The 6th International Excellent Operations Annual Conference in 2016 was held in Suzhou from November 18th to 20th, with the theme of "Gathering Global Intelligence to Explore the Road of 'New Craftsmen'". Multiple entrepreneurs, experts, scholars, and government leaders from countries and regions such as Germany, the United States, Japan, France, Italy, Singapore, Taiwan, and Hong Kong gathered together to explore the Chinese manufacturing industry and explore the path of new craftsmen.

After the meeting, NetEase Jiangsu's outpost program conducted an exclusive interview with Ding Wei, Global Vice President and China President of AO Smith.

Outpost: Hello! Mr. Ding, I am Han Xiaoqiang, a journalist from NetEase Jiangsu. I'm glad you can accept our interview. I have had a good impression of the AO Smith team in Nanjing, Jiangsu, who is engaged in sales. The deepest impression left on me is service. As a manufacturing industry, what is the true corporate culture of the AO team? How is it achieved in daily management?

Ding Wei: In our corporate culture, there are four aspects of satisfaction: "shareholders, customers, employees, and society." Service is a part of customer satisfaction and a core support point, because customer satisfaction with the quality and technical content of your product is an important link. Whether the product is worth it or not, service is becoming increasingly important. Service is not only after-sales service, but also pre-sales communication with customers, customer introductions during online shopping, and so on, They are all a manifestation of serving customers. The previous service was brand service, but now it has risen to the level of marketing.

The true corporate culture of the AO team is the four satisfactions. Everything revolves around institutional construction, not using the four satisfactions as slogans, but integrating this concept into daily work behavior to ensure the implementation of the four satisfactions.

In daily management, the maintenance of systems still relies on people. Ultimately, it is about what kind of people the enterprise recruits and what kind of people the enterprise promotes. Enterprises assess employees' satisfaction in the four aspects, so that the four aspects of satisfaction can be implemented in the enterprise.

Outpost: With a century long history of operation, although AO did not start with home appliances, it is undoubtedly a leader in the field of home appliances. The transformation of this business field itself has witnessed the advantages of localized operation experience. Can you share with us how it fits into the Chinese consumer market and keeps up with changes in China's economic development from both product and technology dimensions?

Ding Wei: Smith has a century old tradition, and one of the most important things is that we attach great importance to research and development. We not only do well in Smith electric water heaters that have been in production for seven to eighty years, but also in China's water purification industry, starting from 10 years ago, we have achieved industry first in just six years. We are not simply achieving first place through production and price, but through our technology. Objectively speaking, Smith's water purifier is the best in home reverse osmosis technology globally, based on our Chinese research and development team. The US headquarters only provided support in research and other aspects, but the core technology was built by the Chinese team. In six years, we objectively achieved global technological leadership. At the beginning, we invested in research and development regardless of cost. In the past few years, we were not profitable. Our research and development team was built according to international standards, and Smith's century of experience was to occupy the market with technology.

Outpost: In the past two years, AO's water purifiers and air purifiers have gained an advantage in the market share, and customers are also relatively satisfied with the products. What have AO considered and summarized the gains and losses of these two products from research and development to market?

Ding Wei: We have our own simple and effective "several axes". The first one is to recruit a large number of R&D engineers, providing them with superior R&D conditions, hardware, and personnel. The second challenge is to challenge this research and development team. The research and development team is not doing small and trivial tasks, but solving industry problems. Once we enter any category, we have a serious goal to become industry leaders and lead industry development.

The water purifier has been the first in the industry since it was launched six years ago, and no one knows when the filter element will be replaced. Our first product comes with an intelligent core replacement prompt. The filter element is frequently changed, so we have developed a three year filter element that does not require replacement; In order to prevent secondary pollution from the water purifier, we have developed a ready to use water purifier.

We launched the air purifier in the first quarter of last year, and our quantity is not yet up to industry leaders, but our technology is leading. The PM2.5 representation of purifiers on the market is not intuitive, so we have developed a purifier that directly digitally represents the PM2.5 value.

Outpost: There are risks and competition when encountering opportunities. What is currently the most proud aspect of AO for you?

Ding Wei: The proudest thing is that in our three major categories, we have already reached the top of the industry and are constantly improving, with new categories also rapidly rising.

Outpost: As the home appliance manufacturing industry, creating the AO with the highest reputation in the industry, in what aspects are the teams you lead truly satisfactory?

Ding Wei: What satisfies me with Smith is that the basic elements such as brand, service, technology, and agent network are all very good. Our customer element is the agent network. If the home appliance industry is rated as a gold medal agent, at least five of them are Smith. The innovation ability and centripetal force of our staff team are also obvious to all in the industry.

But there are also shortcomings. We feel that our organizational construction cannot keep up with the development potential of the Chinese market. The doubling of Chinese market indicators is a feasible indicator. If we want to double the indicators, the talents who can take on the initiative within the enterprise cannot keep up with the development needs of the enterprise.

Outpost: What are your ideas for the future in the field of innovation?

Ding Wei: Our innovation is everywhere. In the future, the development of enterprises will be more model innovation. The innovation of service model, marketing model and brand propaganda model will bring great opportunities. In the future, Smith's development will optimize the existing model to achieve higher efficiency, better user experience, more convenience, and timeliness, continuously producing new products to serve consumers.