01 Continuous organization optimization

The Spring Festival has passed, but the cold winter of photovoltaic continues.

news from the industrial chain shows that Longji Green Energy (601012.SH) continues to optimize and slim down in the New Year, involving functional departments such as finance, research and development, personnel and some middle management.

with the continuous development of photovoltaic intelligence and digital intelligence technology, at present, 200-300 people are needed for every 1GW of cell chip production, the production of every 1GW of modules has dropped from 1000 people to less than 200 people, and the labor force for every 1GW of silicon chip production line is less than 100 people.

compared with longji, jingao technology (002459.SZ), which is also an integrated photovoltaic enterprise, has about 33000 people and trina solar energy (688599.SH) has more than 40000 people.

Previously, Longi had a peak of 84000 employees. Even if Longji's silicon wafer production capacity is more than twice that of Jingao, but with the addition of battery chips, components and other labor links, after deducting Longji's more than 4,000 research and development personnel, the organizational disadvantage of personnel is still prominent.

especially BC battery production capacity to be released, P-type battery ushered in the tide of elimination. If the key indicators such as human efficiency drag down, the reduction and optimization of P-type production line is inevitable, then the structural optimization of personnel will become an inevitable choice.

Longji this "optimization" action, but also the continuation of the previous "slimming strategy.

in the fourth quarter of last year, the proportion of n-type products in the bidding of central enterprises gradually increased, and 210 the rise of large-size products, longji, which is known for its p-type production capacity, started personnel optimization ahead of schedule. In the optimization, the first to be affected are the expatriate labor personnel and management trainees, especially the silicon wafer division.

last November, according to Phoenix's "eye of the storm" report, Longji launched a personnel optimization plan. In an internal email, it was mentioned that for school enrollment, fresh graduates and new employees who have not yet become employed, it is necessary to "quickly identify and quickly eliminate". The main criteria for identification are that the person is "high in cost and not worth it". It is speculated that the contraction of the two bases of Xi'an Gaoling Battery Factory and Xixian Battery Factory under the Shaanxi industrial cluster is the direct cause of this personnel optimization.

in response to the optimization problem, people from the secretary office of Longji green energy once responded to the media: "generally speaking, at the end of each year, we will do some normal organizational optimization according to the annual performance appraisal and the changes in the whole market. these are all normal situations."

At that time, the market price of photovoltaic modules was still around 1 yuan/watt. Recently, the price of the N-type module has reached 0.9 yuan/watt. At present, the cost of N-type components including tax is about 0.91 yuan (excluding freight), and that of P-type is about 0.85 yuan.

The entire industry sells components at the expense of cash flow, and more small factories offer a price of about 0.7 yuan/watt.

The tap is also difficult to resist the strong cyclical properties of photovoltaics, and slimming is inevitable. Phoenix "eye of the storm" interview with a longi senior staff mentioned, longi will be flexible to adjust production capacity. Once the planned production capacity cannot be opened within the expected period of time, it will be adjusted and optimized.

Different from the fourth quarter of the whole year, the optimization focus of Longji Green Energy has shifted to the management post. With the expansion of the company's scale, the disease of large enterprises is gradually emerging, and the efficiency of the middle level has become the focus of this adjustment.

As a large company, Longi has indeed had quite favorable conditions in terms of employee benefits and travel benefits in the past.

And in the end these have formed the winter period can not endure the cost. This time Longji pain under the strong medicine, the treatment of "big company disease", shows the firm attitude to improve the efficiency of internal operations.

Most companies choose to lose weight after the Spring Festival holiday, mainly to save a lot of year-end bonuses, and they have not touched everyone's "bad luck" before the holiday ".

in January this year, former McKinsey senior partner Zhang Haimeng joined Longji Green Energy.

Zhang Haimeng joined the time, before this layoff resolution, there may be another layer of profound meaning-according to the past actions of large companies to invite McKinsey executives, it is often to introduce the "external brain" knife of external executives to operate on their own companies. This approach also avoids conflicts of interest within the original management.

02 "Micro-innovation"

Zhang Haimeng's joining may also be related to the structural adjustment of the brand management department.

the brand management department of longji green energy is directly transferred from the president's office to the strategic management center in charge of Zhang haimeng. Previously, the head of Longji Green Energy Brand Management Department was Huo Yan, whose external job name was General Manager of Longji Green Energy Global Brand, and he was also the head of Longji Green Energy Global Distributed Market.

after the architecture is updated, the person in charge of the brand management department will be concurrently assumed by Xie Tian, general manager of the strategic management center. Huo Yan became the strategic market leader of the distributed business group, specializing in distributed market brand marketing.

from the organizational structure change of Longji brand management, it is inferred that Longji, which is rapidly slimming down, will deal with the cold winter of photovoltaic with the strategy of emphasizing brand and micro-innovation.

Longji takes the brand as its trump card and focuses on creating Hi-MO X6 series "family" products, aiming at continuous innovation for customer application scenarios and providing cost-effective products and high value-added services.

on February 29, longji released the first double-glass module based on HPBC technology -- Hi-MO X6 double-glass heat-resistant photovoltaic module. The module is mainly used in high temperature and high humidity environment of photovoltaic application scenarios, for cement roof, photovoltaic carport, sun room and other distributed roof selection.

in fact, as early as last October, longji released the industry's "king of single glass" Hi-MO X6 anti-dust component, which focuses on anti-dust and anti-snow functions.

Hi-MO X6 double-glass moisture-resistant components are used in cement roofs and damp-heat scenes, and Hi-MO X6 dust-proof components are used in industrial and commercial roofs, which is the distributed full-scene application mode advocated by Longji.

so far, longji has formed a series of "family" products of Hi-MO X6, Hi-MO X6 ash-proof components and Hi-MO X6 double-glass moisture and heat-resistant components in distributed scenarios to meet the reliability requirements of photovoltaic power stations in most distributed scenarios in China.

Longji Green Energy, which once broke through the expansion boundary with its core technology, now seems to have a new direction: technology is important, but "micro-innovation" that develops brand power and meets the diversified needs of customers is also a selling point.

In Longji's brand positioning of "robust, reliable and technology-led", "robust" is placed in front of "technology", which is self-evident.

Zhong Baoshen believes that customers' demand for photovoltaic products is not only the basic demands of efficiency, cost and reliability, but also more subtle and differentiated features.

For example, Japanese customers complained that "the components are so large and our house is so small that we can't use them", and customers also put forward requirements for aesthetics, installation schemes and intergenerational product adaptability.

It is not the basic function that ultimately reflects the value of the product, but other functions and characteristics.

It is not easy for photovoltaic products to adapt to various environmental conditions and meet the diverse needs of different scenarios. In this regard, "work" can be done.

03 Something not to do, something to do

slimming, heavy brand "micro-innovation" and flexible adjustment of production lines, the end depends on how Longji balances.

sources revealed that longji's BC production lines in Shaanxi are undergoing technological transformation to 182 * 19X (191-199)mm rectangular silicon wafers. If big orders roll in one day, Longji is too busy to find a substitute factory-this is Longji's "semi-sleep therapy", or it may be a dormant strategy of keeping a low profile and waiting for spring to warm.

You know, this round of photovoltaic cycle is very different from the first three rounds. PreviousThere is excess capacity, and once market demand speeds up, it can quickly digest those mountains of inventory.

This time is different. With wave after wave of investors pouring into the photovoltaic field, although the downstream demand of photovoltaic is expected to grow by 20% this year, the expansion rate of production capacity is even more alarming, which can almost be called the surplus of the whole industry chain.

When everyone thinks they are smart people who see business opportunities, the market will soon be "saturated".

Longji TOPCON's production capacity is only 30GW,BC products have 35GW capacity. It is wise not to expand blindly now.

although Longji has not yet released its 2023 annual report, comparing the silicon chip enterprises that have already released their financial reports, such as TCL Central (002129.SZ) and Hongyuan Green Energy (603185.SH), we can see the pressure on Longji's performance in the fourth quarter and even the first quarter of this year.

Even though TCL Central suffered a serious loss in the fourth quarter of last year, with the high operating rate of N-type silicon wafers, there is still a chance of a turnaround in the first quarter of this year. However, many industry insiders predict that Longji's performance in the first quarter is not optimistic, and the possibility of loss is great.

Zhong Baoshen once mentioned that the companies that usually lag behind in the technology knockout are those that invested too much in the last round of technology and were unable to make more investment in new technologies after capacity growth.

Longji has clearly seen the future, that is, the huge PERC capacity will face the fate of elimination.

If the price of distributed components is higher than 1.5 yuan/W, Longji's BC battery sales may be good. At present, there is overcapacity, the price of components is continuously lower than that of 1 yuan // W, and the price of P-type components is even lower than that of 0.8 yuan/W. Even for the distributed products strongly promoted by Longji in 2023, the shipment volume is only 7 GW -8GW-such sales volume is far from enough to support the turning of this huge ship.

But slowing down the pace of "dormant" does not mean that Longji has not done anything. On the contrary, Longji has been cautious but high-intensity investment in research and development.

Zhong Baoshen once mentioned in an interview that Longji has a basic principle that the investment in fixed assets cannot be higher than net assets. This is a rule that was established more than ten years ago. Longji has also repeatedly stressed that Longji will release TOPCON products in 2021, but believes that TOPCON is only a transitional route without investment.

In the past five years, Longji has invested 18 billion yuan in research and development. Whether it is crystalline silicon single-junction technology or crystalline silicon-perovskite laminated technology, it has continuously broken the world record.

Longji is full of confidence in BC technology and believes that "whether it is BC, PERC, TOPCON or HJT, if you want to further improve efficiency in the future, you must move towards BC technology".

This process is so complex that it is a luxurious choice in photovoltaic products, especially when it comes to cost reduction. At this stage, Longji's goal is to build the BC technology platform first, give full play to its potential, and then gradually reduce costs and increase efficiency.

In the increasingly difficult winter of financing, the media have already arranged the "list of companies facing death" in the photovoltaic industry, and the companies ranked 11-20 are very dangerous. The photovoltaic companies waiting in line for listing, if they cannot successfully IPO, are likely to declare bankruptcy at the end of the second quarter of this year.

But compared with other companies that may face extinction, Longi Green Energy is still the PV company with the most cash flow. As long as it can survive this winter, Longji is still expected to take the lead when the next photovoltaic cycle comes.

this article comes from wechat public number "alpha workshop" (ID:alpworks), author: a ying, 36 krypton is authorized to publish.