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ZHANG Lihua: Grow up With Webasto China

Fri, Jan 19, 2018

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Zhang lihua, studied at the mechanical institute of Tongji University from 1994 to 1999, is also Tongji EMBA 2012 alumni. He is now vice president of customer in Webasto China. 

Grounded team of China

Three years after graduating from Tongji University, Zhang Lihua resigned from a large state-owned enterprise and participated in Webasto China in 2002 when he could not even realize it would be the beginning of his fifteen years in Webasto. 

Webasto is a German family enterprise with a history of more than 110 years, which was founded in 1901 and is headquartered in Stockdorf, near Munich, Germany. The company has been devoting in development and research & producing automobile parts for the auto industry for over 75 years. It is committed to the business of automobile skylight, convertible top and heating system and maintain market leadership in the industry. Webasto is not only one of the Top 100 auto parts suppliers in the world, also, it is one of the Top 15 auto parts suppliers in Germany. 

In the past 15 years, China's auto industry has entered a period of rapid development, meanwhile it is the time that Zhang Lihua grow up with Webasto Chinese team. Zhang Lihua joined Webasto as a project engineer in 2002, then served as a project manager after his internship, half a year later he came into contact with business and sales, three years later Zhang was promoted to a department manager. In 2007, Webasto began to have the concept of "China district", when zhang Lihua was promoted to be the general customer manager of China and vice President of business development and sales in China in 2012. With the expansion of the Chinese market, the functions of the headquarter in China improve in sales, procurement, finance, research and development, operation,etc. "When I first came to Webasto, it had only two clients in China, and over 20 million RMB in annual sales, now it has more than 80 billion sales." The success is closely related to Chinese market boom, but as Zhang believes, the secret that makes Webasto lead in the market competition in China is its localization team management. 

"Many foreign companies come to China but cannot fully adapt to Chinese market and national conditions, and the China teams obtain limited authorization that is quite different for Webasto, which is invested by foreign company and managed by local team. Of course, there are foreigners in our team." Zhang Lihua believes that the team in China is close to the market and well-informed of the national conditions, which is an irreplaceable advantage in the decision-making and judgment of many projects. Meanwhile, the authorization of the German headquarters makes many decisions of the China team more timely. The practice of the past few years also proves that the management team of Webasto China has chosen a lot of local auto enterprise customers with good development. Sales in China now account for a third of Webasto’s total sales, and the proportion will increase in the next few years. 

Thanks to the mentor of Tongji

As the vice President of customer, zhang Lihua is now responsible for the sales and marketing, project management and customer engineering of Webasto China, leading three teams with more than 100 colleagues. His outstanding leadership began to show during his undergraduate period in Tongji, his figure is active in all kinds of student associations and organizations: be the class league branch secretary, be the president of school martial arts association, also do student work in the school dormitory management association and college sports department. The most fortunate part for Zhang, as he said, is that having met a lot of professors who are both admirable in character and knowledge in Tongji, among who Mr. Wu Qingnian is undoubtedly the most memorable: "Our class was Mr. Wu’s last class before his retirement, which is called last disciple. Mr. Wu likes to spend time with students, calling us to his home on weekends serving a good meal." Zhang Lihua was impressed by Mr. Wu’s meticulous care and warm heart, and Mr. Wu's words and actions also affected the students. Zhang insisted on visiting Mr. Wu every year for over twenty years regardless of busy work. 

Under the enthusiastic recommendation of Ms. Wu, Zhang Lihua chose his Alma mater, Tongji university, for EMBA study in 2012. The period of Zhang’s EMBA study in Tongji is also the time of rapid development for Webasto in China, which does great help to his career as Zhang said: "Before EMBA study, I was exploring in the work by myself, Tongji EMBA enabled me to access to the knowledge of management completely and systematically." His study in Tongji made him change the logic and way of perception. If the original way was to understand the company's business from individual function, while Tongji EMBA enables him to grasp the operation of enterprises as a whole, to judge the trend of the development of the industry from the macro level, to view the nature of the business from a abstracted perspective. In retrospect, he felt that the greater gain was the widening of field of view: "Every student in the class is one in a thousand in their fields. You can't help but be inspired by a lot of good qualities in each other." 

Customer-oriented core competitiveness

Webasto accounts for more than 50% market share in both China and global scale . It is not easy for a longstanding manufacturing company with a hundred years of history to maintain such achievements over a relatively long period of time. "Webasto has been actively changing with the times, which is why it can adapt to market changes, especially in country like China." This adaptability is not formed overnight. Zhang indicated that for huge market volatility in China, Webasto found it difficult to adapt to at first as well : "The next month demand I received last week  changes with what I received this week,which is unlikely to happen in countries with mature auto markets. But this is the real situation in China, you have to do what I want." 

By customizing specific solutions for the dramatically changing Chinese market, Webasto is also pushing its own corporate transformation. Webasto has started to make "customer-oriented" as one of its core competencies while many of its competitors remain "product-oriented". "In addition to products and research and development, we have a slam dunk called customer service management, which is not easy to replicate because it involves the entire corporate culture." 

The Webasto team of China is particularly customer-oriented. "In China, relationship is very important, and the impact of people and relationships is not necessarily negative." When a lot of innovations are made by auto parts suppliers, the relationship between Webasto and customer is no longer limited to supply or matching relations, "we will develop our customer to a partner." The best way to dynamically adapt to the needs of customers is to participate when customer demand and plan firstly put forward, Which is called "early intervention" by Webasto China: "It takes several years for a new model vehicle from project settlement to market launch, and the growth and sales period is likely to last a decade. Therefore, we need to consider whether this model can be accepted by the market and consumers after 10 years at the period of research and development. Webasto’s "customer-oriented" is apparently reflected here: "The client will show us the five-year or ten-year plan, then we propose, discuss and grow up together." 

Innovation to embrace future of auto industry in China 

Chinese auto market peak sales is estimated at about 35-50 million by 2025, indicating that there is huge development space comparing with the domestic passenger car and commercial vehicle sales of 28-29 million sales scale in 2017. It can be expected that the new energy vehicle market will grow to 2-3 million production within future two or three years, which makes Webasto believe that there are still great opportunities and potential in China. 

In fact, while strengthening the existing core business, Webasto is also exploring new business areas and introducing solutions related to electric vehicles. Dr. Engman, global chairman of the board of Webasto Group, claims that as the global auto industry innovation system partners, Webasto is to invest in the future automobile market on the basis of existing expertise and advantage, which is the foundation of the future business. 

Talking about the future, Zhang Lihua looks confident and full of expectation: "We can imagine, when unmanned vehicle, intelligent network become the trend of the future automobile market, people will have more freedom in the car, even with hands free from the steering wheel, then we will have greater imagination for the use of the car roof and skylight." The market environment is changeable, and there may never be a correct answer for the future. The methodology based on the correct thinking logic is the way to business success.

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