Because of their special recognition of YY's influence, the person in charge of Honeywell paid special attention to this interview with Li Mu. CEO Gao Dewei arrived in Silicon Valley one day in advance, hoping to meet Li Mu as soon as possible.
Honeywell and 3M are both Fortune 500 companies. Because Honeywell is heavily involved in materials, petrochemicals, aviation and other fields, its total market value is higher than 3M. This year, Honeywell's market value is 25 billion. The U.S. dollar fluctuates, and 3M currently only has 15 billion U.S. dollars.
However, for Gao Dewei, Honeywell’s problem is also very serious. More than 70% of the company’s profit sources come from 2B (To-Business) business. To put it bluntly, 2B business is business for corporate users. Honeywell’s Ordinary people are almost completely unfamiliar with the achievements made in these enterprises.
For example, few ordinary consumers know that Honeywell is one of the world’s top five automotive turbocharger manufacturers;
Few consumers know that most of the world's oil refining companies and petrochemical companies have adopted Honeywell equipment or even complete solutions;
Even in the aerospace field, there are many references to Honeywell. It may be an important part of some parts of Boeing aircraft, but consumers still don’t know it;
This situation has basically destined that Honeywell’s corporate visibility and influence are seriously insufficient at the level of ordinary users. Honeywell’s next top priority is actually to fully expand its 2C (To-Customer) business. ) business, which is very different from 2B business.
At the 2B level, Honeywell can sell turbochargers to every car company in the world, but it cannot sell turbochargers directly to ordinary consumers. At the 2B level, it only faces dozens of car companies. , but once it reaches the 2C level, it will have to face billions of people around the world.
The company's influence among ordinary people is seriously insufficient and its retail sales channels are almost zero, which will be the biggest constraint for Honeywell's 2C business.
But in Honeywell's view, Li Mu not only has a very influential YY, he also has Taobao, which controls the entire Chinese e-commerce share. If he can establish a good cooperative relationship with Li Mu, not only can he YY increases corporate visibility and influence, and can also directly increase product sales through Taobao, achieving multiple goals with one stone.
…
The next morning, Li Mu met Honeywell CEO Gao Dewei in the office of Makino Technology's Silicon Valley branch.
The 50-year-old Godwin just took office as the CEO of Honeywell last year. Before that, he had an extremely rich employment resume. He had served as a senior executive at General Electric and ****, and he was considered a well-known company in the United States. Professional managers.
However, in terms of reputation, Gao Dewei is more than one level behind Li Mu.
In the current Western world, Li Mu's popularity is almost the same as that of Bill Gates. Even Steve Jobs's current popularity is not as good as Li Mu's.
Under this premise, Gao Dewei was particularly polite to Li Mu.
Moreover, there is a very accurate rule in traditional industries. Most of the companies that do a lot of 2B business are Party B for thousands of years, while companies that truly face the 2C market are the eternal Party A in the cooperation between companies.
Although a company like Honeywell has a lot of interests, it has always contributed to others. Party B has done a lot, and has cultivated a habit of humility and courtesy from top to bottom. Compared with those It is much easier to get along with people who are used to being Party A and have a pretentious air about them.
Gao Dewei praised Li Mu and Makino Technology's achievements from the very beginning. After being polite to him for a few minutes, Li Mu took the lead in stating his purpose.
"Mr. Gao Dewei, the reason why I asked you to meet this time is to conduct some product-level cooperation with Honeywell."
Gao Dewei nodded and said: "I have heard from Elon before. He told me that you are interested in purchasing a batch of daily protective equipment from Honeywell."
Li Mu smiled slightly: "Yes, we have a relatively large procurement plan in the field of protective equipment. We hope to negotiate directly with Honeywell and reach a deal."
Gao Dewei asked Li Mu: "Mr. Li, are you purchasing protective equipment to be sold in China?"
"That's right." Li Mu said frankly: "Only sold in China."
Gao Dewei said with some embarrassment: "To tell you the truth, we already had an agent in China ten years ago, and we signed an exclusive general agent contract. Strictly speaking, all Honeywell products sold in China are You have to go through this agent. If we bypass the agent and supply you directly, the agent will definitely have great objections... "
At this point, Gao Dewei hurriedly changed his tone and said: "But don't worry, if the situation permits, we can coordinate. At that time, we will give the agents a certain amount of compensation. When they accept your sales of our company in China, Protective equipment, after all, most of our company’s sales come from large equipment.”
Li Mu smiled calmly and said: "No need to go to such trouble, your company can just give me a network agent authorization directly."
"Network agent?" Gao Dewei was a little surprised.
Li Mu nodded and said with a smile: "The agency rights you signed with agents in various places were defined for sales channels in the traditional sense. Those are offline transactions. You can separate the online transactions separately and authorize them to me. , and I also promise to only conduct online sales on e-commerce platforms in China, so that there will be no conflict with your agents."
The development period of e-commerce is very short. So far, apart from eBay and Amazon, the only truly successful e-commerce platform is Li Mu’s Taobao. However, eBay focuses on C2C second-hand goods trading, and Amazon started out as a bookseller and is now transforming into a B2C platform. But it's still in the exploratory stage, so the concept of 'online agents' hasn't really come out yet.
However, Gao Dewei soon understood what Li Mu meant. With the continuous development of society, the definitions in many senses must become more and more refined. After the birth of e-commerce, sales channels have derived from traditional channels. Online channels, and traditional agents do not understand e-commerce, so it is necessary to redefine the agency rights for online sales.
After Gao Dewei figured this out, he became very interested in Li Mu's proposal and said: "Mr. Li, I think we can follow your proposal and authorize Honeywell's online agent sales rights in China to your company."
At this point, Gao Dewei looked a little embarrassed and said: "But frankly speaking, Honeywell's current 2C product line is too few. Although we are also actively transforming, it is really difficult for manufacturing companies to switch from 2B to 2C. It’s a little difficult.”
The biggest reason why Gao Dewei wanted to meet Li Mu was to reach promotion cooperation with Li Mu. He didn't care how many products Li Mu could help Honeywell sell in China's e-commerce market in the future. He hoped that Li Mu could help Honeywell. Weir spreads the company's popularity and lays a solid foundation for the company's future 2C business.
Li Mu can probably guess Gao Dewei's intention. After all, he is the CEO of a large company with a market value of more than 20 billion US dollars. If it is really for tens of millions of dollars in sales, there is no need for him to come to interview him in person, and he has to travel so far ahead of time. When he came to Silicon Valley, the only possibility was that he wanted something for himself.
After hearing what he said, Li Mu could discern his biggest need from his words.
So, Li Mu asked him with a smile: "As for Honeywell's next development, is it interested in increasing the proportion of 2C business?"
Gao Dewei nodded: "In my opinion, although 2B business is our foundation, 2C business is very important. Whether the company can develop in a real sense basically depends on the development of our 2C business, but we There is currently insufficient driving force in the 2C field, so I very much hope to cooperate with your company in this regard to help us promote the development of 2C business."
Li Mu frowned slightly and said seriously: "Actually, the more important thing about 2C business is the complete products and solutions behind 2C business. You must first have products capable of 2C before you can open up the 2C market. Just cooperating with me is not enough. , you can’t come out with an aircraft control system and do 2C business, consumers won’t buy it, and they can’t afford it.”
With that, Li Mu added: "Most of the manufacturing companies among the world's top 500 companies are mainly 2C businesses. Among the world's top 500 companies last year, the top-ranked manufacturing companies should be automobile manufacturers. Enterprises, right? In my impression, General Motors, Ford, Toyota, Volkswagen, and Honda all seem to be in the top 50. In addition to these, there are also Siemens, General Electric, and Hitachi. They are basically 2C enterprises. Their products Including cars, home appliances, medical equipment, etc., they are also 2C products.”
In Li Mu's view, it is not difficult to switch from 2B to 2C in the Internet field, but it is extremely difficult to switch from 2B to 2C in the manufacturing industry.
World-renowned automobile companies, including General Motors and Toyota, actually integrate a large number of 2B suppliers like Honeywell, and then come up with final 2C products.
Companies similar to Honeywell include Bosch, ZF, Aisin, Takata, etc. Among them, the most powerful one is probably Bosch. Not only does it have many auto parts product lines, but it also has a large number of patents. Technology, among which the famous ESP was invented by Bosch, but even so, it is difficult for Bosch to transform from 2B to 2C in the field of automobile manufacturing.
For example, ZF and Aisin, which specialize in the production of gearboxes, and Takata, which specializes in the production of airbags, will find it even more difficult to complete the transformation from 2B to 2C in the automotive field.
Honeywell is facing the same situation.
Although 2B is doing very well, it is not enough to support the company to make a big leap forward based on the existing foundation. If you want to make a bigger leap, you must make a breakthrough in the 2C business.
Gao Dewei strongly agreed with Li Mu's point of view and said seriously: "Mr. Li, we have actually started to try 2C products now. For example, we acquired a water purifier company some time ago and have started to produce our own household water purifiers. Next In the next step, we are also preparing to put into production household air purifiers. We have a lot of technical accumulation in these fields, which can ensure that we produce better products."
Li Mu nodded and said seriously: "Since Honeywell wants to do 2C business, it might as well hand over the network agency rights to Taobao first. China has a population of more than one billion. I can use Taobao to help Honeywell open the Chinese market."
Having said this, Li Mu paused and then said: "However, this first requires Honeywell to solve my demand for supply of protective products!"
(End of chapter)