He used to be the "worst boss", with a huge loss of 1.8 billion in 18 months. After Nirvana was born again, he set another 100 billion business empire!

China's home appliance industry has a low-key and introverted CEO. He is the first pioneer to boldly carry out international mergers and acquisitions. He has experienced the whole process of hardship and rebirth after the company's "18 months of loss of 1.8 billion".

He was named one of the "Most Influential Business Leaders" by Time magazine and CNN, but also appeared on Forbes' list of "The worst boss of China's A-share listed companies";

He is the benchmark for the practice of physical transformation of the Internet. In the winter of economic downturn, the value of his crying far exceeds the enterprise itself, directly attacking the pain point of China's current economic transformation and upgrading, and striving to explore the path of re-taking for the Chinese industry that is trying to break through.

He is Li Dongsheng, and TCL is almost his only job in this life.

From the "worst boss" to the rebirth of the fire, what is the story of Li Dongsheng?

1

In 1952, Li Dongsheng was born in Huizhou, Guangdong. Because he was born in Dongjiang, his family named Dongsheng.

When I was young, Li Dongsheng did not show the potential to do business. He didn't like to talk and only loves to read books. Other children are playing in Dongjiang. In the third grade of elementary school, he is holding a thick "Lin Hai Xue Yuan".

In 1978, Li Dongsheng, who was still in the countryside, took the first exam after the college entrance examination resumed, and was admitted to the South China Institute of Technology (predecessor of South China Institute of Technology) to study radio.

In 1982, Li Dongsheng graduated from the university and was assigned to his hometown of Huizhou. He had an "iron rice bowl" that everyone could not ask for, but Li Dongsheng always remembered the words that the high school class teacher said to him: "Science and engineering can join the industry and build a country. ."

This sentence can be said to have affected Li Dongsheng for a lifetime.

Therefore, Li Dongsheng, who just graduated from the age of 25, gave up the "iron rice bowl," and entered a small factory as an engineer. This is also the predecessor of TCL - TTK Home Appliances Co., Ltd.

TTK is the first company of TCL, mainly producing audio tapes. In the early 1980s, when the recorder was the most popular, the demand for audio tapes was particularly large, which brought Li Dongsheng the first gold in his life. At that time, Li Dongsheng's greatest wish was to "be a workshop director."

In 1985, 28-year-old Li Dongsheng was appointed general manager of TCL Communication Equipment Company, which was only two years after he graduated. But he was forced to leave after nine months.

Eight years later, no one thought that Li Dongsheng had made a comeback and became the general manager of TCL Electronics Group, and began an extraordinary journey in the home appliance industry in China and the world.

In 1997, Li Dongsheng, who was already the chairman of TCL Corporation, was recommended as the deputy mayor of Huizhou City, but he refused. Compared with his career, he hoped that he would take the helm of a big business and do some business.

Fortunately, TCL ace color TV, TCL phone, TCL electrician, each one is very successful.

All kinds of successes are inseparable from the key decisions made by Li Dongsheng under tremendous pressure.

2

In China in the 1980s, the color TV war attracted the attention of the financial media of Chuxing. Seeing the fast-growing color TV market, Li Dongsheng decided to occupy a place anyway. In 2001, TCL color TV ranked first in the country.

The bigger and bigger the market, the higher Li Dongsheng stood up. The farther he saw, the more he jumped out of the frame and stared at the world market.

At the beginning of 2004, Li Dongli made a public meeting and insisted on acquiring the Thomson TV business. The shareholders’ dissent failed to stop Li Dongsheng.

He said with emotion: "To be a business, competition is like snoring. It is hard to say that you must make this decision. But the battle has already started. The charge has blown up. The troops have gone up. At that time, you have to consider how to take the hill. Next, I can't think about where my retreat is. If you think so, it's hard to find a way."

In September 2004, watching the banner of TCL rise in the factory of the international old-fashioned color TV giant Thomson, Li Dongsheng was full of tears and moved. Thomson TV was one of the largest home appliance companies in France at the time, and it was the fourth largest consumer electronics manufacturer in the world, occupying the position of the global color TV leader. This is also the first time that Chinese enterprises have merged with Fortune 500 companies.

Six months later, Li Dongsheng reached a cooperation with Alcatel in a lightning-fast manner, and established TCL-Alcatel Mobile Phone Company, the first in China and the seventh in the world.

A series of lightning international mergers and acquisitions, TCL and Li Dongsheng have become international hotspots - Fortune magazine cover figures, CCTV economics annual regulars, "Time" magazine and CNN "25 most influential business leaders "one.

3

It is a pity that these mergers and acquisitions that made Li Dongsheng and his TCL harvest countless praises almost made TCL go to nowhere.

At that time, Thomson was a global industry giant with 10 factories and 29,000 employees. The reserves of CRT technology are world-class.

TCL believes that LCD technology will take at least 5-6 years to replace CRT, and can also take this opportunity to develop vigorously. Who knows that TCL just acquired Thomson in 2004, and in 2005 the European market turned to LCD flat-panel TV, and the US market is also The CRT was phased out in 2006.

In addition, Alcatel's mobile phone business is not worrying. In 2005, mobile phone prices in the international market, cottage machines, parallel machines, and cooperation with foreign teams after the merger, TCL's mobile phone business is also difficult .

In 2005, the two companies that made the merger suffered huge losses. TCL suffered the first loss in 20 years, lost 18 billion in 18 months, and lost more than 2 billion yuan in the whole year.

Li Dongsheng, who has never lost money, suddenly fell into a desperate situation and lost 20 pounds in half a year. In order to realize the loss, Li Dongsheng tried his best to personally and the integration announced that he would turn losses in 2006, but the results were far from expectations.

In 2006, TCL lost 1.932 billion yuan, and its loss in the European market was 220 million euros. At the shareholders meeting, Li Dongsheng was criticized for the first time.

In 2007, TCL-Thomson Electronics Co., Ltd. filed for bankruptcy liquidation, A shares were put on ST's hat, TCL stocks plummeted, and business operations were difficult. Many of the executives who followed Jiangshan took the initiative or passive class or left or transferred jobs. The star company is swaying in the rain. Despite Li Dongsheng's hard work, the Chinese version of Forbes left him the sixth place in 2007, the "worst boss of Chinese listed companies", and sprinkled salt on his wounds.

4

In order to survive, Li Dongsheng broke his wrist, first selling the computer business that was once regarded as the core of the group's future, and then shutting down the French factory with money (compensation). While making these decisions, he wrote an article for the group called "The Rebirth of the Eagle."

In the article, Li Dongsheng shared a story: The eagle had to undergo a long transition of 150 days at the age of 40. It will hit the rock with a sniper until it completely falls off, waiting for a new cockroach to grow. The eagle will use a new cockroach to pull out the root of the aging toenail on the claw until the blood is dripping. After that, it will remove the feathers from the body with new toenails. After the feathers are full again, the eagle will start flying again to welcome its new life.

Through this story, Li Dongsheng told TCL: We are hawks, and the pace of globalization is the only way we have been through hardships and new life.

The story of the eagle's self-mutilation and rebirth is actually a rumor. This story has been popular in Europe and the United States, and later rumored by the raptor expert: the eagle can not be reborn, the cockle and the skull are connected together, and the cock is equivalent to breaking his own bones.

However, like most classic misreadings such as "99% sweat + 1% talent", the story of the eagle is beyond the content itself. Li Dongsheng told TCL with five consecutive "The Rebirth of the Eagle": We will re-spread our wings.

After the strong man broke his wrist, TCL ushered in a period of crouching. During the rebirth, Li Dongsheng, who was far away from the storm of public opinion, began to redraw his blueprint.

5

While shrinking the scale of business, Li Dongsheng strives to maintain the basic R&D investment of TCL. According to statistics, in the three years from 2005 to 2007, TCL invested an average of 1.9 billion yuan in research and development, including two overseas M&A companies. Team spending. "I don't know this number very well. It should be there. Enterprise competition has to go forward. If your core ability is gone, you will have no chance in the future and you can't cut the future of the company."

In 2009, Li Dongsheng made a bold decision to invest far more than international mergers and acquisitions. He wanted to enter the LCD panel, the most recognized area of ​​burning money and equipment depreciation, which is the Huaxing Optoelectronics project. The management cadre worried that "the Thomson project has failed and can be digested. If Huaxing Optoelectronics fails, TCL will no longer be able to turn over."

So, why does Li Dongsheng have to go to this project? He said that he spent more than half a year thinking about it. He finally concluded that it is difficult for TCL to compete with companies such as Samsung and LG in the global market if the industry chain is not in the panel or chip. "Don't try, where is the opportunity? Where do you know if you can't do it?"

In 2014, TCL Group's revenues after Haier, Midea and Gree were among the tens of billions of empire. In the home appliance industry, there is an unwritten rule that almost all of the home appliance manufacturers that have crossed hundreds of billions can't escape the "100 million yuan curse." Although TCL Group's revenue in 2015 still remained at 100 billion yuan, the growth rate has slowed down.

In August 2016, Li Dongsheng made another amazing decision--the G11 LCD panel production line with a total investment of 58.3 billion yuan. This is the largest hand panel production line in China and the world's highest generation panel production line. The panel line mainly targets 65-inch and other large-size LCD panels and is expected to be mass-produced in September 2017.

As soon as the news came out, the outside world worried that it might cause overcapacity in the LCD panel. The reason is that the future leading position of LCD panel technology may be shaken by OLED. However, Li Dongsheng believes that in recent years, LCD TVs have been moving toward larger sizes and higher resolutions. The global market has seen changes in the size of mainstream TVs, and demand for large-size TVs is expected to grow at more than 20% per year.

Facts have proved that Li Dongsheng’s decision is not unreasonable.

In 2016, TCL was one of the few companies that maintained high sales growth in the face of adversity. The data shows that TCL TV's global shipments exceeded 20 million units in 2016, ranking firmly in the leading position in China's color TV industry, ranking the top three in the global color TV industry, second only to Samsung and LG, ranking third in the world. This is also the first time a Chinese company has entered 20 million clubs.

In January 2017, TCL Smart TV opened its doors in the first month, and mobile Internet users increased by 152% year-on-year. In Li Dongsheng's view, Japanese color TV companies have experienced a rapid decline in the past five or six years, so it is very likely that they will be used for a few years to achieve a transcendence of Korean companies.

6

Most people know that Miss Dong’s “Let the world fall in love with China” and Reb’s “in the air, pigs can fly”, but few people know that TCL is the sales champion of Chinese mobile phones overseas, nor I know that they earn 50 billion yuan each year from abroad - this company with world-class advantages rarely enters the public opinion center.

The main reason for this phenomenon is that TCL is not barbaric enough, and Li Dongsheng is not barbaric.

This is a barbaric era, with information explosions and names. Overseas sales champions are news, but not big news. "Gambling gambling 1 billion", "Ma Yun leaving the manufacturing industry to complete the egg", "Today do mobile phones, do super run tomorrow" is the big news.

Li Dongsheng may understand the truth, but he can't learn. The teacher Gao Zhaojun’s judgment on him is correct: he is too straightforward and is not suitable for doing something.

Li Dongsheng must be helpless and even wronged. Now talking about TV, the young people first think of LeTV, Xiaomi, not the TCL that has done 30 years of color TV. In 2014, LeTV won a sales volume of 1.5 million units in the mouth of the mouth, and LeTV's net profit was 360 million.

In the same year, TCL sold 17 million TVs, ranking first in the country, and profits were 11.6 times that of LeTV. However, in the capital market, the position of both parties is reversed. LeTV's share price is more than ten times that of TCL, and its market value is more than twice. Obviously, investors are more fond of LeTV, who is everywhere, rather than Li Dongsheng, who is ignorant.

He is very aware of his short board. A few years ago, some media asked Li Dongsheng: TCL has long reversed the situation of mergers and acquisitions, and it has done so well, but the stock price is still not coming up. Why don’t you think of a solution? Li Dongsheng thought about it and said: Tell the story to pull the stock price? That is not our style.

In the 35 years of TCL, he and TCL have been closely linked. In the most brilliant time of TCL in the 1990s, the government invited him to serve as deputy mayor of Huizhou City. After careful consideration, he chose to stay in TCL. His ambition is not in politics, but he wants to become China's "Panasonic Assist"!

Now, even though he is over 60 years old, he still travels around the world. Today, TCL has sales organizations in more than 80 countries and regions around the world, covering more than 160 countries and regions. Li Dongsheng is almost two months a year. Fly abroad, run a few pairs of shoes a year, and even learn English, use English to sell TCL's color TV to foreign guests!

In the face of the future, he already regards TCL as his own life: "I have done this business for a lifetime! Just do it!"