Ask Vanke: Multiple Deconstructions of Wang Xi's 20-Year Entrepreneurial Career: Multiple Deconstructions of Wang Xi's 20-Year Entrepreneurial Career

Author: Li Yongtao
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-01-01
Features: It is obviously not an easy task to take two years to sort out a company's 20-year development, let alone a company and the society it belongs to that spans two entirely different commercial system environments. The conflicts in the company's development models, the impact of the old and new commercial environments, and the painful choices between diversification and specialization have formed a dramatic picture. Like Vanke, many Chinese companies celebrated their 20th anniversary this year. As Mr. Wu Xiaobo said, 20-year-old companies in China can only be superficial victories, because whether they succeed or not, 20 years is far from the time to cheer and celebrate for a company. During the process of preparing this book, the author also found that Vanke's 20-year development was merely a "superficial victory" and could not even be called a "victory." Why? At most, Vanke's 20-year development could only be said to have found a direction for itself! Maybe for this direction, Vanke still needs to spend several more, or even dozens of 20-year periods to prove that its victory is not "superficial." Frankly speaking, when the author began to this book at the end of 2002, there was no excuse for "20 years." The author's identity at that time was complex—on one hand, a real estate journalist who had been tracking Vanke for many years, and on the other, a potential owner and owner of Vanke. In 2002, the Chinese real estate industry was suffering from a widespread crisis of trust, and Vanke was one of the few companies we could trust. A book about Vanke might be something our society and market desperately needed. At that time, the ideas we designed and the structure of this book were very different from the final version. The initial plan was to observe from three perspectives: one was from a company and a system; two was from a company and a person; and three was from a company and a magazine. In this plan, we tried to explain Vanke from three angles: the trajectory of Vanke and the construction of Chinese corporate systems, how Wang Shiqi influenced the development of a company, and how a magazine became the spiritual bastion of China's most traditional corporate culture. Later, as the research deepened, we found that Wang Shiqi and Vanke were too closely linked. The propositions of a system and a company, and a magazine and a company were all included in the proposition of a company and a person! As the founder of Vanke, Wang Shiqi, a successful entrepreneur with a distinct personality, his character traits and management style have deeply rooted in Vanke's blood over the past 20 years. His greatest contribution to Vanke and even the entire Chinese corporate world was: creating a corporate system and a corporate culture with no prior experience. Therefore, it was actually difficult to explain Vanke from three aspects as initially planned. After repeated revisions, we finally decided to use three events that occurred in 1994 to drive the entire book. Vanke was founded in 1984, and 1994 happened to be the end of the first decade and the beginning of the second decade. Coincidentally, the disputes between Vanke and Junda, the Vanke-Wanjia incident, and the Haisen Plaza incident around 1994 became three of the most important events in Wang Shiqi's memory, and the occurrence and subsequent handling of these three events directly laid the foundation for Vanke's current development model. The Vanke-Junda dispute made Vanke very sensitive to the capital market in the following decade and also gradually realized how important it was to have the support of a major shareholder. Vanke-Wanjia Department Store, as one of the most successful projects in Vanke's diversification, was highly valued by Wang Shiqi. The adjustments made to Vanke-Wanjia in 1994 and the occurrence of the "Two Wu" incident brought Vanke's diversification to a height, while also reminding Wang Shiqi of the hardships ahead. The difficult adjustments made to Haisen Plaza became the driving force for Vanke's subsequent development in the real estate sector. In this narrative structure, the personal influence of Wang Shiqi on the company runs through the entire book. The book was later titled "Questioning Vanke," but attentive readers will notice that the author often praises Vanke without realizing it. Even in chapters that were intended to "criticize" Vanke, we asked ourselves countless times: Is there anyone who has done better than Vanke? Moreover, because of Wang Shiqi's magical influence on Vanke employees and the strong and superior corporate culture of Vanke, we tried to find a few former Vanke employees to speak negatively about Vanke to support our arguments, but we quickly found that this was an extremely difficult task! Whether they were still working at Vanke or had already left, the Vanke employees always saw Vanke as perfect and unbelievable in their eyes. Even when we "coaxed" them to point out a few shortcomings of Vanke, if you tried to "follow the clues," it quickly proved to be futile. They could speak negatively about Vanke's shortcomings themselves, but if outsiders did so, they would surely get angry! Writing this, the author had to be cautious, not knowing how many Vanke employees would get angry with the author under the title "Questioning Vanke"! In the final revision stage of the manuscript, in the meeting room on the second floor of Vanke's headquarters, we still clearly remember the scene of arguing with Xiao Li, the Director of the Board Office. In fact, no matter what, at least on the surface, we could not win this argument. A company that has grown through 20 years of trials and tribulations has a deep understanding of its development that outsiders or third parties cannot easily discern through just two years of effort. Fortunately, Vanke itself believes that 20 years is just a starting point, and all our "easy" conclusions and thoughts are at least not yet proven to be completely wrong. Time has given us the courage to "question." It must be pointed out that, out of love for Vanke, the author's tone is somewhat reserved in many chapters. Without accurate facts as a basis, the author has strived to avoid hasty conclusions. We know this is born out of respect for Vanke. We are more willing to have this book inspire thinking about corporate development rather than criticism. During the preparation of this book, critiques of Lenovo, Haier, and Changhong broke out one after another in the Chinese corporate world. Perhaps with a little reflection, we could ask more questions about Vanke, but these questions might belong to the wise readers. The door to thinking has been opened, and we believe this is not the last book about Vanke, nor is it the best book about Vanke—we believe Vanke's next two or three decades are even more worthy of anticipation. When it comes to thanks, the first should be Ms. Xiao Li, Director of the Vanke Group and the Board Office. It was she who, amidst her busy schedule, spent hours discussing details with us and bluntly pointed out the weaknesses of this book. The long-time Vanke employee—Guo Zhaobin, the General Manager of the Haisen Plaza project, and Quan Zhong, the fourth editor-in-chief of "Vanke Weekly"—their deep affection for Vanke was our greatest encouragement. Without their support, this book would have more regrets.