Produced by Tiger Sniffing Business Team
Author｜Fang Yu, chief writer of Tiger Sniff
Does a person’s retirement take away an era?
Yesterday, Huang Mingduan, the founder of RT-Mart in Mainland China, officially retired. He was 65 years old at this time. Huang Mingduan gave his life’s career to Lin Xiaohai from Alibaba. Considering that the latter is already the chairman of RT-Mart, this may not be a real starting point for Lin Xiaohai, but for the boss Huang Mingduan, this Once is the real end.
Someone may still be unfamiliar with the name Huang Mingduan. This is the result of his low-key sneaking for many years. But you must have heard the phrase, “Won all opponents, but lost to an era”. This sentence has spread so widely that it bothers the author and Huang Mingduan himself.
This public case is like this: This sentence is not what Huang Mingduan said, because an article in “China Business Strategy” originally intended to pay tribute to Huang Mingduan uses the title “”The King of Land War” Huang Mingduan, winning all opponents but losing To the People of the Times, when reprinted, it was mistaken for Huang Mingduan to say. Huang Mingduan has always been brooding about this statement. In fact, this article evaluates his status in the arena:
Huang Mingduan has also won the reputation of “the king of land warfare.” Even though he has always been behind the scenes, if you don’t know Huang Mingduan’s reputation and performance in the retail industry, it is a symbol of your very marginal in this industry.
Huang Mingduan’s status in the industry needless to say. He started from scratch at the age of 41 and created a hundred billion-level retail kingdom. As far as personal influence is concerned, Huang Mingduan is essentially a “professional manager”, but he has created many achievements that the “boss” can’t expect in his lifetime. This kind of great sense of accomplishment and honor cannot be measured by money. As foreign media said, “He is a man who can create an era.”
HuangMing Duan is worried about it, perhaps the word “lost to the times”. In Huang Mingduan’s eyes, have I ever lost? He once teased in public, “Lost to Times? Is Times Supermarket still available?” This is another gang case. In the early years, Huang Mingduan brought a Taiwanese team to the mainland to open a RT-Mart supermarket. Some veterans split up and opened another A “time supermarket” has long since disappeared, and time is the best referee.
Huang Mingduan’s brilliance is indeed a golden age for supermarkets. But many people do overlook one thing, that is, when a person cannot dominate a new era, he can still use the attitude of seeking innovation and change and the spirit of reluctance to find the most suitable angle of entry. This spirit of continuous self-breakthrough is the driving force behind the continuous development of business society.
Aside from the specific industry, these spirits are exactly the great value of Huang Mingduan for this era.
learn, be learned, learn again
In the development process of RT-Mart, Huang Mingduan was a learner at first, and then a learner. So when a new model emerges, can Huang Mingduan and his team, who have passed their sixties, return to the mentality of a learner?
This may be what Huang Mingduan admires. He never changes his learning attitude because of his age and status. Huang Mingduan rarely speaks publicly, and his opening speech on stage is also, “I want to report to you today,” and what he said mentioned the good practices of many competitors. Although he clearly knew that many people in the audience came to learn from RT-Mart.
Even many people who are not his contemporaries have learned something from him. Lu Liang, the founder of Tea Yanyue Se, said that his team has learned a lot from RT-Mart’s store operations. Although the two industries of tea and supermarkets seem unrelated.
When RT-Mart entered the Chinese mainland market, foreign supermarkets, Wal-Mart and Carrefour, had already begun to deploy, but the RT-Mart team led by Huang Mingduan learned first and then surpassed, just like the masters in Jin Yong’s martial arts novels, they can learn from others and become a family. Therefore, when RT-Mart surpassed Carrefour in market share in 2009, it has changed from the so-called “dark horse” in the Chinese supermarket industry to the first echelon. Many people began to use RT-Mart as a learning object.
But the switching speed of times is getting faster and faster. After 2012, e-commerce shopping began to develop rapidly, and the traditional physical retail industry is increasingly struggling to compete with e-commerce. As a leading company in the industry, RT-Mart also felt this pressure. Like the first reaction of many retail companies at that time, RT-Mart also chose to build its own e-commerce platform to build Feiniu.com. In 2013, Huang Mingduan personally took charge of Feiniu.com. Someone once persuaded him not to “guarantee the late festival”, but he said that personal honor and disgrace are not important, but RT-Mart “can win”.
BiAfter all, this is a “War Wolf” who has never lost, and “Wolf King” is the nickname given to Huang Mingduan by Taiwan media.
Practically speaking, Feiniu.com’s ultimate destiny can only be transformation, which is also in line with the trend of the times. In the original attempt of physical retail to become an independent e-commerce company, perhaps except Suning.com, it is almost all Annihilated.
In this sense, Huang Mingduan’s command is an asymmetric war that is difficult to win from the beginning. But did he lose? No, he entered a world of new business logic through personal combat with e-commerce. This kind of experience is no stranger to Huang Mingduan. Before the age of 41, he worked with the textile manufacturing industry and was also a layman for the retail industry.
From Visual China
Never admit defeat, but it doesn’t mean that Huang Mingduan will “just to the end” with the trend of the times. His growth experience and personality are also destined to have an “old urchin” side. In 2014, when “Chinese Entrepreneur” magazine interviewed Huang Mingduan, the most hilarious section was that Huang Mingduan said that he hoped that Liu Qiangdong and Ma Yun would scold him, so that Feiniu.com would have traffic. At that time, he noticed that for the new e-commerce platform, the cost of diversion far exceeded expectations, and it was also a hole in the profits of physical stores that was difficult to fill.
Of course, he also knew that no one would dare to really “scold him”. Liu Qiangdong is not only a junior in age, but also respects Huang Mingduan, and he has specially led a team to RT-Mart to learn. In the Internet world, Liu Qiangdong’s later reputation far exceeded Huang Mingduan, but this did not affect Huang’s status in the arena. As for Jack Ma, everyone knows later that at the end of 2017, Alibaba wholly acquired Gaoxin Retail (the parent company of RT-Mart, including Auchan) for HK$22.4 billion.
But for Huang Mingduan, there is no gain or loss. This is a new learning journey, although he cannot completely dominate a new era.
We cannot fully understand how much Huang Mingduan has learned in this war. But at least under his command, RT-Mart later adoptedMany targeted measures have been taken to turn the original online and offline relationship with water and fire into a competitive relationship. According to a report from the China Chain Store & Franchise Association, Huang Mingduan proposed that hypermarkets should be reconstructed from three aspects: category, function, and mind. One of the main lines is that if e-commerce has advantages, try to give it to partners to do it, while RT-Mart is positioned as an expert in fresh food.
Huang Mingduan said that among the five major categories of home appliances, textiles, daily necessities, fresh food, and fast-moving consumer goods in hypermarkets, the categories that have been most impacted by e-commerce in recent years are home appliances and clothing. For example, Sun Art Retail’s same-store sales in 2017 fell by about 1%, and the decline was mainly in home appliances and clothing. Therefore, Gaoxin decided to hand over the home appliance category to Suning for cooperation. Let professional people do professional things. Department stores are taking the cost-effective private label route.
“As a hypermarket, we should spend more time on fresh food. We hope to be an expert in the field of fresh food.”
On the other hand, with the help of Ali, RT-Mart’s stores are also actively embracing the Internet, providing home services, and carrying out digital transformation.
It can be imagined that if he is also in Huang Mingduan’s situation, is there anyone who can handle it better than him? He kept RT-Mart’s status in the arena and allowed RT-Mart to complete its integration with the times. Let everyone be a winner.
Career is life
Huang Mingduan could retire a few years earlier. It was Feiniu.com and later cooperation with Ali that delayed his retirement plan. However, those who are familiar with him also know that Huang Mingduan himself is a workaholic. He is also rare among professional managers. He does not have a name and is not profitable. He seems to be only interested in the work itself.
In the industry, Huang Mingduan is called “Huang Dong”. With Huang Dong’s worth, he certainly does not lack money. However, even in the era when cash payment was the mainstream, Huang Mingduan was said to have brought several hundred yuan bills and went on a business trip with a suitcase. He likes private visits on WeChat and believes that the password of the retail industry is in the mouths of the scene, stores, and consumers. Because he is too low-key, many employees of RT-Mart don’t know him. The editor-in-chief of Future Consumer APP, Wan Degan, mentioned one incident. One time when Huang Mingduan visited a store, he found that a store was displayed incorrectly and directly adjusted it. As a result, the clerk who didn’t know him also conflicted with him. As the chairman of the board, Huang Mingduan can also guide the terminal business with one stroke, which is also feared by the people.
Huang Mingduan is naturally also a strong “tyrant” in internal management, because he doesn’t have too much concept or obsession with money. When he loses his temper and throws things, the tens of yuan water cup and the expensive watch are both It is a treatment, and it may fly out of his office and become his punching bag.
Huang Mingduan’s character is naturally related to his growing up environment. He was born in a poor family and knows the taste of poverty. But after his career has been achieved, he did not become more squandering wealth, but still spent a lot of time and energy on his career. Regarding the wealth he already has, he will choose to do public welfare and support those underachievers like him. He once said to his opponents, “Don’t look down on migrant workers, migrant workers will one day become chairman.”
Huang Mingduan, who believes that hard work can change his destiny, has no authority and destiny in his eyes. He can only learn, advance, and re-learn on the right path. Huang Mingduan was also youthful and rebellious and did not like to learn. He went from a naive teenager who gave the casino door in his early years to a college student. The change was staggering. After he worked, he followed Yin Yanliang for the Runtai Group and became a partner and loyal subordinate. He has reached his upper limit in every role he needs to play in his life, and never deviates from the established track. He runs his own business and his unique life. The two have long been combined. In the hands of fate, he is undoubtedly the winner.
More importantly, if we regard RT-Mart as a person, he is still working hard to import this gene into RT-Mart. Of course, the genes, transformation, and growth of an organization are far more complex and unpredictable than a person. But at least until now, Huang Mingduan’s shadow in RT-Mart is still visible everywhere. The learning ability, organizational ability, and resource mobilization ability he has worked hard to build is also a valuable asset for RT-Mart in the future.
In 2017, when Alibaba wholly acquired Gaoxin Retail, Huang Mingduan’s stay at the time was eye-catching. From the following personnel arrangements, we can see the twists and turns: In March 2018, Alibaba CEO Zhang Yong replaced Zheng Quantai as Gaoxin’s non-executive director and chairman; Zhang Yong took over as chairman of RT-Mart, and founder Huang Mingduan left but chose to remain on the board’s investment committee and operating committee And the members of the Disclosure Committee, continue to advise the board of directors on the investment activities and operations of Sun Art Retail. In 2019, Huang Mingduan re-elected the chairman of Gaoxin Retail, until Lin Xiaohai took over this year. It can be said that Ali has been entangled in the matter of whether it is necessary for Huang Mingduan to “support the horse and send it off”. From the perspective of corporate governance, it is understandable.
But from Huang Mingduan’s mouth, what you hear is always, “Ali is the best choice.” He didn’t struggle, it’s nothypocritical. Huang Mingduan, who has experienced strong winds and waves, has already let go of these obsessions of winning or losing. People with obsessions are all spectators around.
Huang Mingduan really regarded RT-Mart as his life’s career. According to the Future Consumer APP, it is said that during the handover ceremony, Huang Mingduan sang a song “Persistence” and shed tears of emotion. But he worked hard to bring RT-Mart to today’s height, in fact, there is no regret. Just as he said when he paid tribute to him at the end of the article he was so worried about:
It has been 20 years since he left Taiwan in 1997 and started from scratch in the mainland. Most of the “wolves” who followed him to the mainland to work hard have turned white.
With the in-depth integration of Ali and RT-Mart, they may soon retreat and go home. Compared with the goal given by Yin Yanliang during the expedition 20 years ago, it is an absolute triumph.
Although the king is reclusive, the legend of the world is not old.