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Over the years, Xiaomi has consumed the public’s attention with so much exposure and action that people have become accustomed to its success. Xiaomi’s image in people’s minds has been solidified without increasing the dose and intensity of publicity. Everyone would say this is a successful business, but it has been so successful that there seems to be no sparkle or excitement, and it makes people feel flat.
Now if from the starting point of the timeline to re – disc millet’s entire development process, it is amazing. This is an amazing company. Within two years of its establishment, its sales exceeded 10 billion yuan and it entered the world’s top 500 in nine years. By comparison, it took huawei 23 years to enter the global 500, Alibaba 18 years and Tencent 19 years. The speed with which Xiaomi has grown from scratch to a skyscraper is something of a marvel in the entire history of business.
The market environment
Around 2006, the mobile Internet wave swept the market. At that time, a shanzhai revolution was under way in the Chinese market, with shanzhai phones, large and small, dominating malls and retail stores. A small group of manufacturers rushed out to put together the parts of a phone, and a new phone could be brought to market in a very short time and with less standard and complex manufacturing techniques. Shanzhai mobile phones not only show a very attractive price, but their performance and experience are not significantly different from those produced by regular big manufacturers. Sometimes, even many big manufacturers do not have advanced and intelligent functions frequently appear in shanzhai mobile phones. So much so that the public has to wonder what the big manufacturers are doing.
Lei Jun’s growth history
Lei jun has always been an ambitious youth, graduated from wuhan University computer department after a short period of entrepreneurship, then joined Kingsoft. Jinshan the spirit of this company temperament and young energetic Lei Jun very fit, jinshan company’s English name kingsoft, translated into Chinese ‘king software ‘, why to pick up such a name, because at that time the world’s largest software company is’ Microsoft ‘-Microsoft. Micro is small meaning, since you call Microsoft, small soft, that I will have a domineerly name to suppress you. This also reflects adequately the ambitious ambition that shows golden hill wants to do one time big career at first, the product name that includes golden hill under its banner is domineer and very, for instance golden hill poison bully, golden hill word bully is to wait, be not to declare a king is to declare a hegemon. The Lei Jun of youth period grows fast in the enterprise environment that is full of passion fighting spirit is high, the CEO that lei Jun becomes Golden hill finally finished IPO appears on the market the job, Lei Jun resigned all posts to quit Golden hill 2007.
From 1988 to 2007, Lei jun devoted himself to the Internet business with PC(personal computer) as terminal. Although some achievements have been made in the long 19 years, the results are far from the original expectations. In years of precipitation, Lei Jun also gradually understand a few truths. Do a career, not in the voice of how much, but in the cause itself can achieve. So Lei jun later founded Xiaomi, ditching its previous high-profile characteristics for such an unpretentious and a little low-key name. How can we achieve great things by eliminating the impetuous voices and returning to reason and things themselves?
With the day
In 2007, the first generation of iPhone was released, which not only announced that the PC era has gradually entered the twilight, but also indicated that a new terminal (smart phone era) will take over the throne. From 2007 to 2017, the overall market was reshuffled due to the rapid development of mobile Internet. Many established handset makers, or companies that have already achieved great success in other related fields, naively assume that they can continue to prosper simply by replicating their model in new battlefields. Microsoft, for example, tried and failed to extend its PC glory to mobile.
As an industry worker with 19 years of ups and downs in PC side, Lei Jun’s past experience makes him keenly aware that the whole world and the industry are undergoing subtle changes. They seem to be planning a big event, and the release of iPhone is just the prelude of this big drama. The idea for Xiaomi came to Lei jun when he saw meizu’s smartphones and couldn’t put them down.
In 1984, Apple introduced the Macintosh, the first computer operating system, heralding the world’s arrival in the PC era. But Apple’s policy of closed source and non-sharing has resulted in an entire industry in which only one player, Apple, can dance and no other players can enter. It was in this situation that Microsoft developed the Windows operating system and released it to the outside world. A large number of cooperative manufacturers flooded in and Windows became the most popular operating system with the largest number of users in the world. In 2007, the birth of iPhone marked the advent of the era of smart phones, but Apple still stuck to its old rules, and the ios system used by iPhone was also closed to the public, which left infinite room for the development of Android system. Lei Jun as an old man in the PC era, when to see When the ios system was closed to the outside world, such a scene was familiar. He immediately realized that there would soon be a new open and inclusive operating system, just like Windows, which would soon dominate the market and eventually become the most popular operating system in the world, and these were opportunities for Lei jun.
The draught of the era has appeared, and all the elements are ready. What Lei Jun should do is to seize the rhythm of the development of The Times, had better still be able to become the driver of the rhythm. In the vast historical trend, even though individual power is very weak, as long as they ride the train of The Times and do the right thing in the right place, they can make great achievements by using the historical tide. Lei Jun is after leaving Golden hill, close friend meets a person to meet, the topic of smart phone is never absent. Not only did he smell the world changing early, but he made a quick decision, what you see is what you get, and entered the mobile market very quickly, without hesitation, delay or obtuse. It is because of such a quick and decisive, Millet became the tide of The Times.
What Xiaomi did at first was not so sophisticated as expected, and could even be understood as an upgrade of shanzhai phones. Xiaomi produces its phones in a similar way to shanzhai phones, but in an institutionalized, large-scale and systematic way. The drawbacks of many original shanzhai mobile phones, such as quality problems and after-sales problems, have been solved one by one, just as the miscellaneous army has gradually become a regular army under the constraints of the system. At the same time, Xiaomi retained the advantages of shanzhai phones, such as colorful functions and market-breaking prices, and finally won the trust and reputation of users with its excellent quality.
Savage growth and crisis
From 2010 to 2014, Xiaomi experienced explosive growth. In those years, it frequently released models and won the favor of users with its unique functions and experience. Many people still remember the launch of the Mi 1 and were impressed by its innovation. The launch was not just about marketing, it also included sales, financing and promotion. Many users give feedback that Xiaomi’s direct sales system is excellent. Mobile phones are produced in factories and sent directly to users without distributors, while users are directly in front of Xiaomi. Therefore, Xiaomi can easily obtain users’ real wishes and provide high-quality services. At first, Xiaomi only set up purchasing department, sales department and production department, and the essential finance department. Get rid of all the departments that are not related to the product. All the departments work around the product and make decisions around the user. Many people would think that Xiaomi’s direct selling system is an innovation, but the essential reason is that Xiaomi is short of production capacity and resources, so direct selling is a choice made under such an unavoidable situation. Later, it was found that xiaomi adopted this simple and direct development model in the early stage of growth worked wonders, and the company expanded dramatically.
Xiaomi hit a crisis in 2015-2016, when many thought it would collapse overnight. Xiaomi’s original simple and direct management model has gradually failed to support the growing volume. The whole management system of Xiaomi still continues the original manual operation. For example, when the purchasing department, production department and sales department check the data in the office, they often check the Excel data on everyone’s computer manually. It is hard to imagine a mobile phone manufacturer producing tens of millions of units a year with such an inept management system. In such a management system, errors caused by data abound. Lei quickly realized the problem and created two new departments, the Staff department and the Organization Department, to deal with the problems caused by poor management within the company system. Later, Xiaomi also entered the stage of making up lessons. The supply chain system gradually improved and progressed from the original simple and rough, and finally became stable. Therefore, Xiaomi successfully overcame the crisis and entered a higher stage of stable development.
The future of Xiaomi
After 2017, Xiaomi is developing towards a higher level platform. Looking back on the whole development process of Xiaomi, at the beginning, it grabbed the market by making a surprise victory with the explosion of mobile phone models, and then built xiaomi ecosystem around its customized and optimized Android system (all intelligent Internet of Things products need android system to provide support). At this time, Xiaomi’s products are not only mobile phones. Many manufacturing companies, especially those producing Internet of Things products, have reached cooperation with the support of capital, brand, channels and resources provided by Xiaomi. Many products transformed by Xiaomi finally use xiaomi’s face to meet the audience. At this time, Xiaomi has changed from the original mobile phone manufacturer to a platform that covers all rivers. Relying on its own resources and advantages, it continues to influence upstream hardware manufacturers, such as Xiaomi fans, Xiaomi mattresses, electric rice cookers, water purifiers and air purifiers that have been sold on the market. Xiaomi’s current main product architecture is 1+4+ X,1 is mobile phone,4 is TV, smart speaker, laptop and router. X is a lot of other products that combine AI and iot. The next decade is the era of artificial intelligence and the Internet of things. I believe Xiaomi will go faster and more stable on this road.