Enterprises into bankruptcy reorganization, the former chairman of the board of directors was investigated, the independent brand business a pool of stagnant water ...... for the takeover of Brilliance Automotive Group for only 1.5 years Yan Bingzhe, is facing the biggest challenge in his career.

December 4, "Brilliance Automotive Group Holdings Ltd. former party secretary, chairman Qi Yumin suspected of serious disciplinary violations, is currently under disciplinary review and supervision investigation." The news of the moment triggered an industry-wide outcry.

While Qi Yumin's merits and faults, crimes and punishments before the dust settles, it is still difficult to have a final conclusion, but as the current "hand" Yan Bingzhe, undoubtedly Brilliance how to move from the crash to redemption of the key figures.

As the first chairman of the automotive industry to hold the title of "Doctor of Philosophy", Yan Bingzhe's relatively low profile after his appointment has made the industry skeptical about whether he can really lead Brilliance out of the quagmire.

The outlook for Brilliance China seems increasingly bleak, especially after the formal adjustment of BMW Brilliance's shareholding ratio in 2022.

However, Brilliance's bankruptcy and reorganization is not an "opportunity" for Yan Bingzhe. After all, for Brilliance Automotive Group, which has close to 200 billion yuan, the current debt crisis is not as difficult as imagined; what is difficult is that the reorganization process is full of uncertainties, as well as Brilliance's future in the end, the question of where to go.

All of this is left to Yan Bingzhe to answer.

(1) In the two years since he took over Brilliance, he has practiced hard and achieved little?

Since April 1 last year from Qi Yumin hand over the Brilliance Automotive Group Holdings Ltd. party secretary, chairman of the board of directors, Yan Bingzhe so far at the helm of Brilliance has been close to two years. Although Yan Bingzhe's public appearances are few and far between, we can try to sort out his thoughts on Brilliance's internal reforms through some public reports.

The third day after he officially took over from Qi Yumin, Yan Bingzhe immediately began a week-long research.

From April 3 to 10, Yan Bingzhe went to BMW Brilliance, China Division, Research Institute and Brilliance Power to conduct research.

Two months later, Yan Bingzhe's figure appeared in the "2019 China (Liaoning) State-owned Enterprises Cooperation and Development Forum". From his speech at the forum, we also got the first glimpse of the new Brilliance "hand" of the reform ideas.

"'Where not adapted to where to change, where there is a short board to make up for where', and constantly improve the modern enterprise management system, optimize the enterprise control system." Yan Bingzhe pointed out that the group is now forming each independent "combat unit".

To this end, through the integration of vehicle division, special vehicle division, travel division, international trade division, Yan Bingzhe set up a centralized purchasing platform, big data platform, which highlights the division's "management of assets" function, the product structure is also being optimized.

"For the group's enterprises, more prominent production and management functions, each business unit as a cost unit and profit unit, become an independent business entity, the implementation of target management and performance pay system." Yan Bingzhe said.

In addition to the deep adjustment of the company's internal organizational structure, Yan Bingzhe is also looking for ways to bring the Brilliance China brand, which has been marginalized by the market, back into the mainstream.

Last August, Brilliance specifically sought out the domestic automotive industry technology sector "senior" figure Gao Weimin as the group's chief engineer, hoping that his accession to the R & D system to enhance the ability.

At the same time, Yan Bingzhe also put forward the Brilliance independent brand in the future will be based on the "focus on building good affordable cars," the development of the positioning of the statement, and in the BMW to seek more support.

It is reported that last year, Yan Bingzhe BMW team "invited" Brilliance, trying to both sides in the research and development, manufacturing, quality management and sales after-sales, as well as new energy vehicles, intelligent manufacturing and personnel capacity enhancement and other areas of in-depth cooperation, the Chinese brand for empowerment.

And the Chinese brand models in order to achieve rapid upgrading, but also gradually turned to the integration of the whole system with BMW capabilities. Subsequently, Yan Bingzhe also pulled together Jingdong, Everbright and other partners to continuously extend the Brilliance Automotive industry chain, trying to seek a new breakthrough point.

"Only the establishment of a sustainable development of the complete industrial chain, to be able to fully adapt to future market competition," in Yan Bingzhe's view, Brilliance Group now seeks to "open cooperation", not only to strengthen the new car-making forces and the Internet company In Yan Bingzhe's view, the Brilliance Group now seeks "open cooperation", not only to strengthen the mutual assistance and complementarity with new car-making forces and Internet companies, but also to open cooperation across the entire production chain, and to build a sustainable ecosystem with excellent partners in various industries and fields.

This round of in-depth adjustments led by Yan Bingzhe has been going on for nearly two years, but the development of Brilliance Automotive does not seem to have seen any improvement.

Looking at Brilliance China's 2019, it is still constantly struggling on the line of life and death, with only 25,000 cars sold in the year; in 2020, as of October, Sohu Automobile's production and sales database shows that the total sales of the China brand were 5,128 units, a year-on-year plunge of 77.62%.

Brilliance China's profitability is even more worrisome in terms of operating data. If the profit contributed by BMW Brilliance is excluded, Brilliance China's profits in the past five years (2015-2019) were -540 million yuan, -600 million yuan, -860 million yuan, -420 million yuan and -1.064 billion yuan, respectively.

(2) What's next?

In Brilliance's view, as BMW Brilliance's production capacity increases, more new models are introduced and new energy models are put into production, more international parts suppliers will be introduced into BMW Brilliance's supply system. For Brilliance Group, there will also be more opportunities for joint ventures with top international component suppliers to empower the China brand.

However, this BMW-dependent development path doesn't seem to be working.

Both the previous Huasong and last year's highly anticipated Brilliance Zhonghua V7-1.8T still haven't succeeded in rescuing the nearly-declining Brilliance Zhonghua brand.

Last August, the Brilliance China V7-1.8T, equipped with a BMW-technology 1.8T engine and the same BMW 7DCT wet dual-clutch transmission, was officially launched on the market. This is based on the Brilliance and BMW *** with the development of the Brilliance M8X modular platform to build, the platform's core advantage is the BMW powertrain.

However, this medium-sized SUV with a "BMW core" has still not succeeded in salvaging the deteriorating sales of the Chinese brand.

In fact, how to save the business of Brilliance's own brand, in Qi Yumin's time or today's Yan Bingzhe's time, is one of the most concerned about the outside world.

Particularly when the Brilliance BMW share ratio in 2022 after the official completion of the delivery, the outside world are widely believed to be Brilliance China's "doomsday".

According to the agreement, BMW Group will own 75 percent of BMW Brilliance by 2022, and Brilliance China will no longer consolidate BMW Brilliance's financial statements.

To that end, time is running out for Yan Bingzhe.

Yan Bingzhe once said: Brilliance Group will consolidate and deepen its cooperation with BMW and Renault on the basis of the layout of overseas developed countries, such as Germany and Japan, to jointly establish research and development institutions, and develop new technologies and products for the future with the help of technological advantages and environmental advantages of developed countries.

But now that Brilliance Group is in bankruptcy, I believe that all of its previous product development plans will be temporarily put on hold. In the reorganization plan has not yet been introduced before the implementation of Yan Bingzhe hand how many cards can be played, let a person doubt.

A noteworthy detail is that after Brilliance announced its bankruptcy reorganization, Brilliance's new products with Renault and Sunrise were launched on schedule, seemingly signaling that the group's joint-venture business will not be affected.

But I believe Yan Bingzhe already understands that even if the joint venture business develops vigorously, the independent brands that lack core competitiveness will eventually face the fate of being eliminated.

So, since the beginning of the year, Yan Bingzhe has focused on building Brilliance's competitiveness in the "four" track. For example, on the one hand, with Huawei, Neusoft, Tencent and other top system providers and Internet giants to carry out cross-border cooperation, and actively reserve intelligent network, intelligent driving and other forward-looking technologies. On the other hand, it accelerates the application of big data systems in automobiles.

This time from the Brilliance Group bankruptcy reorganization to the former chairman of the investigation, this is no matter for Brilliance or Yan Bingzhe, undoubtedly is also a "zero restart" opportunity. Perhaps, Yan Bingzhe will also complete the transition from the reformer to the gorgeous turn.

(3) Kung Fu Pat

"In the process of rolling stone on the mountain, climbing over the hurdles, we feel 'confidence' is more important than anything else," held at the beginning of this year's "Brilliance Group In the "Brilliance Group 2020 Work Conference" held at the beginning of this year, Yan Bingzhe said he would like to regain the glory of Brilliance people and reshape Brilliance's new glory.

Nearly two years after taking office, the "low-key" chairman of Brilliance will show more reform ideas in the new round of development.

With the investigation of Qi Yumin, coupled with the previous Yang Rong's "experience", it can now be imagined that the burden on the shoulders of Yan Bingzhe is bound to become heavier and heavier. At the same time also let the industry look forward to, under his leadership, Brilliance in the industry this merger and reorganization tide will go where.

This article was written by the author of "Automotive Home" and does not represent the views of Automotive Home.