Ideal Walks On The Road To Reality

When I was in high school, I had three occupational ideals, to be a writer, lawyer and businessman. I wanted to be a writer because of my love for words since primary school. I wanted to be a lawyer and businessman because I admired the lawyers' verbal confrontation in court and CEOs' ambition in Commercial circles of Hong Kong dramas when I was a child, and I. With the growth of years, I found that my writing talent is so usual without much effort that I write articles with thinking of it occasionally, and the novel I have written cannot be finished for a long time, which may only be a hobby or pastime. In college, I had a deep understanding about law and found that it was not my interest. However, my chemistry major was neither liked nor disliked. I mechanically repeated my life in a muddied state, thinking that it might be a good choice to be a teacher after graduation, but I was unwilling to be a teacher in my career planning. Therefore, I seize the opportunity to join in Meifeng, which is the first and only company that I chose for non-teaching profession.

Frankly speaking, it was actually impossible to have a clear career plan when you got the first job. I have the habit of thinking, that just has been formed since childhood, makes me think about the meaning of everything in my work to me, department and company. Thinking has advantages and disadvantages, because I have the bias on the meaningless and annoying things with my own cognition. I will become so lazy and negative about the things that will lead to a big reduction in work efficiency. With thinking, it is difficult to make mistakes in the direction and easy to approach the real goal. And I will be motivated if the work is more meaningful.

I had accumulated experience and knowledge for the first three years of work, with taking every opportunity to learn and reflect on key events, so I had come up with original and constructive ideas in all kinds of meetings. For example, I remember that in the third year of work, the customers' various packaging requirements were often discussed at meetings, and the mainstream opinion in company is that customers will be adapted to our own packaging if our company becomes more powerful. However, I have a different view that we should initiatively adapt to meet the needs of market segments through packaging, specifications, etc., changing from passive to active customer service, if our company develops and grows. To be frank, not all discussions and reflections will lead to satisfactory conclusions and answers and it is normal for us to go forward with doubts, distress and argument.

In 2010, the company brought in a high-end talent, Chris, who has a big business background, makes us feel enlightened on considering problems. The first thing is that I've been working on market research since 2008 and couldn't get started honestly, but Chris gave me a clear direction and a specific way to work. The second thing is that she used the process and system to solve a number of problems in sales that had been debated for many years, such as shipment scheduling, unclear job responsibilities and so on. The third thing is that she has put the brand building and positioning into practice. Since 2010, MFCI brand has begun to face the market, gradually consolidating the position of professional UV absorber manufacturers. In the same year, I was assigned to Germany to study for a month under the program of "SME Manager Training". Every time I go out, it's a new raising of my cognition. At that time, the theoretical courses that impressed me most were the cross-cultural communication and project management, which were two new fields to me relatively. Cross-cultural courses have made me understand the importance of doing business and understanding cultural background. Project management introduced me to the concept of "milestone management". During the month, I also visited some German leading small and medium-sized enterprises from which I benefited a lot, and also realized my shortcomings and the direction of efforts in the future.

Back from Germany, the ideal to be a "businessman" since childhood has a concrete understanding that is to become a professional manager. Career goals fit childhood ideal that gave birth to my endless motivation, which is no longer easily defeated by setbacks. The development planning of company also has medium and long-term goals. I remember that in a deep discussion with Chairman Li Xiaolin after coming back from the study, I mentioned that it would take eight years for the company to achieve annual sales of 500 million or make the company go listing.

In 2011, I began to take over the basic management work of the sales department. The change from employees to managers cannot be made overnight. During this period, I have practiced my management ideas and encountered the difficulties of ineffective execution and ideas disunity. Adjusting the organizational structure to make responsibilities clearer, reforming compensation to promote the rationality of internal compensation levels and implementing target performance appraisal to make employees know their work performance and how to improvement, each thing is not a small challenge, but stick to it, you will have a harvest.

In 2013, I began to participate in the business management of sales. I did two things in this year. First, I discussed the specific business cases by meeting, and all of us formed a consensus, which not only unified thoughts but also let everyone learn from each other to solve problems in similar cases. Second, the blueprint of future market management that is outlined to adhere to the road of independent brand, further strengthen the image of MFCI professional UV absorber manufacturer, and consciously launch the UV absorber product brand "MFSORB" to the market. The global market is divided into four regions - Europe and Central Africa, North America, South America, and Asia Pacific. Regional small and medium-sized customers are managed by agents, and major clients are managed independently.

The next year is the first year of the implementation of Market Management Blueprint. We signed our first exclusive agency agreement in South Africa. The second exclusive agency agreement was signed in the Indonesian market in 2015, and the agency agreement in Germany was signed in Europe in 2016, which is our major market. Thinking about our market management, which is like countryside encircling city, the first two market agreements have little effect on sales, but the third began to play a significant role in the growth of performance. Nowadays we have signed more than ten agency agreements around the world. At the same time, the work of key client sales is also steadily advancing, and our cooperation with the multinational cosmetics giants, such as L 'Oreal, Avon, Bayer and Johnson & Johnson, has deepened gradually.

In the second half of 2016, the management of the sales company is on the right track, the market direction is very definite, and the organizational structure is basically stable, so all the work just needs to be consolidated gradually. Meanwhile, considering working for ten years, I want to have further career promotion, so I have the idea of continuing my study back to campus. However, in May 2017, Chairman Li was ill, with the factory being relocated, and key quality management personnel were lost, leading to public's evaluation that Meifeng will go bankrupt. At this time, as the core manager of the sales company, I gave up the plan of quitting my job and pursuing further study to help the new Chairman Zeng Tieming stabilize the operation of the company. Fortunately, facing and overcoming difficulties, our company still developed steady and orderly in this year, and the annual sales exceeded 300 million, achieving nearly 40% growth.

In 2018, focusing on stable developing, the company began to strengthen all business service work. After setting up the European warehouse, a warehouse in the United States has been also set up to meet the needs of delivery timely. At this year, Chairman Zeng opened the first three-year plan for R&D, which improved orderly to lay a good foundation for development of company. In 2018, the company achieved sales of 450 million, achieving 90% of the eight-year goal of 500 million set in 2010.

2019 is the first year of the MFCI service upgrade, and the customer service efforts began to be proactive. The Chinese "Meifeng" is added to the MFCI trademark to adapt the Greater China market. Meanwhile the corporate culture was further improved, the company's mission is from "founded an enterprise of a hundred years " to "create a better life", and the company's vision is from "to become the world's leading supplier" to "become a global leader in the UV absorber industry". The goals are promoted, so it's time to plan how to achieve them. To improve the organization effectiveness, the right talents are the key point. It is an honor for me to participate in the "The First Private Enterprise Leading Talents Training Class in Huangshi" in this year, which lasted for 8 months, and it was hard but very fulfilling. In the continuous learning and thinking, I found that in order to achieve the goal of the enterprise, it is necessary to compete with large international companies in the future, and the company not only needs to recruit high-quality talents, but also the growth of existing personnel is very important. Therefore, I began to promote the importance of learning inside and outside work, hoping to build the company into a learning organization. In 2020, the company introduced the "Cloud University" and encouraged everyone to take the initiative to learn work-related courses through the incentive system, which has played a good effect. Some new ideas and concepts of market management can be effectively implemented.

For the outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020, due to the outdoor nature of the products, many colleagues worried about sales, which may face a huge risk. Although there was no impact throughout the first half of the year, the decline in the market has been evident since June. At that time, I communicated with the sales team and Chairman Zeng on that the company could withstand it, if the decline did not exceed 20%. Before the first half year summary meeting of the Senior management of company, Chairman Zeng asked me to positively analyze the market situation in the second half of the year to give everyone confidence. Combining the "lipstick effect" in economics, I tell everyone that the cosmetics industry can go through any economic cycle without recession according to historical experience, however it will rise when the economy is bad. Combined with the characteristics of the COVID-19 epidemic, we can witness whether our industry can remain strong under the economic recession caused by the epidemic. In addition, we have been working in the market for many years, and there are some growth points of new customers. We try to maintain the business with our efforts, and strive to ensure that the decline is controlled within 10%. In conclusion, I share with everyone the IMF's optimistic outlook for the global economy in 2021: "The future is very good." Finally, our business went smoothly with a slight decline in sales in 2020.

Wang Fu, a Han dynasty thinker, said: "The move of the roc is not the light of a feather; The speed of a steed is not the strength of one foot." From 2021, the development of the company has entered a fast track, and it is more rapid at the beginning of 2022. Looking back on the sixteen years of work in Meifeng, all achievements are closely related to everyone's efforts in Meifeng and the strong cohesiveness of Meifeng team. There is an evaluation standard for a good team: " Success is celebrated, failure is desperate to save. " Our team can be called as such a good team.

In "At the Bend of the Three Gorges on the Yangtze River " by Chen Xingjia, a former excellent government official of Badong in Hubei Province, a senior government leader commented that Chen Xingjia was an idealist. Compared with Chen Xingjia, I am also an ambitious idealist and my ambition has its place. My ideal exactly walk on the road to reality, which is actually my happiness. In recent years, the United States cooperate with its Allies to impose sanctions on China in many fields, I know that although our country has developed and changed greatly in many areas and made amazing achievements in reform and opening up for more than 40 years, in fact, we are still decades behind the developed countries in many advanced areas. Even in the fine chemical industry, quite a lot of high-end raw materials are actually controlled by the Western world, so I hope that in my lifetime I can promote Meifeng to control the right to speak in the field of UV absorbers and become "the leader of the global UV absorber industry", to achieve annual sales of 5 billion.

"Look up at the stars and down at the ground." Share with all colleagues in Meifeng!

This article is for the 30th anniversary of the founding of Meifeng