When will I have a long tassel?

"The biggest trouble we encounter in our overseas development is that foreign customers, especially those in Western countries, generally do not understand and distrust China's mechanical and electrical products. Joe Sit, manager of General Motors' Baltimore plant, said about our cars The production line expressed a certain interest, mainly because our products have obvious price advantages compared to similar products from Germany and Japan. However, he claimed that he was not confident about our technical level and doubted our ability to independently build a complete production line. automobile production line.”

In the conference room of the Linhe Machine Tool Group headquarters, Han Weichang, general manager of the sales company, introduced the information fed back from overseas to the senior executives.

That day, Zheng Kang and Li Tiantian worked hard to convince Qiao Xit that Linji Group did have experience in building automobile production lines, and the price of the production line quoted by Zheng Kang also made Qiao Xit quite excited. .

The subprime mortgage crisis that began in 2007 severely hit the U.S. economy. A large number of companies went bankrupt, and General Motors was once on the verge of bankruptcy. Since General Motors employs tens of thousands of workers, once it goes bankrupt, it will cause a large number of workers to lose their jobs and have a great social impact. Therefore, the U.S. government has tried its best to rescue it, including providing financial assistance to its employees. Several factories provide low-interest loans to help these factories update their production lines to improve their market competitiveness.

The Baltimore factory's renovation plan was carried out with the support of the U.S. government's rescue operations. The U.S. government is not able to provide sufficient renovation funds to General Motors, and the company has several factories that need to upgrade their production lines. The funds that can be allocated to the Baltimore factory are very limited, which requires Josit to have to purchase equipment. Budget wisely.

Before Zheng Kang and Li Tiantian came to visit, Qiao Xitte had let her purchasing manager know the price of building a car production line. At this time, there was no company in the United States that could provide a complete set of automobile production line equipment. The purchasing manager asked several manufacturers such as Germany's Heimsat Company and Japan's Someno Company, and the quotations received exceeded the company's offer to Josit. Budget.

Someno Company has proposed a compromise plan for the Baltimore factory, which is to lower the technical standards of some equipment, thereby reducing the cost of the entire production line. This plan was unacceptable to Joe Sit, because once the technical standards were lowered, it would mean that the technical level of the cars produced at the Baltimore plant would also be reduced accordingly, which went against General Motors' original intention of improving market competitiveness.

However, when funds cannot be met, Someno's plan is the only feasible one. If this plan is rejected, the production line transformation of the Baltimore factory will not be carried out, and the situation will be even worse.

The appearance of Zheng Kang and his party gave Qiao Xite a new hope. The production line that Zheng Kang sold him was of the same generation as Heimsat and Someno's products, and could meet the needs of the Baltimore factory for producing the latest cars. Zheng Kang's quotation was fully 1/3 lower than Someno's quotation, and nearly half lower than Heimsat's quotation.

So, the only obstacle that Josit faces is that it is not clear whether the equipment provided by Chinese companies is reliable.

As Qiao Xite told Zheng Kang, he has great trust in light textile products from China and believes that these daily consumer goods marked "Made in China" are of high quality and low price. But the automobile production line is not a light textile product, but an electromechanical product with high technical content. What the Baltimore factory needs is an automobile production line that has reached the highest international level, including hundreds of precision, high-speed, multi-station machine tools. The technical requirements are very high. Can the Chinese produce such machine tools?

"We have mastered these technologies." Zheng Kang said to Qiao Xite.

"But how do you prove this to me?" Josette asked.

"You can send people to China for on-site inspections. In the past five years, we have built production lines for five automobile companies in China. These production lines are now running normally. You can tell at a glance." Zheng Kang said.

"This is a good idea. I will consider arranging for someone to take a look." Qiao Xi nodded, but there was a perfunctory expression on his face, which made people know that what he said was just an excuse.

"Mr. Chosit, what do you think we can do to make you believe in our abilities?" Zheng Kang asked.

Josit shrugged his shoulders and said, "Mr. Zheng, I don't know either. Although I want to believe everything you tell me, after all, we have never used machine tools from China, so the company will not allow us to do it. This is an attempt unless you can convince the top management of our company."

In this way, Zheng Kang had to spread the news back to China and asked the group to find a way to persuade these overseas customers as soon as possible. Chosit is now in a state of hesitation. If the Rinji Group cannot provide him with more confidence, he may consider accepting Someno's compromise. This will be a failure for both the Baltimore factory and the Rinji Group. of.

"In the past, our domestic companies did not believe in us. Now we have finally convinced the domestic companies. Foreign companies still do not believe in us. This is really a difficult situation to solve."

After listening to Han Weichang's introduction, Zhan Keqin, deputy general manager of the group, sighed.

"The principle is the same. In the past, we gave people the impression of low standards and poor quality. Now we have caught up, but customers don't understand. When we competed with Someno for the Puqi project, isn't it the same with Puqi? Attitude?" Executive Deputy General Manager Zhang Jianyang said.

"That time, we asked the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission to take action and issued a policy to encourage the first set of applications, so Puqi had no choice but to accept our products. Practice has shown that our technology is excellent. Puqi's production line in Fengmei After it was completed, I was completely convinced of our products. Now when domestic automobile companies update their equipment, they always turn to domestic machine tool companies, and no one will use foreign equipment anymore," said Chief Engineer Guo Daihui.

"But now Lao Han and the others are facing Americans. We can't let the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission give orders to General Motors, right?" Zhan Keqin said jokingly.

Han Weichang said: "It is much harder to convince Americans to accept our equipment than to convince Puzhou Automobile. According to Zheng Kang, Americans simply do not believe that China can produce high-end machine tools. In the eyes of Americans, the Chinese just know how to produce them." Use the sewing machine to make socks, shirts and the like.”

"In the eyes of some Chinese people, this is the same impression." Tang Zifeng commented with a smile.

Everyone burst into laughter. Nowadays, there are indeed statements on the Internet that China's economy relies on cheap labor and real estate. Those who say these things are often well-known so-called experts.

Tang Zifeng is a typical hands-off shopkeeper. He is only responsible for the company's overall strategy and does not do daily management, so he has a lot of time to spend reading these boring gossips online. After seeing such articles, he would always download them and send them to company executives via mass mail, euphemistically calling them "wonderful article sharing". Over time, everyone has become familiar with these memes.

"Didn't Mr. Tang say that our country has always paid attention to keeping a low profile in order to prevent others from feeling threatened? Now it seems that being low-key also has the disadvantage of being low-key. It makes foreigners really think that we can't even build a few high-end machine tools. Come out." Zhang Jianyang said.

Tang Zifeng said: "We are a developing country and others are developed countries. Only developed countries have always sold equipment to developing countries. How can it be the other way around? You know, China is an alternative among developing countries. If it were replaced by other developments, Isn’t it normal for China to not be able to build high-end machine tools? But it’s abnormal for China to be able to build high-end machine tools.”

Han Weichang said: "Our overseas business personnel reported that people in many countries do not know much about China. When they contact business abroad, they often encounter foreign customers asking them whether Chinese people can use electricity, and even some Some foreigners think that most Chinese people don’t have enough to eat.”

"Isn't that true?" Guo Daihui said, "Now that the Internet is so developed, foreigners should know the current development status of China by doing a little online search. Let's not say that we are first-tier cities now, even third-tier cities like Linhe, our development The level is no less than that of most cities in the United States. Don’t Americans just go online?”

Tang Zifeng said: "Most Americans don't even know where China is on the earth, let alone understand China's development status. Like the Josette that Lao Han just mentioned, as the person in charge of the Baltimore factory, it stands to reason that He can be considered an elite, right? But in his impression, China only produces socks and shirts, and he has never even heard of our Linhe Group. Isn’t this a frog in the well? "

"Mr. Tang, are you a little too confident in your example?" Zhang Jianyang reminded with a smile.

Tang Zifeng said: "This really can't be regarded as overconfidence. Think about it, the Baltimore factory is an automobile factory, and its main production equipment is various machine tools. Qiao Xite should still be concerned about large international machine tool companies. Do you know something about it, right? Our Linhe Group is the largest machine tool company in China, and Qiao Xite doesn’t know about it. Isn’t it weird?”

"Our export volume of machine tools is still too small. Most of our products are sold domestically, so it makes sense that foreign users have not heard of us." Han Weichang said.

"Isn't this a chicken-and-egg problem?" Zhan Keqin said, "If foreign customers don't understand us, they won't buy our machine tools. And our sales volume abroad is small, and foreign customers are even less likely to buy it." Understand us. Isn’t it really difficult to break this cycle?”

Tang Zifeng turned to Han Weichang and said, "Old Han, what are your sales company's thoughts on this matter? You can tell us your thoughts first, and everyone can brainstorm and add more. What do you think?"