A great drive

She is one of the world's few female CEOs and she heads one of the largest privately owned automotive manufacturers in China.

Maybe because she always wears bright colors, Wang Fengying looks energetic and graceful. Her colorful appearance belies the fact that she suffers from neural problems due to overwork and pressure.

"I spend my lunchtime having acupuncture," she says. "I am too busy."

In China, people say that there is always a great woman behind a successful man.

Wang is the successful woman in the spotlight helping the low-profile company chairman Wei Jianjun, who is the richest entrepreneur among Chinese automakers.

As CEO of Great Wall Motor Co Ltd, a large vehicle maker and exporter with an annual production of 300,000 units, Wang says she puts more than 80 percent of her energy into her job.

"As a female executive, I need two pairs of wings to fly high and maintain my altitude," she says. "That means I have to make a double effort."

However, Wang admits that her female characteristics also help her professionally.

"Woman are perfectionists, especially for quality which is vital for branding. And Great Wall is a winner with its extraordinary quality and management," she says.

"The research and development (R&D) of a car model costs two to three years and at least 300 million yuan. If the final model cannot lead the industry, it will be a failure to me," Wang explains in describing her drive for perfection.

From marketing to management

Wang was one of the first employees in 1991 when the company became privately owned after beginning as a village-owned factory which focused on refitting agricultural vehicles.

As chief marketing manager, Wang made Great Wall sales double for four consecutive years and helped the company make its first profit. Then in 2002, she became CEO of the reorganized Great Wall Motor Co Ltd.

In 1995, when Great Wall needed to launch its own product to expand business, they decided to occupy a new niche - pickup trucks.

"Although the pickup market was quite small in China - most big cities are limited for that market - we saw a great potential and big margin," says Wang. "We saw that it's the market in which we can make a profit in the shortest time and in which we could easily become the leader."

Pickup trucks were one of Great Wall's two major success stories. Since 1998, three years after it was launched as China's first pickup truck, Great Wall's vehicle has ranked first in market share, product range, export volume and sales successively for seven years.

Its SUV line was Great Wall's second step to success.

In 2002, its Safe SUV hit the market as the first economical Chinese SUV at the price range of about 80,000 yuan ($11,400). A year later it became a best-seller for Great Wall in major cities such as Beijing, Shenzhen, Tainjin and Guangzhou. The Sing model SUV has enjoyed similar success.

"We were the first to provide an SUV for 80,000 yuan, a very competitive price," she recalls. "We cut the cost by optimizing management and improving efficiency during the production process."

In December 2003, Great Wall became the first privately owned auto company in China listed in the Hong Kong Stock Market.

"We win because we focus not only on the quality of our products, but also on the quality of our management," says Wang. "Although we enjoy a large sales volume, we pay more attention to the average profit than the quantity, because the ability to make a profit decides the future of an enterprise."

Last year, Great Wall acquired a net profit of more than 900 million yuan from 400,000 units of vehicles.

"The profit margin is fairly high in the industry," she says.

Wang's another strategy to her marketing success is "always be different. In my view, the difference is also a competitive edge. So at the very beginning, a company has to carefully make a decision on positioning itself in the market."

Ambition

Located in Baoding, Hebei province, Great Wall has a modern auto industry zone with area of almost 2,000 sqm, 150 km southwest to Beijing.

Besides its manufacturing plants Great Wall also possesses a state-of-the-art R&D center.

"We have invested more than 1 billion yuan into the center for facilities and equipment. And we are planning to invest another one billion yuan on a new center for our rising R&D demand for new models," says Wang.

In 2005, Great Wall opened its production base for 200,000 units of passenger cars and last October, the company's first passenger cars, GWPeri and MPV Cowry, rolled off the production line.

"Now is the right time for us to enter the passenger car market. Of course, as I always insisted, we will first focus on producing small cars to occupy the leading position in that area then expand our reach to the middle- and large-sized sedan markets from 2009," Wang says.

Although the passenger market is the industry's most competitive battlefield and Great Wall seems to be a latecomer, Wang has confidence.

"We will develop ten economical small cars based on the same pre-2009 chassis and technology. Then we can double our R&D investment in the technology to produce larger, higher quality cars based on an advanced technology," she explains. "That's our strategy to compete in the passenger car segment."

Wang also says that in the next three years Great Wall plans to spend 10 billion yuan on its production facilities and R&D infrastructure.

By 2010, she hopes Great Wall's annual output will be 500,000 units, with a sales income of up to 30 billion yuan.

(China Daily 04/21/2008 page12)