Feng Qingfeng debuts in Dahaoyue, Geely insists on reaching the goal of one million units and will not let go丨One interview

Text | Yang Xiaolin

Pictures | Source network

Before Beijing announced that it would lower the level of response to the new crown epidemic from level one to level two, Geely had already Quietly, the whole corporate machine started shifting gears.

On the evening of April 28, the lights were brightly lit in the NetEase Snail Reading Library. In front of the stage "surrounded" by rows of bookshelves from the ceiling to the floor, media representatives came to watch the "Weird Stories in the Car Industry" Recline lazily on the three rows of "beanbags" in front. The corporate guests and "debaters" invited to attend the day's event were arranged to sit further back. With "Lie to Win" as the keyword and "Tucao" as the theme, this is a unique offline launch conference held by Geely for Haoyue, its first mid-to-large SUV product.

If nothing unexpected happens, this is also the first leading company to start a "market recovery war" after the marketing activities of car companies were interrupted due to the new crown pneumonia epidemic in the past two months. On the same day, Geely Haoyue made its global space debut in Hangzhou. Fan Deng, founder of "Fandeng Reading", Fu Seoul, a famous debater in "Qi Pa Shuo", Yu Hu, founder of "Brother Hu Talks about Cars", and Vice President of Geely Automobile Group Feng Qingfeng and Pan Tianwei, design director of Geely Styling Center, appeared on stage one after another, starting the "mutual complaints" mode one by one, and talked about "living to win" life based on their own experiences.

It must be said that this is the "most unorthodox" and "most hilarious" new car launch conference that Brother Yi has participated in in the past ten years of working in the industry. Feng Qingfeng, who just came to the front desk of the company from the "general chef" of Geely's R&D department not long ago, completed his first performance since taking up the new car in this relaxed, humorous and nutritious new car launch conference. show. When communicating with the media in private, Feng Qingfeng laughed and said that he had changed from the original "general chef" to the "waiter" at the front desk of the restaurant. But everyone knows that with a million-dollar burden on one's shoulders, the pressure on "the waiter" is even greater.

Feng Qingfeng, who joined Geely in 1999 and has been with Geely Automobile for more than 20 years, is a "veteran cadre" trained by Geely. It can be seen from his early involvement in and being in charge of sales, manufacturing, R&D management and other departments that Feng Qingfeng is a "all-rounder" with strong comprehensive capabilities. In his early years, when he was the general manager of Emgrand Automobile Company, he led the development, manufacturing and supply chain system of the Emgrand EC7 model under the leadership of An Conghui, then vice president of Geely Group, making the Emgrand EC7 one of the most successful models in China. one.

More than two months ago, Geely Automobile announced a new adjustment in the division of labor among senior executives. Feng Qingfeng, Vice President and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Geely Automobile Group, is in charge of the marketing work of Geely's Geely brand and Geometry brand. Such The arrangement allowed Feng Qingfeng to move from the backstage where he was working quietly to the spotlight. However, Feng’s rich resume, comprehensive management capabilities and super high operational scheduling capabilities, coupled with his ability to control the entire chain of R&D, marketing and sales, are enough to make him comfortable in all existing key positions.

On the afternoon of April 28, a few hours before the "global debut" of Geely's first medium and large SUV Haoyue, Feng Qingfeng and Song Jun, general manager of Geely Brand Sales Company, were at a car in Hangzhou. Discussion with visiting media in a small teahouse. During the exchange, Feng Qingfeng revealed that although the first quarter was disrupted by "force majeure" factors such as the COVID-19 epidemic, Geely's annual production and sales target of 1.41 million vehicles has not been relaxed. Before the epidemic ended, Geely had adopted a series of measures to help dealers stabilize their operations, which laid the foundation for Geely to quickly resume growth in April.

“In April, Geely’s wholesale and delivery volume both achieved positive year-on-year growth, and strive to continue throughout the second quarter.” Feng Qingfeng said that because part of the volume was lost in the first quarter due to the epidemic, Therefore, the second quarter must be quickly filled during the critical period of "restarting" the auto market consumption. Therefore, the annual production and sales target of 1.41 million vehicles remains unbeatable. For the mid-to-large SUV model Haoyue, which is aimed at trade-in demand, Feng Qingfeng revealed that the "small goal" is: to strive to achieve terminal sales of 100,000 within one year of launch.

“Under the leadership of Mr. An and the efforts of Mr. Lin, Geely had laid a solid foundation before I took over.

Our team is really good and capable, and I am very happy to fight alongside them. "For Geely, which he has been with for more than 20 years, Feng Qingfeng is very happy in his eyes. Under the leadership of the new combination of "veteran driver" Feng Qingfeng and marketing veteran "Song Jun", how will the Geely and Geometry brands perform? Create a new situation? The outside world will wait and see!

The following is the transcript of the media interview with two CEOs Feng Qingfeng and Song Jun (abridged):

Media: The overall auto market was affected by the epidemic in the first quarter. The impact is huge. How is Geely's terminal sales recovering?

Mr. Feng: The entire industry declined in the first quarter, and Geely is no exception. However, Geely's market share is still rising steadily. Recovery, we expect the second quarter to be close to or even exceed the level of the same period last year.

The epidemic has undoubtedly accelerated the reshuffle of the automotive industry. Only companies with stronger competitiveness and stronger health can survive better. Geely's current sales target of 1.41 million vehicles will not be adjusted. The decline in the first quarter is a real reality. In the second quarter, it will gradually recover to the same period last year. In the third and fourth quarters, it will strive to achieve breakthroughs.

The epidemic did not have much impact on Geely’s new product releases. ICON was postponed for some time, and was finally released online, and the results were quite good. This year, Geely has 6 new products including ICON and Haoyue. Brand promotion and sales volume have played a very good role. Various provincial and municipal governments have successively introduced various policies to promote consumption. For example, Hangzhou has increased car purchase quotas by 20,000 at a time.

In the current market environment, Geely has formed a good technical reserve, and the benefits of platform and scale have begun to be well reflected. The synergy between Geely, Volvo and Lotus has accelerated, and improvements in technology and branding have accelerated. I am confident that we will complete the full year. The goal is still quite confident.

Media: In the post-epidemic era, what do you think of user consumption trends? Will the competition between independent brands and joint ventures intensify? >

Mr. Feng: Although the market has changed from incremental to existing, rigid demand will always exist, users still have replacement needs, and competition between brands will definitely always exist.

I often visit the market. , seeing the overall improvement of Chinese brands, this is a good signal, indicating that China’s independent brand research and development capabilities have improved. For the Chinese automobile industry, this state is very good. We like strong competitors. The more fierce the competition, the better. The faster everyone makes progress. Even if we lose, we can come back and continue to upgrade our products. I firmly believe that the positive power of our Chinese independent brands will drive the overall rise of China's independent brands.

No matter what. Whether it’s the product, the brand, or the sales volume, the most important thing is for users to experience it. I am full of confidence that Geely’s products will bring good experience to users.

I bought it at the end of last year. A top-end Xingyue was very comfortable for me to drive. After driving it a few times, a friend of mine told me to sell this car to me. He is a civil servant and represents a group. He recommends it to people around him whenever he has the opportunity. . Next, we will also increase the user experience in this area. After the user experience, they will truly understand what choices they should make.

Media: In terms of consolidating market sales figures, Geely may still rely on products such as Emgrand and Vision. How do you position Haoyue to be released today?

Mr. Feng: I just talked about two topics, one is to expand the circle, and the other is to consolidate the foundation. Geely now has nearly 10 million users and has a very good user base. Haoyue will definitely continue to expand our user base. Haoyue is a medium-sized SUV with a lot of space. There are not many competing products in this segment, but the prospects are still very promising.

We have been emphasizing the "bigness" of this Haoyue product. Because Chinese people have a unique complex about "bigness", such as going to college, making a lot of money, living in a big house, etc. The same goes for cars. There are so many brands of models that have to be lengthened and enlarged when entering China. Some Europeans envy China for being able to buy big cars. Therefore, we should seize this point and make full use of this large space.

Buying a house is about the "house acquisition rate", which not only depends on the building area, but also the usable area.

When buying a car, you can't just look at the size data, you have to look at the actual space used. This Haoyue car has achieved a space efficiency of 69. The engineers have made great efforts in this space, which is 6-8 higher than other models in the same class. space.

At the same time, Haoyue has realized the variability of space. All 7 seats are independent and can be transformed into 19 usage scenarios in one go. When we designed it, there were no steps in the central aisle. Now when the rear seats of Haoyue are folded down, they are flat again, making full use of the space. The variability of space provides various possibilities for all users.

It is no problem for users to play mahjong, drink tea or chat on Haoyue. There are 5 people behind the Haoyue. When the middle seat is folded down, the remaining 4 people can play mahjong, allowing everyone to feel the comfort and versatility of the Haoyue.

Media: What challenges does the epidemic bring to Geely’s operations? For example, how to balance R&D investment and profitability?

Mr. Feng: Profitability is definitely needed. For example, we have invested hundreds of billions of yuan in R&D for ten years. Without profit, it will not be sustainable. No matter how many difficulties we encounter, the cost of research and development must not be reduced. But we must be frugal, including our families, and we must not spend money indiscriminately. This is a virtue and must continue.

Since Geely has the ability to build structured cars, it has indeed changed its concept of new car development. It is top-down. We first have a concept of space, lay out the structure of this space, and then distribute it.

Geely's architecture includes two aspects, one is the mechanical architecture and the other is the electronic architecture. Let’s talk about architecture first, and then talk about distribution. Instead of implementing one function one by one as in the past, we will talk about whether we can meet all functions after we have completed the overall architecture.

Of course, the premise of this architecture is that we also have basic knowledge, just like an architect designing a house. Although it is built up brick by brick, its frame must be designed first. The electronic architecture is the same. We design all the spaces first, and then we have the system of each module. This is a fundamental change in Geely's car manufacturing.

Media: Geely’s current products are constantly being upgraded and iterated. How does Geely help dealers “upgrade and fight monsters”?

Mr. Song: Let me give you an example. Geely ICON is a representative of the brand and users' disconnection. Some people say that ICON is not as beautiful as Geely cars. In fact, this is also a misunderstanding of the Geely brand. This is actually an opportunity for us.

Let me mention another dealer case. Geely has a 4S store in Harbin called Ji Meifeng. In the past, more than half of the store's monthly sales were from Long Vision. The store manager said that this is an underdeveloped area and wealthy consumers have left.

After we learned about it, we went to the store to help him analyze it and asked him to recruit some young clerks. Young users are more receptive to new technologies and new products. Last month was different. More than half of the sales were contributed by 3.0-generation products. Affected by the epidemic this year, many stores may consider layoffs, but this store still added 20 new employees after the Spring Festival.

We held an ICON symposium in Hangzhou a few days ago. I asked them if they would recommend ICON to their friends? Almost all users said yes, and those who did not buy ICON mostly chose joint venture or even luxury models. A female user who did not buy it said that she has a relatively reserved personality, but her younger brother will graduate from college soon, so it is very suitable for a personalized car like ICON and she will recommend it to her younger brother.

Geely will usher in a historic moment when cumulative sales exceed 10 million this year. 10 million customer resources are a huge wealth. We will continue to upgrade our products and continue to lead the brand upward. Walk.

This article comes from the author of Autohome Chejiahao and does not represent the views and positions of Autohome.