Chapter 99 Burning Money Is an Art
When Yang Huan came from the M40 highway to the small town of Gayton in Warwickshire, on the way to the Aston Martin headquarters, he found a very novel and interesting thing.
That is the headquarters of Jaguar Land Rover, which was acquired by the Indian Tata Motors in 2007. It is actually next door to Aston Martin.
Between the two factories, there is not even a wall to block it, but it is only slightly covered with a green belt.
"In the past, both Jaguar Land Rover and Aston Martin belonged to Ford, so Ford built such a huge and magnificent auto industrial park here, but who would have thought that Ford would not operate well within a few years of moving in. Now these few The block brands have all been sold.”
In that phone call, Zhao Yuanfang, after being hired by Yang Huan, really went from China to the UK.
Yang Huan also handed over the acquisition to Zhao Yuanfang without hesitation.
This investment expert, who was highly valued by Yang Wenfeng before, did not disappoint Yang Huan after coming to the UK. Whether it was Aston Martin or Sunseeker, he successfully kept the purchase price very low.
And Yang Huan's acquisition plan is still in progress.
"Jaguar and Land Rover, these two brands are good!" Yang Huan has a good impression of these two brands.
Now they are in Jaguar's limited-edition XJ limousine, and Yang Huan also has a Range Rover at home.
"It's not bad, but the Indians will definitely not sell, even if they are losing a lot now!" Zhao Yuanfang laughed.
After Jaguar and Land Rover were acquired by India's Tata Motors, they have indeed lost money every year for the past three years.
If Yang Huan remembers correctly, it seems that he started to turn a profit after he entered the Chinese market in a big way.
So at that time, many people in China said that it was not the Indians who saved Jaguar Land Rover, but the Chinese.
Except for important cities such as London, the UK is basically vast and sparsely populated, and the land is very cheap.
Aston Martin has at least 400 acres of land in the northern suburbs of Guyton, and the Jaguar Land Rover next door is not too much.
To get to Aston Martin's headquarters and factory, you must first pass through a circular island. There is a sign on the roundabout that reads, Aston Martin Lagonda, which makes Yang Huan feel very strange.
"Is this factory called Lagonda?"
The British always like to give buildings a name,
For example, Southampton's training base is called Staplewood.
The reason is also very simple. The road outside the training base is called Stapletwood Road.
"No, Lagonda used to be one of the super-luxury car brands in the UK, and its car-making skills are also quite superb, especially good at engine design. It was acquired by Aston Martin in 1947, and it was once launched. Da’s models, but sales were poor, and they were discontinued.”
Yang Huan sighed, and only then did he understand that the full name of Aston Martin was Aston Martin Lagonda.
Finally slowly entered the factory area, clean roads, green environment, fresh country air, all of which make it easy to have a good impression of Aston Martin's Guyton headquarters.
When Yang Huan arrived, Ulrich Bates had already led a group of management to wait outside the gate of the headquarters office.
As soon as Yang Huan's Jaguar arrived, he immediately greeted him.
"Master Huan, welcome to Aston Martin!" Ulrich Bates' attitude towards Yang Huan is completely different now.
Before, he was humble to settle a lawsuit, but now he is polite to his boss.
"Wurich, thank you for your hard work!" Yang Huan said with a smile.
"It's not hard!" After Ulrich Bates closed the door, he led Yang Huan to meet the company's executives.
"This is Hanno Kerner, the company's chief financial officer, this is Keith Stanton, the company's director of production operations, this is the company's design director, Malik Rickman, and this is the company's director of sales, John Kenster."
Following the introduction of Ulrich Bates, Yang Huan walked over and shook hands with them one by one.
The company changed a group of bosses in 2007, and after a few years of bleak operation, they all became a little disheartened.
Now the new boss is young, but his reputation is terrifying. As soon as he acquired the company, there was a car smashing incident that shocked the whole world, but it was this incident that made everyone Everyone recognized the strength of the new boss.
If nothing else, after smashing the car, Sun Yue intervened in Aston Martin's public relations and literally transformed the original potential crisis into a brand building for Aston Martin, turning the crisis into a business opportunity. This ability is still worthwhile. definitely.
I just heard that the Chinese marketing director spent six-digit pounds for this turmoil.
He also seems to be a big spender.
In addition to Zhao Yuanfang, Yang Huan was accompanied to Aston Martin, as well as Sun Yue and Long Wu.
Accompanied by Ulrich Bates and others, the group of four first visited the company's exhibition hall.
The exhibition hall is similar to the 4S store, but the decoration is very simple, even worse than the 4S stores of some low-end brands in China, but it is filled with every model of Aston Martin in the past.
It was also in the exhibition hall that Yang Huan noticed that in addition to designing cars, Aston Martin also designed a lot of things such as leather shoes, watches, wallets, bags and so on. No wonder he met Ulrich Bates in Harros. By then, he was wearing so much Aston Martin stuff.
"Master Huan, this is our production workshop. Except for the use of robots in the body-in-white process, every process of ours is hand-made, even including body painting."
Ulrich Bates introduces Aston Martin's manufacturing process with a smug look.
In his view, it represents the cutting-edge technology and tradition of hand-made automobiles.
When it comes to handcrafted cars, Aston Martin ranks second, and no one dares to claim first.
But in Yang Huan's view, this is somewhat ironic.
While you are obsessed with high-quality hand-made, your competitors are rampantly carrying out assembly line operations, while ensuring quality, they are constantly improving their car-making skills, which has also led to Aston Martin's annual losses. an important reason.
After visiting the leather workshop that Aston Martins are most proud of, Yang Huan, accompanied by Ulrich Bates and others, returned to the administrative office area, and all the core management also walked in one after another. meeting room.
Yang Huan glanced at everyone present and found that everyone was also looking at him, waiting for him to speak.
"I would say that we have to forget the glory we have achieved in the past, or the indifference and the downturn we have suffered."
Everyone present raised their heads, looked at Yang Huan, and listened to his first opening remarks after acquiring the company in a light voice.
"Today, we say goodbye to the glory and lows of the past Aston Martin, and tomorrow, we will welcome a brand new Aston Martin and create a new situation!"
Yang Huan's words won a round of warm applause.
After all, after David Richards acquired Aston Martin, he was even more beautiful than Yang Huan, but what happened?
The people present are all old fritters in the automotive industry, and they are all very aware of the problems Aston Martin is currently encountering and how to solve them. In the final analysis, it is the same thing, money!
"I announce that Aston Martin will invest 20 million pounds to upgrade the car manufacturing plant. I want to complete this project in the shortest possible time. After the new plant is put into use, the entire Aston Martin car production line will be further improved. Perfect, and take Aston Martin's car-making craftsmanship and efficiency to a new level."
When everyone present heard it, there was an uproar.
20 million pounds to upgrade the car factory?
It's a good idea, but to improve productivity, wouldn't it be a return to the mistakes of previous years?
You know, Aston Martin's car factory has an annual output of 8,000 vehicles, but now it only sells more than 3,000 vehicles a year.
Just upgrade the factory, does it work?
Moreover, during the Ulrich Bates period, the most criticized point was that there was sales, but there was no quality.
But Yang Huan also learned about this from Ulrich Bates and listened to his explanation, that is, the research and development could not keep up.
Nowadays, the automobile industry is upgrading faster and faster, and the R&D investment is also getting higher and higher, especially for super luxury cars like Aston Martin. Every car and every new technology requires a lot of investment. funds.
But whether it was at Ford or later during the period of David Richards, Aston Martin did not invest enough money in research and development, which resulted in Aston Martin empty sales and production, but no quality , turned into a disaster.
"I announced that in 2011, Aston Martin's annual R&D budget is 100 million pounds, and I have only one request for the design department and the R&D department. In the shortest possible time, what we have lost in the past, not only Just to get back and catch up with our competitors!"
Yang Huan's words made the whole conference room fry.
"One hundred million pounds?"
"Oh my god, all our R&D projects can start at the same time!"
"Yeah, those programs that were stillborn because of insufficient funds can be restarted."
"It's great, the new boss is good and bold!"
Everyone in the conference room was in an uproar, and there was a lot of discussion.
Ulrich Bates, who was sitting next to Yang Huan, knew that Yang Huan had courage, but he didn't expect that he would have such great courage. He invested 120 million pounds in research and development and equipment upgrades.
"I hope we can master all the core technologies of the entire car manufacturing industry chain, including the research and development of engines, which is our biggest weakness at present. I don't want us to look at other people's faces and do things. I like to let others look at my face and do things. !"
"So, we have to rectify the previous outsourced parts suppliers at the same time. I don't care what happened in the past, in short, from now on, in the future, as long as we aston Martin are the best, we will only do the best!"
Yang Huan's bold words resonated with everyone present.
Aston Martin, once a high-end, high-end existence, has fallen into decline over the years. It was first taken care of by Ford, and then acquired by private capital. It has always been under the radar, and now it has finally ushered in a new boss. People are coming.
The feeling of getting ahead is good and enjoyable!
If you want money, you have money, what you want!
One word, cool!
"In addition, I plan to build an Aston Martin automobile manufacturing center in China. The core of the future automobile consumer market, especially the high-end automobile consumer market, is in China. I can even say rudely, who lost China. In the market, no one wants to be in the automotive field."
"If anyone disagrees with this statement of mine, he has no right to stay at Aston Martin!"
Everyone present could not refute, the importance of the Chinese market is self-evident and everyone knows it.
"So, in order to cater to the Chinese market, we are not only going to make sports cars, we are also trying to make luxury sedans, SUVs and crossovers, so in the next few years, we will focus on building supercars, luxury cars, SUVs, etc. Models are followed by the product phalanx.”
Speaking of which, Yang Huan showed extremely strong self-confidence.
"I not only want to revive Aston Martin's kingship in the field of supercars, but I also want to build Aston Martin into an important force in the automotive kingdom, and the core market will be China's high-end car consumption in the next few years. Battle!"
Burning money is also an art.
Some people burn money without even seeing the ashes.
But some people burn money but burn a mountain of gold.
Yang Huan undoubtedly wants to be the latter. ()