Nan Yin, chairman of Beijing People's Electrical Appliances Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Beijing People's Electrical Appliances), is a representative entrepreneur.
Like many entrepreneurs born in the 1960s, they had no prominent family background, had not experienced higher education in their youth, and had no rich professional knowledge in their entrepreneurship. However, by virtue of their diligence and intelligence, they broke out a vast field of their own in this industry.
Nanyin's experience is also very simple: three years as a locksmith apprentice, he has done electronic trade, and changed from a half-way home to a low-voltage electrical appliance. He started his business in 1992, and established the state-owned North China Electrical Factory (the predecessor of Beijing People's electrical appliance), which is mainly engaged in molded case circuit breakers. In 1996, he developed the first case of miniature DC circuit breakers in China. At that time, Siemens, abb and other multinational companies had no similar products, so the market was hot. The explosion made Beijing People's Electrical Appliances popular. Today, Beijing People's Electrical Appliances has gone through 20 years.. "AC circuit breakers are always on; DC circuit breakers are northerners." This line of the industry also proves the success of Nanyin and People's Electrical Appliances in the past 20 years.
Nanyin is very representative, in fact, it has two meanings: besides representing the growth of a large number of entrepreneurs in China, it also lies in the company's unique development model: under the overcapacity caused by "big and complete", Nanyin led Beijing People's Electrical Appliances out of a "specialized, refined, special and new" road, which has to arouse people's attention.
Specialized Orientation and Differentiated Market
When it comes to low-voltage electrical appliances, people always associate with overcapacity, disorderly competition and repeated construction; but when it comes to special electrical appliances, it is very difficult for people to name several famous brands. Taking special electrical appliances as the core of its own business is the market Nanyin is devoting herself to.
One morning in March, Nan Yin went to the workshop and turned around as usual. At present, a batch of circuit breakers for Equatorial Guinea are being produced. He picked up one at random and observed it carefully. Equatorial Guinea is located near the equator and is a coastal country. Therefore, its products need not only high temperature resistance, but also strong moisture resistance and salt fog resistance. The technical requirements brought about by this are a challenge for multinational companies. However, Nanyin and his team have overcome this problem and developed innovatively the "three-proof" products (salt fog, moisture resistance and mildew prevention). This is exactly what they are. Nanyin is making a special electric appliance.
Nowadays, the special electrical appliances produced by Beijing People's Electric Appliances have been successfully applied in the fields of wind power generation, photovoltaic power generation, thermal power and hydropower. It is worth mentioning that in 2011, the income of special electrical appliances has accounted for 50% of the company's total business income. In one year, the photovoltaic circuit breaker has been made so windy, which has attracted people's attention.
In fact, we should start from a few years ago to devote ourselves to the special electrical appliances.
Three years ago, Nan Yin asked himself a serious question: What is the company's vision for the future? Like all the companies founded in the 1990s, this issue is not clear in the early stage of entrepreneurship. However, this summary brings Nan Yin more reflection.
Most domestic low-voltage electrical appliances enterprises are large and small in scale, and more than 90% of them are in the repetitive production of middle and low-grade products. Moreover, multinational corporations have flooded into China: ABB, Siemens and Eaton entered China in the 1990s, and LG from Japan, Fuji and Korea came in succession. The consequences of overproduction and vicious competition are self-evident.
"If we continue to fight in this battlefield, we will be no more than a nobody in the battle of the market!" Nan Yin, who always likes reverse thinking, naturally can't accept it. "It's necessary to find a differentiated market!"
After carefully analyzing the customer groups for many years, he focused his attention on the target customers of differentiation: considering that low-voltage electrical appliances are aimed at ordinary users, Nan Yin proposed to "build a global research base for special electrical appliances" - to find blind spots in the market and to differentiate product and brand positioning. Nan Yin took the first step to build special electrical appliances.
"Special electrical appliances?" After listening to this, all the friends in the industry thought he was joking. At that time, there were few enterprises operating special electrical appliances nationwide, even if they were not professional, and there was no relevant experience to learn from, especially the need for a large amount of R&D investment. So many people were asking him, "Nanyin, can you?"
High, Precision and Point Shaping Differentiated Products

 

"Nanyin, can you?" When hearing such questions, pragmatic Nan Yin did not say much.
In 2009, it was also the year that Nanyin proposed to build a global research base for special electrical appliances. Nanyin saw the rapid development of photovoltaic industry. At that time, only one multinational company owned the technology and had great market potential. Nanyin decided to develop circuit breakers for photovoltaic industry.
Domestic photovoltaic projects are mainly distributed in the Western or Northwestern sunny areas. In view of the environmental characteristics of high altitude, high temperature, ultra-low temperature and large temperature difference between day and night, Nanyin redesigned the circuit breaker: increasing opening distance, accelerating arc cooling speed, selecting new insulation materials, series contacts poles, reducing wiring circuit. After nearly two years of research and test, Nanyin redesigned the circuit breaker successively. Overcoming the difficulties of temperature rise and capacity reduction and ultra-low temperature operation reliability, the photovoltaic circuit breaker was put into trial operation.
Nan Yin always smiled unconsciously when talking about what products the customers chose in the interview: "We have a miniature circuit breaker with rated current up to DC40A and voltage up to DC1000V. It can not only protect the photovoltaic module from the harm of direct and reverse fault current, but also overcome the waste that the fuse can only be used once. It can be reused more than 1000 times and can be controlled remotely." The performance of the product is not only better than the multinational companies mentioned above, but also the volume is reduced by half. The price of the product is only one fifth of the imported circuit breaker, which reduces the power outage loss and other costs caused by the replacement of the fuse. It's hard for us not to choose customers."
We should strive to build high, fine and top-notch products, which is the second step for Nanyin to build special electrical appliances.
Based on the good user experience, many photovoltaic projects have chosen the products of Beijing People's Electric Appliances. For a time, the market of photovoltaic circuit breakers has opened to Nanyin. Last year alone, half of the products in the national photovoltaic circuit breaker market came from Beijing People's Electrical Appliances, which had to give people a thumbs-up.
"Unlike general low-voltage electrical appliances, special electrical appliances have different requirements for each variety, which requires a lot of research and development investment. But in my opinion, if we can avoid the chaotic competition in the market, it's OK to invest more in R&D. Nan Yin thinks so.
According to incomplete statistics, the average annual R&D investment of low-voltage electrical appliances enterprises in China accounts for only 1%-2% of sales revenue, while the R&D investment of Beijing People's Electrical Appliances in recent years has exceeded 5%, which is far higher than that of similar enterprises.
In fact, the continuous extension of the product line of special electrical appliances has also led to the company's sales of ordinary low-voltage electrical appliances. It is reported that a chemical engineering project investing tens of billion yuan in a certain place initially purchased only DC circuit breakers for electric power and AC circuit breakers for construction of foundation of Beijing People's Electric Appliances. After field operation, the construction side gave a high appraisal and finally decided to purchase all low-voltage appliances in Beijing People's Electric Appliances.
Nan Yin, who tasted sweet, climbed a new peak last year. The state handed over the nationalization project of AP1000 circuit breaker for the third generation of nuclear power to Beijing People's Electric Appliance. "This is a trust in the company's brand!" Nan Yin said this and smiled confidently.
I think back to my friend's question: "Nanyin, can you?" At that time, Nan Yin was silent. He just chose to let the facts speak.

Innovation promotes differentiated technology
"To decide whether to invest in a new project, I have two criteria: first, is there any relevant patent in the market, and can we avoid it? Second, if there is a patent, can I go beyond it? If I can't meet these two requirements, I will not hesitate to abandon this project." Nan Yin said.
In the eyes of outsiders, low-voltage electrical appliances are an industry with little technical content, but innovation is ubiquitous for Beijing People's Electrical Appliances, which aspires to "build a global research base for special electrical appliances". For example, the company has more than 20 invention patents every year; for example, the domestic low-voltage electrical products are basically in the first generation to the third generation of technology level, but Beijing People's Electric Appliances has developed the fourth generation of products.
At the same time, compared with product innovation, Nanyin pays more attention to the innovation of solutions. "New products, even with patent protection, can still be imitated or circumvented by many people, but system innovation is completely different. For example, the current comes out of the battery group, and through the feed screen, the distribution screen, the relay protection screen and other components of the DC power supply system of the power plant, how to ensure that the fault does not spread when the current short-circuit fault occurs, which requires systematic innovation of the product. We provide customers with a package of products and technical solutions in the power plant, substation DC power supply system and photovoltaic solar DC power supply system. To create greater value for customers.
Observing the development of low voltage electrical appliances market in recent years, you will notice that when other companies have not noticed a certain market, Beijing People's Electrical Appliances has started to research and develop; when other companies start to research and develop, Beijing People's Electrical Appliances products have been listed and applied for patent protection. Over the past 20 years, Nan Yin has penetrated the concept of innovation into the company.
"From information gathering, R&D to product launching, we want to go deeper and farther than our customers. Improve the function, improve the customer experience, the other party is naturally more willing to accept. Nan Yin said.
As the chairman of the board, he naturally accepts customers on weekdays, but he never talks with each other about orders. "My task is very simple, first, customer needs, second, how to innovate themselves."
I remember a few years ago, he visited some enterprises engaged in relay protection, and complained to him as soon as he saw each other: "Nan Zong, you see that my cabinet can not be put down, and the current we need is not large, can you find a way to reduce the width of the circuit breaker by half?" It's a good idea to listen to Nan Yin. It's not complicated to have market and technology. Call the group team to do research immediately after returning to the company. But after careful study, we know that it sounds simple and feasible. In practice, we encounter great difficulties: the width is too narrow, the space is too small, the electromagnetic force is too weak, and there are many difficulties.
"We've been working on this project for two or three years and it hasn't been successful yet, but I still stick to it." He told reporters, "Since the choice of special electrical appliances, the choice of this need to rely on innovative development of ideas, we have to endure loneliness."
Stick to the Diversified Future
Of course, it's good to be lonely and stick to the market. "It is precisely because we have done a lot of solid technical preparation in the past, and strictly grasp the quality of products, that we have formed the company's brand today."
Nan Yin and the reporter talked about some details of quality management, "For example, we promised our customers to ensure that the product runs steadily for at least 10 years. This is not an oral promise. How can it be achieved? For this reason, we adopt the AP1000 mile standard of American nuclear power. Every batch of new products has to undergo 46 days and 100 degrees aging failure test, which is one of the ways to ensure product quality.
In his opinion, quality does not need to be as vigorous as "Zhang Ruimin smashing the refrigerator" and becomes a common thing for the company. "Preliminary work is done in detail: the core elements of the product are analyzed, DFMEA, PFMEA, quality plan, control plan are worked out, and more reliability tests are done, such as simulation tests higher than field environment. Destructive tests must be done. The quality and technology of each test result should be reduced to zero. More investment in R&D, even if the market promotion is slower, we must not give up the quality control.
It is also true that the products of Beijing People's Electrical Appliances have withstood the test of the market. Last year, Golmud, Qinghai, suffered from snow disaster. Some enterprises frequently encountered problems with circuit breakers, while the circuit breakers of Beijing People's Electric Appliances still operate reliably. The product of Beijing People's Electric Appliances has been used by a local power supply bureau for more than 10 years. "There's no reason to buy your products. It seems to have become a habit to use them at ease," he said. When users rely on the brand, they will naturally be exclusive to other brands, which is the highest level of marketing.
Nanyin, in its insistence, ushered in the best market since its start-up.
Someone once asked him, what's your greatest achievement in the past 20 years? Nan Yin said, "If you flatten your temper, you will learn to be more patient. Customers of state key projects will try out in small batches. After operation to ensure safety and reliability, they will purchase on a large scale. It will take three or five years. If you don't persevere patiently, the market won't find you.
On the contrary, there are not many companies that can really "stand loneliness" in the domestic low-voltage electrical industry. They are engaged in the photovoltaic industry; seeking joint ventures with foreign investors in electrical appliances; and engaging in real estate and tourism in electric power products. So entrepreneurs like Nan Yin, who have been sticking to this field, are more precious.
However, it has to be admitted that the days of doing business are much harder than in the past. The price of raw materials is soaring, the cost of labor is rising, and the cost of financing is rising, but people who do business steadily never give up. Over the past 30 years of reform and opening up, it is precisely because a large number of private entrepreneurs like Nanyin have emerged that they have been able to shoulder more than 70% of the employment, 50% of the tax revenue and 60% of the GDP. They do not compete for profitable real estate, nor rely on whitewashed reports to win investment. On the contrary, they are only steadfastly and persistently studying and achieving in their own fields. Long.
As Li Dongsheng (chairman and President of TCL Group [-0.28% fund research] said: "To do industry is a long-distance race, not to see who is ahead in the short term, but who has the best endurance. The final winners must be those who are persistent and well prepared for the difficulties. " And if we look at the domestic low-voltage electrical industry, then Nan Yin of Beijing People's Electric Appliance is absolutely one of the most tenacious players.