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It can be said that Zong Fuli is the traffic queen in the past two days.

On July 18, a "letter to all employees of Wahaha Group" was circulated online. The main content was that some shareholders questioned the rationality of the group's vice chairman and general manager Zong Fuli's operations, making it impossible for her to continue to perform her management responsibilities for the group and its holding companies. However, just four days later, Wahaha issued another statement, announcing her return after friendly negotiations that Zong Fuli decided to continue to perform relevant duties of the group!

The four words "friendly negotiation" were picked out for separate discussion by netizens. Adhering to the principle of "the more you emphasize something, the less there is to lose", netizens believe that "the matter has become known to everyone, and the final result may not be a friendly negotiation, but the result of weighing the pros and cons of all parties after a very fierce internal struggle."

It is understood that after the resignation announcement spread, netizens' united action of "no Zong Fuli, no Wahaha" had a certain impact on Wahaha's sales, so much so that Zong Fuli's reinstatement announcement was hanging in the background of Wahaha's live broadcast last night.

Equity may be the cage that binds Zong Fuli

"The young master cannot control the vassal king", "advance by retreating, a master", "extreme counterattack, this is business war"... The official will naturally not explain the real entanglement in this incident to the outside world. After all, the story of interests and human nature is often not so good. But with years of business reputation and public sentiment, 90% of netizens commented that "support Zong Fuli's return, Wahaha has soul with her."

According to people familiar with the matter, the main reason for Zong Fuli's resignation this time was the disagreement with other shareholders on the listing goals.

As we all know, Zong Qinghou, the founder of Wahaha Group, has the "four no" principles, namely "no listing, no loans, no vice president, and no real estate."

Zong Fuli carried out drastic reforms for the listing, and the equity issues in the process led to the current situation. Even after the news of her resignation was made public, Zong Qinghou's younger brother Zong Zehou publicly stated in his circle of friends: "It's a good thing."

Zong Zehou believes that Zong Fuli's biggest problem is that she should not consider how to expand the scale and make money when taking over Wahaha. "She should first consider how to do good things and charity? Let everyone recognize you. In this process, you can find many problems and talents, and naturally let most people recognize your succession. But she did the opposite, firing on all cylinders and showing her edge, which is in line with the old saying: Hard things break easily."

Public information shows that Zong Fuli was born in 1982. She was sent to Marino High School in the United States by her parents at the age of 14. At the age of 18, she entered Pepperdine University in Los Angeles. In 2004, she returned to China after graduation and joined Wahaha, starting step by step from the workshop.

"Post-80s", "Student in the US", "Big Princess", "Zhejiang businessman", when all these labels are attached to Zong Fuli, it is destined that she will not be a person who follows the rules and only follows the old path. After returning to China, some of Zong Fuli's views, management methods, and business logic are quite different from those of her father Zong Qinghou.

Zong Fuli once said in public that her father gave her a good starting point, allowing her to stand on the shoulders of giants, and her American business education enabled her to have the ability to innovate boldly and reform decisively.

So far, it can be seen that compared with Zong Qinghou, who takes a people-friendly approach, the old members of the group do not like Zong Fuli's "ability". Zong Fuli wants to become bigger and stronger, while others just want to develop steadily, but the equity determines Zong Fuli's right to speak.

If this incident had not fermented, I am afraid that many people would not know that Wahaha, which has always appeared in the personal image of Zong Qinghou and Zong Fuli, is actually a state-owned enterprise. Among Wahaha's shares, Zong Qinghou holds 29.4%, state-owned assets hold 46%, and the trade union holds 24.6%.

Therefore, compared with the vice chairman, Zong Fuli is more like a professional manager of Wahaha. Her personal ideas conflict with those of shareholders, her decision-making power conflicts with her executive power, and even her personal interests conflict with those of shareholders. I believe Zong Fuli must have gone through a very twisted time.

Won a war of public opinion?

So, what has been supporting Zong Fuli behind the scenes?

It could be her ability, it could be her ambition, it could be the confidence that higher education has given her, or it could be the business secrets her father passed on to her as she was growing up.

But what is most worth mentioning must be the feelings and people’s hearts.

Netizens who are good at conspiracy theories believe that Zong Fuli's "coquettish" resignation and reinstatement are based on her accurate judgment of Wahaha's corporate positioning and her clear understanding of the direction of public opinion. Netizens joked that "Zong Fuli has mastered both brand PR and market PR." It is not advisable to speculate on people's hearts at will, but it makes sense to observe the direction of things. Zong Fuli's letter seems to be a resignation letter, but in fact it is a declaration of war.

"Internal disunity is the beginning of disintegration", "Unite to bully others?", "The man is innocent unless he is in possession of a treasure", "I will continue to drink Wahaha when Zong Fuli comes back", "Zong Fuli is better than her master"... Almost all the comments supported Zong Fuli, which put pressure on Wahaha Group and even directly affected Wahaha's sales performance.

In the eyes of outsiders, Wahaha is Zong Fuli. They are inseparable. Wahaha is the drink of a generation and the sentiment of a generation.

Zong Fuli obviously knows this. A good businessman can understand people's feelings, create emotions based on them, and then use emotions to achieve his goals. This routine is common in the film and television entertainment industry. People's abilities may be exhausted, but the public's emotions are endless.

Perhaps because of public opinion, or because of the substantial impact on the group, or because the value of the upstream and downstream assets of Wahaha controlled by Zong Fuli was too great, she eventually returned and won widespread praise.

In fact, whether it is internal strife or temporary unhappiness, people hope not to harm Wahaha, an old domestic brand that carries the memories of a generation.

It is conceivable that state-owned assets + shareholders + old employees + Zong Fuli finally reached a consensus on a sunny afternoon - to ensure that reforms are steadily advanced without causing major chaos.

What the future of Wahaha will be like is up to the future. Who can guarantee that things won’t turn around again in four days? But the real gold will come out after the great waves, so we still have to let the bullet fly for a while...