Author | Zhang Xiangwei
Editor | Dexin
"No one got the ticket today."
"The next five years will see who has the potential to succeed."
"The core is long-term development."
On June 15, He Xiaopeng made the above judgment when attending the 15th Blue Book Forum, and disclosed to the outside world for the first time some adjustment details of the organizational change last year.
The three Wei Xiaoli brothers who used to sit side by side, now only Ideal is in the stage of rapid development, while the growth rate of Xiaopeng and Weilai has slowed down, and it is even urgent to stop the downward trend. At the critical moment, He Xiaopeng's grasp of the company, industry, and trends will affect the next stage of development.
In He Xiaopeng's view, organizational change is the core element of the next five years.
Based on the progress of the company's organizational transformation, he extended the competition to a longer time dimension, and believes that the company will move towards a positive cycle in the third quarter of this year, and will move towards ultra-high-speed development by 2025.
1. Organizational adjustment details: at the beginning, nothing could be adjusted
Last month, Xiaopeng Motors handed over a worrying 2023 Q1 financial report.
The financial report shows that Xiaopeng Motors’ revenue in the first quarter was 4.03 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 45.9%, and its net loss was 2.34 billion yuan. Xpeng Motors delivered a total of 18,230 vehicles in the first quarter, down 17.9% from 22,204 in the fourth quarter of 2022 .
The decline in revenue and gross profit was due to poor new car delivery data. To be more precise, Xiaopeng P5 and G9 did not bring hot sales and did not meet expectations.
In the eyes of the outside world, these two cars have problems in product design and marketing.
He Xiaopeng said, "The company faced challenges last year, and many friends inside and outside gave me suggestions, such as doing a good job in marketing."
However, he believes that in a new transformation, the next five years are the most important, not to do a good job in marketing or product planning, but the most important thing is the adjustment of the entire organization.
"Everyone is the original Autobot or Internet person. They have succeeded in the past and formed inertia. The thoughts, behaviors, processes, efficiency, tools, strategies, and methods of everyone in the organization are all created in the memory of the past. .” He Xiaopeng said.
The change didn't go well at first .
At the Blue Book Forum, He Xiaopeng disclosed the reform process for the first time:
"From February to March last year, Xiaopeng began to optimize and adjust, and then found that it could not be adjusted, and the soup did not change the medicine. Because the goal was adjusted, but the organization, strategy, method and final action results were just to prove to the company Look at the boss, wrap the original result into a new noun."
Until the second half of the year, new changes began to appear.
According to 36 Krypton reports, in October last year, Xiaopeng Motors issued an email to all employees and established five committees and three product platform matrices. Among them, the strategy, product, technology and other committees were all chaired by He Xiaopeng, and the three major platform product matrices were finally submitted to He Xiaopeng. According to the report, this matrix is said to be similar to Huawei's IPD development model .
The full name of IPD is Integrated Product Development, also known as integrated product development, which is a set of methodology for optimizing product development cycle, cost and product quality. The earliest practical application company was IBM, which was later introduced by technology companies such as Huawei.
In the automotive industry, ideal cars were the first to talk about IPD. "As a smart electric vehicle company, a matrix organization and process like IPD is actually very effective." In March this year, Li Xiang, the founder and CEO of Ideal Auto, said at the China Electric Vehicle Hundred People's Association.
Since February this year, all design, R&D, production, supply chain and organizational management, and process system teams of Xiaopeng have reported directly to He Xiaopeng.
In terms of marketing system, Wang Fengying, who joined Xpeng Motors at the beginning of the year, combined the automobile trade and sales into one, turning the large and medium-sized offices into small front desks; at the same time, integrated the service team, improved the efficiency of marketing services, and promoted internal flat management; There are also corresponding changes on the sales side and channel side.
In his sharing, He Xiaopeng pointed out that the reform is very effective , and the changes have initially appeared, and huge changes will be seen in the next six months, one year, and one and a half years.
Based on the results of organizational changes, He Xiaopeng predicts that starting from the third quarter of this year, the company will enter a weak positive cycle. Throughout the year starting from the third quarter of this year, the speed of the positive cycle will accelerate. From the third quarter of next year to the end of 2025, it will enter an ultra-high-speed positive cycle.
2. "The next five years will see who is likely to succeed"
Wei Xiaoli took turns to sit in the village. Right now, the ideal scenery is boundless, and it is also a dark moment for Xiaopeng and Weilai.
In the early days, Weilai had the highest brand popularity, and after surviving the crisis in 2019, it returned to the position of Wei Xiaoli's big brother.
Xiaopeng was also the number one player in sales in Wei Xiaoli. Throughout 2021, Xiaopeng's monthly sales have been rising steadily, leaving Weilai and Ideal behind.
Ideal’s efforts have been slower, and then the Ideal ONE product became a hit in 2021, and it continued to deliver more than 10,000 units a month after the replacement. Xiaopeng .
It is no wonder that He Xiaopeng smiled and sighed that the auto industry has been "leading the way for a year or two".
In fact, from financing, mass production, annual sales of 100,000 units, to solving organizational problems now, new cars are going through rounds of PK.
To this day, He Xiaopeng believes that the PK is still going on, and the winner is still undecided.
"Who is already at the poker table today? At least I don't think there is a single company in China. Chinese start-ups have already been determined to be at the next poker table." He Xiaopeng said.
Putting it into the entire auto industry, the size and annual sales of Wei Xiaoli's three companies are still several times behind that of a large auto company .
Zhang Yong, co-founder and CEO of Nezha Automobile, said that among the top 15 global car companies in 2022, there are no Chinese car companies in the top 10. "There is still a long way to go, but if you look at our interior, A group of kindergarten children were choking to death, and the adults were still watching outside."
In addition to new car-making forces, traditional independent brands are making efforts. Joint venture car companies whose market share has been affected in recent years have not given up on the Chinese market.
Leaving aside the transformation of luxury car companies such as BBA, some Japanese and Korean joint venture car companies are planning to counterattack.
During this year's Blue Book Forum, a discussion on "Where will the joint venture car companies go in the second half" let everyone see the attitude of the joint venture car companies.
Some executives of joint venture car companies do not deny that they are indeed slow in the transformation of electrification and intelligence, but everyone still has confidence in the next market structure.
"You know what you know in three years, but you can't learn what I know in ten years." Kia China Chief Operating Officer Yang Honghai agrees with Volvo's words.
Yang Honghai said, "Next year, I will have all the L3 vehicles in the world, and I will also release this thing in China. I have already started the road test of the L4. The whole degree of intelligence, you say that the vehicle and machine part is only a small part. So Speaking of the entire technology accumulation, talent accumulation, globalization experience, including the profitability of globalization, joint ventures are far greater than the local market.”
Whether it is between Wei Xiaoli, or enlarged to a larger battlefield with self-owned brands, joint venture brands, and even foreign brands such as Tesla, the current competition is more like a warm-up match.
3. Long-term thinking, waiting for a ticket
Car building requires long-term thinking. He Xiaopeng believes that technological innovation, scale, and globalization are all high-quality development, but development must ultimately be based on long-term thinking .
Based on long-term thinking, he reiterated his disbelief about hybridization:
"I can predict that in the next two years, there will be a lot of hybrid vehicles in China, especially in family cars. Why? Because everyone sees success, so follow. But what is another angle? It is market-driven, It is driven by success. If you are in the long-term thinking, is it possible that you are the longest-term thinking logic?"
Also based on long-term thinking, He Xiaopeng believes that the intelligent inflection point of software blessing will come.
The consensus in the industry is that electrification is the first half, and intelligence is the second half. In the field of intelligence, smart cockpits and smart driving account for the largest proportion, especially smart driving.
For example, Huawei's car BU invests 10 billion yuan in direct research and development every year, and 70% - 80% of Huawei's investment in cars is in intelligent driving.
In the stage of intelligence, the car is regarded as a fusion product of hardware and software. He Xiaopeng, who started an Internet business, believes that the software era of automobiles is coming, and has been investing in intelligence.
He said, "In the new wave of technology, especially in the wave of technology where software accounts for more and more weight, the pattern will change. If hardware dominates, the pattern of cars will not change. Today, software accounts for more and more of cars. The proportion is not high, because the degree of customer perception is not high, but the degree of customer perception will definitely be higher in the next five years."
Within this year, Wei Xiaoli will launch an urban NOA solution based on BEV that emphasizes perception and ignores maps . Intelligent driving will be the decisive field for Wei Xiaoli's three companies.
He Xiaopeng recalled that when he first started his business in 2004 as a mobile Internet company, everyone repeatedly asked a question from 2007 to 2010, who could get the first ticket for China Mobile Internet, and finally found that there was no product that could be seen at that stage. There are boat tickets, and boat tickets only appeared in hardware and software in 2010 and later. Similarly, the boat ticket for the auto industry has not appeared, and the next five years will see who is likely to succeed.
In the next five years, giants such as Jidu and Xiaomi will enter the arena to fight. Huawei and car companies will have a wider range of smart car cooperation. In such a dangerous situation to compete for tickets, I hope He Xiaopeng is really ready.