Volvo returns to start-up company one night

August 23 - After the acquisition of Volvo Cars by Geely for one year, the Volvo management team unveiled the "human-respected" global brand strategy to Beijing. Half a year ago, on February 25, Volvo released China's strategy in advance.

In the past six months, topics such as landing of Volvo projects, product introduction planning, and corporate culture integration have never stopped. "Choice to publish the new brand concept on August 23 is actually to respond to outside questions about the Volvo project, so that everyone can understand the latest progress of the project." A Volvo China staff told reporters.

Shen Hui, Senior Vice President of Volvo Car Group and Chairman of the China Region, revealed in an interview after the same day: “In the past six months, Volvo has completed the product planning for the Chinese market, which products are made in China and which products are imported. After the Chengdu plant project was launched, what types of models were introduced respectively. These plans have been approved by the board of directors and are awaiting approval at the government level."

The double-digit growth of Volvo’s global sales and profits in the first half of this year has relieved Li Shufu’s board of directors and Jacob’s leading management a sigh of relief. According to Volvo's official data, in the first half of this year, Volvo sold more than 230,000 vehicles worldwide, an increase of 20% over the same period of last year, and pre-tax profit exceeded SEK 1.2 billion, which increased the profit income of SEK 450 million.

The Chinese market has sold more than 21,000 vehicles, an increase of 36% year-on-year, slightly higher than the overall increase in the domestic luxury car market, but the market share still does not exceed 5%, which takes 50% of the market in the Chinese luxury car market for 5 years. The share of Volvo is not an easy figure.

“Everything has to wait until the factory lands and the product launch can have a significant leap forward.” Shen Hui told reporters. Now for Volvo, to leverage the leverage of the Chinese market, apart from unilateral efforts of the company, government public relations are particularly important, after all, time is not waiting for people.

"Who is Volvo?"

The Volvo China team has grown from 120 to the current 500, and plans to grow to around 900 by the end of this year.

Under the slow progress of the approval project, the main work that the Volvo team can currently do is to accelerate the integration of corporate culture. Shen Hui admitted to reporters that in the past year, the biggest problem he encountered in managing the work was creating a unique corporate culture for the new Volvo. “People’s culture and ideas are the hardest to change. In the process of establishing corporate culture, respect for the culture of Other countries and other companies is crucial.”

Since the release of China’s strategy in February this year, Volvo has started a large number of recruits, including both talented applicants from other countries, and talented people who have “knocked corners” from competitors. Different cultural conflicts have started at Volvo. The formation of the discussion atmosphere that only entrepreneurial companies have had began to appear in this 87-year old European company.

In order to ensure a smooth year-long transition of Volvo's delivery, Shenhui-based China has adjusted the entire value chain such as personnel, finance, and legal affairs, increasing the Volvo China team from 120 to the current 500, and plans to develop at the end of this year. To about 900 people.

“Only by respecting their respective cultures and taking any issues directly to the table for discussion can we promote the development of the company.” Shen Hui said that in this process of cultural integration, the working principle of mutual respect began to gradually upgrade to the new Volvo. The brand strategy principles.

As a result, modern luxury experiences, people-centeredness, and advantages are everywhere and constitute the three attributes of the “human-respected” brand architecture. “It actually means that in the future Volvo's vehicle design must be consumer-centric and put people on top of engineers and designers.” Richard Montedorno, vice president of worldwide marketing at Volvo Cars, was present at the launch of the brand. Expression.

Montetono believes that Volvo will differentiate itself from its competitors under the guidance of the "human-respecting" brand concept and will create the most affiliated and most humane Nordic luxury car brands based on a deep understanding of user needs. Obviously, in the contact with Chinese companies, "people-oriented" modern Chinese culture is entering new blood for Volvo's brand recovery.

North-South Base Racing "In Sweden, Volvo is regarded as a Chinese company; in China, it is also a Sino-foreign joint venture."

At the dawn of the brand strategy, Volvo China's base construction project is still waiting for government approval.

“The Volvo executives are very anxious about the approval of the plant project.” A Volvo China employee said that as soon as they arrived in Beijing, they immediately visited industry people with better relations with the government and hoped to learn from them about the government’s With respect to the approval attitude, the person said to them "Don't rush to do a good job in the international market to promote the Volvo China project as soon as possible."

In fact, "unknown status" has been obstructing the development of Volvo projects either explicitly or implicitly. There is still no definitive answer in the industry regarding whether the Volvo brand is considered an independent brand.

“In Sweden, Volvo is regarded as a Chinese company; in China, it is also a Sino-foreign joint venture.” Shen Hui admits to the reporter that because Volvo's registered office is in Sweden, it has adopted a Sino-foreign joint venture approval process for project approval. It is much more complicated and time-consuming than the approval of a simple domestic project.

However, the local government apparently has no patience to officially approve the approval of the approval. Whether in Daqing or Chengdu, they are busy preparing for the plant project and are striving to become Volvo's first factory in China.

According to media reports, as early as the beginning of March this year, Volvo Daqing factory has started construction. The Daqing municipal government attached great importance to this project and listed it as one of the major tasks for Daqing in 2011. It fully promoted it and strived to put it into operation in 2012. This time point was one year ahead of the Chengdu Volvo site planned for production in 2013.

In the 68 major facts to be implemented in 2011 announced on the official website of the Daqing City Government, the “build a production base for passenger cars” project was impressively on the list. According to the plan of the Daqing City Government, the Volvo plant project will basically complete the construction of the four major workshops for stamping, welding, painting and assembly vehicle production this year. This project is under the sole responsibility of the passenger vehicle project construction headquarters established by the Daqing City Government.

The Chengdu side is also hurrying to build factories. The current leveling of the factory's land has been completed, more than 60 employees have been in place, and large-scale recruitment has not officially begun. According to sources, in September this year, Volvo will hold an official press conference on the construction of the Chengdu factory.

However, judging from the current approval status, Daqing seems to be walking ahead of Chengdu. On June 20 of this year, in the report on the environmental impact of the project to be approved by the Ministry of Environmental Protection, the Volvo Plant Project in Daqing was on the list, and the environmental report of the Chengdu plant has not been seen so far.

Regarding the “construction competition” of the two major bases in the north and the south, the Volvo executives who are entrusted with the local government will find it difficult to clearly state which party they wish to progress faster. "Which first went through the approval process, it first went on." For Volvo executives, the most critical thing now is to get the government approval.

Thoroughly localizing Volvo's distribution network in China is growing at a rate of two new stores per month.

At the launch of the brand, Volvo’s senior management team is still tight-lipped about the progress of product planning that is of concern to the outside world. “This is still in a confidentiality phase, and it is inconvenient to publish it now.” For the reporter’s repeated questioning, Shen Hui even jokingly replied that Volvo’s platform platform in China will be between 1 and 10, “The two factory platforms will certainly not There is a conflict."

As previously announced strategic ideas, the future Volvo small and medium-sized brand models will produce R&D in China, while large-scale vehicles want to maintain imports for some time. At present, Volvo has developed a high-end luxury model for Mercedes-Benz S-Class and BMW 7 Series models.

"Volvo's mid-section products are more. After discussion by the board of directors, we hope to expand the product line more broadly and extend upwards and downwards," Shen Hui said. It is understood that the current sales of products from three platforms: C1, C2 and EUCD, after the acquisition of Geely, Volvo engineering personnel will re-plan the naming platform.

P1 produces Ford Focus, S40, V50, C70 and C30 for the compact car platform C1; P24 is the EUCD for the large car platform, producing Ford Mondeo, S80, XC60, XC70 and V70; P2 platform is owned by Volvo; Ford has changed its name. C2 platform, but the time has been more than 10 years, S60, S80 and other models that were born on this platform have already been replaced by new platforms.

In the future, Volvo wants to compete with the BMW 7 Series or Mercedes-Benz S. A more convenient and economical solution is to work with other manufacturers to develop a new large-scale vehicle platform. In terms of small cars, in addition to the aforementioned platforms, Volvo has also developed a small car platform, but only in the Ford period did not come up with products. New small car products are now on the agenda.

For the product layout of the two factories in Chengdu and Daqing, although Volvo is currently tight-lipped, according to the Daqing plant project plan announced by the Ministry of Environmental Protection, three types of luxurious family sedan 113K, middle-to-advanced SUV XC60 and MPV will be introduced into Daqing. By 2015, the output of the three models will reach 30,000, 40,000 and 10,000 vehicles respectively, which means that the EUCD platform that mainly produces large-sized cars will likely fall into the arms of Daqing. However, the Chengdu base for S60 production will probably be introduced into P2 platform or update platform.

In addition, according to Shi Ruixiang, President and Chief Executive Officer of Volvo China Sales, the S60T5, S60driveE, XC90 Nordic, XC60T5, C30Aktiv and other models will be introduced to the Chinese market in addition to the S60 this year. The next year will be the sport model V60. It will also land in China.

At the same time, Volvo's distribution outlets in China are growing at a rate of two new customers each month. According to Shi Ruixiang, so far, Volvo's distribution channels have landed in 83 cities, the number reached 117, in 2015 will strive to sell more than 200 outlets. This means that, after four years, the annual sales volume of Volvo's dealership models will be maintained at about 1,000 units.

For Volvo, the era of the Chinese luxury car market with only 7 models must end, and only by accelerating the investment in new cars can we fundamentally change the status of the edge of the luxury car market and complete the sales target of 200,000 vehicles in five years.