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on september 7, wahaha’s official statementwahahaandzong fulipushed to the center of public opinion.

reported in the mediaseveral former and internal employees of wahaha group filed a class action lawsuit to protect their rightsafter the news, wahaha issued a statementthe above media reports were denied one by one, but the incident is still fermenting。

nandu previously reported that several wahaha employees told nandu wancaishe reporters that in mid-to-late august, some employees spontaneously formed a wahaha rights protection association, which now has more than 600 participants, including wahaha group's founding veterans, retired employees, former employees and current employees.dozens of employees filed a class action lawsuit against hangzhou wahaha group co., ltd. and zong fuli in the shangcheng district people's court. the court has accepted the case but has not yet formally filed it.among the dozens of people involved in the lawsuit, there are both current and former employees.

on september 7, a wahaha internal employee was interviewed by a reporter from nandu wancaishe. 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 as the legal representative, chairman and general manager of wahaha, 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.

but as the second-generation successor,zong fuli needs to develop 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, wahaha's "zong fuli era" is obviously full of challenges.。

zong fuli. source: company official account

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 thatcurrently, the bulk of many employees' income 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, equity repurchase means that after 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 equity repurchase,the implementation of zong fuli's new management model is being tested。

first,compared with zong qinghou's low-key style, zong fuli is obviously more prominentin public, she has not been shy about revealing her ambition to sprint forward. 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 also have very different management styles. she has publicly stated on many occasions that she does not agree with her father's management style.it is understood that zong qinghou’s employment policy is based on “humanism”. he once said, “wahaha treats every employee as a family member.” he does not fire employees over 45 years old, builds affordable housing for employees, and gives out 600 million yuan in year-end bonuses.zong fuli is even more "decisive and ruthless". her management approach and work style can be described as swift and resolute. she has made drastic reforms in various aspects. she pays attention to rules and regulations in company management and clearly distinguishes 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 and firm foundation over the years, but after years of development, the company's internal management structure has become more complicated.for some of the company's older employees, it is obviously questionable whether they can quickly adapt to such a management model.

"surgery" on products and channels

accelerate the reconstruction of offline channels

in terms of products and sales channels, zong fuli has been overturning wahaha's previous model.since she entered the management team, she has been committed to creating ip for younger generations 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, it can be seen that the internal relationships of the wahaha group are complicated.an insider revealed that 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 relies heavily on the joint sales model, but the excessive distribution levels of this model obviously increase the difficulty of promoting wahaha's new products. this is also the area that zong fuli is determined to focus on reforming.

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, a chinese food industry insider, 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 strategy for development.

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 also giants such as nongfu spring, c'estbon, jingtian, and master kong under china resources beverage. according to a report by cic, in 2023, the market shares 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 track has also welcomed many cross-border entrants, such as pangdonglai, dongfangxuan, yuanqi forest, and yili.

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 also a number of companies such as uni-president china, dongpeng beverage, huabin group, juneyao health, and yuanqi forest. among them, nongfu spring is also a strong rival of wahaha beverage. thanks to the increase in sales 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.

source: southern metropolis daily (nddaily), n video report