In the 20 years he has been in charge, he has built a clothing company into an industry leader with a market value of more than 70 billion yuan.

Belle sells, the company loses money. In the clothing and footwear industry, a large number of enterprises either fail, or struggle in the life and death line of loss and transformation. However, under such a general trend, a company has not only "lived" but also flourished. Its share price has increased 50 times in 8 years, and it has taken the top spot in the ranking of domestic apparel-listed enterprises with a market value of more than 70 billion.

This leading company is not a big brand that is familiar to the public, but a foundry that has always been known as “low profit”. It is China's largest manufacturer and exporter of knitted garments, the main supplier of international brands such as Uniqlo, Adidas, Nike, and Hummer. It is known as Shenzhou International, which is known as Foxconn in the apparel industry.

The head of Shenzhou International is called Ma Jianrong. The leader of the Chinese textile industry used his legendary experience with his two generations of fathers to tell everyone a simple but simple truth: To be a business, to make real money, you must first pay for it.

Whether it was 30 million earned in the 1990s or the 900 million that was received on the day of the listing in the early 21st century, he was resolutely spent on equipment renovation and sustainable construction. His business philosophy only follows one. Simple creed: Only when the "internal power" is cultivated in the world is unparalleled, the enterprise can be proud of the world.

Targeting the mid- to high-end market and feeding new factories

Ma Jianrong, born in January 1965, Shaoxing, Zhejiang. Ma Jianrong’s father, Ma Baoxing, used to be a child laborer wearing a felt hat to learn skills in Shanghai. He was the deputy director of the Shanghai Knitting Factory No. 20 and was in charge of technology. Later, he was introduced to Shenzhou as a senior management talent and was arranged as the deputy general manager.

Thus, in 1990, the Ma family moved to Ningbo, and the 25-year-old Ma Jianrong also followed his father to start a business and entered the knitting and weaving department of the factory. At that time, the factory was jointly invested by the local government, foreign businessmen, and Shanghai Knitting 20 Factory. The Ma family had no shares. Ma Jianrong recalled: "It was discovered in Ningbo that the three parties' investments were not all in place. The living conditions in Ningbo's countryside were very difficult, and the entire knitting industry has fallen into a depression, and the market prospects are bleak. My father knows that our family has no retreat, only the factory is well done. The family can live."

Ma Baoxing, who did not have any retreat, quickly adjusted his mentality and began to adopt the principle of “breaking down” to deal with various disadvantages.

The first is money. Although Shenzhou is a three-party investment formation, in fact, all the funds are not in place. Not only that, the company still has debts in construction, and counts production start-up funds, the gap is about 3 million. In order to fill the gap, Ma Baoxing went to the city to find financing. During the period, he touched a lot of walls and touched a lot of “small heads”. He tried his best to make up the money and pay off the debts.

With the start-up capital, Ma Baoxing began to ponder over the market. He gave Shen Zhou a tone: "You need to open the market quickly, but you can't make orders that are too cheap and too low-end, otherwise it will be difficult to break through in the future."

The reason why Shenzhou can usher in a stable and vigorous development will ultimately benefit from the establishment of Ma Baoxing’s “high-end” route and Ma Jianrong’s persistence and development of this route.

Can return to the time, where to find such an opportunity?

Since Ma Baoxing had been trained in Japan in his early years, he found opportunities in his familiar Japanese market. Japan's quality requirements for imported garments are very strict, while the quality standards for Japanese baby garments are higher, mainly reflected in the requirements for fabrics, formaldehyde residues and dyeing. The values ​​of various indicators are higher than the domestic industry standards at that time. A lot – a Japanese adult sweatshirt sells for $1.2, and a baby ready-to-wear can sell for $1.5, far exceeding the industry standard at the time.

Therefore, Ma Baoxing invited the master craftsman from the Shanghai Knitting Factory No. 20, and he personally went into battle to engage in training, pull orders, and open the Japanese market little by little. To undertake foreign orders, quality is a matter of life and death. Ma Jianrong clearly remembers that in March 1992, he went to visit Japanese customers as usual. Unexpectedly, the other party asked him "Why do we receive the clothes, the water will fade?" Ma Jianrong was blind, not smoking, not eating, and immediately ran back to the factory. As a result, the problem was finally solved, and the batch of products that could be originally produced was burnt down, and the loss can be imagined.

Thanks to strict quality control, in 1992, Shenzhou, which specializes in mid- to high-end OEMs, began to make profits. By 1995, the company had become famous in the industry, all of which laid the foundation for its later acquisition of European and American international clients. Solid foundation.

In 1997, Shenzhou’s important year

In 1997, it was a very important year for Shenzhou, and many major events took place. In this year, 32-year-old Ma Jianrong officially took Shenzhou from his father and became the "second generation successor." At the age of 13, Ma Jianrong followed his father to the textile industry. Since he started as an elementary school student, he has been rooted in this industry for nearly 20 years. He has accumulated profound knowledge, and he has been in Shenzhou for 7 years. It is a veritable one. One of the pioneers of the mountain, all the way from the manager of the knitting and weaving department to the position of the boss. After taking over from his father, the first thing Ma Jianrong did was to take all the 30 million net profits to build a sewage treatment plant.

Also in 1997, Shenzhou won the first major international client to continue to cooperate with UNIQLO. The first cooperation with Uniqlo has to be said to be an adventure of Shenzhou. That was during the Asian financial turmoil, when Uniqlo, which was still in the growth stage, placed a production order of 350,000 pieces on Shenzhou. This is really a good business, but the conditions are somewhat harsh – it must be completed within 20 days.

This is a "small dish" for today's Shenzhou International, but at the time it meant the biggest challenge since its inception. Whether it can be completed on time, to a certain extent determines the survival of the enterprise.

After repeated measurement, Shenzhou boldly chose to face the difficulties, and continued to work through overtime work, and finally completed the agreement as scheduled, winning the opportunity of corporate reputation and long-term cooperation. Today, Shenzhou has become the largest supplier in the Uniqlo supply chain.

To be a business, if you want to make real money, you must first spend money honestly.

After Ma Jianrong took charge of Shenzhou, he always focused on the main business of textile and garment, only burying his head in products and never getting involved in other investments. "It’s enough to do one thing in one life," is the life creed that he has emphasized many times.

Ma Jianrong pays great attention to the cultivation of "internal strength". He believes that only by practicing "internal strength" can it stand up. It is an indisputable fact that the clothing industry's profit is meager. How can we maximize the value? In addition to expanding the industrial chain, it is nothing more than improving production efficiency and maximizing savings and lowering costs.

To improve production efficiency, it is necessary to transform the existing backward state, introduce first-class equipment and technology, and create a world-class core competitiveness.

To this end, Ma Jianrong's most outstanding performance after taking office is that he will spare no effort to carry out technological transformations. "Before making money, he will be willing to spend money." He has invested a lot of risks and risks, which is beyond the reach of ordinary companies.

Before 2000, almost 90% of Shenzhou's profits were used to invest in technological transformation, such as spending tens of millions to introduce the world's most advanced knitting circular machine at that time. Driven by equipment upgrades, Shenzhou achieved a 30% increase in sales and profits for two consecutive years in 1998 and 1999. By the year 2000, Shenzhou's production capacity reached 1.43 billion and net profit reached 210 million, 5.5 times and 19 times respectively in 1997.

In June 2005, Shenzhou International Group, which integrated a number of businesses, was established and Ma Jianrong served as chairman. In November 2005, Shenzhou International was listed on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. In just one night, Ma Jianrong spent all of the more than 900 million Hong Kong dollars he had raised – or upgraded equipment. In other words, to be a business, if you want to make real money, you must first spend money.

However, the purchase of equipment does not mean that unilateral investment, due to equipment replacement or technology upgrades each year, Shenzhou saved hundreds of millions of dollars. For example, in 2007, Shenzhou introduced automatic cutting machines from Italy and the United States. From drawing to tailoring, it was operated by computer. The material consumption can save 15% or more, which means that 15 tons of cloth can be saved every day. Compared with the past, Shenzhou can save at least one billion yuan a year... There are many similar examples.

For Shenzhou’s equipment, an overseas counterpart said to Ma Jianrong, “I will not visit your factory again if I kill him. If we don’t see that we have the confidence to compete, we will have no direction. Where can we go? So much money!"

Efficient industrial chain, delivery of 2 million pieces of clothing for 15 days

Ma Jianrong said: "Many people say that Shenzhou's success is luck, but I know with my father that the only words that support us all the way down are simple and simple - honesty, and promise customers 100%."

And Shenzhou's integrity is based on technicalization, standardization and modularization. Today, Shenzhou accepts orders from 2 million to 4,000, from order to delivery, within 15 days.

For the clothing industry, time is money. Delivering the product in 15 days means that the industrial chain is very efficient. From spinning and weaving to garment and printing and dyeing, there is no half-point difference pool in all aspects.

Among them, technicalization and standardization are easy to understand. What does modularization mean?

Everyone played with blocks when they were young. They all know that different combinations can make different effects. This principle can also be used in manufacturing. By modularizing the product system and then combining different modules, it can be manufactured. Different products.

Ma Jianrong said, "Before the modular application, employees should be skilled in making a shirt, at least for 6 months. According to the current level of work after 90, you have not yet trained him. People have already gone; after modular application Even if the fingers are as thick as me, they have no contact with the workers who have been working by hand. They only need one hour of training to be able to make garments. This greatly simplifies the training process for workers and improves the comfort of work (reducing cervical spondylosis). And it also increased production efficiency by at least 50%."

With its absolute advantages in technology and efficiency, Shenzhou International established the four main customers of Uniqlo, Nike, Adidas and Hummer as early as 2012, accounting for 73% of total sales. The remaining 27% were from Anta and Li Ning. And domestic customers such as Xtep contributed.

In 2015, in the context of China's textile industry once again suffering from difficulties, sales volume fell by 6.4% overall, Shenzhou's sales reached a record high, sales income of 12.6 billion yuan, increased by 13% on the basis of 2014, net profit after tax 2.35 billion yuan, up 14%. In the first half of 2016, Shenzhou's revenue increased by 24.6% year-on-year to 6.95 billion yuan, and its profit increased by 29.4% year-on-year to 1.45 billion yuan.

No one left in 20 years, no one left behind

To be a boss, you must understand production, understand strategy, understand the market, and more importantly, understand the hearts of employees. The stability of Shenzhou's employees is well-known in the industry. Even the middle and high-level teams have not left one in 20 years, and there is no one left behind.

“I always think that if an employee can live in a company for a lifetime, this is the boss's greatest blessing. I installed central air conditioning in the new factory in Shenzhou Vietnam, which is unprecedented in Southeast Asia. Workers It can be very pleasant and comfortable to work in a cool factory area, while central air conditioning makes clothes and fabrics less prone to mildew under the humid air of Vietnam, and workers are not prone to sweating and do not pollute pure white garments. For me, this matter is both about caring for employees and getting a lot of money. The superior conditions of the Vietnamese factory not only make the originally recruited workers work more securely, but also accidentally attract workers from other factories around. These are the added value that I did not expect at the beginning of my efforts to improve the working environment of workers.

If you visit the factory in Ningbo, Shenzhou, I will first take you to see the factory, but the fully automatic central kitchen that can provide lunch for 30,000 workers. In order to improve the dining situation of workers, we invested 90 million. 10,000 Shantou an automatic steaming machine can be made in one day, what stuff is there; Chinese snacks, cold dishes, stir-fries and even Western food West Point are automatically supplied. People who have seen this scene say that this is where Canteen, this is simply a food factory. The central kitchen originally had 200 employees, and now only 80 people are enough. As soon as breakfast arrives, the cafeteria is lined up. Compared with outsourcing, employees still prefer the things they produce in their cafeteria, and they are more assured of eating.

Speaking of management, I have an example here. A department manager who once had a management technology was somewhat backward in business due to insufficient understanding of IT informatization. I not only help him personally, but also provide him with various training opportunities. He also asked many other department managers to help him, improve together, and eventually he rushed up. The modular production process mentioned above was done by him and he did quite well.

To do business, it is very simple to sum up two sentences. First, to be a competitive enterprise, learn to cultivate "internal strength" through various techniques and means; second, integrity, customer integrity, employee integrity, supply Business must also be honest. ”