news

on september 7, wahaha's official statement pushed wahaha and zong fuli to the center of public opinion again. after the media reported that many former and internal employees of the wahaha group filed a class action lawsuit to protect their rights, wahaha denied the above media reports one by one in its statement, but the incident continued to ferment.

on september 7, a wahaha internal employee was interviewed by a reporter from nanduwan finance. he said: "after the new boss took over, the management of employees became stricter, especially the old employees. they felt that their vital interests were affected."

recently, zong fuli took over the wahaha group as its legal representative, chairman and general manager, which means that she has taken full control of the wahaha group. many people also believe that wahaha will enter a new stage of development. however, as the second-generation successor, zong fuli needs to form her own management style and methods, balance the demands of a group of "veterans", and verify the effectiveness of her new management methods with performance. under the multiple obstacles of internal conflicts and external competition, the "zong fuli era" of wahaha is obviously full of challenges.

behind the turmoil caused by equity repurchase

wahaha's internal conflicts have not yet been completely resolved

in the statement, wahaha said that the internal share repurchase of the group's employee shareholding association was approved by the unanimous resolution of the member representative assembly, and the relevant agreement was voluntarily signed by the members of the shareholding association, which is legal and valid, and there is no situation that harms the members of the shareholding association.

however, the above interviewee told the reporter that the bulk of many employees' income currently comes from the wahaha employee stock ownership association, because this organization represents the rights and interests of all wahaha shareholders, and every year the organization distributes a portion of dividends and profits to the employees holding shares. however, the share repurchase means that after the employees receive the 3 yuan/share repurchase payment, they can no longer receive dividends from the employee stock ownership association, so some employees are worried that their future income will not be guaranteed.

the employee also said that although there was talk of employee equity repurchase in 2018, it has not been implemented due to various factors, and employees are unaware of many of the details.

tianyancha information shows that in the current equity structure of hangzhou wahaha group co., ltd., zong fuli, hangzhou shangcheng district cultural, commercial and tourism investment holding group co., ltd. and the hangzhou wahaha group co., ltd. grassroots trade union joint committee (employee stock ownership association) account for 29.4%, 46% and 24.6% respectively.

behind the public opinion storm caused by the equity repurchase, the implementation of zong fuli's new management model is being tested.

first of all, compared to zong qinghou's low profile, zong fuli is obviously more outspoken and does not shy away from expressing her ambition to sprint forward in public. in an interview with the media this year, zong fuli said: "each generation has its own mission. the first generation of zhejiang businessmen completed the 'creation' from 0 to 1. i think the mission of our generation is to achieve a breakthrough from 1 to 10 or even 100 in the new era."

in terms of management style, zong fuli and zong qinghou are also very different. she has publicly stated many times that she does not agree with her father's management style. it is understood that zong qinghou mainly uses "humanism" in hiring people. he once said that "wahaha treats every employee as a family member", does not fire employees over 45 years old, builds affordable housing for employees, and gives 600 million yuan in year-end bonuses. zong fuli is more "decisive and decisive". her management style and work style can be described as vigorous and resolute. she has made drastic reforms and pays attention to rules and regulations in company management, with clear rewards and punishments.

however, this management style is not without its critics. industry insiders pointed out that as a domestic beverage giant, wahaha has built a solid foundation over the years, but after years of development, the internal management structure of the company has become more complicated. for some of the company's older employees, whether they can quickly adapt to this management model is obviously questionable.

"surgery" on products and channels

accelerate the reconstruction of offline channels

in terms of products and sales channels, zong fuli has also been overturning wahaha's previous model. since she entered the management, she has been committed to creating ip for young people and has started drastic reforms and innovations.

in addition to speeding up the pace of new product development and launch, zong fuli also changed the packaging of wahaha's pure water products from the previous red and white to sea blue packaging, obviously intending to make the product packaging more youthful; before that, zong fuli also replaced wang leehom, the spokesperson for wahaha pure water.

however, innovation in a huge beverage "empire" will inevitably face many obstacles. from the progress of the equity repurchase, we can see that the internal relationships of wahaha group are complicated. according to insiders, wahaha's traditional sales channels are controlled by "veterans", and major issues such as the replacement of old products and the launch of new products will inevitably affect the interests of some people.

in terms of sales model, wahaha has always relied heavily on the joint sales model, but the excessive distribution levels of this model have obviously increased the difficulty of promoting wahaha's new products. this is also the area that zong fuli is determined to focus on innovating.

on august 30, wahaha’s official website released a “refrigerator maintenance and market launch bidding announcement”, involving the maintenance of 61,735 refrigerators of different years and the bidding of 100,000 smart refrigerators. this move was also interpreted as zong fuli’s landmark move to accelerate the reconstruction of offline channels. it is worth noting that the wahaha official website has deleted the announcement information.

however, the effect of increasing offline channels is still unknown. zhu danpeng of china food industry believes that the deployment of freezers, especially in first- and second-tier cities, has reached saturation, leaving little room for wahaha. in the future, beverage brands should focus on upgrading and iterating the taste and quality of beverages, which is the long-term development strategy.

shouldering the pressure of performance growth

industry competition is unprecedentedly intensified

performance is the most intuitive way to test whether zong fuli’s new management model and a series of reform measures are effective.

at present, there are different opinions in the industry about the performance of wahaha group in 2023. according to the list of "top 500 chinese private enterprises in 2023" previously released by the all-china federation of industry and commerce, wahaha's sales performance in 2022 was 51.202 billion yuan; but as early as 2013, wahaha's revenue reached 78.3 billion yuan, which shows that its performance in the past decade has generally shown a downward trend.

however, the performance growth problem left to zong fuli is not easy to solve.

first of all, in the current packaged drinking water market, in addition to wahaha, there are alsonongfu spring, c'estbon, jingtian, and master kong, all of which are owned by china resources beverage. according to a report by cic consulting, in 2023, the market share of nongfu spring, c'estbon, jingtian, wahaha, and master kong in china's packaged drinking water market will be 23.6%, 18.4%, 6.1%, 5.6%, and 4.9%, respectively, with nongfu spring and c'estbon ranking first and second, and wahaha ranking fourth. in addition to traditional brands, the packaged drinking water market has also welcomed a number of cross-border players, such as pang donglai,oriental selection, yuanqi forest, yili, etc.

in addition, nongfu spring launched green bottled purified water this summer, which directly competed with wahaha's purified water. at the same time, in order to seize market share, nongfu spring took the lead in launching a "price war", and other brands chose to follow suit, further squeezing the profit margins of purified water.

in the beverage market, in addition to the above-mentioned bottled water giants, there are alsouni-president china、dongpeng beverage、renaissance group、juneyao health, yuanqi forest, etc. among them, nongfu spring is also a strong rival of wahaha beverage. thanks to the increase in the volume of tea beverage products led by oriental leaves, the sector achieved revenue of 8.43 billion yuan in the first half of the year, which is very close to its packaged drinking water revenue, an increase of 59.5% over the same period last year, and the revenue share increased to 38%.

in addition, as industry competition intensifies, the speed of product updates in the beverage market is accelerating, and consumers are becoming more sensitive to prices. how to break through the siege is also a big challenge for zong fuli.

written by: nandu wancaishe reporter wang jingjuan