Character experience, Liang Jianzhang.

Liang Jianzhang's experience was smooth sailing. As a teenager, he was a computer genius. At the age of 65,438+03, he was already able to write poems on the computer. He was one of the earliest pupils in China who came into contact with computers. Later, he took part in a youth program competition, and winning the prize was like looking for something, which made him have an indissoluble bond with the computer. 15 years old, Liang Jianzhang, who finished junior high school, was admitted to Fudan juvenile class six months later and studied computer science at Fudan University. Fudan didn't graduate, so he was admitted to Georgia Institute of Technology and finished his bachelor's and master's degrees. That year was 1989, and Liang was only 20 years old.

"Studying in the United States has helped me a lot." Talking about the learning process in the United States, Liang Jianzhang sighed. Due to economic pressure, he had to finish his studies as soon as possible. He is in a strange environment, and he is not used to language and life. The challenge he faces is imaginable. Fortunately, Liang was very young at that time, and finally he finished his studies for two years in only one year. After completing his master's degree, he also studied for Dr. Duan, but later he found that his studies no longer challenged him. "The most advanced is not the school, but the enterprise." Therefore, Liang Jianzhang entered the R&D branch of Oracle Bone Inscriptions Company and accumulated 3 years of R&D experience in Oracle Bone Inscriptions Company.

"In China, there are many more opportunities than in the United States, especially entrepreneurship." When Liang Jianzhang returned home to visit relatives, he saw the earth-shaking changes in China and felt the fiery entrepreneurial atmosphere. He analyzed that in the long run, his development opportunities are still at home, so he decided to transform from technology to management. After returning to Oracle Bone Inscriptions Company, Liang Jianzhang applied for changing departments and working in the customer service department (ERP implementation). "Few people will change this way", because the position, treatment and choice of R&D department in Oracle Bone Inscriptions are much better than other departments. In retrospect, Liang Jianzhang felt that the original choice was correct, and the experience of customer service department made him understand the relationship between IT and management. Fortunately, he returned to China as the consulting director of China District through internal recruitment in Oracle Bone Inscriptions on 1997. "If you are still in the R&D department, you can't transfer back to China," said Liang Jianzhang, who realized the transformation from technology to management and laid a solid foundation for self-employment.

During his tenure as consulting director, Liang Jianzhang served as a consultant in management, software and e-commerce for many domestic enterprises, and participated in planning the management system construction of large state-owned enterprises such as civil aviation and China Telecom. At the same time, he is carefully looking for opportunities, hoping to open his own company in China and realize his entrepreneurial dream. Oracle Bone Inscriptions's old colleague Zhu recalled that he was a leader who didn't like talking and showing off, and was "full of curiosity, good at observing and thinking".

"Opportunities are for those who are prepared." Liang Jianzhang believes that accumulation must be done before starting a business, and observation and thinking are essential. If you want to start a business, you must be prepared for your studies, experience and work skills. "When you really feel that you are doing better than anyone else in this industry, you have a chance." During his two years in China, Liang Jianzhang has been trying to get familiar with the China market and made full preparations for starting a business. "This is much better than coming back to start a business directly," Liang Jianzhang said with a smile. "If you come back directly, you may make a mistake." . 1998, the Internet rose quietly in China, when Liang Jianzhang felt that the time was ripe. "At that time, the Internet was very hot and venture capital was abundant. This is a good entrepreneurial opportunity. " So he made a bold move, left Oracle Bone Inscriptions and founded Ctrip. His own website.

When talking about why he chose to be a travel website, Liang Jianzhang said, firstly, it was out of expectation of the domestic tourism market, and secondly, it was intuition. On the one hand, Liang Jianzhang felt that it was difficult for travel agencies to meet people like him at that time, and the services they provided were not in place. In addition, the "imagination space" of tourism is very large. From 65438 to 0998, the scale of tourism in China reached 23965438+ billion yuan. "Tourism is the second largest expenditure of ordinary people, even higher than cars." Liang Jianzhang aimed at tourism. After his success, Liang Jianzhang admitted that he was not familiar with the tourism industry at that time, and did not do in-depth research. It's just an intuition. He feels that "making a travel website, from design to distribution and payment, is very suitable for e-commerce."

With creativity, building a Ctrip team has become the key to starting a business. "Just a few friends from the beginning," Liang Jianzhang said with a smile. Liang Jianzhang's familiar Shen Nanpeng and Miracle became the founders of Ctrip. The three quickly decided to leave their original jobs and go all out to do a good job on the website. In the division of labor, complementary advantages are their strengths. Liang Jianzhang is the consulting director of China, Oracle Bone Inscriptions, with a profound technical background; Shen Nanpeng is a Yale MBA, a banker with many years of investment experience, considerable financing ability and macro-decision-making ability; On the other hand, Miracle has rich entrepreneurial experience and is good at management and sales. Later, in order to strengthen tourism, Liang Jianzhang found Fan Min, general manager of Shanghai Travel Agency. Since then, Ctrip's management team has been successfully established and officially set sail.

Enthusiasm beyond opportunity is a bubble.

Ctrip was founded in the heyday of the Internet. Without much effort, Liang Jianzhang soon got more than 5 million dollars from venture capitalists such as IDG, Softbank and Morningstar. Since then, Ctrip has been in good weather all the way. Talking about the Internet bubble of that year, Liang Jianzhang thought that starting a business was often to seize an opportunity, but "if enthusiasm surpasses the opportunity, it is a bubble". Opportunity plus enthusiasm is the best opportunity to start a business, and he seized this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. "At that time, the business plan of venture capitalists was very simple," Liang Jianzhang smiled when he recalled the process of starting a business. What makes him even more happy is that a few pieces of paper in those days actually gave birth to the embryonic form of Ctrip today. Now it seems that the revenue growth rate calculated by the formula at that time was "actually quite accurate".

Different from the website CEO who was surging in the past, Liang Jianzhang's "story" to venture capitalists was realized four years later. In 2000, the number of employees of Ctrip was less than1000, and now the number has risen to more than 15000 (if Ctrip is still classified as an Internet company, Ctrip under the leadership of Liang Jianzhang is already the largest Internet company in China). In 2002, Ctrip's turnover was as high as 654.38 billion yuan, while Sina's annual income in 2003 was only 940 million yuan. Ctrip's net profit makes the traditional tourism industry with an average net profit rate of only 654.38+0% ~ 2% incomparable. "Ctrip's business has grown dozens of times." Under the guidance of Liang Jianzhang, Ctrip realized the transformation from ugly duckling to white swan. When talking about the future of Ctrip after listing, Liang Jianzhang set himself the goal of "three-year growth 1 times".

But in Liang Jianzhang's hands, Ctrip is less and less like a website. Ctrip first acquired Hyundai Express, the largest hotel reservation center at that time; Then he cut into the field of air ticket booking and acquired the air ticket agency Beijing Coast. In 2008, Huacheng Southwest Travel Agency was included and officially entered the self-help travel market. In Liang Jianzhang's vision, Ctrip is not a website, but a "high-tech armed travel service company" and an integrator of traditional industries.

More than half of Ctrip's employees come from call centers. During the roadshow, Liang Jianzhang repeatedly explained to investors why Ctrip wanted to establish a call center. Liang Jianzhang explained that Ctrip set up a call center because the national conditions of China and the United States are different. Telephone has long been popular in China, but it is still not as convenient as Americans. In fact, 70% of Ctrip's business comes from traditional call centers.

Wind and rain will always be Ctrip.

After a series of mergers and acquisitions, Ctrip has gradually drifted away from EXPEDIA, the template studied in the past. In the fierce competition of China tourism market, Liang Jianzhang tried to establish the core competitiveness of Ctrip. As far as the monopoly advantage of Ctrip in the self-help tour market is concerned, Ctrip's hotel sales network and air ticket sales system are already leading in China, and the remote service mode of Internet plus call center is the most mature in the industry, which is difficult to be surpassed by competitors. In addition, the IT+ management concept established by Oracle Bone Inscriptions also enabled Liang Jianzhang to find the test object in Ctrip.

In Ctrip's humble office, which even looks like a single-storey industrial factory, Shi Beiya, Ctrip's public relations manager, can proudly say to visitors: We implemented the balanced scorecard very early. "In the case that everyone is still unclear, Liang Jianzhang personally designed the prototype of the company's balanced scorecard and formulated all the measurement indicators. Since then, Liang Jianzhang's advanced management concepts, such as process management and six suitable horses, have been continuously reflected in Ctrip. " Self-help tour is not as standardized as group tour, and there are many personalized things, "Liang Jianzhang analyzed. If a strong technical management platform is not established, the transaction will be difficult to reach. In 20 13, Ctrip's "process and product sales interface are far ahead of competitors in the self-help travel market", and Liang Jianzhang certainly has this confidence.

Liang Jianzhang thinks that he has always been a very rational person, very curious about things, and loves all things of perceptual art. It is not only a challenge for him to explain perceptual things from a rational perspective and find business opportunities from them. Before Ctrip, the tourism industry has always been an emotional operation. "I often hear that once other travel agencies lose their employees, their business will be gone. Ctrip will never have this situation." Under the planning of Liang Jianzhang, Ctrip's division of labor is very clear, "every employee is doing a very special job in a complicated process", just like a large manufacturing enterprise, which implements centralized management, makes full use of Internet IT technology and implements remote operation.

"We should treat service quality like a manufacturing enterprise," Liang Jianzhang insisted. Although the service is emotional, it is difficult to explain why customers are satisfied from a rational point of view. However, Liang Jianzhang believes that every customer can be satisfied through the most rational error analysis, process transformation and employee training. It is Liang Jianzhang's consistent goal to "serve sensibly with rational thinking".

In the eyes of employees, Liang Jianzhang has always been a smart, rational, quiet, far-sighted and fast-moving leader. Liang Jianzhang hasn't changed a bit since it went public. The only change is that he feels more stressed. "I used to work for several shareholders, but now I work for hundreds of thousands of investors." Unlike Chen Hong, Qu Jianguo and others, Liang Jianzhang is not prepared to enjoy the sense of accomplishment of starting from scratch again, because he feels: "The sense of accomplishment of becoming a company again is far less than the feeling of making Ctrip bigger 10 times." Since 2005, 35-year-old Liang Jianzhang has been thinking about his next goal in life.

The phased goal of starting a business to make money has been achieved. At this time, Ctrip has been listed on Nasdaq, and it is the undisputed leader in the industry, leaving its competitors far behind. The young business leader who likes to study problems resigned as CEO and started a new journey.

The foundation in the field of mathematics prompted Liang Jianzhang to turn his attention to economics, and Ctrip's entrepreneurial experience made him pay special attention to innovation. In 2007, he went to the United States again to study for a doctorate in economics at Stanford University. His research areas include population and entrepreneurship, and China's labor market. At that time, he picked up mathematics without much effort and attended more than one-third of others' classes. It was a quiet day, away from all kinds of noise: I came home from school at 4 o'clock every day, and then I helped my son in elementary school with his homework. "If you are in China, people will keep coming to you, friends, friends of friends to talk about investment and business cooperation."

He studied human resources, education and economy with emphasis on innovation and entrepreneurship under the guidance of Edward Lazear, an American authority on human resources economics, and Gary Becker, a Nobel laureate in economics. During the investigation, he was shocked by a series of data and absurd phenomena: on the one hand, the demographic structure of China will change greatly in the next few decades, which will drag down the economic and social development. On the other hand, this country with the lowest fertility rate in the world still strictly implements family planning. The number given in his book is 1.4. "In fact, it may be lower. My latest research at Stanford shows that after a country's aging population structure, its entrepreneurial and innovative vitality will decline. "

In order to support his argument, Liang Jianzhang conducted field research in North America, Japan and other places. During his doctoral thesis, he wrote and filmed a documentary. This is a short film full of figures, charts and logical analysis. After filming, Liang Jianzhang realized that economists may have understood this problem after reading, but this is not enough for the general public. "This is indeed a question that needs to be discussed for at least a few hours, such as rural population, resources, urbanization, transportation and so on. Therefore, I think it is still necessary to write a book to clarify these issues. " 2065438+On February 2, 2003, KLOC-0, Ctrip announced the appointment of Liang Jianzhang as Chairman and CEO of the Board of Directors, and concurrently served as Chairman of the Board of Directors of Ctrip Travel Holdings Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Ctrip, which is responsible for tourism-related business. This appointment will take effect on March 20 1 year 13.

According to a former Ctrip executive, Ctrip generally adopts a top-down strategy in personnel changes. After Liang Jianzhang's official comeback, various strategic changes will follow, from business structure to personnel adjustment, from products to market.

How Ctrip will move forward in the future can be seen from Liang Jianzhang's previous words and deeds: while strengthening the price war and saving the unfavorable situation of users being diverted, it will make efforts in the field of mobile Internet.

On April 5, 20 14, Liang Jianzhang, CEO of Ctrip. Com, sent an internal email saying: I returned to Ctrip not for fame, nor for profit, but to experience the hardships, passion and success of the second venture with you.