Lester, a sales representative of Heidingsfeld, a veteran construction machinery company in the United States, stood in his exhibition area with a gloomy face. On this day, there were dozens of customers who came to the exhibition area to ask about the electric wheel dump truck, but so far he has not reached a single sales intention. Except for some customers who feel that the performance of the product cannot meet their requirements in a certain aspect, about seventy percent of the remaining customers have raised a question to him:

Why are your dump trucks so expensive?

Expensive?

Lester was at first puzzled by the question. Electric wheel dump trucks are Haifei's flagship product, and pricing hasn't changed much for more than 20 years. For example, the 185-ton dump truck they brought this time has a sales price of $2.1 million, which is only 5% higher than three years ago, and the inflation rate in the past three years is more than 5%, right?

There are not many manufacturers in the world that can produce dump trucks, and even fewer produce electric wheel dump trucks. Haifei is a leader in this industry, and its product pricing also directly affects the pricing of other similar manufacturers, such as the 180-ton electric wheel dump truck produced by Prometheus in Germany, which is priced at 1.98 million US dollars, which is not much different from Haifei's pricing. Almost all of these large-capacity dump trucks are used in open-pit mines, and the customer base is very stable, and everyone is very familiar with the price of the product.

In the past, of course, customers have complained that the product is too expensive, but that is just a bargaining strategy, and it is not really a reason to give up on the purchase because of the high price. But this time, Leicester could feel that the customer's complaint was real, and the price he quoted did discourage the customer.

"What kind of price do you think is acceptable?"

After hearing several customers say that the price is too expensive, Lester finally couldn't help it, and pulled a customer he knew well to inquire.

"I think it's around $600,000, which is appropriate. The customer said hesitantly.

"600,000!" Leicester blew up at once, although as a salesperson, he has always had a good temper.

"Rosen, what are you kidding, where have you seen 600,000 dump trucks?" Lester yelled angrily.

"It's in this hall. The customer, Rosen, replied earnestly.

"$600,000 a piece?"

"$480,000 a unit, to be exact. ”

"I know, that's a Japanese-made 25-ton dump truck, right?" Lester said disdainfully. The Japanese like to make small things, like the alkman and the cars they make. Americans have always liked to do big things, 185 tons of dump trucks and 25 tons of dump trucks, not only much larger size, but also much more difficult technology, how can the price of the two be compared?

Rosen shook his head and said, "No, it's the 175-ton dump truck brought by the Chinese." Although the carrying capacity is 10 tons less than your car, they cost a measly $480,000. ”

"It's Chinese!" sparked Lester's eyes, and he finally knew who was having trouble with him.

More than 10 years ago, Haifei received an order from China for 40 150-ton electric wheel dump trucks purchased by the Chinese government for an open-pit mine. Unlike other buyers, the Chinese government has argued that the purchase needs to be linked to technology transfer, and that Haifei will need to transfer the technology to make the dump trucks to a Chinese company called Luoqiu Metallurgical Machinery Factory at the same time as selling the dump trucks to China.

At first hearing the Chinese side's request, Haifei was naturally reluctant to agree. But the Chinese government insisted, claiming that if Haifei was unwilling to transfer the technology, China would rather produce the dump trucks itself. Haifei sent technicians to China to investigate, and found that the company named Luo Ye had indeed built a 120-ton electric wheel dump truck, and through industrial experiments, it had been finalized. Although the car was full of flaws in its design and craftsmanship, and it was completely different from Haifei's technology, Haifei still smelled some danger from it, that is, China's ability to improve its own technology. If they really handed over the order of 40 cars to Luo Ye to complete, maybe Luo Ye would be able to accumulate experience in the process of manufacturing these products, so as to achieve a technological breakthrough.

At this time, the United States was in an economic crisis, and Haifei also urgently needed to get this order to alleviate its financial difficulties, so Haifei's senior management decided to accept China's request with reservations, transfer part of the dump truck technology to China, and keep the core technology in their hands as a weight to continue trading with China in the future.

In that cooperation, the Chinese side directly imported 20 dump trucks from Haifei, and the other 20 were jointly manufactured by Haifei and Luoye, and provided technical training, patent authorization and other support to China in the process.

Since then, China has ordered several batches of dump trucks from Haifei, and each time a portion has been handed over to Luo Ye for production. Haifei initially provided Luo Ye with a number of key components, which accounted for three or four percent of the total cost of the dump truck. Later, the number of parts that Luo Ye needs to purchase in the process of manufacturing dump trucks has gradually decreased, from three or four percent to less than one percent, and even this Chengdu is no longer necessary, because Luo Ye has been able to manufacture roughly similar substitutes.

Realizing that the Chinese have mastered the production technology of 150-ton electric wheel dump trucks, and will then set aside themselves and manufacture this high value-added equipment on their own, Haifei decided to give Luo Ye a tight spell on intellectual property rights. Luo Ye used the drawings provided by Haifei to manufacture the 150-ton dump truck, and even if it produced it by itself, it needed to apply for a manufacturing license from Haifei and pay the authorization fee. When it was discovered that Luo Ye had been able to produce 150 tons of dump trucks on its own, Haifei immediately announced that it would suspend its cooperation with Luo Ye and no longer issue manufacturing licenses to Luo Ye.

Of course, Haifei did not say anything to death, and its condition to Luo Ye was that if it wanted to continue to obtain a manufacturing license, the licensing fee for each car would rise to 200,000 US dollars, which would almost take away all of Luo Ye's profits.

According to Haifei's idea, in the face of this condition, the Chinese side will either obediently pay the licensing fee, which is equivalent to working for Haifei for nothing, or choose to buy Haifei's products directly, and the price may be cheaper than Luo Ye's own manufacturing.

I never thought that China's choice was to get rid of Haifei and start from scratch. Luo Ye discarded the drawings of the 150-ton dump truck taken from Haifei and developed the 175-ton dump truck on his own, which very cleverly bypassed Haifei's patent and made it a dump truck with all independent intellectual property rights.

How difficult it is for the Chinese side to develop a new dump truck on their own, Leicester once knew from colleagues in the company's technical department. Because Haifei controls some of the key technologies and has not transferred them to Luo Ye, Luo Ye must first overcome these key technologies if he wants to develop his own dump trucks, and then propose new technologies that are different from Haifei's existing patents to bypass patent barriers.

Haifei originally thought that Luo Ye did not have such capabilities, but in fact, one of the purposes of transferring technology to Luo Ye was to make Luo Ye accustomed to "take-it-or-leave-it", thus abandoning its own R&D capabilities. Haifei did not expect that Luo Ye did not give up its own research and development because of the transfer of technology. It just saves time groping in the dark and shortens the technology gap with Haifei.

In just two or three years, Luo Ye came up with his own 175-ton dump truck products and completed industrial experiments. The open-pit mine where Luo Ye did industrial experiments also happened to have a batch of dump trucks purchased from Haifei, so Haifei's technicians often went to repair and maintain. These technicians saw Luoye's new product in the mine, and made an assessment based on what they observed, believing that Luoye's new product has reliable performance, and there is no generation difference between the technical level and Haifei, at best, it is only a slight gap in fuel consumption, trouble-free working time, noise, etc.

After Luoye's 175-ton dump truck completed the industrial experiment, the Chinese side no longer purchased Haifei's dump trucks, which made Haifei lose a market. However, Haifei did not just hang himself from this tree, there are a large number of open-pit mines in South America, Australia, Africa and other places, these open-pit mines are the traditional customers of Haifei, and the annual order is enough to maintain Haifei's survival.

What Leicester never expected was that after realizing import substitution, the Chinese could not wait to kill the international market. They brought their own 175-ton dump truck, and also set a low price of only 480,000 US dollars, making it clear that they came to disrupt the situation. The price of $480,000 is just enough for Haifei's dump truck, and if you take into account the cost of sales, after-sales service, management costs, etc., this price is a complete loss. Lester does not think that the cost of Chinese dump trucks can be much lower than that of Haifei, and quoting such a low price is simply a loss of money, what is the picture?

"Old friend, believe me, the products of the Chinese are simply not reliable. Maybe the day after you buy them, they'll all be broken. Lester said to Rosen.

"Lester, I think you're sensational. Rosen shrugged his shoulders and said nonchalantly: "The Chinese promise to send engineers to our mine to solve equipment failures at any time." They guarantee that within 2 years, all non-human faults of the equipment can be repaired free of charge, and even the accessories are free of charge. Lester, I think your company should also learn from the Chinese, that is to treat customers as God. ”