If you feel like you have heard this name before, it's the Chinese automaker in the running to buy Volvo from Ford, was sued by GM for copying car design (see the QQ, Chery's most popular model, above) and almost built Chrysler's Dodge Hornet.
In the interview he describes early international influence on the car's they produce and how his small but agile company became quite accidentally globalized.
It makes one wonder, what the heck were the "Big 3" doing?
yes, it really says that
Mr. Tongyao explains the evolution of Chery:
"The first batch of engines was developed in partnership with AVL List, a European design company... Eventually, we became a leader in engine technology in China.
Later, we cooperated with Italian companies on car design. To lower costs, we outsourced only part of the design and tried to do everything else ourselves, so all of our employees were able to improve their skills.
Our global strategy came about quite by accident. At the beginning, we only had our eyes on the domestic market. We did not come up with the “brilliant idea” of starting to export to developing markets before breaking into more mature ones, because we were not that business savvy.
In 2001, shortly after Chery was permitted to sell cars, a Syrian car dealer saw the first model of our cars in Beijing and wanted to import from us. With no prior international trading experience, we almost refused him. Eventually, this car dealer bought 10 cars from us in that year, 100 cars in the year after, and over 1,000 in the third year. Gradually, Iran and other countries began to show interest in Chery. This is how we broke into the Middle East market. It’s the same for other markets—instead of our reaching out to car dealers, they came to us first."
True story or playing coy? Either way Chery is slowly become a force in the global auto biz.
0 comments:
Post a Comment