The Red Era: Living in Seclusion in a Siheyuan as a Boss

Chapter 628 The booming home appliance internet!!!

If we say that the pharmaceutical industry is the leading industry in Liujiazhuang High-tech Development Zone.

Then, the electronic Internet information industry is the rising star of the region.

Entering the mid-1990s, the world ushered in a new day with the face of "globalization".

In the same year, the World Trade Organization (WTO) was formally established, replacing its predecessor, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).

The WTO was established to reduce or eliminate tariffs, import quotas and other trade barriers and to promote free trade among countries.

In July 1995, China formally applied to join the WTO, and the goal of "rejoining the WTO" was changed to "joining the WTO".

Although it would take six years for the gavel to be struck announcing Xia's successful accession to the WTO, Xia's economy was already taking off.

During a random interview on the streets of Liujiazhuang, Wang Shuang, a reporter from the Yanjing Daily, asked passersby: "What do you think the Xia country will look like in the 21st century?"

There was a gleam in the eyes of every interviewee, and pride and expectation in their words.

And just this year, on a battlefield without the smoke of gunpowder, a battle to defend national industry quietly began.

Since 1992, a large amount of international capital has begun to flow into Xiaguo, continuously squeezing out the market of local enterprises.

Previously, Xiaguo had several well-known companies producing carbonated beverages, but after foreign companies such as Coca-Cola and Pepsi entered Xiaguo, these local brands are facing acquisition and extinction.

At this critical moment, "Liujiazhuang Investment" keenly captured the market opportunity.

They found that there are still seven domestic beverage brands with great market potential in the country that are facing the risk of being swallowed up by these two international brands.

With its keen business sense and decisive decision-making ability, "Liujiazhuang Investment" acted quickly, reached agreements with these seven companies before the multinational giants, and successfully completed the full acquisition.

As a professional financial investment institution, "Liujiazhuang Investment" did not directly operate these beverage brands, but instead strategically reorganized them with "Huaguoshan Beverage Group" (formerly Liujiazhuang Beverage Factory).

Through resource integration, a large beverage group with a nationwide production layout was born.

Today, the newly formed "Huaguoshan Beverage Group" is competing fiercely with international beverage giants in the domestic market with its local advantages and large-scale operations, and is writing a new chapter for the revival of national brands in the beverage industry.

Competition in the beverage sector is just the tip of the iceberg.

In order to revitalize the national industry, most local companies have engaged in price wars with foreign companies.

Since 1995, facing the advantages of Japanese companies such as Matsue and Niyo in the field of "white goods",

Zhang Ruimin, the founder of Haier Group, is well aware that a newly established Xiaguo enterprise may not necessarily win in terms of technology and quality.

But he does not engage in price wars, because behind Haier stands Liu's Financial Investment, a giant in the financial field.

Haier not only lowered its selling prices, but also launched high-quality after-sales services to fight back against Japanese and other companies.

Zhang Ruimin said to reporter Wang Shuang with great determination: "In the competition with multinational capital, even if we die, Haier will be the last one to die."

This is what he said and did in the face of the aggressive Japanese "white goods" companies.

As Haier was the first to sound the clarion call for a counterattack in the home appliance field, in the white appliance market, domestic brands such as TDL, Dahong, Kangjia, and Panda have the support of capital giants such as "Liujiazhuang Investment", "Liushi Financial Investment", and "Yanshan Capital". Each of them has sufficient "ammunition" and has announced price cuts one after another.

Li Xisheng of TFL even started the war by offering a price that was 2/3 lower than that of the Japanese pirates' color TVs.

Ni Yunfeng from Dahong went to the counter of Shudu Shopping Mall in person to promote his products.

After this price war, by the end of the following year, domestic color TV brands had accounted for 71.1% of the market share.

This year, with the strong support of its major shareholder "Liu's Investment", Lenovo Group has started fierce competition with foreign brands under the banner of "national computer industry".

The Yanjing Daily reported that "Lenovo is competing with the Eight-Nation Alliance for the market."

In terms of product manufacturing, Lianxiang General Manager Liu Chuanzhi required that "costs must be reduced by half";
At the same time, thanks to the strong support of "Liu's Investment", Lianxiang Group has defeated multinational companies many times in procurement bidding.

Lenovo also cooperated with local governments to promote Lenovo computers in more than 300 cities across the country, gaining an advantage.

It is precisely because of the amazing low price advantage that Lenovo's economical computers have quickly spread across the market.

Statistics show that in 95, Lenovo ranked fifth among the top ten companies in personal computer sales and was the only national brand on the list.

On April 4 this year, Lenovo produced its 1th computer on its production line in Liujiazhuang High-tech Development Zone.

In order to establish itself as a national brand, Lenovo announced that it would donate the 10th computer off the production line to the famous mathematician Mr. Chen to show respect for his academic achievements.

Ten years ago, computers were still treasures hidden in scientific research institutions and universities.

But nowadays, personal computers have begun to enter ordinary households.

However, most people still cannot afford it. In this era when the average annual income per capita in first-tier cities is only a few thousand yuan, foreign brands that cost tens of thousands of yuan per unit are out of reach. Commercial users are the target of these big overseas computer companies.

Even if you buy the parts and assemble a 486 computer yourself, it will cost tens of thousands of yuan.

Nowadays, people buy computers not for fun, but just for work.

To work with a computer, you also need a printer. Even if it is an assembled computer, the cost of the printer is fifteen or sixty thousand, which is equivalent to three years' salary for an ordinary person.

Therefore, before the mid-1990s, most people who bought computers were business users, and there were very few individual users.

Compared with this huge population, how can the market of commercial users compare to that of home users?

So, just last year, Lenovo Group, which had been established for more than 10 years, successfully launched its first "E series" computer for home users.

Lianxiang is also the first computer company to propose the concept of "1+1" computer.

The "1+1" here means one computer per family, which fully exposes Lian's ambition to put computers into every family in Xia Country.

This year, Lenovo launched a new "586 Yuan Pentium" computer, which reduced the price of a computer equipped with Intel's latest Pentium processor to less than Yuan.

That same year, many home users purchased this faster personal computer.

Playing "The Legend of Sword and Fairy" on this computer this summer has become a common memory for many people born in the 80s.

With its affordable prices and nationwide sales network, Lenovo quickly seized market share in the personal computer market originally held by overseas manufacturers such as IBM and Compaq, as well as Hong Kong and Taiwan manufacturers such as Acer.

On February 2 last year, which is Valentine's Day in the eyes of Westerners, Lianxiang Company in Zhongguancun, Yanjing was obviously also experiencing sweetness.

On this day, Lianxiang’s shares were listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

Another encouraging news is that the sales of 10-year-old Lianxiang have surpassed those of its competitors such as Great Wall, Jingda Fangyuan, Langbo, and Sihai, making it the largest computer company in Xiaguo.

With the double happiness coming, the entire company was immersed in an atmosphere of excitement and pride, but the company's founder Liu Chuanzhi and several company executives were worried.

Because, even with such a bright prospect, Lian Xiang is not without hidden dangers.

Three years ago, a "black storm" in the computer industry swept across Europe and the United States, and hundreds of computer manufacturers either went bankrupt or suffered losses.

Even IBM, the industry giant it had always looked up to, was not immune; in the end, it laid off 4 people just to barely maintain a profit margin of less than 1%.

The president of Compaq was also forced to resign because of a 70% drop in stock prices.

At the same time, the Xia Kingdom was taking drastic measures to dismantle trade barriers in the computer industry. After the door was opened, Chinese and foreign computer manufacturers began to compete head-on.

Soon, domestic computer companies including Lianxiang found that they had been drawn into a new competitive landscape that they were unfamiliar with and unable to grasp.

Faced with the rapid advance of international giants, although Lenovo ranked first among domestic companies in sales for the first time in 93, it failed to meet its own computer sales target for the first time in 10 years.

At this moment, an unexpected storm broke out within Lianxiang.

Even if we want to be where we are today, it is actually inseparable from the efforts of one person, that is Ni Guangbei.

Ni Guangbei’s joining completely changed the direction of the company, and Lian Xiang finally had its own “technical business card”.

Out of respect and for the sake of the company's image, Liu Chuanzhi immediately launched a campaign to deify himself.

In order to maintain the prestige of "God", Liu Chuanzhi even did not hesitate to damage his own authority.

The president and chief engineer of Lianxiang, this close-knit "gemini" pair has become a role model for many companies.

However, just last year, in the international market, Microsoft, the future IT overlord, launched a subversive change, which also greatly affected the sales of Lianxiang Chinese Card. In the past few years, Ni Guangbei has been traveling around Shanghai, Hong Kong and other places to recruit talents and set up the "Lianhai Microelectronics Design Center".

Ni Guangbei poured great enthusiasm into this project, called "Xia Guoxin".

However, the company's executive vice president Li Lan set back the enthusiastic Ni Guangbei.

Ni Guangbei, who was used to hearing "yes", was naturally unwilling to give up, so he went directly to Liu Chuanzhi.

What he never expected was that this time, although Liu Chuanzhi's answer was tactful, it was actually "No".

After this incident, the relationship between the two deteriorated rapidly, and even every work meeting turned into a quarrel between the two.

Liu Chuanzhi thought Ni Guangbei was "making trouble", while Ni Guangbei said, "I am not done with you."

In fact, the "Liu-Ni dispute" is not a unique event. It is actually the hesitation and dispute when "Made in Xia State" reached a crossroads.

The "Liu-Ni dispute" is also a duel between the "market faction" and the "technology faction".

The dispute continued until the end of last year.

During this period, Ni Guangbei completely impressed the major shareholder "Liu's Investment" with the persistence and stubbornness unique to a technical expert.

Shareholders led by "Liu's Investment" began to support Ni Guangbei in taking the technical route.

In this way, with the strong support of its major shareholder "Liu's Investment", Lianxiang Group did not satisfy the status quo, but instead allocated most of its profits to continue research and development.

From now on, Old Liu, don't think about getting involved in real estate. Just let Professor Ni Guangbei continue to do research and development.

Don't even think about doing "trade, industry and technology" but rather "technology, industry and trade". Otherwise, the largest shareholder "Liu's Investment" will not agree.

This year, after occupying the top spot in the domestic desktop computer field, Lenovo began to develop in the notebook computer field.

By the end of the year, Lenovo developed the first Xiaguo brand laptop computer, the Zhaoyang S5100.

Before this, the notebook computer market had been "monopolized" by overseas brands such as IBM and HP.

Zhaoyang S5100 was a great success as soon as it was launched on the market.

Lenovo's largest shareholder, Liu's Investment, together with super financial giants such as Yanshan Capital and Liujiazhuang Holdings, immediately announced that they would equip all middle-level and above managers of all their holding companies with Lenovo's Zhaoyang S5100 notebooks.

The combined first batch of purchases by these companies reached 58000 units, helping Zhaoyang S5100 instantly become a "big star" in the computer field.

Although this Zhaoyang notebook seemed big and heavy to people in later generations, having a laptop in those days could attract countless people to stop and watch.

The Zhaoyang series of notebooks were an instant success after they were launched on the market. Not only did they open up a new battlefield for computer manufacturers in Xia country, but they were also presented as state gifts to foreign leaders many times.

In later generations, when many people born in the 80s entered the workplace, the first laptop they received from the company was a Lenovo.

From the joy of playing games with Lenovo at home when I was a child, to the enrichment of learning computer knowledge with Lenovo in the school computer room when I was in college, to the days and nights of working with Lenovo laptops after work, it can be said that Lenovo is a brand that has accompanied many people born in the 80s and 90s since they were young.

By the end of 1996, Lenovo had become the computer brand with the largest market share in mainland China.

The slogan "What will happen to the world if humans lose their imagination" resounds across the country.

This battle to defend national industry, which involved various industries, ended with the desperate counterattack of the Xiaguo brand and is still talked about many years later.

This year, in the spring breeze of reform and opening up, the market is nurturing new flowers, but this flower is too delicate, and few people can imagine what kind of energy it will burst out in the future.

In that year, when passing by Zhongguancun in Yanjing, many people saw a billboard that read: "How far are the people of Xia from the information superhighway - 1500 meters to the north."

The woman who erected this billboard is called Zhang Shuxin.

Zhang Shuxin is from Liaodong, and her father is the chief engineer at the Fuda Steel Plant Research Institute.

She has been a top student since she was young. Zhang Shuxin’s dream when she was in school was to become the "Marie Curie" of Xia Country.

As a result, Zhang Shuxin was admitted to the Department of Chemistry of Peking University through the college entrance examination.

But after entering university, Zhang Shuxin, who had a wide range of interests, did not devote himself to scientific research, but fell in love with literature.

While at school, Zhang Shuxin, who was just a sophomore, became a student union cadre and president of the poetry club.

During her time in the Student Union, Zhang Shuxin and her classmate Liu Shuxian, who was also a student union cadre and was a classmate in the Journalism Department, became close friends who could talk about anything.

Influenced by her best friend Liu Shuxian, Zhang Shuxin became interested in news interviews.

So after graduation, Zhang Shuxin chose to pick up a pen and became a reporter for Xiaguo Science Daily.

After becoming a reporter, the first person Zhang Shuxin interviewed was the Chinese physicist Mr. Ding Zhongshi.

Later, Zhang Shuxin was seconded to the Xia Ke Institute to engage in corporate strategy research.

In the mid-1990s, there was a large wave of people going into business in China.

I keep hearing that someone has made a fortune by "going into business", someone has been very successful in starting a business, someone's factory is doing a booming business...

From then on, Zhang Shuxin was also moved.

So, she decided to quit her job and start her own business.

And Zhang Shuxin did not act on a whim, she had her own direction.

That is the emerging thing that Zhang Shuxin saw at Stanford University when he went to the United States to interview Chinese students two years ago - the Internet.

This year, Microsoft launched Windows 95 and the Java language was released.

This was also the second year that Xiaguo had access to the Internet, and was known as the first year of Xiaguo's Internet business.

In May of that year, Zhang Shuxin and her husband Zhang Zuoxian mortgaged their house and car and borrowed 5 million yuan from the bank to establish Yinghaiwei Company.

She opened the first "private science and education center" in Xia State in Weigong Village, Yanjing, where people can use the "Yinghaiwei Network" and learn network knowledge.

Users of Yinghaiwei need to register first and pay an access fee, and then they can read electronic newspapers, use online chat rooms, speak in forums, or browse the Internet.

It can be seen that Ying Haiwei already had the prototype of some later Internet companies, and Zhang Shuxin became a pioneer of Xiaguo's Internet by chance.

Shortly after its establishment, "Ying Haiwei" founded by Zhang Shuxin, with the help of her best friend Liu Shuxian, was favored by her family's "Liu's Investment" and received tens of millions of yuan in investment.

In Xia Country, there is never a shortage of people who are the first to try something new.

In the same year, 24-year-old Ninglang youth Ding Sanshi quit his job at the Telecommunications Bureau and went to Guangdong Province with a suitcase. Two years later, he founded Wangyi.

The newly established Wangyi quickly attracted the favor of capital due to its rapid development.

This time, the lead investor was Yanshan Capital, which became the second largest shareholder.

In the same year, a foreign language teacher in Lin'an borrowed money from relatives and friends to register a company and created the "Xia Guo Yellow Pages", specializing in promoting businesses. After 8 months of operation, the turnover quickly exceeded 100 million yuan. He was Lao Ma.

After the success of "Xia Guo Yellow Pages", Lao Ma gathered the "Eighteen Arhats" to establish "Alibaba".

"Alibaba" developed even faster and soon gained the favor of the capital market, including several overseas capitals.

Compared with Ding Sanshi, Lao Ma is obviously more shrewd. Although he is eager for capital help, he is unwilling to give up part of the company's shares.

After many rounds of negotiations, "Liu's Overseas Investment" finally won.

The company invested 2500 million US dollars to acquire 20% of Alibaba’s shares, which was also Jack Ma’s biggest concession at the time.

In 1993, Xiao Ma graduated from the Computer Department of Baoxian University.

During college, he participated in projects such as the development of stock analysis systems, demonstrating his technical insight into market needs.

The innovative atmosphere of "integration of industry, academia and research" at Baoxian University laid the foundation for his later entrepreneurship.

After graduation, Xiao Ma joined a communications company in Bao County as a programmer and began to witness the rise of the Internet.

In that year, the software ICQ became popular all over the world. Xiao Ma realized the gap in Chinese instant messaging and had the idea of ​​starting a business...

(End of this chapter)