Introduction People have always been a barometer of the times. In recent years, numerous events in the food and beverage industry have not only helped us understand the sector but also introduced us to the influential figures who dominate it. Knowing them, we often want to learn more about their stories, largely because their legendary experiences pique our curiosity, and more importantly, because we hold them in genuine awe. In today's fast-paced era, besides the enduring giants of the industry, there is no shortage of promising newcomers with strong personalities and achievements. Zong Fuli is a typical representative.

Zong Fuli: A Bold, Diligent, and Rebellious Little Princess

Zong Fuli, born in 1982 in Hangzhou, is the only daughter of Zong Qinghou, chairman of Wahaha Group, and the president of Hangzhou Wahaha Hongsheng Beverage Group. After completing junior high school in 1996, she went to the United States to study. Four years later, she enrolled at Pepperdine University in Los Angeles, majoring in international business, and returned to China after graduating in 2004.

【Honors and Achievements】

  • In 2011, at age 30, she was named one of Zhejiang's Economic Figures of the Year.
  • In 2012, Forbes Asia released a list of the 50 leading businesswomen in the Asia-Pacific region, and Zong Fuli was included among the 15 people to watch.
  • Zong Fuli received the "2012 Zhejiang Business Leader of the Year" title.
  • On January 16, 2013, she was awarded the 2012 Zhejiang Business Leader of the Year. On January 29, at the first session of the 11th Zhejiang Provincial Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), she was elected as a standing committee member.
  • In 2013, she made the Hurun Philanthropy List.
  • On October 26, 2013, at the World Zhejiang Entrepreneurs Convention held after a two-year hiatus, Zong Fuli and others received the "New Star of Zhejiang Entrepreneurs" award, presented by her father, Zong Qinghou.
  • In 2014, Forbes China released the "China Businesswomen Ranking," placing Zong Fuli eighth.
  • In 2015, Zong Fuli ranked third among Asia's ten youngest wealthy individuals with a fortune of $3 billion.
  • On August 25, 2015, a wealth assessment website released its list of the 20 richest billionaires under 35 in 2015, with Zong Fuli ranking 11th and being one of six women in the top 20.

All these honors and accolades are recognition and praise from the outside world for this young post-80s entrepreneur.

As a distinctive post-80s, Zong Fuli differs from her father in many ways in terms of thinking and personality. She inherited his assertiveness and decisiveness while also developing her own straightforwardness and independence.

Since returning to China after graduating from university in 2004, Zong Fuli has been directly involved in company management.

In 2011, the Hangzhou Wahaha Hongsheng Beverage Group, led by Zong Fuli, achieved operating revenue of 11.6 billion yuan, with the company experiencing rapid revenue growth for three consecutive years. Within less than eight years of joining Wahaha, starting from grassroots positions, she took on nearly one-third of the group's business in just a few years. She also led the company's internationalization strategy and supply chain integration in recent years, steadily expanding from pure beverage production to raw material production and other ends of the supply chain.

【Talent Strategy】 Due to long-term exposure to Western mature market economies and social cultural concepts, Zong Fuli differs greatly from her father, who values personal relationships. She respects strict rules and regulations and prefers direct communication over the Chinese habit of implicit expression.

Zong Qinghou has led Wahaha for 25 years. According to an insider at Wahaha, "The chairman has almost never fired employees. A group of veterans who started the business with him remain loyal to him to this day, and this sentiment extends to Zong Fuli as well." However, Zong Fuli's management style is different. "Employees who really don't meet the job requirements will be dismissed," the source said. "Of course, there are also young people who are promoted, which shows her willingness to use talent without rigid constraints."

Employees who followed her father within the company have said that Zong Fuli's thinking and approach to handling matters are vastly different from his. At the company, she asks employees to call her Kelly or Fuli, and her business cards do not bear a title, but this does not prevent her from exercising decision-making power decisively.

To date, Wahaha Group has established over 100 joint ventures and equity-participating companies in 29 provinces and cities across China, with sales branches nationwide except Taiwan, employing nearly 30,000 people. The group's business covers ten major product categories.

However, since its official registration in 1989, Wahaha Group has remained like a "one-man company": it has never had a vice president, and every matter, no matter how small, requires Zong Qinghou's personal approval.

"He flies around every night, and when he arrives at the hotel, there is a huge stack of reports for him to sign. Then someone helps him fax them to our general office, and he breaks down the instructions. So his whole mind is on my dad," Zong Fuli said. "If you submit a report directly, my dad will sign it if he agrees, and not sign it if he doesn't. My dad is quite efficient."

Zong Fuli noted that her father has actually realized the problem of declining team execution. "In the past, he could do this because the company was small, with only about 1,000 or 2,000 people. Now there are 20,000 to 30,000. He can't possibly oversee everyone's execution by himself."

"I hope he would consider professional managers, but I doubt anyone could integrate into our company culture," Zong Fuli said. In her view, making mistakes and correcting them may be an inevitable stage for Wahaha. "I think everyone needs to understand what they did wrong and then change. I think this is an experience for him. For Wahaha, which is already 25 years old, I think it should bear and experience this; it needs to go through this path."

【Management Philosophy and Strategy】 As the undisputed successor to the Wahaha beverage empire, Zong Fuli's unconventional remarks directly point to the weaknesses of China's beverage giant and the problems in the empire her father created. The conflicts between father and daughter over the company's development direction and strategy, whether explicit or implicit, can be summarized into two main points: first, the lack of long-term core products; second, cross-industry diversification. Although Zong Fuli's words are somewhat sharp, they offer food for thought for many Chinese companies.

In China's traditional retail industry, almost every company believes that "those who control the channels win the market," especially in the fiercely competitive beverage industry. As early as 1994, Zong Qinghou established a "joint marketing body" distribution system within Wahaha Group, which was still a state-owned enterprise at the time, forming strategic alliances with distributors nationwide to jointly operate the market. The basic structure was: headquarters - provincial branches - authorized first-level wholesalers - second-level wholesalers - third-level wholesalers - retail terminals. Relying on tens of thousands of loyal and stable distributors, Wahaha swept through the market in the following decades and became the dominant player in the beverage industry.

"I used to think this was our advantage, but now I think it has gradually become a weakness," Zong Fuli said. In her view, the current social environment and market structure are no longer as general as before, but have clear segmentation. "The wholesale markets we relied on in the past are now very few. Now, for example, you have convenience stores and supermarkets. Even in counties and townships, there are small supermarkets."

Zong Fuli believes that Wahaha Group's control over distributors is not as strong as it was five years ago. "Each distributor wants to grab the best-selling product (category) rather than proactively doing these things," she said. She thinks distributors' responsibilities should also include providing services for the company, "For example, if your supporting facilities are old, help replace them. Now they don't do that."

Zong Fuli believes that Wahaha should make efforts in e-commerce channels, but due to profit considerations, the group has "completely not done" e-commerce. "Beverages are not like clothes that you can pick and choose. There's nothing to choose in beverages, and it would be great if they could be delivered to your door."

For years, Wahaha has maintained sustained high-speed growth thanks to its continuous introduction of new products. While Zong Qinghou revels in rapid growth, an old saying is proving true: you can't have everything. What Wahaha has lost is the lack of long-term core products. In other words, Wahaha lacks core products that can bring sustained and maximum cash flow to the enterprise. Looking at Wahaha's product line, among its ten major categories and over 150 products, star products are few and far between, and those that can generate over 10 billion yuan in single-product sales revenue are extremely rare. The gold medal product, Nutrition Express, broke the 10 billion yuan sales mark in 2009, but its sales growth has slowed significantly in recent years.

Zong Fuli may have seen the hidden crisis. She is thinking in her own way: for a company of Wahaha's scale, without several core products with annual sales revenue of several billion or even over ten billion yuan, the company is destined to be unsafe, let alone continue to grow.

【Differences on Cross-Industry Diversification and Internationalization】 During her years leading Hongsheng, Zong Fuli frequently traveled abroad to attend international exhibitions, greatly broadening her horizons. Combining international market consumption trends, she believed that Wahaha's product packaging was "outdated" and personally led a team to change and design new packaging, making Wahaha's products more international and fashionable in appearance.

Zong Fuli explicitly stated that the commercial retail business, which her father is currently personally promoting and is considered the main direction of Wahaha Group's diversification, has nothing to do with her. She said, "I don't support him doing this," and such an attitude is rare. Wahaha has been making mass-market products for decades. Whether Zong Qinghou thought clearly about premium niche consumption before starting is unknown. Zong Fuli does not support her father's cross-industry operations, and I would like to give a heartfelt "thumbs up" for that! The already-opened "Waou European Boutique Center" in Hangzhou, with its bleak business performance, serves as a good footnote to Zong Fuli's wisdom.

What is Wahaha's core competency? On this point, Zong Fuli's thinking may seem a bit "far-sighted," but from the perspective of Wahaha's future development, her mind is very clear at just over 30 years old. Zong Fuli wants Wahaha to have a more international perspective and hopes her father's thinking can resonate with hers to forge a development path suitable for Wahaha's sustainable survival.

Zong Fuli does not support her father's cross-industry diversification; she has her own ideas and plans:

  • Wahaha Research Institute Building Internationalization is an inevitable path for Wahaha, and on this point, Zong Fuli's thinking is very clear and strong. In September 2012, Zong Fuli donated 70 million yuan to Zhejiang University to establish the Fuli Food Research Institute, aiming to cultivate top talent for the domestic food industry and prepare international talent for Wahaha. This move by Zong Fuli is highly forward-looking and practical. In her layout, Wahaha's internationalization begins with people. On this point, Zong Qinghou gave his daughter the greatest support, demonstrating his entrepreneurial breadth of mind.

Zong Fuli's view on internationalization is: "True internationalization is not selling a few bottles of beverages abroad, but building the entire production chain, including production, sales, and procurement supply chains, globally." She hopes Wahaha will become China's first truly internationalized food enterprise. In Zong Fuli's view, the food research institute will become a cornerstone for Wahaha's internationalization.

【Everything Should Be Rethought】 In 2005, Zong Fuli began serving as assistant director of the management committee of Wahaha Xiaoshan No. 2 Base. In the following years, her positions changed, but they were all at the general manager level. Currently, she is responsible for Hongsheng Beverage Group, which focuses on beverage business.

In Zong Fuli's view, her eight years of studying abroad gave her a completely different way of thinking, and therefore, everything about her should be reconsidered. Besides resisting the external corporate system, she also has more idealism. What gives her a headache is having to spend too much energy "dealing with the government." "I think the government needs to face our generation. Our generation can never be like my dad's generation," she said.

At Wahaha, Zong Fuli is called "Princess," partly as a joke, but also with a sense of awe. As the daughter of an emperor, the term "Princess" is apt, but that's just the surface. Digging deeper, as you know, people are referring to her almost equal assertiveness and decisiveness to her father. After years of hard work, the princess now has her own "small kingdom."

In 2013, the Wahaha Xiaoshan No. 2 Base under Zong Fuli's jurisdiction had six subsidiaries, covering beverages, convenience foods, children's clothing, and daily chemicals. The main business scope of the enterprises includes: production and sales of food, beverages, clothing, and cosmetics. These enterprises have been selected as national high-tech enterprises for consecutive years. Since 2006, the Wahaha Xiaoshan Base has paid taxes of 1.12 billion yuan. In 2009 alone, it achieved operating revenue of 4.1 billion yuan and paid taxes of 414 million yuan, an increase of 56% over 2006. It made tangible contributions to the government's efforts to "maintain growth, expand domestic demand, and adjust structure" in response to the crisis.

Zong Qinghou is a respectable entrepreneur. It is not easy for him to carve out a Chinese territory in the highly competitive beverage industry. Although Zong Fuli is young, after eight years of business management experience, she is no longer a "little returnee" full of student airs. In eight years at Hongsheng, with annual operating revenue of 11.6 billion yuan, she has handed in a good report card to her father.

Looking back, Zong Qinghou found a business opportunity in an industry with the highest consumption frequency, and his business acumen is indeed extremely high. Looking forward, Zong Fuli will lead Wahaha to survive and develop in an industry with the highest consumption frequency, continuing to grow stronger. With her dedication and business acumen, coupled with deep focus in the industry and long-term strategic vision, I believe she will lead Wahaha to a brighter tomorrow!

Source: Beverage Insider

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