Chapter 99： Burning money is an art job

When Yang Huan came to the small town of Gayton in Warwickshire from the M40 highway and on the way to the Aston Martin headquarters, he discovered something very strange and interesting.

That is, the headquarters of Jaguar Land Rover, which was acquired by Indian Tata Motors in 2007, is actually next door to Aston Martin.

Between the two factories, there is not even a wall to block them, but they are slightly covered by green belts.

"In the past, Jaguar Land Rover and Aston Martin belonged to Ford Motors, so Ford built such a huge and magnificent automobile industrial park here. But who could have imagined that Ford was not doing well in just a few years after moving in. Block brands have been sold."

After Zhao Yuanfang was picked up by Yang Huan during that phone call, he really ran from China to the UK.

Yang Huan did not hesitate to hand over the acquisition to Zhao Yuanfang.

This investment expert who was highly valued by Yang Wenfeng before did not disappoint Yang Huan after he came to the UK. Whether it was Aston Martin or Sunseeker Yachts, he managed to keep the purchase price low.

And Yang Huan's acquisition plan is still being executed.

"Jaguar and Land Rover, these two brands are good!" Yang Huan has a good impression of these two brands.

Now they are riding in Jaguar's limited edition XJ luxury sedan, and Yang Huan also has a Range Rover at home.

"It's not bad, but the Indians definitely refuse to sell, even if they are losing a lot now!" Zhao Yuanfang laughed.

After Jaguar and Land Rover were acquired by India’s Tata Motors, they have indeed suffered losses every year for the past three years.

If Yang Huan remembers correctly, it seems that he started to turn losses into profits after he aggressively entered the Chinese market.

Therefore, many people in China said that it was not the Indians who saved Jaguar Land Rover, but the Chinese.

Except for important cities such as London, Britain is basically vast and sparsely populated, and land is very cheap.

Aston Martin has at least 400 acres of land in the northern suburbs of Gayton, and the Jaguar Land Rover next door is not too much.

To get to Aston Martin’s headquarters and factory, you have to go through a round island. There is a sign on the island that says, Aston Martin Lagonda, which makes Yang Huan very strange again.

"Is this factory called Lagonda?"

The British always like to give buildings a name. For example, the training base in Southampton is called Staplewood.

The reason is also very simple. The road outside the training base is called Staplewood Road.

"No, Lagonda used to be one of the super luxury car brands in the UK, and its car-making technology is also quite exquisite, especially good at engine design. It was acquired by Aston Martin in 1947. Later, Lagonda was once launched. Da Da’s models were stopped even though they had poor sales."

Yang Huan let out a cry, and then realized that the full name of Aston Martin was originally Aston Martin Lagonda.

Finally drove slowly into the factory area, clean roads, green environment, and fresh country air, all of which make it easy to have a good impression of Aston Martin’s Gaydon headquarters.

When Yang Huan arrived, Urich Bates had led a group of management staff to wait outside the gate of the headquarters office.

As soon as he saw Yang Huan's Jaguar arrived, he immediately greeted him.

"Master Huan, welcome to Aston Martin!" Urich Bates' attitude towards Yang Huan is completely different now.

Before, he murmured in order to resolve a lawsuit, but now he is polite to his boss.

"Urich, thank you very much!" Yang Huan said with a smile.

"No hard work!" After closing the door, Urich Bates led Yang Huan to see the company's executives.

"This is the company's chief financial officer Hanno Conner, this is the company's production and operations director Keith Stanton, this is the company's design director Marrick Rickman, and sales director John Kunster."

Following this introduction by Urich Bates, Yang Huan walked over and shook hands with them one by one.

The company changed a group of bosses in 2007. In the following years, the business was bleak, and all of them were a little disheartened.

Now the new boss is young and has a frightening reputation. As soon as he acquired the company, there was a car crash that shocked the world in a blink of an eye. But it is also this time that the incident has made everyone Everyone recognizes the strength of the new boss.

Not to mention, just after smashing the car, Sun Yue intervened in Aston Martin's public relations, and he just turned the original potential crisis into a branding of Aston Martin and turned the crisis into a business opportunity. This ability is still worthwhile definitely.

It's just heard that the Chinese marketing director spent six figures for this turmoil.

It also seems to be a big spender.

In addition to Zhao Yuanfang, Sun Yue and Long Wu accompanied Yang Huan to Aston Martin.

A group of four, accompanied by Urich Bates and others, first visited the company's exhibition hall.

The exhibition hall is similar to the 4S store, but the decoration is very simple, even worse than some low-end domestic 4S stores. However, every model of Aston Martin's past is displayed inside.

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, suitcases and so on. No wonder I met Urich Bates in Harrods. At that time, he was wearing so many Aston Martin things.

"Master Huan, this is our production workshop. Except for the use of robots in the body-in-white process, all of our processes are made by hand, even including body painting."

Urich Bates introduced the manufacturing process of Aston Martin with a proud look.

In his view, this represents the cutting-edge technology and tradition of hand-made cars.

When it comes to hand-manufactured cars, Aston Martin takes the second place. I am afraid that no one dares to recognize the first.

But in Yang Huan's view, this is somewhat ironic.

While you are obsessed with high-quality hand-made manufacturing, your competitors are doing assembly line operations. While ensuring quality, they are constantly improving their car-making skills. This has also led to Aston Martin’s losses every year. An important reason.

After visiting the leather workshop where Aston Martins are most proud of, Yang Huan, accompanied by Urich Bates and others, returned to the administrative office area, and all the core management also walked in one after another. meeting room.

Yang Huan glanced at everyone present and found that everyone was also 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 eyes and troughs we have suffered."

Everyone present raised their heads, looked at Yang Huan, and listened to him with a faint voice to start his first opening speech after the company's acquisition.

"Today, we say goodbye to the glories and troughs of Aston Martin in the past. Tomorrow, we will usher in a brand new Aston Martin and create a whole new situation!"

Yang Huan's words won quite a round of applause.

After all, after David Richards bought Aston Martin before, he was even more beautiful than Yang Huan, but what happened?

Those present are all the old fritters from the auto industry, and they are all very aware of the current problems Aston Martin is encountering and the solutions to the problems. In the final analysis, it is the same thing, money!

"I announced that Aston Martin will invest 20 million pounds to upgrade the car factory. I will complete this project in the shortest possible time. After the new factory is put into use, the entire Aston Martin car production line will be further upgraded. Perfect, to raise Aston Martin's car-making technology and efficiency to a higher level."

Everyone present was in an uproar when they heard it.

Use 20 million pounds to upgrade the car factory?

This is indeed a good idea, but to improve production efficiency, isn't it going to return to the mistakes of previous years?

You know, the annual output of Aston Martin's car factory is 8,000, but the annual sales volume is only more than 3,000.

Is it useful to just upgrade the factory?

Moreover, during Urich Bates’s time, the most criticized one was the sales but the lack of quality.

But Yang Huan had also learned about this from Urich Bates, and after listening to his explanation, it was that R&D could not keep up.

The current auto industry is getting faster and faster, and the R&D investment is getting higher and higher, especially for super luxury cars like Aston Martin. Every car and every new technology research and development requires a lot of investment. funds.

But whether it was at Ford or later during David Richards, Aston Martin did not invest enough money in R&D, which resulted in Aston Martin’s empty sales and production, but no quality. , Became a disaster.

"I announce that in 2011, Aston Martin’s annual R&D budget is 100 million pounds. I have only one requirement for the design department and the R&D department. In the shortest possible time, we will lose what we have lost in the past. Just get it back and catch up with our competitors!"

Yang Huan’s words made the entire conference room fry.

"One hundred million pounds?"

"Oh my God, all our R&D projects can be started at the same time!"

"Yes, those plans that have died because of insufficient funds can be restarted."

"It's great, the new boss is good, bold!"

Everyone in the conference room was in an uproar and talked a lot.

Although Urich Bates sitting next to Yang Huan knew that Yang Huan had courage, he did not expect that there would be such a courage, and he invested 120 million pounds in research and development and equipment upgrades.

"I hope we can master all the core technologies of the entire car manufacturing industry chain, including engine research and development. This is our biggest weakness at the moment. I don't want us to look at other people’s faces and do things. I like to let others see my faces and do things. !"

"Therefore, we have to rectify the previous outsourcing parts suppliers at the same time. I don't care what it used to be, in short, from now on, in the future, we Aston Martin will only do the best and only do the best!

Yang Huan's bold words resonated with everyone present.

Aston Martin, once a high-end atmosphere and a high-end existence, has fallen over the years. It was first adopted by Ford and then acquired by private capital. It has always been cold-hearted, and now it has finally ushered in a new boss. People are coming.

The feeling of being ahead is good and enjoyable!

If you want money, you have money, what you want!

One word, cool!

"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 without words, who lost China. In the market, no one should think about mixing in the automotive field."

"If someone disagrees with my statement he is not qualified to stay in Aston Martin!"

Everyone present could not refute that the importance of the Chinese market is self-evident and everyone knows it.

"So, in order to cater to the Chinese market, we must not only manufacture sports cars, but also try to manufacture luxury cars, SUVs and crossovers. Therefore, in the next few years, we will focus on building luxury cars, SUVs, etc. with super sports cars as the arrow. The product phalanx followed closely by models."

Speaking of this, Yang Huan showed extremely strong self-confidence.

"Not only do I want to revive Aston Martin's position as the king of supercars, I also want to build Aston Martin into an important force in the automobile kingdom, and the core market will be the key to China's high-end automobile consumption in the next few years. Battle!"

Burning money is also an art job.

Some people burned money without even seeing the ashes.

But some people burned money but burned a golden mountain.

Yang Huan undoubtedly wants to be the latter. ()