Innovation, quality and brand： the key words to understand entrepreneurship

　　 Editor’s note:Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the CPC Central Committee with the Supreme Leader as the core has put forward a series of new development concepts, which have become new navigation marks to guide the development of state-owned enterprises in China. In recent years, our government has paid more and more attention to promoting entrepreneurship and revitalizing the real economy. How should we understand entrepreneurship? How should we put entrepreneurship into practice? In this interview, we invite Liu Hualong, Party Secretary and Chairman of CRRC Corporation, to explain it for everyone.

　　 Interviewer: Liu Hualong (Party Secretary and Chairman of CRRC Corporation)

　　 Interview host: Zhao Mengxiao.

　　 Wonderful point of view:

　　 ■ Entrepreneurs have a unique position in the enterprise, and their foresight and extraordinary courage are an important guarantee for the core competitiveness of the enterprise. Therefore, an excellent entrepreneur must be good at the overall situation and need to have strategic thinking and global vision.

　　 ■ Innovation is the soul of entrepreneurship. It is not the flash of genius, but arduous work.

　　 ■ To carry forward the entrepreneurial spirit at this stage is to stick to the industry, build a national business card of high-end equipment manufacturing industry, and contribute to the competitiveness of the national real economy. I want to use three key words to illustrate, one is innovation, the other is quality and the other is brand.

　　 Interview record:

　　 Qiushi. com: The connotation of entrepreneurship is very rich. What kind of entrepreneurship do you think we should carry forward?

　　 Liu Hualong:I think an excellent entrepreneur should be a politician and an expert, so entrepreneurship should include at least three aspects: first, strategic thinking and global vision; second, reform and innovation, leading the future; third, courage to take responsibility and achieve the mission. Strategic guidance and global vision are the direction, reform and innovation and leading the future are the realization paths, and courage to take responsibility and mission are the ability guarantee.

　　 Strategic thinking, global vision.Entrepreneurs have a unique position in enterprises, and their foresight and extraordinary courage are important guarantees for the core competitiveness of enterprises. Therefore, an excellent entrepreneur must be good at the overall situation and need to have strategic thinking and global vision. As a leader of a central enterprise, he must be a politician and a specialist, with political consciousness, overall situation consciousness, core consciousness and conformity consciousness.

　　 In my early years, when I was the main person in charge of CRRC Qiqihar Company, I took technological innovation as the core strategy of the enterprise, and made it the core goal to be the backbone of national industry and the leader of truck enterprises, thus winning the reputation of "China and China trucks are on par with each other in the world". After coming to work in the Group, whether in the process of restructuring and listing of CSR, the reorganization and merger of North and South cars, or the development of high-speed rail in China, from the height of national strategy, we actively explored effective ways for the manufacturing industry to move from the low-end to the high-end, and constantly promoted the China high-speed EMU to continue to lead and climb the peak.

　　 Reform and innovation, leading the future.Innovation is the soul of entrepreneurship. It is not the flash of genius, but arduous work. For example, during the development of high-speed rail in China, we put innovation in the most important position. Drawing lessons from the failure of technology introduction in many domestic industries, we creatively put forward the strategy of "walking on two legs" in the process of high-speed rail introduction. First, put an end to repeated introduction. After introducing the EMU with a speed of 200 kilometers per hour, we refused to introduce the EMU with a speed of 300 kilometers per hour, thus avoiding falling into the circle of "introduction-backwardness-reintroduction-backwardness". Second, while digesting the imported technology, we will arrange the self-developed EMU with a speed of 300 kilometers per hour. Finally, after the introduction of the first-generation EMU, we independently developed the second-generation EMU "Harmony" CRH380 series, in which CRH380A obtained the patent evaluation from Davis Law Firm and Intellectual Property Office of the United States, which opened the door to the world high-speed rail market. Not long ago, under the leadership of the Railway Corporation, we developed the third generation EMU — — China’s standard EMUs went off the assembly line again, and were officially named as "Fuxing", which established the China standard technical system. Among the 254 important standards involved, China standard accounted for 84%, which made China high-speed EMUs truly realize from "technology following" to "Technology leads the leap.

　　 Of course, for an entrepreneur, innovation covers a wide range, including product innovation, management innovation, organizational innovation, market innovation and so on.Management innovationBy promoting the production process reengineering, an all-round lean management and control mode from lean production to lean management to lean enterprise has been established. This lean management mode has become the management cornerstone of China high-speed rail equipment, the foundation for promoting CRRC’s transformation and upgrading, building a modern organization, accelerating CRRC’s global layout, building a world-class enterprise, and the foundation for CRRC’s sustainable development and achieving a lasting foundation.Organizational form innovationThrough the reform of labor, personnel and distribution system, the organizational vitality is activated, and then the main and auxiliary departments are separated, and then China South Locomotive Co., Ltd. is restructured to realize A+H listing. The establishment of modern enterprise system and the change of organizational system provide organizational guarantee for the success of high-speed rail.Market innovationI put forward the transformation of the company’s business model, focusing on the two tasks of high-end and digitalization, actively adapting to the transformation of production mode, actively promoting the integration of industrialization and informatization, manufacturing and service industry, project operation and supporting financing, product management and capital management, promoting the transformation of industrial model from product manufacturing as the core to products, services, finance and system solutions, and promoting the transformation and upgrading of CRRC manufacturing.In terms of international market developmentActively explore the "five models" of "localized manufacturing, localized employment, localized procurement, localized maintenance and localized management", and strive to play the "four roles" of "translator of culture, incubator of talents, propeller of industry and good neighbor of community" to promote the transformation from "going out" to "going in".

　　 Dare to take responsibility, the mission will be achieved.An excellent entrepreneur must have a strong sense of responsibility and a spirit of daring to take responsibility. Capitalists can vote with their feet according to market conditions, sell their stocks and quit the enterprise, while entrepreneurs should use their loyalty and responsibility to achieve a career. Entrepreneurs don’t run their business for survival, in fact, their business is their life. In the development orientation of CRRC, we should correctly handle the dialectical relationship between economic benefits and social responsibilities, speed and quality. I put forward the overall development idea of "building a respected international company", actively change the development mode, vigorously promote the supply-side structural reform, fully deploy the "1+19" top-level design of CRRC reform, conscientiously implement the five tasks of "three to one, one to one, one to make up", and strive to solve the problems of poor conversion of new and old development kinetic energy and unbalanced enterprise development in the development of the group. The practice and experience of CRRC reform have been highly affirmed by the Central Deep Reform Office, the State Council Inspection Team and SASAC.

　　 Qiushi. com: As far as CRRC is concerned, how should we carry forward the entrepreneurial spirit and put it into practice at present?

　　 Liu Hualong:To carry forward the entrepreneurial spirit at this stage is to stick to the industry, create a national business card for high-end equipment manufacturing industry, and contribute to the competitiveness of the national real economy. I want to use three key words to illustrate, one isinnovate, one isquality, one isbrand.

　　 The first key word is "innovation".High-speed EMUs realize the transformation from technology following to technology leading, which is called "a beautiful national business card" by the Supreme Leader General Secretary. The key lies in innovation. What supports CRRC today is also innovation.First, based on high-end guidance, establish a global R&D highland for rail transit.For example, we jointly established the first and only national technological innovation center in China — — The National High-speed Train Technology Innovation Center aims to explore the "no-man’s land" of high-speed trains, to become the "source of supply" of key technologies in the industry, to become the international base of "production" industry standards, and to become the "locomotive" leading the technological development of the industry. Here we will build a big data center, a supercomputing center and a test and verification center, and we will study the most cutting-edge technologies such as new materials, intelligent products and intelligent manufacturing.Second, based on system coordination, build an open innovation platform for Industry-University-Research.For example, at present, the high-speed maglev project we are developing will effectively aggregate superior scientific and technological innovation resources such as 44 enterprises, 16 universities and 5 research institutes.Third, based on the transformation of achievements, increase investment in scientific research to provide financial guarantee.In the "2016 Global Enterprise R&D Investment Ranking" recently released by the European Commission, CRRC ranked 96th in the world with R&D expenditure of 13.6 billion yuan, ranking first in China’s manufacturing industry.Fourth, based on standard construction, enhance the voice and influence of the industry.In the construction of industry standards, we actively undertake the compilation and revision of international, national and industry standards. During the Twelfth Five-Year Plan period, we presided over or participated in the compilation and revision of more than 70 international standards, presided over or participated in the drafting of more than 200 national standards and nearly 1,000 industry standards. In terms of patent application layout, CRRC has applied for a total of 32,044 patents, including 13,808 invention patents. First, CRRC’s patent layout is of high quality. In the 18th China Patent Award in 2016, CRRC won 2 gold medals in China, 4 patents in China and 2 patents in China. The number of patent gold medals in China accounts for one tenth of the country, ranking first in the country. According to the statistics of the 1st to 17th China Patent Awards, CRRC ranked second in China with 38 China Patent Awards, higher than ZTE ranked third and Huawei ranked fourth. Second, CRRC has increased the intensity of foreign patent applications. In 2016, CRRC applied for 303 foreign patents, double the number of applications in 2015. Up to now, CRRC has applied for 1213 foreign patents, covering the United States, major European countries, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Russia and other countries.

　　 The second keyword is "quality".As a national business card, high-end and high-quality high-speed rail is the core gene of this business card. In recent years, high-speed rail has experienced a process from criticism to praise in society. The most fundamental thing of this transformation is to rely on excellent quality to dispel people’s doubts and win the market pass. By the end of 2016, the operating mileage of China high-speed rail exceeded 22,000 kilometers, accounting for more than 65% of the global high-speed rail operating mileage; CRRC has produced a total of 2,586 EMUs of various types, with a cumulative mileage of over 2.8 billion kilometers. In 2016, the EMU sent a total of 1.443 billion passengers, exceeding 51% of the total number of passengers for the first time. From the aspects of speed grade, online number, driving density, operating energy consumption, stability and comfort, all indicators of China high-speed railway have entered the advanced ranks in the world. Insist on ingenuity, we have made every working procedure and every part into a fine product.

　　 The third key word is brand.An obvious sign of enterprises’ pursuit of excellent quality is that they should form brand-name products with independent intellectual property rights and constantly improve their core values and overall strength. CRRC has done a lot of work in brand building. We strive to build a high-end brand image, highlight the competitive advantages of comprehensive brands, take advantage of the new round of scientific and technological revolution, constantly enrich the brand values of CRRC, and constantly give brand development new space. Complete products, strong technology, high quality, excellent price, fast delivery and good service have become the remarkable characteristics of CRRC brand. In 2016, CRRC became one of the only six enterprises in China with a brand value exceeding 100 billion; In the evaluation of British consulting organizations, it ranks 179th among the top 500 brands in the world.

　　 Building a world-renowned high-end brand will not happen overnight, and there is still a long way to go to build a national business card for high-end equipment manufacturing industry. We will continue to redouble our efforts to live up to the expectations of the party and the country.