation reports of ——CSSC's training delegation to Europe (excerpt)

The reform of management mode of large enterprise groups aims at improving their market competitiveness. Compared with the international advanced large enterprise groups, there are still some gaps between CSSC and many domestic large enterprise groups with * * * characteristics. To achieve the group company's "53 1" goal, we still have to make a lot of efforts. Through this training visit to Europe, we have a new understanding of the management model of large enterprise groups.

Management mode of large enterprise groups

1. The flat and efficient organization of group companies is the foundation of modern management mode.

According to the idea of enterprise group and the principle of flattening and high efficiency, CSSC should gradually merge and reorganize the shipbuilding production units with the ship assembly base as the core, highlight the main business and concentrate on shipbuilding; Focus on core enterprises whose main business is not shipbuilding (supporting, ship repairing, marine engineering, etc.). ) and merged and reorganized into an independent legal entity; For the non-main business, we should make up our minds to divest the main business and auxiliary business, and speed up the adjustment of business structure through bankruptcy exit and auction transfer.

The headquarters of the group company is composed of functional departments and professional institutions under the leadership of the decision-making level. According to the different business groups, the enterprises affiliated to the headquarters of the group company can be divided into three types: business intervention of the shipbuilding industry (business type), strategic control of ship matching, ship repair, steel structure and ocean engineering (strategic type), and financial holding of non-main business (financial type).

2. The reform of enterprise internal leadership mechanism is the guarantee of modern management mode.

Clear responsibility and collective leadership are the core of the reform of internal leadership mechanism in enterprises, which embodies the relationship between responsibility, power and benefit. The formation process of western large enterprise groups is in the form of mergers and acquisitions, and the decision-making process is through the shareholders' meeting, the board of directors and the decision-making executive Committee. Senior personnel of an enterprise include: chairman, directors (capital owners), CEO (knowledge and experience owners or investors) and professional managers (general managers, directors, etc.). The rights of the investor (capital owner) include personnel management (hiring operators), income, major decisions and auxiliary management.

Due to the differences in social systems, the top leaders of state-owned enterprises in China are composed of party secretary, chairman and general manager. If the relationship between the two is not handled properly, it is easy to have unclear responsibilities and rights, which leads to the untraceability of major decision-making responsibilities. It is a better choice to combine the secretary and the chairman into one and become the nominal CEO to exercise the rights and management responsibilities of the investor, and the general manager is the chief operating officer to complete the daily work of the enterprise. In order to put an end to the phenomenon of "insider control" and "blurring" the management of the group company, the group company can send (assign) supervisors or chief financial officers to participate in major decision-making activities within the enterprise, and at the same time, it can set up a working Committee with reference to German VEM company to make major decisions transparent and in line with the interests of employees through four dialogues with the company's top management every year.

3. Informatization construction is the core of modern management mode.

In foreign advanced large enterprise groups, informatization has become one of the most important factors for the success or failure of enterprises. Based on the information platform, the controllability of enterprise production, management and planning is realized through process control. The management mode of modern enterprises is organized around information flow. A good information system can make enterprises reduce costs, realize the controllability of all planned objectives and improve work efficiency and production efficiency. European enterprises generally attach great importance to information technology, such as German VEM company, Interschalt company, Hatlapa company, MAK company, French Atlantic Shipyard, etc., and have spent several years and a lot of money to build enterprise information systems.

4. Corporate culture construction is the booster of modern management mode.

Corporate culture is to constantly publicize the development strategy and management concept of the enterprise through various communication channels and pass it on to all employees, and to influence the behavior pattern (work habits) of each employee by establishing a perfect system of norms and guidelines, so that the strength of all employees can form a joint force to jointly achieve strategic goals.

Companies in European countries attach great importance to the construction of corporate culture. For example, Interschalt and MAK all have their own unique corporate culture. German Shipbuilding Association and German Marine Equipment Industry Association believe that their current competitive strategy and corporate culture construction should focus on reducing costs and enhancing the sense of crisis, hardship and urgency of all employees, so as to enhance corporate cohesion and tide over difficulties together.

We should vigorously strengthen the construction of corporate culture and inject new elements such as cost management culture, efficiency management culture, information construction culture, strategic management culture, performance management culture and customer awareness culture into the traditional corporate culture.

5. Reducing costs and increasing efficiency is the theme of modern management mode.

Lean production management mode is a production method based on the premise of eliminating waste. The cost can be reduced infinitely, and there is no end to reducing the cost. All enterprises in the group company should formulate cost strategies and make unremitting efforts from the aspects of design cost, material procurement (such as strategic procurement) and material management, logistics control, labor cost control and special expense control.

The management strategies of successful large enterprise groups can be summarized as follows: establishing a unique corporate culture; Clear vision, mission, objectives, strategies, means, management and implementation standards; Establish a partnership with the strong and learn from them; Focus on software production factors: design, research and development, marketing and after-sales service; Strengthen core business and highlight core competitiveness; Standardize enterprise management and improve enterprise reputation; Flat organizational structure, close to the market and customers, network management; Attract domestic and foreign talents and develop intellectual resources; Complete marketization and step into globalization, networking and informationization; Manage people and educate people by indicators, and establish a mechanism that the capable are superior, the mediocre are subordinate, and the mediocre are subordinate.

About transnational operation

1. Contents of transnational operation of shipbuilding industry

The industrial chain of shipbuilding industry consists of marketing, procurement, product research and development, licensing, design, manufacturing, classification inspection, incoming inspection, equipment debugging, warehousing, project management, after-sales service, investment and financing. After the tempering of the market economy in the early stage of reform, CSSC has initially formed certain technical reserves and supporting capabilities, and has relatively perfect external conditions. Its product research and development, design, manufacturing, equipment debugging and other businesses will also be greatly developed in China. Therefore, we can consider adopting transnational business models such as marketing, strategic material market procurement, joint research and development, incoming goods inspection, partial warehousing, transnational project management, after-sales service, etc. for shipbuilding business, so as to change the situation that China's previous transnational operations were small in scale and limited in quantity, and mainly focused on labor-intensive manufacturing.

2. Transnational operation organization and management mode of shipbuilding industry

Multinational companies should operate in a decision-making system and adopt consistent countermeasures and strategies through a decision-making center. The management of multinational corporations should be a systematic management process, and the activities of each small system need to be consistent with the strategic objectives of the whole system. The management system of multinational corporations mainly has three modes: centralization, decentralization and mixing.

Centralized mode is a highly centralized management mode. The headquarters of group companies usually make comprehensive arrangements for the overall strategy and planning of the company and make choices for major decisions of subsidiaries or branches. Headquarters has the right to supervise and adjust the operating conditions of subsidiaries at any time. All subsidiaries and branches must unconditionally obey the overall interests of the headquarters of the group company, share risks and benefits. For example, many after-sales service branches of Hatlapa Company in Germany adopt centralized management mode.

Decentralization mode is a decentralized management mode. In this mode, group companies often do not directly manage their own business activities, but only carry out necessary supervision and macro-control on subordinate enterprises, and subsidiaries have sufficient independent management rights. Alstom Enterprise Group of France adopts a decentralized model for its unrelated business groups, such as Atlantic Shipyard, and the group only implements financial holding management for its subsidiaries.

Mixed mode is a management mode combining centralization and decentralization. Under normal circumstances, after the group company has formulated a unified overall goal and a decentralized goal, the specific implementation plan will be arranged by the subordinate institutions, which enjoy full autonomy. This can not only solve the problems of complex management, poor adaptability and flexibility under centralized management, but also change the situation that management is out of control under decentralized mode, and often achieve better management results. MAK Diesel Engine Company 1997, located in Kiel, Germany, was acquired and merged into its subsidiary by Caterpillar Group of the United States, and adopted this mixed model.

CSSC has certain history and experience in foreign trade. In order to better realize the goal of strategic management integration, a two-step strategy should be implemented in transnational operations: first, the centralized management model should be implemented for multinational companies, and then the mixed management model should be realized after maturity.

3. Tasks and responsibilities of transnational operation

(1) Establishment of information flow and information chain. The international department of the headquarters of the group company is the gathering center of information flow of overseas subsidiaries or branches, and the center for providing and feeding back information to relevant domestic business groups, professional institutions, functional departments and headquarters decision-making centers.

(2) Establish customer files and strengthen communication with upstream customer groups.

(3) Keep close communication with downstream suppliers.

(4) Engaged in inspection of major imported equipment, participating in process supervision and handling opinions (sending inspection agencies).

(5) Strengthen the construction of after-sales service team. At the same time, CSSC's overseas maintenance team can take into account the inspection of imported equipment, expand the influence of CSSC products, publicize CSSC products in service and establish brand advantages.

(6) Research and development of new products and introduction of patented technology. Cooperation and joint venture can be adopted to develop "double high" products and shorten the "R&D" cycle; Maintain the leading position in research and development products; Cultivate R&D team.

(7) Cultivate international senior foreign-related talents and fully realize the "going out" strategy.

(8) The multinational companies of the group company have the responsibility and obligation to vigorously promote the CSSC brand and do everything possible to improve the visibility and reputation of the group company overseas.

4. Some risks of transnational operation

The operational risks of multinational corporations mainly include the following points:

(1) Risk of cultural conflict. Transnational business activities are promoted by people from different cultural backgrounds under different cultural backgrounds. The similarity of different cultures will make multinational companies encounter different cognitive confrontations in business objectives, market choices, management methods and codes of conduct. Therefore, we should face up to cultural differences and get rid of the predicament brought about by cultural differences in a coordinated way. We can adopt the strategy of "managing foreign countries", appropriately recruit employees from the host country to integrate into the multinational team of the group company, and achieve the purpose of mutual understanding and learning from each other through joint work.

(2) Political risks. When multinational companies enter the target market countries, they should fully study the stability of the local government, the judicial system and other issues in order to avoid the risks brought by political problems in the host country.

(3) Economic and exchange rate risks. Economic risks are mainly reflected in the impact of exchange rate changes on the profitability of multinational companies' future international business activities. Therefore, the multinational operation of group companies should fully consider the inflation rate, interest rate and exchange rate system of the host country, strengthen communication with professional institutions, strengthen the function of exchange rate forecasting, and seek ways to avoid foreign exchange risks through multiple channels.

Other risks such as law, taxation, labor force and investment environment should also be taken into comprehensive consideration.