Interviewee: DING Chenghong, MPM Alumnus of the Year 2011

General Manager of Hangzhou Zhangxiaoquan Industrial Development Co.,Ltd

Date of Interview: March 19, 2014

One day in spring March, we drove to Zhangxiaoquan Group which is located in Dongzhou Industrial Zone of Fuyang to visit Mr. DING Chenghong, one of our alumni. The Zhangxiaoquan Group covers a wide area with some new buildings standing on. Although construction of some buildings had not been completed, it was still not hard to find out the elegant atmosphere from the concrete steel----that’s a cultural accumulation inherited for more than 300 years. Warmly greeting to us, he said, “Indeed thanks so much to you all, teachers of the School coming to see me”. Over the talk for almost one hour, we were moved by Mr. DING’s simple conversation, frank mentality and sincere attitude.

In face with the deep concern of the teachers from his mother school, Mr. DING couldn’t control himself to recall what happened in the past. Due to historical reasons, the Zhangxiaoquan Group under his leadership had got through three major issues: respectively as reform of the state-owned enterprises, introduction of strategic partners to change the equity status and relocation of the factory. In 2000, Zhangxiaoquan Group completed the first round of reform changing the brand as Zhangxiaoquan Group and establishing the employees’ share-holding meeting. At that time due to the impeded system, the enterprise lagged behind in terms of product research & development and brand promotion. As a lot of old reputable brands in China which used to develop for long time, Zhangxiaoquan also fell into its bottleneck of development. Zhangxiaoquan Group of today concentrates on technological innovation, integration with the world and constantly absorbs the fresh blood to energize the old brand.

He said “The knowledge learned at school expanded his thoughts. Before taking the MPM courses, I used to work on management position. Through taking the MPM courses, I had systematically mastered the knowledge of management, and combining with the previous management practices, I largely strengthened my abilities of macro-managing problems. Meanwhile, from perspective of mentality, it is a testing process making me learn to rationally regard and solve problems. Other more achievement is new concept of thinking and heuristic thoughts through the invisible process.

Looking back to his life during the schooling period, he smiled a lot telling us some more tiny but interesting issues. In his memory, Mr. DING Chenghong felt that he was the oldest student at his class and each time at class, he might have felt a little bit shy and sat at the final row of the classroom with another student. He said, “A special affection was established by between classmates and such affection needs to be maintained through platforms. Therefore, the Alumni Association of the MBA School, as he said, is such a platform for alumni to timely communicate with each other and to exchange information between each other. It is really so good”. Meanwhile he said that he would be willing to contribute to the Alumni Association as he can.

In 2012, Mr. DING Chenghong was employed as enterprise mentor of the MBA School and often came back to the mother school to provide support and assistance for the School’s education work.

Appendix: About Zhangxiaoquan

Zhangxiaoquan, a multi-century-old brand enterprise, was initially founded in the second year of the reign of Emperor Kangxi in Qing Dynasty (1663 AD) with a history of 350 years. It has been 109 years since the enterprise got registered at the Department of Agriculture, Industry and Commerce of the Qing Authorities. Putting steel forging as the key technology, Zhangxiaoquan created 72 sorts of scissors well-known across the world. Adhering to the ancestors’ teaching “Manufactured with top steel”, the managers of Zhangxiaoquan finally had their scissor products become a legend of China’s traditional industry.

In 2008, Zhangxiaoquan officially launched the full integration and brand operation to realize the successful transformation from a