Saint-Tropez is a scenic French town on the Mediterranean coast, home to some of the most beautiful beaches in France. Every summer, countless rich and famous people gather here, and the sea is dotted with private yachts, and the air seems to be wafting with luxury.

It's still late winter, Saint-Tropez hasn't yet ushered in its golden tourist season, and the town is a little deserted. In a villa rented by tourists near the sea, a group of mysterious guests have been staying these days. They are said to be mysterious because these people came here from all over Europe, but not to enjoy the scenery of the sea, but as soon as they came, they plunged into this villa that had been rented in advance, and occasionally came out, but also in a hurry, with a solemn look on their faces.

These people, executives of more than two dozen large equipment manufacturing companies in Europe, were invited by Khedira, the marketing director of the German ALK Group, to discuss how to deal with the threat of competitors from emerging economies. During several days of closed-door consultations, one name that was repeatedly mentioned by executives was China's Hanhua Heavy Industries.

"Two years ago, I reminded you that GCA Heavy Industries is an adversary worthy of our vigilance, and it will pose a serious threat to our European companies. Unfortunately, at the time, my advice was not taken seriously enough. The consequences of our arrogance are now visible to all of us. ”

In the large living room of the villa, Khedira spoke to a room full of colleagues with his usual German bluntness.

Khedira is not a likable person. He has an overconfidence. He calls this self-confidence his foresight. And often under the pretext of this foresight, he pointed fingers at his subordinates, colleagues, and peers in other companies, and sometimes even pointed the finger at his own boss.

At the Frankfurt Equipment Show two years ago, Khedira did raise the issue of being wary of Hanhua Heavy Industries to the colleagues sitting in the room today, and as he said, this reminder was met with a cold reception from everyone. Today, he recalls the old words, which has a bit of a taste of settling accounts after the autumn, and what makes people feel depressed is that everyone can no longer ignore his words this time, because his prophecy has indeed come true.

In the last two years. The global market share of European equipment manufacturing companies is declining, and their market share is being eaten up by similar enterprises from so-called "emerging economy countries" such as China, India, and Brazil. Among them, especially from China, the strength of enterprises is the strongest. And the eating appearance is also the most ugly......

When Chinese enterprises seize the European enterprise market, they have two treasures, one is the principle of customer-centric sales, and the second is naturally low prices.

Everything is customer-centric, which is also a phrase that European companies often talk about, but in practice, it is not like that. For example, if a country in Africa wants to purchase a set of equipment from a European company, the European company sometimes has to add some other requirements in addition to talking about technology and price. For example, the use of equipment requires permission from the surrounding residents, and the local government needs to promise what freedoms, what rights, and so on.

For European businesses, this is a necessity. Europe is a place that represents the universal values of mankind, and when selling equipment, it is natural that the universal values must also be sold along the way, otherwise, how can those backward nations realize the advanced nature of our great Europe?

But once it is replaced by a Chinese company, all these troubles will be gone. Chinese companies like to say "business in business" and never tie equipment sales to politics. In fact, this kind of thinking is also very normal: I am a device seller. What do you do with politics? The local government buys equipment and builds enterprises, and the people are happy or not, this is people's internal affairs, can we manage it? ...So. Countries that can't buy equipment from European companies are turning to Chinese companies. This is the case for European manufacturers. Scolded, saying that Chinese manufacturers do not fulfill their social responsibilities, and the sales representatives of Chinese manufacturers simply pretend to have a low level of education and can't understand the European bird language.

Regarding the price, it is a big killer for Chinese manufacturers. No matter what kind of good things are, as long as Chinese manufacturers are selling, they can be directly sold at a cabbage price. Like machine tools, fertilizer equipment, petroleum equipment, power generation equipment, etc., the price has made the Chinese crush into slag. At such a price, the Europeans will not be able to recover the profits, even the costs, who will still be interested in production?

More than ten years ago, there was still a large technological gap between European manufacturers and Chinese manufacturers. Many products cannot be manufactured by the Chinese, and those developing countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America, if they want to buy such equipment, can only stretch their necks and wait for the Europeans to slaughter. But now, Chinese's technology has developed, product generation ability continues to improve, although some technologies are not up to the level of European enterprises, but barely enough, coupled with cheap prices, good service, users in various countries will naturally turn to China.

In addition to the markets of developing countries, the markets of developed countries such as Europe and the United States have also begun to be invaded by Chinese in the past two years. Two machine tools with similar performance, the one made in China sells for 100,000 euros, and the one produced by European companies sells for 500,000 euros. Of course, you can say that the life of Chinese machine tools is not so long, the precision is not so high, and the use is not so comfortable, but for an ordinary small factory, are these requirements so important?

No one knows how Chinese products are encroaching on the market. Judging from the sales rankings of various types of products, Chinese manufacturers may only occupy three or two positions in the top 10, and European manufacturers still occupy the majority of the position. But if you put together a list of all the products in one place, you will be surprised to find that the Chinese are almost a market that they refuse to let go, and every product can find suppliers from China.

The most terrifying thing is that if you compare these sales rankings from year to year, you can see that the ranking of Chinese companies on the rankings has been on the rise, improving their rankings every year. If this trend continues, they will rush to the top of the list.

The decline in market share naturally brings about a decline in operating income, followed by losses. The once glorious ALK company finally suffered a large loss on the books last year, and it was this loss that woke up the president of ALK, who was still sleeping in the dream of old Europe, and thus led to Khedira's trip to Saint-Tropez.

These companies that received ALK's invitation to come to Saint-Tropez have some similarities with ALK in the past two years, as the market gradually shrinks and the company turns from profit to loss. Remembering Khedira's warning two years ago, and after carefully reviewing the company's sales statements, the executives finally came to a consensus that it was time to curb the expansion of Chinese companies.

"Mr. Khedira, I admit that two years ago you did remind everyone to pay attention to the problem of China Hanhua Heavy Industries. But it would be unfair to say that people did not pay attention to this matter. In fact, all European companies have not abandoned technological research and development over the past two years, and they have taken strong measures to strengthen competition with their competitors in emerging economies. Marko, the vice president of the German company Giessen, frowned and retorted to Khedira, he really couldn't stand Khedira's preachy tone.

"Have you taken effective measures?" "As far as I know, Giessen also lost money last fiscal year, right?" Although it was a small loss, it was the first time in the past 20 years that Giessen had made a loss. "...," Marco said, "You're telling the truth, but isn't the loss of your ALK company even more serious?" Mr. Khedira, since you have such a brilliant foresight on this issue, why didn't you get ALK out of this predicament? ”

"We took measures, but ......" Khedira said no more.

He remembered the attack on the Hanhua equipment ship that he had planned last year, and such a thing really couldn't be talked about to others. The Chinese crew dared to resist the attack of the pirates, which was something that Khedira never expected.

After hearing the news of the failed pirate attack and the retaliatory killings of the pirates involved in the attack, Khedira was so shocked that he didn't sleep well for almost a month. He feared that he had been exposed, and when he saw a Chinese figure on the streets of Germany, he couldn't help but worry that it was a Chinese agent who had come to seek revenge.

After some painful suffering, Khedira had to admit that he was just a helpless salesman, and that playing this kind of violent game was too tender for him to dare to play again.

"Of course, I have long seen the threat that the Chinese pose to European companies, including our ALK Group. However, I am only a sales director, and our board of directors did not take my warning, just as you did not. ALK's loss is a wake-up call for all of us, and it proves that my warning was very prescient. Khedira said stiffly.

"Okay, let's stop arguing about that." Julien, the vice president of the French Ladur Industrial Group, spoke, "Mr. Khedira, you didn't invite everyone here to show off your cleverness, did you?" We are all well aware that the competitiveness of emerging economies cannot be ignored, and there is no need for you to explain this to you. How to deal with the competition from them is what we should discuss here. (To be continued.) If you like this work, you are welcome to (.) to vote for recommendation, monthly pass, your support is my biggest motivation. )