Full coverage: G20 Hangzhou Summit
Hangzhou is the capital of Zhejiang Province, home to Zhe-Shang or Zhejiang businesspeople, China’s most dynamic business community. For decades, these businesspeople have been at the forefront of China’s changing business landscape. They've been behind a number of business miracles. But as China undergoes economic transformation and the rules of the game change, can this special community stay ahead?
This tricycle belongs to Zong Qinghou, one of China’s richest men. Zong rode this tricycle around Hangzhou 30 years ago selling ice popsicles, before he founded the food and beverage giant, Hangzhou Wahaha.
Geely group, the first private enterprise in China to manufacture cars, marketed its first vehicle in 1998. Just 12 years later and Geely, led by founder Li Shufu, acquired Volvo Car from Ford for 1 point 8 billion US dollars.
At the Zhejiang Merchants Museum, you can check out the stories of successful local businessman that help make Zhejiang the most developed and economically dynamic region in China. There are over 6 million Zhejiang merchants doing business in China and almost 2 million across the world. With a different market landscape, they are seeking ways to find new engines for growth.
"The Zhejiang business community is pushing forward bold innovations not only in business concepts and models, but also marketing and management. I saw some innovation attempts as quite “destructive”," Professor Zhao Haoing with Zhejiang Gongshang University said.
Xiolift is a relatively young company, started only 12 years ago. But its management team are veterans in the business world.
When they formed the company, they were determined to make the world’s best elevator products, with a strong focus on innovation.
"When we built this manufacturing facility, we complied with the world’s highest standards. We took information flow, staff flow, and products flow fully into account in the layout of our production line. This is in line with the national campaign of “Made in China 2025” by combining information technology with automation," Wang Guoqing, executive VP with Hangzhou Xiolift said.
The elevator manufacturer has also replaced some workers with robots. This has improved production efficiency by over 50 per cent.
From R&D, to manufacturing, from marketing to after-sale services, Xio Lift management believes the company can only become more competitive by pushing boundaries.
There are some new trends among Zhejiang businessmen.
"More enterprises are transforming into light-asset operation. Traditionally, companies have an eye on how much land they occupy, how many employees they have on payroll and how many bank loans they can apply for. Now their focus is on how best to integrate capital and human resources," Professor Zhao said.
Zhou Jun is the partner of a start-up company in the virtual reality industry.
Unlike most Chinese VR companies that focus solely on making games, this company chooses the “hard mode", hoping to make VR hardware and equipment. A short board for China’s VR sector.
They focus on designing equipment, and outsourcing manufacturing to its partners in Shenzhen city and Shandong province. The company also fully leverage 3rd-party services in distribution and installation, which make KAT VR a very light company.
"Light-asset operation allows us to allocate resources more easily. We can be more flexible when move forward. By dedicating ourselves to R&D, we’ve applied for many patents in China and across the world. Our technology has won recognition from many VR industry insiders," Zhou said.
That’s called “internet thinking”, a term many Zhejiang businessmen are talking about. Experts say by fully leveraging professional services, resources and capital, the Zhejiang companies together are becoming stronger than ever.
