Dong Mingzhu's repeated bombardment of "poaching talents" is a thief's behavior

Dong Mingzhu’s repeated bombardment of “poaching talents” is a thief’s behavior, and his performance is far behind by Midea’s Xiaomi

Recently, Dong Mingzhu said in a talk show that “digging talents” is a thief’s behavior.

Dong Mingzhu said: “First of all, I myself refuse to poach people, our talents are recruited by college graduates, you try your best to create opportunities and platforms for them to exercise.” You are a talent, and you will be able to grow up in a good environment.”

Dong Mingzhu likened the cultivation of talents to farming, “If the rice seed itself is not good, no matter how fertile the land is, it will not grow good rice.” ”

Regarding Dong Mingzhu’s above remarks, some netizens believe that “employees are not the company’s property” and “the concept can’t keep up with the times”, and some netizens said, “I have the ability to open a high salary to retain people”, “If the company is good enough, I won’t leave if I dig me”, and some netizens think, “You have to find your own reasons”.

Repeatedly shelled the “thief”

It is worth noting that Dong Mingzhu has repeatedly bombarded “thieves” in public.

In December 2014, the former foot Xiaomi invested 1.266 billion yuan in Midea, and the back foot Dong Mingzhu said at the 2014 annual meeting of Chinese business leaders, “Two liars are together and are a thief group.” ”

In October 2015, Dong Mingzhu mentioned at the open class of Peking University Development Institute, “I said that Lei Jun’s millet was a thief, and he didn’t dare to sue me.” Now our country often talks about protecting patents, how to protect them? How much did he earn by selling millions of my patents every day, and then only giving me two million? He will also steal. Because the price paid is too small. ”

In March 2017, Dong Mingzhu said at the “Gree Intelligent Equipment World Premiere and Summit Forum” that Gree takes the road of independent research and development in the field of intelligent equipment, and the core technology is not bought, relying on others, and buying other people’s things will be eliminated sooner or later. “An enterprise is a thief, it will always be a thief, and it is impossible to be a leader, because it does not have much mind, does not have far-sighted thoughts, and pursues profits.” Although Dong Mingzhu did not name names, the listeners knew that most of the bombardments she bombarded were beautiful.

In December 2019, Dong Mingzhu once again criticized Xiaomi and Midea at a home furnishing industry forum. At the forum, Dong Mingzhu said that she was asked if she was anxious about the cooperation between Midea and Xiaomi. Dong Mingzhu said that he was not in a hurry, because it was a thief and a thief.

Dong Mingzhu also revealed that Midea used to poach people in Gree every day, and even sent a team to live near Gree’s company to be responsible for poaching. For this reason, Gree’s employees beat up the staff of the United States, which attracted media attention. Subsequently, Midea has converged a lot in poaching.

According to Dong Mingzhu, Midea “stole” Gree’s talents, and Xiaomi “stole” Gree’s patented technology. For example, Dong Mingzhu said that Xiaomi had been banned in India for “stealing” Ericsson’s technology.

In addition to Midea and Xiaomi, Oaks has also become a “thief” in Dong Mingzhu’s mouth.

In the Q&A session of Gree’s first extraordinary shareholders’ meeting in 2019, Dong Mingzhu directed his anger at Oaks: “Don’t tell me about Oakes, it’s worse than beauty.” Because Midea used to dig people from me, but now I don’t dig anymore. Now Oakes is poaching people from me every day, even the workers, and even my people have to change their names and surnames when they go to him, which is my mood now, stealing our technology and cheating. ”

The performance was left behind by Midea’s Xiaomi

The feud between Gree and Midea stems from the fierce competition between the two in shopping malls, especially in the field of air conditioning. Before Midea caught up, Gree was dominant in the field of air conditioning for a long time. However, through price wars and other means, Midea has grown rapidly, once surpassing Gree and becoming a rising star.

The watershed occurred in 2019, and the story of Midea’s air conditioner overtaking quietly opened: at the beginning of 2019, Midea took the lead in reducing prices by 10% by virtue of low inventory. This move immediately put Gree under multiple pressures of high costs, lower terminal prices, and compressed channel profits. Subsequently, Gree was forced to launch activities such as “3 billion big profits” and “10 billion big profits” to fight, and the average price fell by more than 30%. However, it is still difficult to hide the embarrassment that the average retail price is higher than that of Midea.

Midea took this opportunity to achieve corner overtaking. In 2019, Gree also crushed Midea’s 119.607 billion yuan with an air conditioning revenue of 138.665 billion yuan. But in the first half of 2020, Midea’s air conditioning business revenue suddenly surpassed Gree, and Midea’s total revenue and net profit also reached nearly twice that of Gree.

In 2023, the gap widens again. According to the data of the 2023 annual report, Gree’s air conditioning business contributed 151.217 billion yuan in revenue, accounting for 73.76% of the company’s total revenue. Midea’s HVAC segment achieved a revenue of 161.111 billion yuan. In 2023, Midea will achieve operating income of 372.037 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 8.18%; Gree achieved a total operating income of 205.018 billion yuan in the same period, a year-on-year increase of 7.82%.

As a leader in the business world, Dong Mingzhu and Lei Jun have a lot of intersections, they are both famous entrepreneurs who are struggling in Zhuhai, and they are both deputies to the National People’s Congress. The reason for this situation has to start with Dong Mingzhu and Lei Jun’s “1 billion gambling contract”.

In December 2013, at the CCTV “China Economic Person of the Year” award ceremony, Lei Jun, the winner of the Person of the Year Award, said that if the turnover of Xiaomi model beats Gree within 5 years, he hopes that Dong Mingzhu will pay himself 1 yuan; Dong Mingzhu said that if he was defeated, he was willing to bet 1 billion.

At the time of the bet, there was no head-to-head competition between Gree and Xiaomi, but since the 1 billion yuan bet, Dong Mingzhu has never let go of Lei Jun. Gree started a mobile phone, and Xiaomi also made an air conditioner.

The final results show that in 2018, Gree’s operating income was 200.04 billion yuan, more than 25 billion yuan more than Xiaomi, and Gree won the five-year “bet”.

However, since the sixth year after the bet, Xiaomi’s revenue has surpassed Gree’s in an all-round way. From 2019 to 2023, the revenue of Gree Electric Appliances will be 200.5 billion yuan, 170.5 billion yuan, 189.7 billion yuan, 190.2 billion yuan, and 205 billion yuan, respectively, and the revenue of Xiaomi Group will be 205.8 billion yuan, 245.9 billion yuan, 328.3 billion yuan, 280 billion yuan, and 271 billion yuan respectively.

At this time, Dong Mingzhu said, “I have the interests of shareholders to maximize.” Lei Jun, how much money did you give to the shareholders, and when you used up so much money from the shareholders, where did the money go? What is Shareholder Returns? ”

Have you found a successor to Gree?

According to the data, Dong Mingzhu was born in 1990 and joined Gree, and due to his outstanding sales performance, he soon became the head of the business department of the head office. In April 2001, Dong Mingzhu was appointed as the general manager of Zhuhai Gree Electric Appliance Co., Ltd., and in 2007, he was appointed as the president of Gree Electric Appliance Co., Ltd. In May 2012, Zhu Jianghong, the founder of Gree, who single-handedly promoted Dong Mingzhu, retired, and Dong Mingzhu took over as the chairman and president of Gree Electric Appliances, and since then Gree Electric Appliances has begun the “Dong Mingzhu Era”.

Dong Mingzhu was born in 1954 and is now over 70 years old and is in “overage service”. In fact, Dong Mingzhu’s retirement and succession plan has always attracted much attention from the market. In the past two years, Dong Mingzhu has also responded to relevant questions many times.

Previously, Dong Mingzhu confirmed Meng Yutong as the “successor” in the variety show “We Are New to the Workplace”, and on April 7, 2023, Dong Mingzhu said that Meng Yutong would no longer be her secretary, and said that compared with secretary work, Meng Yutong loves live broadcast work more.

In addition, Wang Ziru has also been evaluated by the outside world as a “successor”, Dong Mingzhu once commented on Wang Ziru and Meng Yutong: “The two are not on the same starting line, one has just come out of school and knows nothing, and Wang Ziru has been trained by the market and has no understanding of life at the same level.” But last year, Wang Ziru resigned from Gree.

On June 28, 2024, when Gree Electric held its 2023 annual general meeting of shareholders, Dong Mingzhu expressed her retirement attitude, she said, “If an enterprise wants to be sustainable, it can’t be quick success.” We are very strict with the requirements of each product component, and we have always put quality in the first standard. Maybe I’ll retire next year, but it’s not okay to leave a mess for the people who come after me! ”

At the previous shareholders’ meeting, Dong Mingzhu also pointed out that what kind of person can take over, and the internal development of the enterprise has its own rules. “You see a lot of companies, as soon as they change people, they fall. In our opinion, it is necessary to use corporate culture to achieve a group of people, and honest enterprises can cultivate excellent people. The leader of the enterprise should regard the enterprise as his own life and have the spirit of dedication. Without that spirit, you don’t deserve to sit here. ”

In addition, Dong Mingzhu once again mentioned that he may retire next year at the Henan Gree 2025 Annual Marketing Summit on August 22, 2024, and revealed that Gree’s channel reform is basically in place in all provinces across the country. Dong Mingzhu said that there are many old friends among Gree’s Henan dealers, and many dealers have handed over their careers to the second generation. “I’m also an old man, I haven’t retired (retired) at the age of 70, you have to take the baton well.”

In January 2024, Dong Mingzhu made it clear in CCTV’s financial channel “Genting Dialogue” that as long as she is in her post, she should not think about retirement, if she thinks about retirement now, the entire management of the company will change, and she wants Gree to be still very chic in a hundred years.

On February 20 this year, the “Discretion” column released a clip of the dialogue between Dong Mingzhu and Yu Minhong, Dong Mingzhu said in the program: A successor to Gree has been found, and there are three or four candidates. Dong Mingzhu said, “It’s really not a joke, but you can give him a try.” Now I have several seedlings on different platforms and in different positions, and the key is to have one person come out. ”

From this point of view, Dong Mingzhu’s retirement may become a reality in the near future.