Yang Xuelan's life story

Yang Xuelan's greatest dream in his life is to be an outstanding diplomat like his father.

1937, Yang Xuelan, who just turned two years old, left his birthplace, followed his father, who was then a professional diplomat, and lived in Britain and France successively. When the Pacific War broke out, his father served as Consul General of China in Manila, and was later killed by the Japanese army.

His mother, Yan Youyun, is the eldest daughter of Zhang Sa Ding Village in Laojiu and Yang Xuelan's stepfather. Gu Weijun, with the reputation of "the first diplomat of the Republic of China", was also the first representative of China to the United Nations. Yan Youyun lived with him for 25 years.

Influenced by his biological father and stepfather, Yang Xuelan had a dream of becoming a diplomat very early. However, when she 1955 graduated from the famous Willis Women's College in the United States, her dream met with insurmountable obstacles: a diplomat must first represent a country, and she has no country to represent. But when she was over half a century old, life opened another door for her-joining GM. This gives Yang Xuelan a chance to demonstrate his diplomatic skills on the world-class stage of GM. Some people say that the automobile industry is a machinery manufacturing industry and a man's industry. Looking at the big automobile manufacturing enterprises at home and abroad, almost all of them are dominated by men, but it happened that there was a woman on the vice president list of General Motors, the world's number one automobile manufacturer, who was also from China. Her name is Yang Xuelan.

Yang Xuelan served as vice president of General Motors 10 years, and has now retired. Before joining GM, she was a senior market research expert and worked in an advertising company in new york for 30 years. In these 30 years, she has been familiar with the market situation of all walks of life and developed a highly sensitive market feeling. She believes that no matter what industry or enterprise wants to succeed, it needs to understand the market, respect the market and act according to market rules. Any enterprise, no matter how big it is or how powerful it is, as long as it is conceited, it will go its own way, ignore the market and listen to it, and it will be hit hard without exception.

In the early 1970s, Ford produced a mini-car called Pinto, which cost less than $3,000. Ford's market positioning is "adult toys". Despite spending a lot of advertising expenses, the market response was cold. Ford knew there was a problem, so they consulted the advertising company where Yang Xuelan worked. After investigation, Yang Xuelan found that the problem is not the car, nor the price, but the market positioning. People just don't want to spend $3,000 on an "adult toy". People want to buy cheap, high quality, safe and reliable cars. Therefore, Ford re-promoted and repositioned Pinto, describing it as a high-tech mini-car with both the advantages of Ford Model T, resulting in sales of more than one million vehicles.

In the early 1980s, General Motors was at a low ebb. By talking with a vice president of General Motors, Yang Xuelan thinks that the main problems of General Motors are arrogance and disregard for the market. In their eyes, customers don't know anything about cars at all, only they know what cars are and how to produce them. Based on this understanding, GM does not have a unified market research organization, and each department conducts market analysis on its own. Each branch even regards other branches of the same group as competitors, and is unaware of the offensive of the real rival Japanese car companies. When GM's top management knew the main source, they locked the leaders of various departments together until they reached a unified understanding.

GM has been poaching for six years, trying to invite Yang Xuelan to join GM. After joining GM, Yang Xuelan cooperated with another colleague Rudy and came to Shanghai to be fully responsible for developing China business. Under the impetus of China and the United States, Shanghai General Motors Co., Ltd. was established to produce Buick cars. With a profit of 600 million yuan, it is considered by GM as the largest and fastest joint venture company in the world.

Yang Xuelan has her own views on things, and she can't follow others. She said, "I don't care what others say. I always do what I want." She majored in literature in college in her early years. Literature is a study of human beings, which can help her understand people's feelings, psychology and desires more deeply. The market is made up of all kinds of people. Only by understanding people can we understand the market. Because of this foundation, she is not only satisfied with statistics and phenomena in market research, but also goes deep into asking why, and she wants to know the reasons and laws for the formation of this market. After living for several decades, Yang Xuelan, with his wisdom and diligence, stepped onto the hereditary territory of men, which is admirable.

General Motors is the largest company in the world. But interestingly, some of its top leaders come from the financial system, such as Richard Wadner, the newly appointed new president, and some from the market research system, such as Yang Xuelan. You don't have to be an automobile major or a mechanical major to hold a higher vocational position. Modern enterprises are closely related to market operation and need knowledge and talents in all aspects. The bigger the enterprise, the wider the professional scope of the required talents. From the example that General Motors invited Yang Xuelan to join us for many years and entrusted him with an important task, the author can't help but think that the college students recruited by some large and medium-sized automobile enterprises are all science and engineering majors. Is the understanding of the meaning of modern enterprises too one-sided? For example, in a large bus factory, in the past three years, more than 20 people have come to the automobile colleges in Hubei and Chongqing. Economics graduates have never heard of it, and liberal arts will not touch it. The whole factory is fully engaged in production, but this enterprise has been losing money for many years. What's the problem? Is the concept and use of talents a factor? The author captured and reported two examples of the top management of General Motors, just for a little inspiration. Of course, this is beside the point.