Chapter 99 Spending money is an art
When Yang Huan arrived at the small town of Gayton in Warwickshire from the M40 highway and headed to the Aston Martin headquarters, he discovered something very novel and interesting.
That is the headquarters of Jaguar Land Rover, which was acquired by Indian Tata Motors in 2007, and it is right next to Aston Martin.
There is not even a wall between the two factory areas, they are just slightly covered by a green belt.
"Jaguar Land Rover and Aston Martin used to belong to Ford, so Ford built such a huge and magnificent automobile industrial park here. But who could have thought that Ford would not be able to operate well just a few years after moving in, and now these brands have been sold."
After Zhao Yuanfang was chosen by Yang Huan to be recruited during that phone call, he really ran away from China to the UK.
Yang Huan also handed over the acquisition task to Zhao Yuanfang without hesitation.
This investment expert, who had been highly valued by Yang Wenfeng before, did not disappoint Yang Huan after coming to the UK. Whether it was Aston Martin or Sunseeker Yachts, he successfully lowered the acquisition price to a very low level.
Yang Huan’s acquisition plan is still being implemented.
"Jaguar and Land Rover, both brands are good!" Yang Huan has a good impression of these two brands.
Now they are riding in Jaguar's limited edition XJ luxury car, and Yang Huan also has a Land Rover Range Rover at home.
"That's true, but the Indians will definitely not sell, even though they are suffering huge losses now!" Zhao Yuanfang laughed.
After Jaguar and Land Rover were acquired by India's Tata Motors, they have indeed been making losses every year for the past three years.
If Yang Huan remembers correctly, it seems that the company only started to turn losses into profits after it made a big push into the Chinese market.
So at that time, many people in the country said that it was not the Indians but the Chinese who saved Jaguar Land Rover.
Except for important cities such as London, the UK is basically sparsely populated and land is very cheap.
Aston Martin owns at least 400 acres of land in the northern suburbs of Gaydon, and Jaguar Land Rover next door is not far behind.
To get to Aston Martin's headquarters and factory, you have to pass a roundabout first. There is a sign on the roundabout that says Aston Martin Lagonda, which makes Yang Huan feel very strange again.
"Is this factory called Lagonda?"
The British always like to give names to buildings. For example, Southampton’s training base is called Staplewood.
The reason is very simple. The road outside the training base is called Staplewood Road.
"No, Lagonda was once one of the super luxury car brands in the UK. It had very sophisticated car manufacturing technology, especially engine design. It was acquired by Aston Martin in 1947. Later, it launched the Lagonda model, but sales were not good, so it was discontinued."
Yang Huan said "Oh" and then he realized that the full name of Aston Martin was Aston Martin Lagonda.
Finally, we slowly drove into the factory area. The clean roads, green environment, and fresh country air all made it easy for people to have a good impression of Aston Martin's Gaydon headquarters.
When Yang Huan arrived, Ulrich Bates and a group of management were already waiting outside the door of the headquarters office.
As soon as he saw Yang Huan's Jaguar arrive, he immediately went to meet him.
"Master Huan, welcome to Aston Martin!" Ulrich Bates' attitude towards Yang Huan is completely different now.
Before, he was humble in order to settle a lawsuit, but now he is polite to his boss.
"Ulrich, thank you for your hard work!" Yang Huan said with a smile.
"It's not hard!" After closing the door, Ulrich Bates took Yang Huan to meet the company's senior management.
"This is Hanno Koerner, the company's chief financial officer, this is Keith Stanton, the company's director of production operations, this is Malik Rickman, the company's design director, and John Kenster, the sales director."
Following Ulrich Bates' introduction, Yang Huan walked over and shook hands with them one by one.
The company changed a group of bosses in 2007. The business was poor in the following years and they all became somewhat disheartened.
The new boss is young, but his fame is terrifying. Just after he acquired the company, he caused a car smashing incident that shocked the world. But it was this incident that made everyone realize the strength of the new boss.
Apart from anything else, after the car was smashed, Sun Yue intervened in Aston Martin's public relations and transformed the original potential crisis into brand building for Aston Martin, turning the crisis into a business opportunity. This ability is worthy of recognition.
I just heard that this Chinese marketing director spent six figures of pounds on this incident.
He also seems to be a big spender.
In addition to Zhao Yuanfang, Sun Yue and Long Wu also accompanied Yang Huan to Aston Martin.
The four people, accompanied by Ulrich Bates and others, first visited the company's exhibition hall.
The exhibition hall is similar to a 4S store, except that the decoration is very simple, even worse than some low-end domestic 4S stores. However, on display inside are every model of Aston Martin in the past.
It was also in the exhibition hall that Yang Huan noticed that in addition to designing cars, Aston Martin also designs leather shoes, watches, wallets, bags and a host of other things. No wonder when he met Ulrich Bates at Harrods, he was wearing so many Aston Martin items.
"Master Huan, this is our production workshop. Except for the body-in-white process, which uses robots, every process is done by hand, even the body painting."
Ulrich Bates introduced Aston Martin's manufacturing process with a proud look on his face.
In his opinion, this place represents the cutting-edge technology and tradition of hand-made automobile manufacturing.
When it comes to handmade car manufacturing, Aston Martin is second to none. I'm afraid no one dares to claim to be first.
But in Yang Huan's opinion, this is more or less ironic.
While you are obsessed with high-quality hand-made manufacturing, your competitors are engaged in assembly line operations on a large scale. While ensuring quality, they are constantly improving their car-making skills. This is also an important reason for Aston Martin's annual losses.
After visiting the leather workshop that Aston Martin is most proud of, Yang Huan, accompanied by Ulrich Bates and others, returned to the administrative office area. All the core management also walked into the meeting room one after another.
Yang Huan glanced at everyone present and found that everyone was looking at him, waiting for him to speak.
"I want to say that we must forget the glory we have achieved in the past, or the cold shoulder and low points we have suffered."
Everyone present raised their heads, looked at Yang Huan, and listened to him in a faint voice as he began his first opening remarks after acquiring the company.
"Today, we say goodbye to the past glory and lows of Aston Martin. Tomorrow, we will usher in a brand new Aston Martin and create a brand new situation!"
Yang Huan's words won a fairly warm round of applause.
After all, after David Richards acquired Aston Martin, he spoke even more beautifully than Yang Huan, but what was the result?
Those present are all veterans of the automotive industry, and they are all very clear about the current problems Aston Martin is facing, as well as the solutions to the problems. Ultimately it all comes down to one thing: money!
"I announce that Aston Martin will invest 20 million pounds to upgrade its car manufacturing plant. I want to complete this project in the shortest possible time. After the new plant is put into use, Aston Martin's entire car production line will be further improved, and Aston Martin's car manufacturing technology and efficiency will be raised to a higher level."
Everyone present was shocked when they heard this.
Spend 20 million pounds to upgrade a car factory?
This is indeed a good idea, but if we want to improve productivity, wouldn’t we have to return to the mistakes of previous years?
You know, Aston Martin's car manufacturing plant now has an annual output of 8,000 vehicles, but its annual sales are only more than 3,000 vehicles.
Is it useful to just upgrade the factory?
Moreover, the most criticized point during the Ulrich Bates era was that there was sales but no quality.
But Yang Huan also talked to Ulrich Bates about this and listened to his explanation, which is that the research and development could not keep up.
Today's automobile industry is updating and replacing at an increasingly rapid pace, and R&D investment is also increasing. Especially for super luxury cars like Aston Martin, the research and development of each car and each new technology requires a considerable amount of money.
But whether it was during Ford or later during David Richards' period, Aston Martin did not invest enough money in research and development. This resulted in Aston Martin having sales and production but no quality, which turned into a disaster.
"I announce that in 2011, Aston Martin's annual R&D budget is 100 million pounds. I have only one request for the design and R&D departments: in the shortest possible time, we must not only regain what we have lost in the past, but also catch up with our competitors!"
Yang Huan's words caused the entire conference room to explode.
"One hundred million pounds?"
“Oh my god, all our R&D projects can be started at the same time!”
"Yes, all those plans that were aborted due to lack of funds can be restarted."
"Great! The new boss is great and has great courage!"
Everyone in the conference room was in an uproar and talking about it.
Ulrich Bates, who was sitting next to Yang Huan, knew that Yang Huan was courageous, but he did not expect that he would have such courage to invest 120 million pounds in research and development and equipment upgrades.
"I hope we can master all the core technologies of the entire automotive industry chain, including engine research and development, which is our biggest weakness at present. I don't want us to do things according to other people's wishes. I like others to do things according to my wishes!"
"So, we have to reorganize the previous outsourced parts suppliers at the same time. I don't care what happened in the past. From now on, we at Aston Martin only want the best and will only do the best!"
Yang Huan's heroic words resonated with everyone present.
Aston Martin was once a high-end and classy company, but it has fallen into decline over the years. It was first sponsored by Ford and then acquired by private capital. It has always been looked down upon. Now it has finally welcomed a new boss and has become something of a celebrity.
The feeling of standing out is so good and so satisfying!
If you want money, you have money. If you want everything, you have it!
In one word: awesome!
"In addition, I plan to build an Aston Martin automobile manufacturing center in China. The future automobile consumer market, especially the core of the high-end automobile consumer market, is in China. I can even say bluntly that whoever loses the Chinese market will not be able to survive in the automobile industry."
"If anyone disagrees with what I said, he has no right to stay in Aston Martin!"
No one present could refute it. The importance of the Chinese market is self-evident and everyone knows it.
"So, in order to cater to the Chinese market, we not only have to make sports cars, we also have to try to make luxury cars, SUVs and crossovers. So in the next few years, we will focus on building a product array with super sports cars as the arrow, followed by luxury cars, SUVs and other models."
Speaking of this, Yang Huan revealed an extremely strong self-confidence.
“I will not only revive Aston Martin’s position as the king of supercars, but also make Aston Martin an important force in the automotive industry. The core market is the battle for high-end automobile consumption in China in the next few years!”
Spending money is also an art.
Some people burn so much money that not even the ashes are left.
But some people spend money and create a mountain of gold.
Yang Huan undoubtedly wants to be the latter.