Recently, at a 150th anniversary celebration event held at A.O. Smith's China headquarters in Nanjing, Qiu Bu, senior vice president of A.O. Smith Group and president of China Company, delivered a speech on the theme of "Innovation for China", showing the outside world for the first time how this industry giant, which was born 150 years ago, is still running, with a full range of localized innovation strategies and means, to achieve a new business situation of "elephants can dance" and "elephants can run" in the Chinese market.

For China's innovation, as A.O. Smith has been in business for 150 years and has entered China for 26 years, he has found the way of "combining Chinese and Western" in the process of China's development and change, that is, to clarify "for Chinese consumers" as the way, innovation as the technology, and to achieve "Taoist integration". At the same time, it is also connected with the 150-year-old corporate values of "integrity, innovation, and profitable growth" and the traditional Chinese culture of "Speed of Trust (SOT), TOT, and Smile Company (GPS)" to achieve the resonance of Chinese and Western cultures.

In the view of the home appliance circle: the A.O. Smith China team headed by Qiu Bu is not a simple "Taoist imperial art", but a combination of Taoism, so that the strategy of "innovation for China" has been realized, so that Chinese consumers can continue to feel the results of innovation, the value and charm of innovation, and finally let the company embark on the development road of "leading from high-end products to high-end comfortable home furnishings".

Combination of East and West: 

Focus on people, trust people and make people satisfied

When A.O. Smith is mentioned, many people's first reaction: 150 years! What is the power that allows an enterprise to maintain its "everlasting foundation" in the face of continuous shocks such as great changes in the times and cyclical changes in the long years of 150 years? I believe that not only Chinese home appliance manufacturers, but also global home appliance manufacturers, are full of curiosity and incomprehension.

Jim ·Collins, Jerry · Bolas, who spent six years at Stanford University researching and wrote "Evergreen", summed up the experience of excellent companies, including the need to be "clockmakers, that is, architects, not timekeepers." "At the end of the day, it's about sticking to the core idea and keeping the clock running automatically.

Looking back on the 150 years of A.O. Smith's development, Kevin Wheeler, Chairman and CEO of A.O. Smith Group of Companies, said bluntly: The long-term management advocated by the founder, and the high value of technology and innovation, this value still runs through the company's business and has always been the cornerstone of the company's development.

It is understood that A.O. Smith's values include "integrity, innovation, profitable growth", etc., which seem simple and simple, and the core logic is one: focus on people, trust people, and make people satisfied. In order to inherit the century-old corporate values and implement them in China, A.O. Smith China has created three cultural codes close to China, such as "Speed of Trust (SOT), Only One Most Important Thing (TOT), and Smile Company (GPS)".

There is only one thing that matters most (TOT), which emphasizes focus, including focusing on technology, innovation, and how to better connect with customers. "Only when customers are satisfied, can we have business to do". Therefore, "dedication to customer satisfaction" is the most important thing for every employee. This solves the problem of how to achieve "a hole out of force" after the company becomes bigger and stronger, and achieves a more powerful development breakthrough through "concerted efforts from top to bottom, internal and external consistency".

The Speed of Trust (SOT) emphasizes that every leader of the company leads by example, establishes a deep trust relationship between every supervisor and employee, and "expresses expectations, strengthens trust, and delivers care and empowerment" through a one-to-one communication process, creating an organization with deep trust, injecting values into the hearts of every employee, having dreams and achieving themselves in a down-to-earth manner.

Qiu Bu revealed, "From me to the front-line workers and grassroots salesmen, there are six levels, and each layer does such one-to-one communication, which is interlocking and creates an organizational culture of deep trust, and the company's values can be transmitted and implemented step by step, rather than empty words." In 2022 alone, Qiu Bu has 53 one-on-one tutoring sessions, communicating with 23 people, with a total of 3,677 minutes of counseling.

Smile Company (GPS) emphasizes that "in order to achieve customer satisfaction, we must first achieve employee satisfaction and smile work". Through the employee care mechanism, we hope that employees can keep smiling every day, meet the challenges in work and life with a positive and optimistic attitude, and infect everyone around them with a smile.

Qiu Bu said, "Many companies talk about the right things and not people, but A.O. Smith is 'right for people, not right things', we first start from the perspective of empowering and transforming people, so that they can have self-confidence, team concepts, innovative impulses, curiosity, and then let him think about achieving a result."

Drucker, the father of modern management, believes that management "is a people-oriented career." Its emphasis on humanism is to achieve others with respect in order to achieve the enterprise. In the overall vision of Chinese culture of "the unity of nature and man", people-oriented is also emphasized. From inheriting and sticking to the values of 150 years, to entering the three cultural codes created by innovation in China, A.O. Smith, as a "clockmaker", truly keeps the company running continuously by adhering to the "people-oriented".

In Qiu Bu's view: as a century-old brand, A.O. Smith is not stubborn or rigid, and has always maintained the confidence of upward development and forward breakthrough and the pursuit of excellence. In particular, to make quick and correct choices in the changes in the industry, and to have the ability to enter new fields and bravely enter the no-man's land with the precipitation and support of technology. This is the confidence, passion and strength that comes from the "East-meets-West" approach to companies and their management.

Symbiosis of Taoism: 

An Exploration of Innovation for China

In recent years, A.O. Smith has embarked on a "completely different" transformation path from other foreign-funded enterprises in China: from a traditional water heater manufacturer to a technology-driven whole-house comfort home service provider; From the "high-end water heater brand" in the impression of many Chinese, it has become a high-end integrated solution of "good wind and good water" that many families will think of when decorating. Why and for whom?

Innovate around the needs of Chinese consumers! This is the answer given publicly by A.O. Smith. From a philosophical point of view, innovation is a creative practice of human beings, and the essence lies in breakthroughs. In this sense, A.O. Smith's innovation has achieved a breakthrough "around the needs of people".

Futurist Kevin · Kelly, author of Runaway, said, "New technologies are accelerating the pace of innovation and generating new things that we have never thought of, never touched, and are completely new beyond our imagination." For example, we don't want to drive all day, and now with driverless driving, similar services will happen all over the world."

Surrounded by oil pollution, noise, high temperature and humidity all year round, the Chinese kitchen, known as the "hardest hit area" of smoky fire, has become the breakthrough point of A.O. Smith's "innovation for China", which also witnesses the power of "symbiotic integration of Tao and art" from one side.

In view of the basic popularization of range hoods in Chinese kitchens, but many families are faced with pain points such as "either the suction power of the range hood is not large enough, or the noise of the range hood is too loud", A.O. Smith engineers launched the "Yu" range hood with "high suction power and quieter, and the stir-fry gear is quieter";

In the face of more than 20 years of "solving the problem of saving hands and water" dishwashers, after entering China, it has not been favored by users, A.O. Smith put forward the goal of "making dishwashers as popular in China as washing machines", and finally launched a new dishwasher that "can simulate hand washing, wash stubborn stains, and be more suitable for Chinese deep bowls".

In view of the "steamed" food culture with the most historical, cultural and nutritional value in the traditional Chinese food culture, A.O. Smith has launched a dual-steam 3D steaming and baking machine with large steam capacity and faster and more thorough steaming based on the innovative concept of "combining Chinese and Western" food to meet the "steaming" food needs of more Chinese families.

In the end, what A.O. Smith brought to Chinese families was a modern kitchen that was "healthy, clean and quiet", as well as delicious and nutritious. In fact, in recent years, A.O. Smith has long been dissatisfied with satisfying the needs of multiple scenarios of families in China, and has also provided smart energy and water system solutions for schools, hospitals, airports, enterprises and other commercial places based on its own technology, product and solution innovation.

From homes to schools, hospitals and hotels, from water heaters to water purifiers and kitchen appliances, behind the seemingly "diversified and multi-scene" expansion of A.O. Smith, the home appliance circle found that there are two core logics: one is water and the other is air, both of which are the most important elements in human life. Focusing on water and air, A.O. Smith has specially built the AI-LiNK high-end intelligent interconnection platform and the "Good Wind and Good Wind System Integration", which combines air conditioners, fresh air, range hoods, bath bombs and other intelligent connections to form a "good air" solution, through water purification through the steam oven, dishwasher, and water purification of the whole kitchen, and finally establishes a "good water" solution composed of hot and cold water and water purification for the whole house, so as to customize a "healthy and comfortable home" for different families.

In Qiu Bu's business reform, "A.O. Smith's original intention of innovation has never been to simply do a business, but to let Chinese consumers have a better life and enjoy the fruits and convenience brought by science and technology", and more importantly, "innovation is not a slogan, but a down-to-earth action".

Focusing on the road of "innovation for China", A.O. Smith has found specific paths in the first-tier market: first, people's unremitting pursuit and yearning for a higher quality of life, second, the rigid needs and pain points of healthy breathing and safe water in family spaces such as kitchens and living rooms; In the end, with the innovative solution of "good wind and good water" AI-LiNK high-end intelligent interconnection, the "Tao and technology" in front of users will be mutually represented, bringing new development missions to enterprises, and realizing the same frequency resonance of industrial value and user interests.

Alliance: 

Connect more users and ecosystems

Looking at the global market, Chinese and foreign giants, including GE, Bosch, Siemens, Philips, Sony, Panasonic, as well as Midea, Hisense and other Chinese and foreign companies, have been pushed into a turbulent period of transformation and change by the tide of great changes of the times. A.O. Smith, who is in a period of major change, has completed the leap from a global leading brand in water technology to a professional integrated comfortable home brand in cold and warm feng shui in a few years, and connects suppliers, distributors and service providers, and even ecological parties and other resources to "innovate for China" together.

In the eyes of the home appliance industry, the challenge and difficulty of A.O. Smith's project are self-evident. First, in the past, it was only a traditional product manufacturer, and in the future, it will become an innovator in science and technology; Second, in the past, it only operated a single product such as water heaters and water purifiers, and in the future, it is necessary to provide multi-category, multi-series, and even personalized solutions for the whole family scene.

What is the power that makes A.O. Smith have the wisdom and ability to "cross mountains and seas, and travel through time and space" in the process of building the AI-LiNK high-end intelligent interconnection platform and implementing the "good wind and good water" solution? The platformization of enterprises connects more like-minded alliances and empowers partners and ecological resources.

In order to realize the full-dimensional process of "online and offline from design, construction to service", A.O. Smith has specially established an industrial college and training base, where project managers and blue-collar workers of dealers and service providers can learn a large number of professional teaching materials and strict training, standardize operations like a production line, and decompose every construction action to the user's home, while each process of design and construction is realized online through digitalization, so that users can understand and trace the source at any time.

In view of the wide coverage of comfortable smart home, involving smart security, healthy lighting, personalized entertainment and other realities, in order to solve the user's worries, A.O. Smith has specially created an open ecosystem, and has created a smart home integrity alliance with Panasonic, Morgan, Samsung, Huawei, EZVIZ, as well as LIXIL, Xiwo, Grundfos, Sidon, Duya and other high-end enterprises and brands.

In order to listen to the voices of more users, A.O. Smith pioneered the "President Direct Channel" in the industry, connecting users through various means such as small programs and telephones, so that each user's praise or complaint can go directly to the management, and formulate measures to draw inferences from one case to another while solving user problems. From 2022 to now, the proportion of positive reviews on the president's direct channel has increased from 84.9% to 98.5%, and the proportion of complaints has decreased from 6.7% to 0.5%.

Qiu Bu said that A.O. Smith's "good wind and good water" is not a simple digital connection, but a deep connection between more family consumers and the brand, and a reliable family service and turnkey project. At the same time, it is also a process of connecting suppliers, service providers and ecological resource systems, enhancing trust and empowering each other.

In the era of digital economy, it is inevitable for enterprises to open up and become platforms. Because the value of the platform lies not only in the services it provides, but also in the huge user base it gathers and the massive amount of data it generates. A.O. Smith and the alliance of the same way to create an ecological platform continue to leapfrog, itself by focusing on the needs of user resources, so as to better understand and meet user needs.

Innovate for China! This is the strategic confidence of A.O. Smith to enter China for more than 20 years to be the leader of high-end water heaters, water purifiers and other electrical appliances, or the core force of A.O. Smith to maintain steady development after 150 years of entrepreneurship after many industrial revolutions and multiple economic cycle impacts, and it is the "only way" for many leading enterprises in China's home appliance industry to accelerate their going out and seek global localization management. The home appliance circle believes that innovation is still the only definitive means and method for major global enterprises to face an uncertain future!