Editor's note: This article is from WeChat public number "Tech Planet" (ID: tech618), author: Ma Weibing, 36 Krypton reprinted with permission.
Catching up with the influence of his father's generation is the destiny of the Suning Group, including the "son" Zhang Kangyang.
Searching for the name Zhang Kangyang on the Internet often reveals Wang Sicong, Liu Qing, Zong Fuli and other associated figures, and the public has given them a unified label - successor. It is always impossible to avoid the bright aura of the father's generation, and as the offspring of the company's founder, the geometry of their business talent naturally attracts much attention.
Zhang Kangyang, who often follows Suning Group Chairman Zhang Near East around, has always been a low-key and stable image. But in recent days, due to a soccer match, Zhang Kangyang instantly occupied the front page of the news and became known to the outside world.
On the evening of July 30th, the friendly match between Juventus and Inter Milan in the Asian region of the International Champions Cup was held at the Nanjing Olympic Sports Center. In the European competition in the quiet off-season, this home of the top tournament, rekindle the passion of the fans.
Apart from being able to witness the catch-up on the green field, the fans more often refer to this match as Inter's "homecoming". The reason why this Italian team has become a national home is that Suning bought it and club president Zhang Kangyang has led it back to its peak.
Youngest Inter President
Since the announcement of the match, the topic of Inter's "homecoming" has been a hot topic of discussion, with the Nanjing Olympic Sports Center packed to the rafters, and Zhang Kangyang, the leader behind the team, gradually becoming better known. The relationship between Nanjing and Inter started with Suning's acquisition of Inter.
In 2016, Suning Group announced that its Suning Sports Industry Group acquired 70% shares of Serie A giants FC Inter Milan by subscribing new shares and acquiring old shares for a total consideration of about 270 million euros.On June 28, Suning held its first shareholders' meeting, and five members of the executive management entered the board of directors of Inter, and in addition to Ren Jun, Mi Xin, Yang Yang, and Liu Jun, the name of Zhang Kangyang jumped out in the The name of Zhang Kangyang jumped out on the list.
At that time, Zhang Kangyang just came back from abroad, studying in Suning President Office for nearly a year.2016 sports IP has become the object of the domestic crazy capital to catch up, the old fans of Zhang Near East early look at the track, began to vigorously layout of the sports industry, take over Jiangsu Suntian, and the merger and acquisition of the International Milan is also in the plan.
At this time the Inter after the peak in 2010 fell into a slump, frequent changes in coaching, player morale, the team's performance fell for many years absent from the Champions League, the club's market value once fell to 160 million euros.
In order to train his successor, Zhang Near East promoted Zhang Kangyang to the international company as vice president, and the first military order issued was: on behalf of Suning to complete the due diligence of the acquisition of Inter Milan Club, and ultimately facilitate the transaction. In front of the task given by his father, Zhang Kangyang accepted it wholeheartedly, even if it was a field he had never touched before.
Zhang Kangyang, just 25 years old, was entrusted with the important task, he is not a fan of soccer, know little about soccer, even with a hundred years of history of Inter Milan only heard of, and even the former president of Inter, Massimo Moratti, who do not know, Zhang Kangyang can only be in the eve of the negotiation of the soccer knowledge of remedial.
When meeting with Moratti, Zhang Kangyang didn't directly talk about his weakness in soccer, but talked about Italian history from Chinese culture. Afterwards Moratti commented on Zhang Kangyang, "He is a quick-thinking, capable and gentle young man, I have a very good impression of him, he amazes Italian soccer, don't underestimate his age."
After receiving Moratti's favorable comments, Zhang Kangyang, in an effort to turn around Inter's decline, went from flying twice a month to being based directly in Milan, and used his spare time to learn Italian in order to communicate with the players. Since then, Zhang Kangyang has not missed a single Inter game.
In the summer transfer window of the 2016-2017 season, Zhang Kangyang re-invited Roma manager Luciano Spalletti, who finished second in Serie A last season. Shkriniar, Balero, Becino and Dalbert were brought in, and players like Cancelo were loaned out. With the new lineup, Inter started the season on fire, eventually overtaking Lazio for fourth place and returning to the Champions League.
According to the financial data released by UEFA, Inter has achieved break-even in the 2016-2017 financial year, and its brand value and commercial value have also gained a great deal in the two years that Zhang Kangyang has been at the helm, with the club's brand value growing by more than 1,00% in 2018 to reach 389 million euros, which is ranked the world's 13th among soccer clubs.
Under Zhang Kangyang's efforts, Inter Milan returned to the Champions League after a six-year hiatus.On October 26, 2018, 25-year-old Zhang Kangyang was elected as the new president of Inter Milan Football Club, becoming the youngest club president in the history of Inter Milan and even the major European giants. Suning Sports has also recently been rumored to launch a B round of financing in the second half of the year, with plans to go public in the next two to three years.
The first commercial task set by Zhang Near East, it should be said that Zhang Kangyang replied with excellent results.
succession planning
In the Inter Milan experience, Zhang Kangyang was also evaluated by the foreign media as a "sponge from China", absorbing new things, learning things quickly, to obtain these evaluations and Zhang Kangyang's growth experience is inseparable.
On December 21, 1991, Zhang Kangyang was born in a wealthy small family. A year ago, Zhang had already self-financed 100,000 yuan to create Suning, and in a short period of time to take the title of Chunlan air-conditioning sales of the country's first major.
"Inheritance" is the spirit of Chinese entrepreneurs over the years, when Zhang Kangyang is still a child, Zhang Near East has already made a good life plan for him - Suning's future successor.
Hong Kong's richest man Li Jiacheng is Zhang Near East admired predecessor, its method of training children is also used by Zhang Near East on the young Zhang Kangyang. According to Suning old employees recall, Zhang Kangyang was very young to follow his father in the company to listen to the meeting, "that only a few years of age, the child is sitting there quietly, even move not move a bit."
In the face of his father's arrangements, Zhang Kangyang has been obedient since childhood, until the age of 15, in adolescence, Zhang Kangyang and his father had his first argument. Zhang Kangyang wanted to go abroad earlier to receive training, but Zhang Near East loves his son and feels that it is too early to go abroad at this time, and can not bear to see his son suffer outside.
After a few days of cold war between the two sides, Zhang chose to compromise and decided to let his son go out into the world. He sent him to Mosesburg College, a traditional elite high school in Pennsylvania, U.S.A. During this period, Zhang Kangyang won a number of science and engineering awards, including second place in the National Robotics Competition, and also won the President's Award for Educational Programs and was selected as an honor graduate of the school. He also received the President's Educational Program Award and was selected as an honor graduate of the university.
Zhang Kangyang, who had excellent grades, received invitations from several prestigious schools, including MIT and Duke University, but eventually chose the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania to study economics. Sun Yuchen, who was raked over the coals by netizens due to excessive marketing in the previous period, is also a student of this prestigious school. The famous alumni of this university also include Warren Buffett, the god of stock, and Elon Musk, the man of steel.
After returning from his studies, Zhang Kangyang did not enter his father's company, but chose investment banking, which he was more interested in, and studied at Morgan Stanley Capital Markets, JP Morgan Chase Investment Banking and other well-known financial institutions to accumulate experience, but it was not long before his father called him back to China.
Inter was the first case Zhang Kangyang was recalled to take over. When faced with onlookers questioning his presidency of Inter, Zhang Kangyang said, "I don't think there's any challenge that I can't take on as a 90-year-old." The original young teenager who loved cars and fun, put away all the edges and cleaned up all his social networks leaving only his work.
According to Suning's official website, its industrial map currently has eight blocks, according to Zhang Near East's planning, the next step is to let it turn to the domestic, and gradually take over Suning's main retail business. Zhang Kangyang can be in the retail field, replicate the achievements of Suning sports, is the biggest test of its formal successor.
Suning's key candidate for "freshman"?
On January 15, 2019, at Suning Holding Group's year-end awards, Zhang Near East personally presented the "Chairman's Special Award" to his son Zhang Kangyang. This public acceptance of his father's award also means that Zhang Near East has publicly expressed his appreciation for Zhang Kangyang.
But right now Zhang Kangyang has another important test, that is to explore the road of Suning's new retail. Suning, as one of the earliest retail enterprises in China, the core of its current business is smart retail. According to the half-yearly performance snapshot released by Suning.com, showing that in the first half of the year, Suning.com's operating income was 134.618 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 21.63%, and realized a net profit of 2.139 billion yuan from the mother of the net profit, a year-on-year decline of 64%, the sluggish performance of Suning's small stores has affected the company's profit growth.
But the continued development of Suning small stores is of great significance, Suning small stores is Zhang Near East in order to fend off Jingdong, Tmall and other new retail players, take the initiative to seize the layout of the offline market. However, on June 24 this year, Suning small store business registration has changed. The investor from Suning Tesco Group Co., Ltd. into the Nanjing Yunzhixiang Network Technology Co., Ltd. and Yunzhixiang Technology Co., Ltd. largest shareholder is Zhang Kangyang.
Source of data: Skywatch
This is following the country after the rice, Zhang Near East again sent to Zhang Kangyang's heavy responsibility. Although Suning small store losses for years, but Zhang Near East did not have "give up" meaning, has been preparing for its food and grass for its "war", and also launched a variety of promotional and publicity activities.
At present, the development of Suning small stores is not smooth sailing. From 2017-2018 new convenience store industry, in the capital of the frenzy to follow up the formation of the wind, Jingdong announced "million Jingdong convenience store program", convenience bee stores were explosive growth, Suning small stores also followed, had planned to open 20,000 brick and mortar stores by 2010.
From the 2018 Suning financial report, the number of Suning small stores in the past year has increased by a net 4,830, and there are about 4,000 new Suning small stores, with a total of more than 6,000 Suning small stores from the first one in Shanghai to the present. And this is far from the original target of 20,000 homes.
With the closure of the neighborhood, 131, full-time and other closures, see the new convenience store wind mouth has died, Suning is still sticking to the strategy of buy and open open open, seize the entrance to the new retail. But in the user consumption habits are difficult to change and offline demand contraction of the environment, Suning small store crazy expansion, so that its rent, personnel operating expenses increased greatly, losses are undoubtedly.
According to the data released by Suning in October 2018, the loss of Suning small stores reached 296 million yuan in the first seven months of last year, and the debt amounted to 653 million yuan, and Suning small stores have become the hind legs of the whole group of Suning. As for Zhang Kangyang, who does not have a little experience in the retail industry, he has taken on the heavy responsibility of navigating Suning's intelligent retail, and Zhang Kangyang's pressure can be imagined.
In order to layout smart retail and expand the share of the offline retail market, Suning has also acquired other retail brands one after another. On February 12, Suning Tesco acquired all 37 department stores under Wanda Co. on June 23, Suning International announced the acquisition of Carrefour China's 80% shares for 4.8 billion yuan.
As vice president of Suning International Zhang Kangyang, now hold two trump cards in the hands of Suning store and Carrefour, but from the current stage, the two businesses are in a long-term loss, Zhang Near East again will be "rice problem" in front of his son, has always been accepted in full Zhang Kangyang this time and how to solve it?
"I give myself a failing grade always, so that I can go to progress ah, especially since my work has just begun." Zhang Kangyang so
