Ruan Liping: the bull's head awakened by Lei Jun.

Sok Li: On the road to success, only by finding a stronger opponent can we constantly inspire strong fighting spirit. As James Morse, a world-renowned management expert, said: "The only advantage of sustainable competition comes from the ability to innovate beyond competitors."

Mei Chin | Wen

From 65438 to 0984, Ruan Liping, who graduated from Wuhan Institute of Water Resources and Electric Power, was assigned to Hangzhou Hydropower Machinery Factory and began his ten-year career within the system.

Three years later, 1987, Lei Jun was admitted to the Computer Department of Wuhan University, completed the university course in two years, and began to explore the computer industry.

Two seemingly unrelated people met on 20 15.

20/kloc-in March, 2005, Xiaomi launched three USB sockets, ready to continue the previous sales miracle in the fields of refrigerators, washing machines, pens and headphones. Lei Jun said: "China sells 400 million sockets every year, but the sockets on the market are ugly, messy and rough." Xiaomi's artistic sockets were sold only in 49 yuan, and nearly 250,000 sockets were sold on the day of sale.

"showstopper" Lei Jun was inserted into the hinterland of Ruan Liping Company. At that time, Ruan Liping's bull socket was already the boss of the industry. The revolutionary millet made Ruan Liping fidgety. He called an emergency meeting of senior managers and set about confronting him head-on. In order to ensure victory, he also introduced partners at the expense of 2.2% shares to help bulls resist Xiaomi.

The final result of this battle was that the bull defeated Xiaomi, and more importantly, Lei Jun "awakened" Ruan Liping and opened a new world of Internet for him.

Lei Jun is not the first "strong hand" Ruan Liping met. From confronting domestic shoddy socket manufacturers in the early years, to selling sockets to standard Coca-Cola companies by selling daily necessities, to catching up with foreign socket brands and actively catching up, and then catching up after being attacked by Xiaomi ... Every step of Ruan Liping's becoming a "monopoly giant" in the industry, we should thank these opponents who made him stronger.

1

Be rescued unexpectedly from a desperate situation

Ruan Liping, 1964, from Guyaopu Village, Cixi, Zhejiang. Ruan Liping, who followed his father to the sea since childhood, saw the difficulty of life early and honed his perseverance. /kloc-at the age of 0/0, the engineer in the revolutionary film Red Age overcame many difficulties and forged a story of "fighting for steel", which inspired him to make up his mind to do something when he grew up.

From 65438 to 0984, Ruan Liping, with a college degree, entered Hangzhou Hydropower Machinery Factory to work. However, with the deepening of reform and opening up, people's repressed dream of getting rich began to erupt, and Ruan Liping was also eager to try. After work, he sold pork and walnuts, and was the first person to bring strawberry cultivation to his hometown of Cixi. Unfortunately, these attempts were not very successful.

As household appliances began to enter the homes of ordinary people, Cixi became the main hub of socket production at that time, and Ruan Liping's relatives and friends began to sell sockets, including his younger brother Ruan. At that time, Ruan Liping's dormitory in Hangzhou was a transit point for his younger brother and relatives. It's just that the sockets they sell are of poor quality. 10 will have 3 or 4 bad sockets. Ruan Liping tries to help them repair their sockets after work every day.

"Why can't we build a non-working socket?" 1995, Ruan Liping simply resigned, and the two brothers started a business with the 20,000 yuan saved, and the two brothers shared the shares equally.

The socket designed by Ruan Liping was thrown out by the socket produced by the rural elderly in the earth workshop. He registered the socket as a bull brand, hoping to make continuous progress and win the first place like the NBA champion Bulls!

Colleagues are all ashamed of this product that broke their financial path. "The socket is not bad. Who will it be sold to in the future? " But Ruan Liping firmly believes that he is right. He said: "There are two kinds of money in this world, one is the present money and the other is the future money. If the eyes are only on the present, then the enterprise will have no future. " 1996 also developed and produced the first socket with switch in the industry.

Ruan Liping was bent on building a good socket, but the reality gave him a loud slap in the face. At that time, the entry threshold of the socket industry was very low, and everyone was fighting a price war. The price of bulls is 50%-60% higher than that of peers, and consumers simply don't recognize it.

The socket in the room was not sold, and the enterprise was in trouble. In the most difficult time, Ruan Liping could hardly afford to pay 2,000 yuan for water and electricity.

1998, Ruan Liping, desperate and on the verge of bankruptcy, suddenly received a big bill. An American company wants to order 15000 sockets. This is a big order of 400,000 yuan, but China can't find a product that meets the requirements. After receiving the order, Ruan Liping shut herself in the room for more than half a month, designing products day and night, and then proofing with the workers. After the sample came out, the American company was very satisfied and added an order of 200 thousand.

This incident caused a sensation throughout Cixi. Bull electric appliances with broken cash flow come back to life.

2

Learn from the best and become the first.

Although the enterprise has survived, how to sell good products better is still a problem that puzzles Ruan Liping.

Once, Ruan Liping was wandering in the street, and suddenly a Coca-Cola van came into his sight, and he found the gap in an instant.

At that time, the bull sold its products to the owner of the hardware store and let people pick them up themselves. However, due to the short sales cycle, companies like Coca-Cola send goods to stores. This will not only increase the market share, but also give Coca-Cola a deeper understanding of the market and consumers.

Knowing this, Ruan Liping turned the bull's "sitting business" into a "hongshang business" when he went back, and was quickly seized by his opponent. The goods in the warehouse are sent to various hardware stores as soon as possible, and consumers have a lot more opportunities to buy them.

In addition, Ruan Liping also implements the way of distribution visits and sales, and sends professionals to conduct carpet visits and investigations on market conditions, industry conditions, customer needs, product improvement, etc. Once problems are found, they will be solved quickly.

Because she is not strong, Ruan Liping has never done TV advertisements, and basically uses wall advertisements to enhance the popularity of bulls. Later, it suddenly occurred to him that the billboard in the hardware store is not the most accurate advertising wall to start the brand. So the bull began to make signs for hardware store owners for free, and the only requirement was to mark the bull. In this way, the bull soon produced 400,000 plaques throughout the country, and its popularity increased rapidly.

In order to let the channel providers help the brands sell goods wholeheartedly, they need to give each other enough motivation. Ruan Liping will give 50% of the profits to the channel providers. Excellent quality, door-to-door delivery, customer satisfaction, high profit, it is difficult for bulls to want to fire.

In 2000, Ruan Liping, who was successful in China, extended her reach to the international market, but she stumbled.

Because of her previous experience in overseas orders, Ruan Liping spent 600,000 yuan to introduce high-end manufacturing equipment and started an export business. I thought the quality of my product was excellent, but this time it was returned because it failed to meet the European and American standards, and I was fined tens of millions. At that time, the Siemens socket was shockproof, but Ruan Liping had never heard of this function. He didn't expect that compared with these foreign brands, he was so rustic.

In 200 1 year, Bull has become the first brand of sockets in China, with a market share of 20%. However, Ruan Liping, who just went abroad to eat the "sap", was not convinced. He is not satisfied with being a "local tyrant" in the socket industry. With the international benchmarking object, Ruan Liping has found a new impetus. In order to keep up with these international brands, he began to cooperate with these big brands, improve his technical level and learn the advanced management system of foreign enterprises.

In 2003, Ruan Liping invested 6.5438+million yuan to build a professional and authoritative testing center, and passed the on-site witness testing approval of UL Laboratory. The number of patents of the company is also increasing, such as anti-detachment, lightning protection, anti-magnetism, low resistance, low heat, electric shock prevention for children, etc ... Bull socket is "safe" to the extreme, but the gap with domestic socket brands is gradually widening.

When the financial crisis hit in 2008, overseas orders of 5,000 socket manufacturers in Cixi plummeted, and 40% of them closed down due to the break of the capital chain. Under Ruan Liping's guiding ideology of "how to sell milk coke, how to sell the socket", Bull's sales outlets in the country have expanded to 165438+ 10,000, and it has absolute right to speak in the channel. Buying outlets with sudden and emergency scenes has always been the best for offline people, so the sales of bulls increased by 40% during the crisis. Even in Wal-Mart in the western United States, the sockets of bulls are sold out.

Because of its powerful channels, many channel providers have suggested Ruan Liping to diversify his business and produce some small household appliances for sale together. Ruan Liping once tried to make energy-saving lamps. But after some investigation, he found that if we want to make energy-saving lamps with absolutely superior quality, the cost is very high. Moreover, he estimated that he couldn't make the first energy-saving lamp at that time, so he simply stopped doing it for the time being, or did the socket industry thoroughly.

"Are there any giants in the industry? Is there room for innovation? Can you be the first? " This is the criterion for Ruan Liping to enter a new field. In 2007, Bull, which has established an absolute leading edge in the socket market, fully entered the field of wall switches (hereinafter referred to as wall switches).

Through detailed market research and user survey and analysis, Ruan Liping found that more than 70% of consumers like "fashionable wall switch", so he captured the "demand for fancy shirts" of users in the "white shirt era" and established the strategic positioning of Bull's "decorative switch". Since then, Bull has developed 33 series and more than 3,000 kinds of switches to solve the problems of installation, gap and indistinguishability of multiple buttons.

The sales channels of wall openings are not exactly the same as sockets, because in addition to hardware channels, To B channels such as decoration and engineering are also very important. So Bull cooperated with more than 20 top real estate enterprises and 100 national decoration enterprises, and gradually established the advantages of Bull in the B-end channel, laying the foundation for its future performance.

After 20 10, bulls grow rapidly at the rate of doubling every two years. In 20 14, Ruan Liping continued to lead bulls into the LED basic lighting field, and in 20 15, the bull wall opening business became the first in China.

three

Xiaomi opens a new era of cattle people.

Leaving their opponents behind one by one, the bull is lonely in the field of sockets and wall holes. Before Xiaomi appeared, Ruan Liping should never have thought that he would meet a company selling mobile phones on the Internet.

On April 8, 20 15, Xiaomi socket was released. This beautiful all-white socket is sold in 49 yuan. On the first day of listing, the sales volume of Xiaomi socket reached 247,000. Xiaomi, who has a large number of users and has made great achievements in the field of Internet of Things, reminds Niu with a USB socket that the era of digitalization and intelligence is coming.

Facing Xiaomi's products, Ruan Liping woke up from a big dream and realized that she had always been a slow-moving giant. In 20 10, Bull introduced USB socket, but no one cared about the product, and Lei Jun's internet channel suddenly opened a new world for Ruan Liping. The transformation of the socket industry is unstoppable. Bull, which has always paid attention to offline sales, quickly established an e-commerce company, which is responsible for e-commerce channels.

Bull's USB socket is mass-produced, and the price is 48 yuan, which is cheaper than Xiaomi 1 yuan. Compared with "cheap", Xiaomi seems to have never lost, but this battle is a complete victory for the bulls. The price of Bull is cheaper than that of Xiaomi 1 yuan, but the cost of Bull USB socket is only 7 yuan, and the OEM cost of Xiaomi USB socket is as high as 30 yuan.

Under the "catfish effect" of Xiaomi, the bull earned a lot of money and was brought to a new world.

Where can there be gorgeous waves without the block of rocks? USB socket is called Daniel's "Awakening Work". After this cross-border competition, Activation Niu discovered more possibilities of sockets, and quickly developed new products such as Rubik's cube series sockets, desktop USB sockets, and anti-overcharge series.

More importantly, Ruan Liping is determined to lead the bull to transform, conform to the trend of the Internet, and actively embrace intelligence. He wants to be a company with zero distance from users like Xiaomi, and use the Internet to really enter users and embrace young people.

In 20 16, Bull entered the tens of billions of digital accessories market, and successively developed data cables, anti-overcharge chargers, car chargers and other products. Under the endorsement of the brand, the sales volume of products has been rising.

four

Capital assistance, landing in A shares

But to know with Xiaomi pk and Ruan Liping, it is not enough to rely on yourself. Therefore, in 20 17, the Ruan brothers decided to introduce partners at the expense of 2.2% of the shares to help the bulls resist Xiaomi. This delicious cake has exploded the capital market, and funds and consortia have come up with various tricks, hoping to buy shares in the bull market. It was not until the end of 20 17 that Zhang Lei of Gaoling Capital had a secret talk with two brothers all afternoon, and the next day he bought 2.24% shares of Bull Group at a price of 800 million, which came to an end.

Great changes have taken place in the Bulls since then. The company began to provide unsecured loans for the channel. After years of accumulation, Bull Channel has 2,333 dealers, 730,000 outlets online stores, 10.9 million wall-opening online stores,10.36 million digital accessories online stores ... Among them, there are more than 200,000 hardware stores all over 300+ cities, and the terminal outlets cover counties, towns and even villages. Lending to channel dealers to purchase goods can not only improve the company's performance, but also further enhance the company's channel advantages.

Zhang Lei's shareholding in Bull has brought new ideas to the company and new contacts and technologies to Ruan Liping. Bull soon launched a series of innovative products, such as portable travel converter with WIFI function, lightning-proof socket and rain-proof plug-in, which further consolidated its technical advantages in the field of plug-in.

In 20 18, the market share of bull socket and wall switch in tmall platform was as high as 66.39% and 26.08%, and the overall market share exceeded 50% and 13% respectively. Together, these two businesses contributed more than 80% of the company's revenue and profits.

Ruan Liping boldly explored business along the route of Xiaomi IoT. He gives full play to the advantages of the company's brand and channels, focusing on the links before the completion of home improvement, including wall switch sockets, LED lighting, Yuba, circuit breakers, smart door locks, smart clothes dryers, intelligent curtain machines and other electrical lighting products to meet the growing one-stop purchase demand of consumers. And provide diversified solutions for B-end and C-end users with different channels and different consumption levels.

Ruan Liping also established the "Bull Smart Home" APP control system, began to develop intelligent modules and Bull Cloud, and realized the cloud docking with Ali, Baidu, JD.COM, Xiaomi and other Internet of Things platforms.

In 2020, Bull also achieved a breakthrough online, and its converter and wall switch socket ranked first in Tmall sales. In that year, its revenue reached 1005 1 billion yuan, and its net profit was 2.310.30 billion yuan. In February this year, Bull Group was listed on the main board of Shanghai Stock Exchange, and the company's development reached a new level.

After the listing, Bull continued to make technological breakthroughs around the pain points of users and began to lay out the electrical connection business of new energy vehicles. In the first half of this year, Bull introduced a car-mounted charging gun that can be directly connected to a household socket to create a convenient and safe car-mounted charging experience for users.

Under the leadership of Ruan Liping and the blessing of capital, the future of Bull Group is full of imagination.

five

label

On the road of Ruan Liping leading the bulls to grow up, he kept looking for stronger opponents and constantly aroused more vigorous fighting spirit. "What doesn't kill me makes me stronger", especially the direct attack with Xiaomi, has opened up a new world for bulls. As James Morse, a world-renowned management expert, said, "The only advantage of sustainable competition comes from the ability to innovate beyond competitors".

However, from the previous focus to today's diversification, Ruan Liping's bulls should be alert to the disadvantages of not being able to "force a hole". It's important to stare at your opponent and force yourself to get angry, but it's more important not because your opponent is in a mess.