china economic sample observation·enterprise sample edition｜chasing the stars and the moon and working hard——zhejiang xingyue group’s “magic weapon” to break through
2024-09-20
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xinhua news agency, hangzhou, september 20title: chasing stars and moons with perseverance - zhejiang xingyue group's "magic weapon" for breaking through
xinhua news agency reporters wang junlu, wu yu and tang tao
this is an ordinary member among the billions of business entities in our country.
xingyue group is located in yongkang, zhejiang, which is at the forefront of reform and opening up and is known as the "hardware capital of china". this company, which started as a small workshop, has repeatedly broken through the "neck-stuck" dilemma, coped with the pain of transformation and crises, and sought vitality in the difficult breakthrough.
in-depth analysis of samples, experience and lessons are invaluable.
"faith remains unshakable, spirit remains uncollapsed, dreams remain undying, and integrity remains intact." this is the "spiritual magic weapon" that enables xingyue group to break through difficulties and forge ahead with determination. it has also become a portrayal of the faith of tens of thousands of market operators in overcoming difficulties.
aerial view of the xingyue group factory (file photo). xinhua news agency (photo provided by xingyue group)
how to break through the bottleneck when faced with it?
looking down from the air, yongkang is "seven mountains, one river and two fields", with small plots and many hills, making it difficult to achieve mechanization. hu jirong, president of xingyue group, who grew up here, has seen this.
after traveling across the country, the "pain points" became more obvious. hu jirong found that for a long time, domestic rice transplanters have been at a disadvantage in the competition with foreign agricultural machinery. what is more worrying is that although some foreign brand agricultural machinery has an advantage in quality, it is not suitable for the current situation in many provinces where land is scattered and large machinery is difficult to use.
in 2015, after investigation and research and understanding the market demand, hu jirong made up his mind: to let chinese agricultural machinery run on this land!
it was late at night, and the atmosphere in the conference room was solemn, with arguments heard from time to time - when hu jirong proposed the idea, the company's management almost unanimously opposed it because it was "too difficult."
"we started out as a hardware company, which is a long way from being an 'iron bull'!"
"if even big companies can't do it, how can we possibly succeed with just a few of us?"
li bojun, the current general manager of xingyue group xinglaihe agricultural equipment co., ltd., and others deliberately found a bunch of information at the time and tried to "persuade" the boss to quit: the precision of the rice transplanter is much higher than that of ordinary agricultural machinery, and the whole machine has more than 8,000 large and small parts, which many large domestic companies are afraid to buy; due to limited r&d and manufacturing capabilities, most of the key parts of domestic rice transplanters rely on imports...
every difficulty seemed insurmountable.
"no matter how sophisticated the machinery is, it is made of hardware. i don't believe it can't be made." hu jirong waved his hand and dropped it heavily on the table.
"when we first started research and development, 98% of the rice transplanters on the domestic market were imported from japan. foreign brands didn't consider us as potential competitors at all and didn't think we could succeed in research and development," said hu jirong.
sure enough, in the early stages of research and development, due to huge investment and minimal results, people around hu jirong were advising him to stop investing and cut losses in time.
hu jirong was unwilling to accept this, saying, "it is precisely because the chinese agricultural machinery market is dominated by foreign brands that more companies should grit their teeth and move forward."
in order to master the core technology as soon as possible, xingyue group divided the research and development of rice transplanters into five major systems: engine, frame, electrical appliances, hydraulics, and rice transplanting, and invested all its resources to promote research and development and design.
workers work on the assembly line of rice transplanters of xingyue group (photo taken on august 15). photo by xinhua news agency reporter tang tao
when a group of people devote themselves to a task day and night, forgetting to eat and sleep, and selflessly devoting themselves to it, there will often be a ray of hope.
how to minimize the damage to seedlings? they compared the planting method of manual finger pressing, repeatedly tested the angle and strength, and found the best balance point; how to avoid the formation of "mud and deep trenches" during operation? they developed their own diesel engine, tires, power, etc. that are more suitable for paddy field operations; how to prevent the rice transplanter from being idle for a long time during the off-season? the design team continuously expanded the functions, so that in addition to transplanting rice, the machine can also be used for rotary tillage, pulping, spreading fertilizer and medicine, and digging trenches...
"when it comes to key links, the technical team spends almost every day in the test workshop, almost obsessed with it." li bojun said that after two years of hard work, in 2017, xingyue group's independently developed high-speed rice transplanter for hilly areas was launched on the market, breaking the monopoly of foreign brands in the agricultural machinery field. after continuous research and development, the self-made rate of parts for xingyue rice transplanters has reached more than 90%.
in the blink of an eye, it is already 2024.
this summer, xingyue group newly expanded its factory with thousands of square meters, and rows of intelligent robotic arms connected various processes in series. reporters saw that every five or six minutes, a fully automatic high-speed rice transplanter rolled off the production line.
this is the high-speed rice transplanter independently developed by xingyue group (photo taken on august 15). photo by xinhua news agency reporter tang tao
"competing with foreign brands, our products have occupied more than 25% of the domestic market share." hu jirong said that the broad market prospects in my country's agricultural machinery field are the basis for xingyue group to dare to expand production.
this is not the first time that xingyue group has competed with foreign brands.
in the 1990s, the reform and opening-up policy was in full swing. many yongkang people like hu jirong started to start businesses and formed a hardware industry chain that reached the whole country.
at that time, motorcycles were popular, but most of the parts were imported. hu jirong set his sights on the key component, the cylinder head. "the cylinder head has extremely high requirements for strength and precision." old employee mou jiayi still remembers the scene of "fighting" together at that time. "we tested in front of the earthen blast furnace over and over again. we were covered in oil, and we didn't even wash our faces or shave our beards. at first glance, we looked like 'little old men'."
the assembled engine was able to start. hu jirong was the first to put his nose close to it, took a few deep breaths from the exhaust pipe, and shouted excitedly: "the combustion is complete, it's almost done!"
after many failures and restarts, the guyue brand cylinder head was finally successfully developed and quickly occupied the domestic market, changing the situation where foreign products "dominated" the market.
this time, the development of the rice transplanter is also a breakthrough. the xingyue group has long ceased to follow foreign brands and has its own patents.
"we expect that in two or three years, the domestic market share of xingyue rice transplanters will exceed 50%, allowing chinese brands to dominate the domestic market while rushing into the vast overseas markets," said hu jirong.
at the "crossroads" of transformation, it is difficult to find a way out
during the mid-autumn festival, there was a sudden rain and the factory was covered with fallen leaves.
the sales vice president spread out the report, and the series of declines were worrying.
in recent years, with the fluctuations in the domestic and international economic environment, the operating pressure on enterprises has increased, and xingyue group is no exception: on the one hand, the recovery momentum of external demand is unstable, and the proportion of foreign trade revenue has dropped from the highest 35.6% to the current 12.5%; on the other hand, the domestic real estate market is in a period of adjustment, and the sales situation of xingyue's traditional products such as doors, carpets, and electrical appliances is grim.
"if we don't blaze a new path, the company will sooner or later find itself in the brutal market competition and find it hard to make any progress," hu jirong said with emotion to everyone.
in the past decade or so, in order to find a way to survive, xingyue group has been constantly making breakthroughs. for example, on the one hand, it has stepped up the upgrading of existing industries such as doors, carpets, and home appliances, and continuously expanded the domestic market; on the other hand, it has expanded into new industries such as biology and medicine to explore new opportunities.
the road of exploration is full of thorns, "there are many 'pitfalls'!" hu jirong does not shy away from admitting failures. for example, xingyue group once invested in new nano materials, but there was no technological breakthrough; the development of ct scanning software failed due to market demand issues... the efforts to expand into new tracks also caused confusion and doubts among the group's employees.
"as long as the market and demand are there, we will definitely be able to find a new track with greater capacity." hu jirong is well aware that this requires changing the development model with the idea of "emptying the cage and replacing the bird."
which ones should be vacated? which ones should be replaced?
hu jirong keenly discovered that the bio-pharmaceutical industry has entered a stage of rapid development, with more and more scientists and medical experts stepping out of laboratories and heading into the entrepreneurial field, allowing scientific and technological achievements to "take root and blossom."
one spring day in 2010, hu jirong heard that professor ouyang hongwei of zhejiang university had a research project on tissue engineering and regenerative medicine, so he drove there immediately. after detailed discussions, the cooperation between the two sides began.
a few months later, good news came again: zhejiang xingyue biotechnology co., ltd. was established with the goal of promoting the industrialization of regenerative medicine technology, and related projects were supported by the national "863" plan.
in the laboratory, silkworms silently spin silk and make cocoons. what many people don’t know is that silk can also cure diseases and even save lives.
with policy support, after more than ten years and hundreds of millions of yuan in repeated experiments, xingyue bio's silk soft tissue repair material finally achieved a breakthrough from 0 to 1, and traditional silk has achieved the transformation from "clothing" to "medicine".
xingyue group's patent wall and some product displays (photographed on august 15). xinhua news agency reporter tang tao
this summer, in hangzhou yuhang future science and technology city, xingyue biotechnology chief scientist zhao hongshi showed reporters a piece of white mesh "gauze". this medical material made of purified mulberry silk can be implanted in the weak or defective soft tissue of the human abdominal wall and can be completely absorbed by the human body after eight months.
"turning 1 gram of silk into an implantable medical device can increase its value 1,000 times." zhao hongshi said that this "small gauze" that has been put on the market can bring in 100 million yuan in revenue each year after mass production. in addition, xingyue bio is expanding the application of silk fibroin raw materials in skin care products, food, health products, biochips and other fields.
however, the past few years of transformation and expansion into biomedicine were also the times when xingyue group encountered the most severe crises in its capital chain and guarantee chain.
based on the idea of "sharing benefits and sharing risks", xingyue group once provided mutual insurance financing with 6 enterprises. however, as the impact of the global financial crisis deepened, some mutual insurance enterprises that blindly invested and only wanted to make quick money "ran away with the money", leaving xingyue group with a debt hole of hundreds of millions of yuan.
hu jirong found it difficult to accept that he had gone from being a major taxpayer who was supposed to receive the award on stage to suddenly becoming a debtor and being subject to a "height restriction".
lie down or stand up? hu jirong thought again and again and chose the latter.
at this critical moment, in order to help private enterprises tide over the difficulties, policies have been introduced successively from the central to local levels, taking multiple measures to prevent and resolve risks in the two chains and help enterprises out of the quagmire.
it is worth mentioning that even in its darkest hour, xingyue group never considered selling its biopharmaceutical sector, which still required a lot of r&d investment and had no revenue. instead, it sought to "cut off its arm to survive" by transferring real estate development companies that had capital inflows.
researchers at zhejiang xingyue biotechnology co., ltd. are conducting drug research and development (photo taken on august 15). photo by xinhua news agency reporter tang tao
timely and decisive "open source" transformation has won space for the long-term development of the enterprise. from 2013 to 2023, xingyue group's revenue grew by an average of 9.2% per year, and used the profits of these years to repay about 800 million yuan of debt caused by guarantees.
shen wencai, deputy general manager of xingyue group, said: "it is precisely because of its adherence to industry and active transformation that xingyue group has maintained an average annual revenue growth of 5.6% in the past three years, even though its foreign trade has shrunk."
facing future challenges, we are determined to reach new heights
when sunlight and nutrition are limited, it is the survival instinct of the biological world to strive to extend outward and climb higher. in the business world, some people succeed in entering the "no man's land" in order to seek development, but many others fail.
at present, my country's economic development is under pressure. some industries, especially traditional industries, are facing great pressure, and some enterprises are encountering difficulties in development.
two years ago, when hu jirong started his collaboration with the team led by overseas returnee doctor ying lu, success or failure was still a huge question mark.
the anti-tumor drug eribulin is known as the "mount everest of the chemical drug industry". it represents the top level of chemical drug preparation and is also the main focus of the yinglu team.
"r&d is not an easy task. each step of the chemical reaction must be precisely controlled. the difficulty coefficient is not addition but multiplication. it takes at least one and a half years to accurately complete all chemical reactions." said ying lu, current chief technology officer of xingyue pharmaceutical.
entering the medical field, which had not been explored before, caused confusion and doubts among many employees of xingyue group, including his family and old employees who had followed him for more than 20 years.
"enterprise transformation and upgrading must move towards innovation, and doing difficult things will surely bring rewards." amid the noise, hu jirong insisted on his choice.
"cultivating emerging industries is like raising a child. you need to be patient and not impatient." hu jirong's words are impressive. "i am not well educated, but i understand the extreme importance of talent."
researchers from zhejiang xingyue biotechnology co., ltd. are conducting biological tests (file photo). xinhua news agency (photo provided by xingyue group)
in recent years, in addition to investing more than 40 million yuan in research and development in the fields of biology, medicine, etc. each year, xingyue group has also formed an innovative "addition and subtraction" method within the company: "addition" in industrial expansion to maintain the determination of "patient capital"; "subtraction" in management, delegating power and making profits, allowing technology to account for the majority of the shares, and allowing talents to be shareholders.
after arduous scientific research, success is getting closer and closer: in june 2023, xingyue pharmaceuticals completed the research and development of eribulin raw materials and preparations, submitted drug registration application materials to the relevant departments, and passed the registration on-site inspection at the end of last year.
in early september this year, at xingyue pharmaceutical's r&d base, dushanggang town, pinghu, jiaxing, the reporter saw staff debugging the production line and making preparations for the production of eribulin.
the establishment of a power machinery and technology engineering center, a doctoral research base for power machinery and engineering disciplines, an academician expert workstation, and a medical materials and tissue engineering research institute... xingyue group is taking a firm step in "developing the enterprise through science and technology". this high-tech enterprise, which was born out of the traditional manufacturing industry, has more than 15% of its scientific and technical personnel.
after working hard day and night to start a business, overcoming the pain of transformation and crisis, and entering a new stage of development for xingyue group, hu jirong has new expectations for the xingyue group, which he has been at the helm for 35 years.
"with the spirit of unshakable faith, uncollapsed spirit, undying dreams and unlost integrity, we are full of vitality in one innovation and transformation after another. we believe that only by unremitting struggle can there be continuous glory." hu jirong, who is over 70 years old, is still ambitious.
