When BYD's hardships began in the past and the waves of the past began to embark on a new development track, Xia Zhibing, vice president of BYD and general manager of the car sales company, chose to leave.

On August 5, BYD Co., Ltd. (002594) issued a provisional announcement stating that Vice President Xia Zhibing resigned for personal reasons and resigned from all other positions in BYD's affiliates. Subsequently, Xia Zhibing himself officially confirmed the resignation via Sina Weibo.

Although executives of car makers have changed during the downturn of the auto market, the departure of Xia Zhibing still caused a great deal of attention in the industry. It was him who led BYD Auto’s “selling myth” of 400,000 vehicles for 5 years, turning BYD’s “outsiders” who were not initially favored by the outside world into the top three of its own brands, but the over-expansion also caused BYD to erupt last year. A series of questions.

The departure of Xia Zhibing was seen as the end of BYD's sales myth. After experiencing disturbances such as dealers’ withdrawals last year, BYD began to take the initiative to adjust, slow down the pace of development, reduce sales targets, and strive to improve product quality and management, but the adjustment results are not yet apparent.

Right now, the outside world is generally worried about where BYD cars will go from here. Affected by the incident and the fall in global stock markets caused by the decline in the credit rating of the United States, BYD's share price between Hong Kong and the Mainland fell by nearly 6.66 billion yuan during the day, becoming the Chinese vehicle company with the most shrinking assets.

Hou Yan, who took the post of Xia Zhibing, is also the “Veteran” of BYD. Will Hou Yan, who is in danger of being in danger, lead BYD's car to a higher level? Perhaps the answer is just a few years ago when Xia Zhibing said on the eve of the F3 listing: “Please give us time to prove it to everyone.”

After the resignation of passionate exiled, Xia Zhibing had cheered for the listing of BYD's heavy new car SUV S6. He promised that S6 would never lower its price within two years after listing and said that BYD's performance this year was better than expected. It gives people a feeling that BYD has passed the most difficult stage.

Therefore, the departure of Xia Zhibing at this time seemed quite abrupt in the outside world. There are two kinds of speculations about his departure. One is to pay for the previous strategic mistakes. Due to the excessive emphasis on sales growth and scale expansion in previous years, BYD Auto began a series of problems last year. The sales volume has fallen sharply, and the declining momentum this year also It has not been completely reversed and some people are responsible for it. Second, there are differences between BYD Auto's future development direction and the company. It was previously reported that Xia Zhibing and President Wang Chuanfu have different views on BYD's new energy vehicle strategy. Is there a difference between paying for strategic mistakes or future development? Both BYD and Xia Zhibing are reluctant to explain more. Xia Zhibing is interpreted as "tired" on Sina Weibo and wants to nurse her body.

After graduating from Peking University in 1998, Xia Zhibing was impressed by Wang Chuanfu's entrepreneurial charisma. She joined BYD and began at the grassroots level. She has served as a BYD accountant, financial manager, finance chief, after-sales manager, and sales vice president. In 2005, Xia Zhibing, who was honored by Wang Chuanfu, was “approached” and officially served as general manager of BYD Auto Sales Co., Ltd., becoming the youngest person in charge of sales at the time in the auto industry.

At that time, BYD, which acquired Qinchuan Automobile in the automotive industry in 2003, was still regarded as the “outsider” in the auto industry. Qinchuan Automobile alone had a strong support for the original Flyer, and the outside world was generally not optimistic about “the layman”. The prospect of BYD building autos requires the automotive industry to invest heavily in capital and accumulate years of technical R&D and marketing experience, while BYD, a privately owned company, lacks in these areas.

In this scenario, launching F3, Xia Zhibing and his team can be described as stressful. Xia Zhibing and his team on the one hand to make a "backs against the water," a high-profile position: to listen to their words, view its line, please give us time to prove strength, BYD car repair is not without foundation, in the future there will be a series of new cars listed, to do "the least defective domestic "Car"; on the other hand, adopts a prudent marketing strategy of sub-station listing and "encircling the cities in rural areas." Starting from Shandong, F3 has been listed in the country for almost a year.

F3 hit a red banner and it hit a sales of 50,000 units in the year. Xia Zhibing led BYD Auto’s marketing strategy of going public in secondary and third-tier cities, such as listing and sub-listing, was originally a helpless move limited by financial resources, and was ridiculed by other powerful companies, but the actual results were amazing. Other auto brands have since Also followed suit.

Since then, BYD Auto has embarked on the road of rapid expansion, not only introduced a variety of new cars such as F6, F0, but also doubled in sales in successive years, will reach 400,000 in 5 years, the main model F3 is a single car sales champion for several consecutive years The throne. BYD Auto has also become the fastest growing “dark horse” in the automotive industry. In 2009, BYD achieved a sales target of 400,000 units, surpassed Geely and approached Chery, and BYD made a sales target of 800,000 units in 2010. The sales of the self-owned brand champions are higher.

The realization of such sales myths has benefited from a series of practices that BYD Auto is not using in accordance with common sense and is different from other car companies. For example, lowering the auto entry threshold and rapidly expanding the sales network has expanded the marketing network to 1,000 units in five years. Other auto companies have only developed more than 500 dealers in more than a decade; they have taken the lead in attempting sub-marketing and rapidly expanding. A1, A2, A3, A4 four sales networks.

However, BYD Auto, which has an emphasis on quantity expansion, has also accumulated many problems. For example, the marketing team’s ability to manage sales has not kept up with the rapid expansion of sales, focusing on industrial chain integration, and cost control that has led to difficult quality control. These problems are constantly accumulating. In 2010, there was an outbreak of outbreaks, dealers withdrew from the network, frequent quality problems, and increased consumer complaints.

As a result, the departure of Xia Zhibing was considered by many as paying for BYD's previous strategic mistakes. "The previous strategy was made by the company's board of directors. It wasn't for the sales company manager that could be left alone. Xia was always a very passionate person. He tried his best," said an employee of BYD.

JD POWER’s automotive market research director Zeng Zhiling believes: “As a listed company, it is necessary to give investors and investors an account. For the recent issues, we must find a responsible person. This can also be seen, BYD is really trying to transform Say goodbye to the barbarous growth of the past and change the mind of the person in charge."

Xia Bingbing, who had been printing away, also rethought the previous business policy on Weibo and apologized to the distributors: “Because of my personal eagerness for quick success, I misled the company and the sales team. The strategy I set was harsh on the business. I demanded that it was too high. After the team was overstressed, the management channel was too hard. It hurt the dealers' friends and apologized!”

The most difficult moment was chosen to leave this time. Xia Zhibing explained in his e-mail sent to his colleagues: “The difficult stage of the market has passed. From this month to the Spring Festival is a long season.”

BYD’s insider briefed that Xia Zhibing had offered to resign when a dealer’s turmoil broke out last year, but it was the most difficult moment at that time and the company did not approve it.

Since March of last year, BYD's distributors in Chengdu, Beijing, Zhejiang, Shandong, Henan, Shenzhen, Dongguan, and Hangzhou have successively “exited”. In the second half of the year, the dealers’ turmoil worsened, and there was a case of collective protests by some dealers. According to public information from BYD, as of December 31, 2010, A3 and A4 network resellers had a proportion of 27.83% and 31.91%, respectively, while A1 and A2 network resellers had a proportion of 12.97% and 27.6% respectively. %.

There are more than one side of the problem. BYD, which has maintained high growth rates before, has experienced sluggish growth. In the auto market, which continued to grow at a rapid rate in 2010, BYD has experienced a year-on-year decline in sales volume for consecutive months. In FY5, it relied on a major model of the F3. Others Most of the follow-up models have a mediocre market response; over-integration and stringent cost control have made BYD's auto quality problems frequent and consumers' reputation has been greatly reduced, making it difficult to maintain customer loyalty.

In addition to the constant problems in the traditional automotive sector, the investment in BYD's investment in Buffett and the progress of the marketization of new energy vehicles with many haloes have been slow. The time to market of pure electric vehicles has been repeatedly pushed back and the sales volume has been low since the listing, and the outside world has also turned from a high degree of optimism into questioning. The stock market price in the capital market has shrunk severely. BYD's rapid advancement has begun to fall into the “omnivorous” predicament.

Wang Chuanfu and BYD’s management did not choose to change positions. Instead, the stable team extinguished the fire. In November last year, BYD held a distributor conference in Shenzhen. Xia Zhibing publicly apologized to the distributors and promised to reduce the pressure on the library and guarantee the withdrawal of the interests of the distributors. It stabilized the "junior heart" of the dealer team. Secondly, he stepped up the launch of new products. Since the second half of last year, BYD has introduced a number of new vehicles, such as the L3, G3, and S6, to improve the product line while increasing the product price range.

BYD also adjusted its previous sub-marketing strategy and closed the network for its unsustainable networks, further reducing the pressure on dealers. In BYD's four marketing networks, the A1 and A2 networks have relatively good sales results due to F3 and F0, and the A3 and A4 networks are mainly followed by higher-end models. Business days are tough. It is understood that the A4 network dealers have already begun to merge with the A3 network to jointly sell G3, F3R, E6, M6 and other products.

In the assessment of dealers, we have also changed the system of single-sales dealers in the past and began to focus on indicators such as customer satisfaction in order to improve service quality.

"Now manufacturers do not press warehouses, and they do not develop new dealers this year. Although the external environment is not very good and the auto market has slowed down, the days of dealers are still better than before." said a BYD dealer.

After the long road ahead, BYD began to stabilise. The sales target set at the beginning of this year was increased by 10% to 600,000 units on the basis of 500,000 vehicles last year. In the development of core requirements, BYD has also shifted its direction, positioning 2011 as the brand year, focusing on the optimization of channels, improving the overall operation level, and paying more attention to the profitability of dealers.

However, under the circumstances that the overall growth rate of the auto market is slowing down, joint venture brands have entered the low-end vehicle sector, and the whole line has been under pressure, independent brands have generally faced great pressure. The road to transformation of BYD is not easy to go.

According to data from the China Automobile Association, in the first half of this year, BYD Auto has become the domestic automobile company with sales volume declining for six consecutive months, which is only 228,800 units, down by 22%, and sales volume is difficult to conceal. If BYD does not recover sales in the second half of the year, it will be difficult for BYD to complete sales of 570,000 to 600,000 vehicles throughout the year.

In mid-July, BYD shares announced half-year performance forecast. It is expected that the net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies in the first half of the year will fall by 85% to 95% year-on-year. One of the reasons for the decline in sales was the year-on-year decline in car sales and auto sales.

In addition to external pressure, BYD needs to solve its own and internal problems. It takes time for products and brands to be upgraded. It cannot be done overnight.

In terms of products, after F3 and F0, BYD needs to build more star models with more than 10,000 monthly sales to support a network of 1,000 dealers. It is difficult to maintain dealerships by continuing to reduce warehouse pressure and focus on service quality. Go on. Although the first SUV model S6 has a good response, but in the case of domestic and foreign brands are targeting the SUV market, the success of the S6 still needs further market verification.

In terms of branding, the low price strategy adopted to ensure rapid growth and the low price impression that quality issues have on consumers have made BYD’s situation a bit similar to that of Geely and other independent brands in previous years. Good new products and better dealer management, improve service quality.

For BYD's marketing team which has grown up within a few years, young people are the main players and lack experience. Whether their ability to learn and execute can keep pace with the needs of business transformation remains to be verified.

In addition to the improvement in management, there are also financial pressures. Due to the large investment in new energy business since 2010, BYD's funds have been further tightened. Recently, BYD disclosed information when it landed domestic A shares. In 2011, BYD required repayment of bank borrowings to 11.363 billion yuan. The debt-to-asset ratio of the entire group at the end of the first quarter was approximately 62.55%, compared with 52.96% at the end of 2009, at the end of 2010. 60.06%, further increase.

Whether it is its own resources or the increasingly harsh competition environment in the outside world, there is not much time left for BYD. Relying on the wilderness of the past, BYD Automobile won the living space in the Chinese and foreign car companies, and won the living space. After the transformation, BYD will rely on what kind of marketing methods to win the development space?

At present, it seems that there is no clear answer to these questions. BYD itself is also exploring. However, it can be confirmed that BYD Auto, which has been in the doldrums of downsizing, will bid farewell to the “arrogant and sudden advancement” type of growth and enter a new phase focusing on the quality of development.