"There is no shortcut to success; only hard work pays off" Recently, photos of successful entrepreneurs' meals and schedules have become hot topics online, but in reality, the work and life of most successful entrepreneurs are similar, and Pan Gang is no exception. Kazuo Inamori, Japan's 'Saint of Management', once said that there is no better management secret than working desperately hard. In his 'Six Refinements', the first is 'Put in efforts no less than anyone else's'. Facing a long and complex industrial chain, factories, pastures, and markets across the country and even the world, and numerous links such as procurement, production, logistics, and sales, Pan Gang hardly has personal time; handling work anytime, anywhere is his normal state: every Mid-Autumn Festival, Spring Festival, and other holidays, he spends them with frontline employees; on Yili's various pastures and production lines, Pan Gang's figure can often be seen; even as the leader of the world's top 8 dairy company, Pan Gang still actively participates in various industry conferences and activities, maintaining a learning state to keep up with the times. It is under Pan Gang's selfless dedication and down-to-earth hard work that in just 20 years, Yili has gone from Inner Mongolia to China and the world, and in recent years has consistently ranked among the world's top 8 dairy companies and the number one in Asia. For Pan Gang, current success is far from a reason to stop. At a recent internal Yili meeting, Pan Gang earnestly told his subordinates that as a local enterprise, how could we go from Hohhot to the whole country and even the world? It is precisely because from leaders to employees, everyone has forged the Yili spirit with a high sense of responsibility and strong execution, forming the core values of 'Excellence, Responsibility, Innovation, and Win-Win'. Under the guidance of such corporate culture, we have paid more and worked harder than others, thus seizing more opportunities and achieving more results than other companies. We must have a deep and clear understanding of this. Pan Gang implements his beliefs through personal example. Because Yili's market is spread across various places, Pan Gang has to rush to several cities in one day; to save time, his lunch and dinner are solved in the car; for Yili's executives, receiving work emails from President Pan in the middle of the night is already common, and even at 1 or 2 in the morning, Pan Gang is still working. What supports Pan Gang is his sense of mission. As the helmsman of Yili, he not only has to lead the company's continuous development but also drive thousands of upstream and downstream partners and employees to grow together. Pan Gang bears pressure that ordinary people cannot imagine and pays efforts and sweat that ordinary people cannot imagine. Pan Gang summarized: 'No one or company can get returns without paying. Yili's past experience fully proves that there is no shortcut to success! Without down-to-earth work and effort, success is impossible.' "Look to the long term, but also pay attention to details" Management guru Peter Drucker once said, 'Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.' In the face of a complex and rapidly changing market environment, how can one become an entrepreneur who 'does the right things'? We might gain some insight from Pan Gang's words: 'My left eye is a telescope, and my right eye is a microscope. As a manager, we must not only look to the long term and clarify strategic direction but also pay attention to details and implement precise management.' Looking back at Yili's history, the deepest impression is that Yili often makes the most successful strategic decisions at the most critical moments, and behind this is what Pan Gang calls the 'telescope'. Twenty years ago, there was no national dairy company in China; almost all dairy companies operated in local markets. But Pan Gang did not think so. He keenly realized that with the rapid growth of China's economy, dairy consumption would inevitably usher in a 'golden period' of rapid growth. Therefore, Pan Gang made a decision—boldly accelerate the layout of the national market, forming an industrial structure 'spanning east and west, connecting north and south', and from 2000 vigorously develop UHT milk. Before 2000, Yili's liquid milk annual revenue was only 60 million yuan. Under Pan Gang's leadership, in 2000, Yili's liquid milk business achieved revenue of 500 million yuan, reaching 1.2 billion in 2001, 2.4 billion in 2002, 4.6 billion in 2003, and by 2005, Yili's main business revenue exceeded the 10 billion yuan mark, becoming the first Chinese dairy company to break through 10 billion. Facts have proven that this forward-looking decision by Pan Gang allowed consumers across China's 9.6 million square kilometers to drink, afford, and buy milk, fundamentally changing the drinking habits of the Chinese people, and driving the development and takeoff of Yili and even China's dairy industry. Looking at Yili's development history, Pan Gang's pace always seems to be one step ahead, and his strategic decisions always seem unexpected yet highly effective: In 2000, Pan Gang required all departments to benchmark against top international enterprises, choosing suppliers and service providers ranked in the global top three in the industry for cooperation. For example, he took the lead in introducing global top-tier strategic consulting firms such as Boston, McKinsey, and Roland Berger to help Yili reform its organizational system, establishing a business unit system, which also pioneered the implementation of the business unit system in domestic dairy enterprises; In 2005, Pan Gang clearly saw the potential and value of the Olympics, overcame objections and difficulties to partner with the Beijing Olympics, becoming the only Chinese enterprise that met Olympic standards and provided dairy products for the Olympics; In 2010, Pan Gang led Yili to become the only Chinese dairy enterprise to provide services for the 2010 Shanghai World Expo; In 2011, Pan Gang saw the huge opportunities brought by internationalization, accelerated Yili's global layout, invested in building the world's largest integrated dairy base in New Zealand—Yili Oceania Production Base, partnered with Wageningen University to build the highest-spec overseas R&D center in China's dairy industry—Yili European R&D Center, and reached strategic cooperation with the three global quality certification giants SGS, Lloyd's Register, and Intertek. These measures rapidly advanced Yili's 'global networking' strategy, becoming an industry model. If Pan Gang uses the 'telescope' to navigate Yili, then his 'microscope' gives Yili inexhaustible power. No matter how good the strategy, without precise management and efficient execution, it is empty talk. Channel construction is crucial for FMCG companies like Yili. How to make Yili products reach every consumer's life? This is what Pan Gang cares most about. To this end, he spends a lot of time every year visiting markets and conducting research, just to understand the market and channels more intuitively and deeply. According to a Yili executive, Pan Gang's business trips are always packed. Once during a business negotiation, after a full day of intense talks, when the team was about to head to the airport, Pan Gang was nowhere to be found. Later, after urgent contact with his secretary, he was found in a nearby supermarket, seriously conducting market research, hoping to use the time before boarding to see more of the local market situation. Under Pan Gang's personal example, Yili's channel construction is an industry benchmark: more than 5 million offline sales outlets are spread across the country, even reaching third- and fourth-tier cities and more grassroots areas. In today's rapidly developing internet, Yili has also achieved success in e-commerce channels. In the first half of this year, Yili's Tmall flagship store grew by over 300% year-on-year, and it continued to lead in sales in the milk category on JD.com, becoming the number one brand in dairy e-commerce. Authoritative statistics show that every day, more than 100 million Yili products reach consumers across the country, and every year, more than 1.1 billion consumers can enjoy Yili's products and services. In addition to meticulous work in channels, Pan Gang's 'precise management' is also reflected in all aspects of corporate operations: whether it is establishing the corporate creed 'Yili is quality', requiring every Yili person to regard quality as life, or establishing and improving standardized management systems in business processes, daily management, and product quality traceability, the concept and practice of 'precise management' continue to support Yili's healthy development. Behind a great enterprise, there must be an extraordinary leader. "'Climb high without asking the summit; new scenes refresh the eyes along the way' is Pan Gang's favorite motto. When Yili grew from an Inner Mongolia enterprise to a global dairy giant, people gradually understood the meaning of that motto—never-ending self-transcendence. Yili's corporate vision is 'to become the world's most trusted healthy food provider', and Pan Gang says his personal dream is 'to let the world share health'. It is believed that in the great journey of building a better life for the people and achieving 'health for all', Pan Gang will lead Yili to continuously surpass itself and create a more brilliant and beautiful future. The 2017 (3rd) FMCG + Internet Conference will be held in Chongqing in November 2017. The conference will closely focus on the theme 'New Forces, New Ecology', inviting 1,000+ distributors, 500+ brand owners, 200+ B2B platform founders, and 100+ investment and financing institutions to jointly explore a new chapter of cross-border integration! Registration is hot, with only 20+ tickets left... Long press the QR code below or click 'Read Original' to register Click the links below to review the highlights of the 1st and 2nd FMCG + Internet Conferences: 2016 "FMCG + Internet" Summit Forum -END-