2003: Starting with Foreign Trade

Chapter 904 Orange Group's Tenth Anniversary
When a company undergoes a major strategic shift, the biggest challenge it faces is navigating discontinuity.

Upon Lu Qi's arrival, Tan Jincheng presented two great gifts. The first was that he handed over his core strategic assets, Gaode Maps, Dingding, and cash cow TiMi Studio to Chengzi, resolving the issues of basic strategic data and funding required for his all-in AI strategy.

The second great gift was handing over the entire company to Lu Qi for management. Apart from the initial integration of the company where he and Gu Qingqing played the villain, Lu Qi's decisions were never interfered with, and his opinions were even fully considered during the IPO process.

The full delegation of authority and strong support gave Lu Qi a lot of room to maneuver, so much so that Lu Qi, who rarely gives interviews, said at today's bell-ringing ceremony that his decision to return to work in China in 2016 was the best choice among all options.

As for why he chose Orange, in Lu Qi's words, he was betting on his own future, and also on the future of Orange's CEO, Tan Jincheng.

Having been with the company for nearly a year, Chengzi has undergone significant changes under Lu Qi's management. After taking over, Lu Qi's first priority was not to reorganize the business, but to optimize the existing business structure.

To give a simple example, the built-in search bar of Orange's apps, including Orange Products APP, has become more user-friendly, with Lu Qi, who has a background in search business, providing many solutions.

Users of Orange Products Club generally report that the built-in search function of the app and website has become simpler and smarter.

After the merger, Lu Qi successively improved a number of apps, including Gaode Maps and Dingding. This is only one aspect. There are also specific operational changes such as adjusting the salary structure and equity incentive methods.

Besides changes in specific company operations and the integration of business segments, Lu Qi's first task upon taking office was to acquire Duya Technology in January of this year. This technology company, founded in May 2014 and headquartered in Beijing, is mainly engaged in research and innovation in the fields of human-computer interaction and smart hardware.

Lu Qi, the post-90s overseas returnee CEO of Duya, joined Orange with his entire team as the general manager of Orange Smart Home Hardware. Lu Qi hopes to leverage Duya's product strength and integrate AI into hardware.

Orange's self-developed smart speaker, "Little Orange," will be released this month and will also be showcased at the CES International Electronics Show in Las Vegas early next year. This is the first change that Lu Qi has brought to the Orange Group.

At the end of March, Lu Qi integrated internal resources to establish Orange Technology's AI technology platform system. In addition, he joined forces with Weilai Technology, Horizon Robotics, and Meizu Technology to create Weilai's intelligent driving system.

Unlike Baidu, which directly pursues Level 4 autonomous driving, Weilai's autonomous driving system appears to be more pragmatic, focusing on the highest level, Level 3, which is conditional automation.

According to Tan Jincheng, the conditions for actual autonomous driving are not yet mature. This refers not only to the technical aspects. Once true driverless driving is achieved, it could really change the existing traffic regulations system, and it is even possible that driver's licenses will no longer be required. This would be a significant challenge for interest groups.

Since Baidu is working on autonomous driving, it's not impossible for Weilai to cooperate. From a product system perspective, it's realistic for Weilai to prioritize an L3 intelligent driving system, which would also save more costs.

Tan Jincheng's pragmatic yet unconventional approach left Lu Qi speechless yet impressed. It must be said that this plan is indeed feasible, as Baidu's autonomous driving system is designed to cooperate with various manufacturers in an open manner.

Moreover, since they lack hardware, collaborating with more car manufacturers would be more beneficial to their research. Leading domestic brands like Weilai, with several best-selling models, are key partners for Baidu.

"It's like Li Yanhong is paying us to do research; anyway, they've made a lot of dirty money, so subsidizing automotive technology isn't a big deal."

Because of the Wei Zexi incident on Tieba, the reputation of Li and his search empire has plummeted since last year. Among the BAT companies, B is the most obvious member to fall behind. Li has been working hard to change Baidu's image for the past year.

Like Orange, he went all in on artificial intelligence, focusing all his efforts on developing autonomous driving. He also unprecedentedly laid off Baidu's medical business group. In August, he sold Baidu Waimai to Ele.me, thus completely shedding the burden of O2O.

Turning around Baidu's reputation, reducing its burdens, and transforming it into a technology company, Li Keqiang has clearly made some determination in reforming Baidu.

Looking back, the past decade has been a nightmare for Baidu's mobile internet era. For ten years, apart from search-related businesses, Baidu has been passively trying and failing.

From venturing into e-commerce to seizing mobile access points and then following the O2O trend, Baidu has been doing things outside its core competencies. Among the three BAT companies, Alibaba and Tencent have both achieved the transition of their core businesses from the PC era to the mobile internet era, while Baidu is still stuck in the PC era.

Strictly speaking, in Tan Jincheng's previous life, Baidu had not completely broken away from the PC era. In the search field, people preferred to search on platforms like Douyin, Bilibili, or even Xiaohongshu, and rarely searched on the Baidu APP.

They haven't created any outstanding apps, and their core business is constantly being eroded. It's fair to say they've been living off the legacy of the PC era, and luckily, that legacy is thick enough.

"We need to work harder."

Lu Qi smiled at Tan Jincheng. The boss had given him a year. The boss and his wife would play the villains, and he would play the good guys. The integration of Orange Group was also completed. Now it was his turn to make some achievements.

Orange Group's current structure is very simple.

In terms of specific business operations, there is an e-commerce division responsible for e-commerce business, including Orange Products Club; and a gaming division, led by TiMi Studio, responsible for the group's gaming business.

These two entities are responsible for generating cash flow for Orange Group. The Dingding Business Unit, the AI ​​Business Unit, and the wholly-owned subsidiary AutoNavi, together form the foundation of Orange Group's artificial intelligence dream.

In addition to these, Orange Group also established Orange Capital, which is responsible for Orange's strategic investments internally and venture capital and capital funds externally, respectively dealing with early-stage and mid-to-late-stage financial capital, and is personally managed by the CFO.

The combination of five core business divisions and one core subsidiary clearly outlines the present and future of Orange Group.

He's been given money, power, and time, and if he doesn't produce any results, he'll feel embarrassed, especially since it's his dream.

"Boss, can we send out red envelopes now?"

There are countless paparazzi in Hong Kong, almost everywhere, and they dare to write anything about any celebrity they catch, with headlines even more exaggerated than those on UC. Tan Jincheng arranged for the celebration party for the secondary listing of Orange Group to be held at his villa in Xiangshui Bay.

Speaking of this villa, which he bought for 5000 million yuan and renovated at several times that amount, his family has hardly ever lived in it.

"Send it now, you can send it now."

At 7 p.m., all 20,000 employees of Orange Group, including CEO Lu Qi, received a listing bonus from the big boss. Employees who had been with the company for less than six months received 1000 yuan, employees who had been with the company for more than six months but less than a year received 1888 yuan, and the rest received between 2000 yuan and 10,000 yuan.

In addition to the 10th anniversary commemorative gifts, Tan Jincheng prepared 200 million yuan in red envelopes for this listing, which were pushed to the mobile phones of every employee via Dingding.

"Thank you for the red envelope, boss."

Lu Qi, who received a red envelope of 1888 yuan, raised his glass of red wine to Tan Jincheng with a big smile. He had long heard that the boss liked to give red envelopes to various companies from time to time, and he had already felt this atmosphere in less than a year since he joined the company.

"Just for the festive spirit."

For Lu Qi, wealth is just a set of numbers. He is already financially independent and doesn't lack money. However, no Chinese person dislikes red envelopes, and receiving a red envelope is always a happy thing.

However, Tan Jincheng's treatment of Lu Qi was not low either. His annual salary was comparable to that of Zhang Yong, who ranked among the top 10 listed companies in the A-share market, approaching 800 million yuan. In addition, there was a complete set of equity incentive methods and basic benefits including housing.

All things considered, Lu Qi can earn around 1500 million yuan a year. This salary is not low even among internet executives whose salaries far exceed those in other industries.

According to publicly available information, among domestic listed internet companies, apart from Tencent's Liu Chiping leading by a significant margin with an annual income of 1.22 million yuan, the salaries of the other executives are not particularly extravagant.

On the occasion of Orange Group's 10th anniversary of its secondary listing, the CEO distributed red envelopes to employees during the celebration banquet, which quickly became a hot topic on the Internet, with employees posting pictures of the amount of red envelopes they received.

In particular, the few remaining grassroots employees who have been with Orange for ten years received a large red envelope of 10,000 yuan along with a thank-you letter, expressing their gratitude for their contributions to Orange over the past decade.

"I was very lucky. Ten years ago, I was just a high school graduate who had received a few months of basic training as a novice programmer. At that time, the industry did not have high educational requirements for programmers. I was fortunate enough to join Orange Technology and earn a decent salary."

"Through learning and improvement at work, I was able to stay on the job and was fortunate enough to be among the first batch of shares in Orange Technology when it went public. This was my first unexpected windfall."

“I am well aware of my abilities. I haven’t been able to rise to a very high position over the years, but even so I am very satisfied. I have a good salary, and I have never sold the stock that the company gave me, which is now a considerable fortune.”

"In ten years, I have gone from a new Orange to a veteran Orange, and I have also gotten married, had children, and started my own family. I have settled down in Beicang and I am very grateful to the company for giving me this opportunity. If possible, I would like to retire at Orange."

On the morning of the listing day, a long and emotional post on Weibo went viral online, receiving many likes and comments. Along with the post, there were also anecdotes about the past ten years of this Orange employee.

The article doesn't deliberately mention Tan Jincheng, nor does it use exaggerated sentimentality. It's like a record post, but you can feel the changes he has undergone in the past ten years, and also get a glimpse of the changes Orange Technology has made in the past ten years.

As a well-known internet company like Kingsoft that did not locate its headquarters in a popular internet city, Orange Technology was unable to attract many outstanding junior programmers, or rather, highly educated programmers, at the beginning of its establishment.

Besides the group brought by Gu Yanning, and the group that also recruits some of their juniors every year, Orange Society actually recruits quite a few employees who only have a high school or junior college diploma and who have entered the industry through their own learning.

One reason was its own shortcomings, another was that the industry's entry requirements weren't as strict at the time, and yet another was the boss's own fault.

Boss Tan, who himself doesn't have a high level of education, respects talent, but he doesn't place much importance on the education of his entry-level employees. In his view, whether it's a programmer or someone who comes to the car factory to tighten screws, they're all pretty much the same. Young people are quick-witted, hardworking, and willing to learn; a high school diploma is more than enough to handle some entry-level jobs.

Society is progressing, but academic qualifications are depreciating. It's not as easy to get a job as a programmer at Orange Group now as it was ten years ago with only a high school or associate's degree. However, Orange still reserves a number of open positions each year to help graduates with lower educational backgrounds and give them some opportunities.

Educational background discrimination certainly exists in the workplace, but having such an opportunity is better than not having one at all. In addition, Orange Group does not have outsourced employees, and the work environment is relatively relaxed and less competitive, which is rare in the industry. The work atmosphere is quite good.

This veteran employee's Weibo post resonated with many Orange Group employees, showcasing the company's image from the perspective of an ordinary employee. By the time Lu Qi reported to him the following morning, it had already climbed into the top 20 of Weibo's trending topics.

"That's great, we can push it forward. Also, we can have the company's administration department add a section to the 10th anniversary celebration, introducing our company from the perspective of ordinary employees. That would be more authentic."

"We can also contact some of our long-term customers and experienced consumers and have them share their experiences over the years. This is more effective than our blind advertising."

During the industry's golden age, average salaries far exceeded those of other industries, inevitably leading to some superficiality. The Mid-Autumn Festival mooncake-grabbing incident involving Ali, along with workplace harassment and unspoken rules, already illustrate this problem.

Orange's e-commerce business is also very developed, but there have been incidents such as corruption among Ali Xiao Er, and many have been dealt with internally.

However, compared to cities with developed internet industries like Hangzhou, Shanghai, Beijing, and Shenzhen, Orange, located in a relatively remote area, did face difficulties in recruiting in the early stages, but this also had its advantages in the long run.

As a highly industrialized port city, Ningbo, especially Beicang, which belongs to Ningbo Port, has a nightlife that can only be described as boring. Even with the involvement of Orange Technology, it is difficult to revitalize the city's lifestyle.

By around 10 p.m., there are very few pedestrians on the street, especially in winter. There aren't many places for Orange Technology employees to go after get off work, so their minds are naturally less restless.

In addition, over the years, Tan Jincheng's three major companies, as well as large enterprises such as Shenzhou and Haitian, have built various employee residential communities. Because of the investment of these large enterprises, housing prices in Hangzhou have not soared as they have in the case of Ali.

Prime locations are certainly not cheap, but Beicang, where the average price increase is far lower than the national average, had an average price of around 1.2 yuan in October. Those further away from the city center were even cheaper, which was lower than what Tan Jincheng knew in his previous life.

With relatively few places to spend money, the industrial city's heritage allows him to calmly deal with the newly rich internet industry professionals, and also makes Orange Group employees less impetuous.

Over the past decade, many industry leaders and even government officials have advised Tan Jincheng to relocate Orange to a more developed internet city like Hangzhou or Shanghai, believing it would be more beneficial for Orange's development.

But Tan Jincheng remained unmoved. What a joke! I persevered through the most difficult times, and now I'm going to run into unfamiliar territory and compete with you guys?
Good times don't last much longer.

Orange Group's stock price has performed well since its listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, withstanding the selling pressure from primary market investors in the first few trading days. On October 10, the trading day before Singles' Day, Orange Group's stock price on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange reached a new high of HK$244.8 at the close.

The Nasdaq stock price also rose during the trading day, with the overall market capitalization approaching $190 billion.

"Forget about the stock price, let's focus on making Singles' Day a success. We need to achieve something this year. You guys are the ones who generated this buzz, we can't let ourselves be embarrassed, can we?"

At 10 p.m. on the 10th, Tan Jincheng, who had not been to the Orange Technology headquarters building for a long time and had not supervised the Double Eleven event in person, came to the Orange Group's Double Eleven control center with a lot of coffee, chocolate and other snacks to cheer on the employees.

Ever since that veteran employee's Weibo post sharing his ten-year experience with Orange (a fruit company) went viral, without the need for the public relations department to encourage others, many employees have spontaneously shared their Orange experiences online.

Some shared their salary changes, others their job changes, and still others their changes in life in Beicang. In short, it was a wide variety of stories, which saved the public relations department a lot of work.

Driven by the buzz, the hastily formed 10th anniversary celebration team also sprang into action, launching a marketing campaign, such as a lucky draw for those who shared their shopping experiences at the Orange Products Fair with the hashtag #OrangeProducts.

Among them were some veteran users of Kaixin.com and screenshots of the game Happy Farm, a social mini-game that swept the world ten years ago, instantly giving a group of veteran internet users a sense of nostalgia.

Happy Farm, which was acquired by Tencent and renamed QQ Farm, is now largely ignored, and it's only a matter of time before it stops operating. This wave of nostalgia has brought a surge of interest to QQ Farm.

Like QQ Farm, QQ Space lost its former glory with the arrival of the mobile internet. The unexpected popularity brought by Orange Group made the QQ Space project team somewhat unaccustomed to it.

Incidentally, Huang Xitong, the front-end expert who was in charge of the QQ Space project team, also left the company last year and joined Orange Group at the beginning of this year.

This tech guru, a T13 level expert at Tencent, had worked at Tencent for 12 years. Tan Jincheng had invited him several times, but he ultimately decided to leave when QQ Space was no longer as successful as it had been.

Orange Products and GXG's Tmall flagship store also launched some Happy Farm co-branded merchandise to coincide with the 10th anniversary celebration. The sales were quite good. You can't always rely on nostalgia, but it's nice to use it occasionally.

"Don't worry, boss, we'll fight to the end tonight and strive for great results."

New employees are not familiar with the boss and dare not give up, but veteran employees know the boss's personality well.

"Good, if you do a good job, I'll have President Lu give you bonuses. The cafeteria will be open all night tonight to provide you with logistical support. Everyone, please work hard. I'll stay here with you all tonight."

"Okay, boss, don't worry."

To avoid disturbing everyone's work, Tan Jincheng did not stay in the activity center for too long. After fulfilling the requests of a few curious employees for photos, he went to wait in the small office next door.

He really intends to stay here tonight.

"How's the data?"

Upon entering the small office, Tan Jincheng inquired about the specific data from Cheng Hao, who was the overall commander of this Double Eleven event.

Unlike previous years, this year's Double Eleven Orange Products Fair started its shopping spree four hours earlier, taking advantage of the time difference with major players like Taobao and JD.com. In addition, Orange Products Fair continued to maintain its own style in terms of marketing strategy.

Every year, Singles' Day is a peak in traffic, and the increasingly complicated process each year has drawn constant complaints from consumers. This year, it is touted as the most brain-teasing shopping festival in history, with netizens saying that figuring out the numerous discounts is comparable to advanced mathematics.

Tan Jincheng, who spent his past life accompanying his girlfriend and wife in the Double Eleven shopping spree, absolutely hates these complicated algorithms!
Since Orange Shopping first broke the Double Eleven curse, it has maintained a simple and clear promotional approach, offering discounts directly after shopping, with the amount of the discount clearly displayed, saving the trouble of calculation.

Hundreds of millions of yuan in brand red envelopes, interest-free shopping on all items, no registration required for direct shopping, new members can receive newcomer coupons upon entering the page, and accidentally deleted shopping lists can be restored with one click, reducing shopping time costs.

In addition, Orange Products, which mainly deals in clothing, has also collaborated with a large number of well-regarded online influencers, using short video integrations to promote sales and advertise the app since the beginning of the month.

"Not bad, the fastest sales to break 100 million in history, with orders exceeding 2 million in just one hour. Also, the promotion started at 8 pm, and the first order was delivered to the consumer at 8:42 pm."

The first order came from a Ms. Hu in Tianhe District, Guangzhou. After the SF Express courier delivered the order, the local promotion immediately followed.

Over the past decade, Orange Products has established five major logistics and warehousing centers in South China, North China, Southwest China, Central China, and East China, with a total area of ​​over 220 million square meters. It has also partnered with Outlet Mall owned by Jinpeng Industrial, so its overall warehousing capacity is not inferior.

The long-term strategic cooperation and cross-shareholding with SF Express not only reduced the burden on itself, but also brought a huge amount of business to SF Express. According to the financial report released by SF Express, Orange Club is SF Express's largest customer, accounting for 15% of SF Express's e-commerce express parcel business.

Orange Products receives orders, and SF Express has the motivation. This collaborative approach satisfies the business needs of both parties while reducing resource waste. This kind of cooperation is considered a good example in the industry.

"That's good. It seems consumers are quite receptive."

All that preparation and timing with the two giants was done to make the data look better.

It's true that the Double Eleven shopping festival is losing popularity year after year. There are many reasons for this, but the most obvious one is the complex discount algorithms that drive traffic to the point of resorting to any means necessary.

In 2017, the total online sales of Singles' Day reached 2539.7 billion yuan. Orange Products ranked fourth with a share of 4.27%, and its single-day sales exceeded 100 billion yuan on the first day.

"Sure, it's only slightly lower than Suning.com's 4.34%."

Tan Jincheng was very satisfied with this sales figure. As a vertical e-commerce platform, Orange Products has a limited scale, and it is already very impressive to achieve a single-day sales volume of over 10 billion yuan.

"Huh? Meizu is pretty good, ranking fifth in mobile phone sales across the entire internet?"

Mobile phones are always a hot topic among the best-selling categories during the Double Eleven shopping festival. Meizu's sales figures were not high, but its number of units sold actually made it into the top five across the entire network, which surprised Tan Jincheng.

In terms of sales revenue, Meizu also ranked seventh, which is a very good result.

(End of this chapter)