naaapseattle Chapter 669: Start Small
Chapter 669: Start Small
Chapter 669: Start Small
At that time, private agricultural machinery companies had not yet developed, and the leading agricultural machinery companies in China were all state-owned holding companies, and their backgrounds were particularly profound.
For example, Dongfanghong Agricultural Machinery is a brand under the YTO Group. Yituo Factory is one of the 156 key construction projects during the First Five-Year Plan period, and it is the eldest son of the national machinery industry.
Although in terms of technology, domestic agricultural machinery leaders are still not as good as foreign agricultural machinery giants, after all, they have accumulated decades of experience and have more or less mastered some core technologies.
Although Fukang Agricultural Machinery has invested a lot in scientific research, but after all, it has insufficient foundation. What it has is general-purpose technology, and the core technology is lacking.
There is no way around this. Traditional agricultural machinery is not a new industry, and the accumulation of technology in this traditional machinery manufacturing industry takes time.
For example, international agricultural machinery giants such as John Deere, New Holland, Kubota, and Yanmar all have a history of about 100 years. Without the accumulation of nearly a century, it is difficult to achieve the status of a giant.
Some relatively young brands, such as American AGCO, although they are post-90s enterprises, they continue to grow and develop by acquiring old brands. For example, the Finnish Valtra they acquired was once the fifth largest tractor manufacturer in the world and has a history of 60 to 70 years; the Massey Ferguson they acquired was still an enterprise established during the Daoguang period.
This is the characteristic of the traditional machinery manufacturing industry. As long as you live long enough, you will naturally become an industry giant.
In this industry, if new companies want to catch up with their predecessors, they must find another way. If you follow the same path as others take, then the latecomers will never be able to catch up with the forerunners.
For example, in the automobile industry, European and American traditional brands have been popular for nearly a hundred years. Japanese brands, as latecomers, have been making efforts, but in the impression of ordinary people, Toyota and Honda, which has a history of 60 years, cannot compare with the history of 90 years. For the same reason, the BBA with a history of more than 40 years is not as good as Toyota and Honda with a history of 60 years.
However, Tesla, which is only ten years old, has successfully completed the counterattack.
The reason is that Tesla is different from traditional car companies. They have found another way and taken another path.
The same is true for the agricultural machinery industry. Emerging agricultural machinery companies will never surpass the traditional agricultural machinery giants if they develop step by step. But as long as you choose another path, such as in terms of intelligence and unmanned, emerging agricultural machinery companies can achieve cornering overtaking.
At the beginning of the 21st century, even 3G has not yet become popular.
It is too early to talk about the intelligentization and unmanned of agricultural machinery. Li Weidong's change the development idea is not intelligent and unmanned, but miniaturization.
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I just heard Li Weidong say: If we produce the same products as those leading agricultural machinery companies, we have no advantages. They have some core technologies, and the quality of their products will be better.
If there is a fair competition, I am afraid that we can only win some markets through price wars and make a small profit. If we really want to make a lot of money, it is not our turn.
It can be predicted that in the future agricultural machinery market, foreign agricultural machinery giants will occupy the high-end market, and domestic agricultural machinery can only carve up the middle and low-end market. Among them, the mid-end market belongs to domestic leading enterprises, and most of us private enterprises will not be able to get it.
As for the low-end market, due to the relatively low threshold, the competition will inevitably be very fierce. A large number of private companies will flood in, and even many mid-market companies will sink their operations to seize the low-end market.
In this case, if we want to gain a competitive advantage, we must differentiate, that is, produce products that others do not have, and expand market share by filling the gap in market demand.
Chairman, I understand what you mean. We used to make agricultural tricycles and cotton harvesters, all of which were differentiated. At that time, there were no such products in the domestic market. We could make a lot of money by making them! Yue Anan said.
Ni Guilin said from the side: Chairman, with the development of agriculture today, there are no new crops, and the types of agricultural machinery have also been fixed. It is difficult to develop new agricultural machinery.
The type of agricultural machinery is only one aspect, and the specifications are another aspect. Although the types of agricultural machinery are fixed, the specifications can still be changed!
Li Weidong smiled slightly, and continued: As far as I know, domestic agricultural machinery companies are all developing in the direction of high-horsepower agricultural machinery, right?
Ni Guilin nodded: High-horsepower agricultural machinery has always been a high-end product in the market, and this aspect is also the weakness of our domestic brands. For example, high-horsepower tractors are mainly imported.
Leading domestic agricultural machinery companies, such as YTO Group, have been researching and developing high-horsepower tractors. Although the technical level is constantly improving, there is still a certain gap from the world's top.
Domestic agricultural machinery companies research high-horsepower agricultural machinery in order to fill the gap in localization. They have also studied this aspect for some years, and the technological breakthroughs and technological accumulations they have achieved are far above ours.
If we, like them, develop high-horsepower agricultural machinery, we will already be a lot slower at the start. That being the case, we might as well do the opposite.
Others like to make agricultural machinery bigger and bigger, so we will make agricultural machinery smaller and smaller. Domestic agricultural machinery leaders are all developing large-scale high-horsepower agricultural machinery, so we will study light, small and micro agricultural machinery!
Small and micro agricultural machinery? Is there a market for this thing? Ni Guilin asked subconsciously.
Mr. Ni, don't just focus on such big farms, you should also pay attention to those small farmers! At least our country's agriculture is still dominated by small farmers. Ordinary farmers, one household is only a few acres of land, how can they be used? Get on a powerful tractor!
Li Weidong continued: Except for our country, Southeast Asia is basically a large agricultural country, and the population is also relatively dense, and the per capita land occupation rate is not high. Many places also have a small-scale agricultural economy. These are the main markets for small and micro agricultural machinery!
Ni Guilin nodded, and then said: Small and micro agricultural machinery is indeed rare in the market, but this kind of product is also low in technology content, and the threshold is also very low. I'm afraid it can be easily copied by others!
So what we want to do is small and micro agricultural machinery with certain technical content. We want to improve the quality and performance of small and micro agricultural machinery. Even if other companies imitate our products, they will not be able to meet our quality and performance. , the market is still ours.”
Li Weidong went on to say, What I expect is that eventually a situation will be formed where big companies look down upon it and small companies can't do it. At that time, the entire small and micro agricultural machinery market will be dominated by us!
Small and micro agricultural machinery is indeed a direction for the development of agricultural machinery in the future.
In the past few decades, the development idea of the world's agricultural machinery is that the least people plant the most land.
Therefore, agricultural machinery is getting bigger and bigger, and its horsepower is getting stronger and stronger. Many large agricultural machines are made stronger than tanks, and those so-called foreign high-end agricultural machines are all high-horsepower products.
The reason for this is that the United States is the largest agricultural machinery consumer market in the world.
The United States is full of large farms, which are suitable for large-scale farming. Many farms have to fly around in a plane. If it is placed in the country, not to mention flying for a stroll, just taking off and landing a helicopter can blow away the whole family's harvest for a year.
Moreover, the cost of labor in the United States is extremely expensive. The cost of hiring people to operate agricultural machinery may be more expensive than the agricultural machinery itself. Therefore, in agricultural production, use as few people as possible.
At this time, the advantages of large agricultural machinery are reflected. The larger the agricultural machinery, the more land can be operated and labor can be saved.
Based on market demand, American agricultural machinery is naturally getting bigger and bigger, and its horsepower is getting stronger and stronger.
And the United States is the most important consumer market for agricultural machinery, and agricultural machinery enterprises in other countries can only develop on a large scale in order to enter the American market.
For example, Japan's Kubota and Yanmar are the world's top agricultural machinery companies, not inferior to John Deere and New Holland. But how much arable land can there be in such a small place like Japan? Therefore, the United States is the main export market for Japanese agricultural machinery.
In order to gain a firm foothold in the US market, Kubota and Yanmar will also focus on large-scale agricultural machinery. And this kind of large-scale agricultural machinery can hardly play a role in Japanese agriculture, and it was born entirely for export.
In addition to the United States, South America, Eastern Europe, Australia and other major food producing areas also adopt the model of large farms. These areas use American seeds and have also learned from the large-scale mechanical farming model in the United States. Therefore, there is a demand for agricultural machinery. , and more and more like the United States, the bigger the better.
China, India, and Southeast Asia are also major grain-producing areas in the world. However, these areas have large populations, small land area per capita, and there are many mountainous and hilly areas. There is not much land suitable for large-scale mechanized farming.
For example, in China, apart from the two major plains in Northeast China and North China, the south is dominated by hilly terrain, and the central, western and southwest regions are plateaus, most of which are not suitable for large-scale mechanized farming.
The situation in India is similar. Although India's climate is very suitable for the development of agriculture, except for the Ganges Plain in the north, the Deccan Plateau in the south also has no room for large-scale mechanized farming.
In the Indochina Peninsula area, that is, there are a large number of plains in the lower reaches of the Mekong River, but that place is Cambodia, one of the poorest countries in the world, where can I afford large-scale agricultural machinery!
Among the island countries in Southeast Asia, half of Sumatra is mountainous, more than half of Kalimantan is mountainous, and most of Java is mountainous. Large-scale agricultural machinery is also not needed.
The terrain characteristics of these places are actually very suitable for small and medium-sized agricultural machinery to play a role, and these are also food producing areas, which are consumer markets for agricultural machinery products.
However, the agricultural machinery giants in developed countries are unwilling to develop small and medium-sized agricultural machinery for these areas.
The reason is naturally because people in these places are poorer!
For those agricultural machinery giants, since they can't make much money, why bother to serve them? It is better to pay more attention to the needs of some wealthy customers.
It can be said that in the past few decades, the demand of the United States has determined the direction of the world agricultural machinery market.
And those poorer countries do not have any industrial system of their own, nor can they produce agricultural machinery that meets their own needs.
Even if some small and micro agricultural machinery can be produced occasionally, due to the lack of industrial level, it is only a low-quality product with poor performance and low efficiency, which is not as practical as raising a cow.
It was not until China's agricultural machinery companies began to rise and began to develop various small and micro agricultural machinery for domestic fragmented land. This industry, which has been looked down upon by international agricultural machinery giants, began to gradually rise.
Among the agricultural machinery exported domestically in later generations, a large part is also small and micro agricultural machinery, and the main export targets are also countries along the Belt and Road.
The export enterprises of small and micro agricultural machinery are also mainly private enterprises. Those state-owned holding agricultural machinery leaders with deep foundations still look down on this kind of small and micro agricultural machinery.
In this regard, it can be seen from some small and micro agricultural machinery exhibitions in later generations that almost all of the exhibitors are private enterprises, and most of them are from Hunan, Jiangxi, and Chongqing. The main reason is that the agriculture in these provinces is more suitable for the operation of small and micro agricultural machinery.
In addition to China, there is another country that has been making small and micro agricultural machinery, and that is Japan.
Before the 1980s, Japan had been learning from the United States, and Japan’s agricultural machinery industry also followed that of the United States. Basically, what kind of products the United States made, Japan followed suit.
The development history of Japanese agricultural machinery giants such as Kubota and Yanmar is actually similar to that of many Japanese companies. At the beginning, they imitated and copied. When they saw John Deere launching new products, they immediately followed suit.
After entering the 1980s, Japan's research and development capabilities began to explode, and the Japanese agricultural machinery industry also began to develop its own products. At this time, Japanese agricultural machinery companies also began to adapt to local conditions and develop agricultural machinery products for Japanese agriculture.
Japan's small land area is definitely not suitable for large-scale mechanized agriculture. Small and micro agricultural machinery is actually very suitable for Japan.
But Japan is pursuing refined agriculture, and the small and micro agricultural machinery tailored for the Japanese market also serves this refined agriculture.
For example, Kubota's small and medium-sized rice transplanters and harvesters are not cheap, but their performance is really good, and there is less waste in the operation process, which is very suitable for fine agriculture.
Moreover, due to the aging of the Japanese population, the people engaged in agriculture are gradually getting older. Therefore, Japan's small and micro agricultural machinery is gradually developing towards labor-saving and easy-to-operate aspects to facilitate the use of the elderly.
For any machine, the more labor-saving and convenient operation are pursued, it will inevitably mean higher technological content, and higher technological content means higher price.
Although the performance of small and micro agricultural machinery in Japan is very good, there is one key point, that is, it is expensive!
Things are too expensive for farmers in developing countries to afford.
It is also because Japanese products have more technological content, and it is impossible to sell them cheaper.
As a result, I don't lower the price and you can't afford the embarrassing situation.
In fact, as long as part of the technological content is removed, the price can be lowered, and it can be sold to developing countries to gain a higher market share.
But the rigid and stubborn Japanese just don't do this.
Japanese agricultural machinery companies said that I just want to save effort, I want to be easy to operate, and I want to have technological content so that the elderly can use it easily.
However, in the majority of developing countries, young people farm the land. What they want is not labor-saving and convenient, but affordable prices.
It can be said that in terms of small and micro agricultural machinery, although Japan's technology tree is full, it is a pity that it is crooked again!
As Li Weidong said, the market for small and micro agricultural machinery belongs to the piece of meat that big companies look down on.
And if the quality of small and micro agricultural machinery is improved and the existing technical barriers are created, it will be difficult for small enterprises to imitate.
At that time, a situation will be formed where big companies don't bother to do it, but small companies can't do it, and the entire market will be dominated by Fukang Engineering.
This can also be regarded as a means to achieve corner overtaking in a short period of time.
Moreover, small and micro agricultural machinery can also develop in the direction of smart agricultural machinery in the future.
It is definitely easier to carry out intelligent modification of small and micro agricultural machinery than large-scale agricultural machinery.
Starting from small and micro agricultural machinery is also a layout for future intelligent agricultural machinery.
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