Decline in sales growth but rivals are increasing the tide of the biggest executives in the history of car companies

The frequent flow of talents will make the mental and physical state of the talent unstable, and the mentality will become more impetuous. On the surface, it is beneficial to individuals in the short term, but it may cause harm in the long run. For enterprises, the overall multi-strategy and long-term development need to maintain certain personnel stability.
2017 was a particularly frequent year for car executives. This year, a large number of car executives were replaced by one or two hands. Among them, FAW Car, Foton Motor and Changan Automobile replaced the chairman of the board of directors. Dongfeng Group, SAIC, Geely Automobile, Chery Automobile and GAC Group have frequently replaced their posts with their vice presidents.
Among them, some state-owned enterprises will be excavated by private enterprises, such as the former general manager of Dongfeng passenger vehicle Li Chunrong, he was in Geely in June this year to dig, the new acquisition of Geely - Proton CEO. There are even a group of state-owned executives who have been brought up to the Internet by the recent establishment of their car companies. For example, the vice president of the FAW Institute of Technology was recruited by Xiaopeng Motors to serve as the vice president of research and development for the latter.
Then, why are car executives changing frequently? Does this affect the stability of the company's strategy? Especially for state-owned car companies, how can companies avoid executives from being attracted by higher compensation and more flexible mechanisms and switch to private car companies? In order to protect the stability of the executive team, these car companies have done what efforts?
With regard to the above-mentioned issues, the reporter sent an outline to Changan Automobile, Foton Motors, and Chery Automobile. The three companies remained silent about senior executives' changes. One of the company’s employees disclosed to reporters that senior management’s changes were more sensitive and the company temporarily did not accept any interviews.
What caused the exchange of large-scale executives?
First from the FAW and Changan two veteran car company's first-hand replacement, talk about this large area swept the car business personnel changes. On September 22, Changan Automobile announced that Xu Liuping was no longer serving as the chairman of the company due to work changes. Where did Xu Liuping go? It turned out that he replaced Xu Ping's position in the north and became the new chairman of FAW Group. Xu Ping was transferred to China Ordnance Equipment Group as chairman of the latter.
After Xu Liping took office, he made drastic personnel changes to FAW and adjusted the heads of several departments. The former general manager of FAW-Volkswagen Zhang Jiejie will transfer to the head of Purchasing Group of Any Group of Automobiles; Liu Yigong, deputy secretary of the Disciplinary Committee of FAW Group, will take over any General Manager of Steam-Volkswagen; Fu Bingfeng, head of the planning department of FAW Group, will be appointed as director of any of the GAC Beijing Offices.
Prior to the replacement of the parent company, FAW Car also had a personnel operation. On June 8, FAW Car announced that it would announce that its chairman, Qin Huanming, will resign and the company’s new chairman is Wang Guoqiang. Further pushing forward for more than a month, the general manager of the company, An Tiecheng, also resigned. An's successor was Hu Hao, who once served as General Motors Volkswagen's general manager. Less than 5 months, the general manager of FAW Car changed hands again. On October 27, the announcement issued by FAW Car disclosed that Hu Hao had resigned from the post of general manager of the company due to job requirements. The board of directors of the company has appointed Liu Changqing as general manager of the company and Hu Hao will be transferred to FAW Group as director of the strategic management department.
Once the "Second Automobile" - Dongfeng Group also has a lot of personnel turmoil this year. It is reported that only in the past six months, the company has conducted a total of about 40 personnel adjustments, personnel changes this time, is Yan Yanfeng since the appointment of Dongfeng Group chairman in 2015, the company's largest personnel transfer.
Among them, Li Chunrong, who was once the general manager of Dongfeng Passenger Vehicle, was dug away by Geely and became the CEO of Geely's newly acquired car company, Proton. Li Chunrong is not the only one excavated by Dongfeng executives. Dongfeng Citroen's Deputy General Manager Che Yanhua also moved from Dongfeng. She joined Volvo as Vice President of Volvo Cars China Sales. In addition, Dongfeng Group's executives of Shenlong Motors, Dongfeng Yueda Kia, Dongfeng Infiniti and other companies have also changed.
Since the beginning of this year, GAC Group has replaced five positions in the board of directors, including vice chairman, general manager, and secretary of the board of directors. The number of board members has also been reduced from 15 to 11 and no chairman will be established in the future.
This year's personnel changes at Beiqi have been called the largest personnel adjustment in history due to the large scale. The departments involved include leaders in the Beijing Automotive Industry Research Institute, service trade companies, independent brands and joint venture brands. The replaced senior executives included Li Feng, President of BAIC, and his new position was changed to the president of BAIC New Technology Research Institute. The position of president of Beiqi Co., Ltd. will be replaced by Chen Hongliang, who was formerly senior executive vice president of Beijing Benz.
Beijing Auto Group’s subsidiary, Foton Motor Co., Ltd., also recently made major adjustments. On November 3, Foton Motor issued an announcement. Xu Heyi resigned from the post of Chairman of the Board and General Manager Wang Jinyu resigned due to illness. The successors of the two were Zhang Xiyong and Gong Yueqiong. . Chen Qingshan and Wu Xibin are the new deputy general managers of the company.
The overall industry is slightly weaker
Why are so many major auto maker executives sharply adjusted this year, is this related to the general trend of the auto industry? In 2017, the overall growth rate of the automotive industry declined. In 2016, the total domestic automobile sales were 28.03 million, an increase of 14% year-on-year. After entering 2017, the year-on-year sales of automobiles rose by 22% in February, and reached 6.15% in July. None of the remaining months exceeded 6%.
At the same time, the VIA of the China Automobile Dealership Inventory Early Warning Index Survey released by the China Automobile Dealers Association showed that in October 2017, the inventory warning index of automobile dealers was 49.9%, up by 1.2 percentage points from the previous month.
In fact, since 2016, the automotive industry has been included in the “overcapacity” industry. From the national policy level, it has begun to guide the automotive industry to reduce production capacity. The “purchase tax preferential policy” for small-displacement vehicles will end at the end of the year. Under the situation of oversupply in the auto market, many car companies have joined the price war, and the auto market price cuts will intensify. The aforementioned car companies such as Beiqi, Chang'an and Dongfeng have all joined the price war.
With the general trend weakening, the above-mentioned automakers, such as Chang'an, Dongfeng and Beiqi, which have undergone major personnel adjustments, have experienced different degrees of decline in sales this year. In the first nine months of this year, Changan Automobile sold a total of 820,000 vehicles, a year-on-year decrease of 4%. Dongfeng Yueda Kia, Beijing Hyundai Motor Co., and Beijing Motor Vehicles sales fell 50%, 38%, and 44% year-on-year.
In the car companies have to fight a price war, and sales are also falling, the superposition of dual factors, a direct impact on the automotive industry's profits.
In the first three quarters of this year, 17 net profits of 25 auto companies in Shenwan declined. Among them, Changan Automobile, Dongfeng Motor and FAW Xiali decreased by 24%, 36% and 228% respectively year-on-year.
In addition to the policy adjustment factors, another reason for the declining performance of car companies is that the competition among enterprises is more intense than in the past. An insider of a listed car company, Xu Fei (a pseudonym), told reporters: “Now what car companies have not passed the past is better than usual. Especially in the passenger car market, the days of high profits of the car companies in the 90’s are gone forever. ”
The increasingly fierce competition between car companies has also spawned the flow of people. Ling Ran, an automotive expert, told the “Investor” reporter: “The previous model was that an executive could go to retirement in an enterprise. In the past, the vast majority of people were reluctant to change jobs. Now most people are willing to change jobs. Water soldiers, but now the camp is not iron, the car companies to launch the product must be constantly updated, innovation, camp are drastic changes in the mobility of talent is bound to be stronger than the original.”
In Xu Fei’s view, the exchange of top leaders among state-owned enterprises is more due to the need for upgrading the country’s industries. He said: “The automobile industry has been talking about adjusting, upgrading and developing new energy vehicles in recent years. The country must promote these things and must rely on changes in people to advance. The promotion of things can not be separated from people, people never change things forever. Can't push it."
Industry New Army snapping up talent
Where did these resigned state-owned auto company executives go? In addition to some of the internal mobility in state-owned enterprises, such as Xu Liuping. There are also some private car companies poached, such as Li Chunrong, Che Yanhua. In the past few years, some people have changed back and forth between joint ventures and self-owned car companies. For example, Jia Yaquan, former vice president of Baowo China, joined Chery, but before that, he also took charge of the sales department at Great Wall Motors. Another group of reds in the auto industry was recruited by the newly established auto companies such as Weilai Automobile, Xiaopeng Automobile, and Ai Chi Yiwei.
It is worth mentioning that most of the current executives of state-owned automobile enterprises do not hold shares in the company. This is the case with Dongfeng, FAW and Changan mentioned above. Even in terms of salary for senior executives, state-owned auto companies are not competitive with private auto makers. Take the three car companies of FAW Car, Dongfeng Motor, and Changan Automobile as an example. The annual salary for executives is less than 700,000, 800,000, and 1.1 million respectively.
On the other hand, Geely, who had grabbed talents with Dongfeng, had a maximum annual salary of more than 6 million for directors. In addition, executive-level executives almost all hold more than one million shares of the company. There are rumors that, for Li Chunrong and Che Yanhua, two executives who have left Dongfeng, Geely has offered twice or even three times the treatment to solicit them. However, the reporter did not get confirmation from the authoritative channel.
In this regard, Ling Ran stated: “State-owned enterprises have formed a taxpayer and employment advantage in a region through stability and scale in the past and formed a huge talent attraction. However, nowadays, private enterprises often make talents more flexible through flexible mechanisms and high treatment. It's easy to be tempted. Whether a state-owned enterprise or a private enterprise, which is strong and has market potential, talented people are going to go." Xu Fei also expressed similar views. He said: "The state-owned enterprises are harder to do, and some people who want to do things go. Private Enterprise."
Another group of new players, such as Weilai Automobile, Xiaopeng Automobile, and Aiqi Yiwei, are new forces in the automotive industry. Although the mass production products of the Internet companies have not been formally released yet, their efficient R&D and trial production, open product design concepts and development opportunities in the initial stage of the new energy market have attracted a lot of attention from the industry. They have also become new rivals for the traditional car companies to defend their talents.
All three companies were established after 2014 and positioned their cars as "Internet electric cars." This batch of new forces in the automotive industry has also recruited a large number of backbones from traditional car companies.
On October 30th, Liu Minghui, vice president of the former FAW R&D Institute and vice president of the Electric Vehicles Branch of the China Automotive Engineering Society, formally joined Xiaopeng Motors as the vice president, responsible for the research and development of the automotive powertrain. At the beginning of this year, the original SAIC Group CFO Gu Feng joined Ai Chi Yi-dimensional, in addition, Ai Chi Yi-dimensional also dug the FAW Car Purchasing Minister Wu Jing, Volvo China Sales Director Zhan Yiwu.
In the Weilai automobile team, there are also executives from its own brands such as GAC, SAIC, Guanzhi, and Chery.
However, Xu Fei performed calmly on these new forces to dig the foot of traditional car companies. He said: "These Internet auto companies often only throw some gimmicks into the market. They are often not superior to state-owned enterprises in terms of capital size. Automobiles are capital-intensive industries, and there is no use without funds to dig talents alone, and A person who counts talent on this platform may not necessarily change it."
Ling Ran put forward some warnings about the mobility of executives between car companies. He told reporters: “The frequent movement of talents will also make people’s mental and physical state unstable, and their psychology will become more impetuous. This may be beneficial to people who change jobs in the short term, but it will not benefit the overall strategy and long-term development of the company. Enterprises and their frequent digging of people, leading to the loss of rival talent, is not as calm as to cultivate and create new talents and leaders, so that their own brand is more stable and development.