Reporter Li Yuwen

From the symposium on private enterprises held in late February this year to the recent National Two Sessions, the topic of the private economy has been heating up. As a strong engine driving China's economic growth, the private economy is an important force to promote innovation and change and ensure employment stability.

Suzhou is the highland of private economic development, the reporter recently found that "going to sea" and "innovation" have become the two key words for the development and upgrading of many private enterprises. Private enterprises that dare to venture and dare to create show strong tenacity and vitality, which is also inseparable from the support of financial forces, and "efficiency" is another key word that many private enterprises focus on. "Time is money." Some business people admit that interest rates are not the only determining factor, and financial services that "think what I think" are the best.

Keyword 1: going to sea

The market is vast, and opportunities and challenges coexist

The private economy is an important force in opening up the international market, and as the "main force" of foreign trade, private enterprises have maintained the status of China's largest foreign trade operator for six consecutive years.

"If you don't go to sea, you will be out", this is a popular sentence in the current biopharmaceutical industry, compared with some companies due to "involution" and passive going to sea, Borui Pharmaceutical (stock code: 688166. SH) chose to take the initiative to carry out a global layout. "When selecting a drug for development, we considered the long-term commercialization value early on. In the past, we made generic drugs, which were difficult for others to imitate, so that our products were also competitive in the global market, especially in the European and American markets. Yuan Jiandong, chairman of Borui Pharmaceutical, said.

It is understood that at present, Borui Pharmaceutical's overseas revenue accounts for more than half of the total revenue. Yuan Jiandong mentioned that the company is now focusing on first generic, difficult-to-imitate, characteristic APIs, complex preparations and original new drugs, and continues to build high-tech barriers. "Our selection criteria are to be leading, to be unique, to have pricing power for the global market, and the proportion of overseas revenue will continue to increase in the future."

The scientific instrument industry, which serves pharmaceutical R&D, is also actively deploying overseas markets. "At present, export revenue accounts for about 10%, and we hope that in the next three to five years, it will reach half of domestic and foreign revenue." Li Dawei, chairman of Suzhou Insaisi Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Insaisi"), said.

In Li Dawei's view, the overseas market is vast, but there are also challenges. For example, some regions attach great importance to cost and are very sensitive to price, and cost-effective products will be more competitive; However, in the European and American markets, customers pay more attention to the characteristics and differentiation of products compared to cost performance. Therefore, companies need to formulate different development strategies for different overseas markets. At present, the company has set up a global operation center in North America.

Etron (stock code: 603380.HK) SH) Chairman Qian Xindong felt the management challenges in some overseas markets. "We mainly serve European and American customers, and more than 70% of our sales revenue comes from the European and American markets." Qian Xindong said that in the context of some high-quality customers clearly putting forward overseas capacity needs, the company began to build factories overseas, and has now built three overseas manufacturing bases in Mexico, Vietnam and Romania. However, communication and management can be a challenge, for example, the cultural differences of employees in Mexico make communication not smooth, so the company needs to constantly streamline processes and iterate on training.

The reasons why private enterprises choose to go overseas are different. In recent years, the steel industry is facing the pressure of overcapacity, and many iron and steel companies have accelerated the pace of going to sea. "I don't go to bed until about half past two in the morning every day, and it's not enough to communicate with foreign customers by email, there are often video communications, etc." Wu Guoxiang, general manager of Jiangsu Shagang No. 3 International Trade Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Shagang No. 3 Middle School"), told reporters, "We are actively expanding the international market, and we want to export not only products, but also equipment, capital, technology and talents." ”

At the same time, he said that he is optimistic about the potential of overseas markets, especially the Middle East market, "We export more than 20,000 tons per month to Saudi Aramco and are currently preparing to build a steel pipe plant in Saudi Arabia. ”

Keyword 2: innovation

Pay attention to research and development, to be the "crown jewel".

In the process of reporter's investigation, "innovation" and "R&D" are high-frequency words mentioned by private enterprises.

"In the past, the 'innovation' goal of many biopharmaceutical companies was import substitution, but in fact, there was no difference between the target and the mechanism, it was nothing more than bypassing the patent to do the so-called 'innovation', and the result that everyone would do was to fight the cost and lead to 'involution', but the value of such homogeneous competition is not great." Yuan Jiandong said.

He further said, "If it is based on other people's inventions, we can study more deeply, such as whether existing products have limitations and how to improve them, etc., not simply copying, but iterating and catching up on this basis, which is the direction of our innovation." It is understood that Borui Pharmaceutical has focused its main R&D strength on innovation, especially in metabolism-related fields, such as weight loss, diabetes, fatty liver, etc., and is committed to meeting the unmet clinical needs of patients around the world.

The company's main business focuses on the manufacturing of biopharmaceutical laboratory equipment, and has achieved independent production of core components, including 10 instruments such as large-scale nucleic acid synthesizers, bioreactors, and protein purification systems. "The market size of individual products in this industry is usually small, and we are currently the leading local supplier in the segmented product line. This also urges us to develop more products to meet the differentiated needs of our customers. Li Dawei said.

In this context, Insys's R&D investment accounted for 35% of the company's revenue last year. Li Dawei said that he hopes to use intelligence and automation to achieve corner overtaking, "The future development direction is to optimize bioprocesses through artificial intelligence (AI) and accelerate the speed of drug commercialization." ”

Etron focuses on communications, industrial control, consumer electronics, medical electronics, automotive electronics and other fields, providing electronic manufacturing services to customers around the world, with an annual import and export volume of more than 200 million US dollars. "In the next 10~20 years, an important growth point for export-oriented manufacturing companies like us is to embed our R&D capabilities into the product R&D links of foreign customers." Qian Xindong said.

He further explained, "China's electronic manufacturing capacity is very strong, in the past to provide global customers only manufacturing services, the future will be product design services plus manufacturing services." Foreign customers can combine different markets to give needs, such as market positioning, target groups, product performance, etc., we make a complete design based on these, and complete post-manufacturing. ”

In the steel industry, innovation is also highly valued. Shagang No. 3 Middle School is mainly engaged in the processing and sales of steel, and is a subordinate sales company of Shagang Group, a leading enterprise in the region. Wu Guoxiang told reporters, "At present, the competitiveness of shagang products is in the forefront in China, and there are strong advantages in carbon reduction. ”

In the context of the overall overcapacity of the industry, Wu Guoxiang believes that more market segments need to be focused on in the future. He said frankly, "Our current production capacity is about 1.4 billion tons, and in the future, in addition to preparing for production reduction, we must also increase R&D investment and innovative products." We are currently testing the application of ultra-thin strips to the steel part of a humanoid robot. The future is to do market segmentation, and there will always be opportunities for market segmentation. ”

Keyword three: efficiency

"Think what I think", financial help products go further

"It can be said that private enterprises are 'outside the two ends' - resources are outside and the market is outside, so speed and efficiency are very important to private enterprises." Wu Guoxiang told reporters for example, although there is no shortage of large state-owned central enterprises in the downstream of the company, because after the sale of steel often need to wait until the project is completed to fully repay, the return of funds will also face certain pressure. In this context, the discount business will help smooth the upstream and downstream financing of the industrial chain. It is understood that Shagang No. 3 Middle School and Bank of Ningbo Suzhou Branch currently cooperate closely in bills, discounts, bank bills, etc., and the discount cooperation exceeded 1 billion yuan last year.

In Wu Guoxiang's view, capital is the blood of the enterprise, and every moment must be operated efficiently to create the greatest benefit possible. "I pay attention to the U.S. dollar index every day, and now we and the bank are also doing some U.S. dollar swaps, foreign exchange locks, etc. In the process of going overseas, we must not only do a good job in products and services, but also know how to use financial tools to help products go to a broader market. ”

Li Dawei cited ODI (Overseas Direct Investment) as an example and said that banks play an indispensable role in ODI projects, from financial support, consulting services to risk management, and coordination with policies, banks can help enterprises better carry out overseas investment.

This is also the opportunity for the initial cooperation between Insaiss and Bank of Ningbo Suzhou Branch. "We have rich experience in ODI and a thorough interpretation of relevant policies, so we can do a good job of financial policy transmission with enterprises in a timely manner to help enterprises conduct business reasonably and compliantly." The relevant person in charge of the Suzhou branch of the Bank of Ningbo said.

To understand the market, we must also understand the customer. From the beginning of 2 million small credit to the current approval of 300 million credit cooperation, Bank of Ningbo Suzhou Branch and Borui Pharmaceutical have experienced 10 years of ups and downs, during which they have witnessed the landing of enterprises in the capital market, and now the scale of enterprises has increased by more than five times compared with the initial stage.

Yuan Jiandong admits that the interest rate level is not the most important factor, and he pays more attention to whether the bank can provide intimate services, "thinking about what I think, even more meticulous than I think."

"For example, the staff of the Suzhou branch of the Bank of Ningbo will help us keep an eye on the exchange rate and tell us which point is suitable for foreign exchange settlement. The banking department will also regularly issue some exchange rate guidance opinions for our reference to help us manage the exchange rate. Yuan Jiandong said that the company's annual dollar settlement volume is more than 500 billion US dollars, and the positive impact of this service is that the financial cost has decreased.

"When enterprises need funds for new pharmaceutical projects, we provide credit support on the one hand, and on the other hand, rely on the channel relationship of the head office and branches to help customers find venture capital funds, and have successively introduced a number of venture capital fund cooperation. Recently, Borui Pharmaceutical's overseas key projects are in the clinical stage, and we have introduced the shareholder OCBC Bank to open an account and open the only NRA account in our bank to help the company go overseas. The relevant person in charge of the Suzhou branch of the Bank of Ningbo said.

It is understood that it usually takes 3~6 months for an enterprise to open an account in an overseas bank, and on the basis of the linkage between Bank of Ningbo and its shareholder OCBC Bank, this time will be effectively shortened, and with the help of OCBC Bank's business network, it can also integrate and link the resources of professional institutions such as law firms and accounting firms in Southeast Asia.

Not only that, in order to better help enterprises go overseas, Bank of Ningbo's comprehensive enterprise service platform "Bobo Zhi" has opened up compliance data sources in more than 200 overseas countries and regions such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Singapore, India, and the Philippines, so that enterprises can understand the global active buyers of goods, acquire new overseas customers, and track the trade dynamics of peers.

"We hope to accompany the company to grow together, use our overseas data to help customers make money, use the capital system to help customers manage money, and use system management to help customers save money." The relevant person in charge of the Suzhou branch of the Bank of Ningbo said.

During the interview, Wu Guoxiang once sighed, "Serious work can do things right, and hard work can do things well." This coincides with Bank of Ningbo's consistent concept of "being good to customers sincerely", and Bank of Ningbo will continue to make efforts to support the vigorous development of private enterprises.