By Sun Ling, Chinese Journal of Pharmaceutical Technology Economics & Management

 

He is a low-key businessman, and his hard work and painstaking effort are beyond our description in simple words. In July this summer, the journalist interviewed Chairman Shen Guangqian in the top-floor of Leadman Group Co., Ltd. in BDA (Beijing Yizhuang Economic Development Zone). The reason to mention the interview site is that the office space is very close to the nature, and different from most office environments made up of reinforced concrete structures and decorative materials. In the interview, birds were flying over from time to time.

 

The Leadman building resembles German-style in chocolate color. The internal environment is tidy and orderly with cultural connotation of Europe. You may sense the academic atmosphere from the office to the lab. Doors are marked with theatrical masks with Chinese elements, which enable this academic and business enterprise to appear lively and vigorous. This is the image of Leadman in the journalist’s eyes. Such office environment is easy to touch employees.

 

Once worked in “State-owned enterprise” with more than 20 years’  experience in life science industry

 

What will the leader of an enterprise with high-quality working environment look like? Before the interview, only some general information of Leadman Group and its diagnostic reagents is available to the journalist. But the leader, Mr. Shen, seems a little bit mysterious as the result of the enterprise’s low-key management style. It is of great honor for me to interview with Mr. Shen.

 

20 years ago, Shen started to work in the bio-pharmaceutical industry, and undertook different types of work including quality management, R&D, and sales. This is his 10 years in the State-owned enterprise. It is the 10 years’ experience that enables him to own the deep understanding of the development and transformation of China’s bio-pharmaceutical industry, and to accumulate extensive practical experience. He said each time when he looked back, he could still find many shiny points in the management of the State-owned enterprise, which was worthy of learning by many enterprises today. The State-owned enterprise is very strict in management criterion, which is still valuable to today’s enterprise management. In the IVD (In Vitro Diagnostic) reagents area, Shen is fully confident of the future products. In China, the bio-pharmaceutical industry is a relatively young industry, and has gradually developed and gained strength in the 30 plus years since the reform and opening up of China, while Shen has been getting involved in this industry for more than 20 years. Shen recalled that he was the youngest generation when entering the industry, and the predecessors he knew then were very old now, and some R&D experts had been 50 years old. With the development of China’s bio-pharmaceutical industry, he has contributed his youth to this industry. Now, he has gained experience and strength, and of course he also gained the Leadman Group and an excellent team.

 

Beijing Leadman Biochemistry Technology Co., Ltd. was founded in November 1997, and was formally changed its name into Leadman Group Co., Ltd. with approval in July 2010. After more than a decade’s development under Shen’s leadership, the company has evolved into a comprehensive company integrating R&D, production, and sales in biological and chemical areas. In early 2008, Leadman moved headquarter to BDA (Beijing Economic and Technological Development Zone). It owns the R&D center and reference laboratory reaching advanced international standards, and has passed the assessment of quality system by Beijing Drug Administration in May 2008. In addition to the 15,000m2 Phases I and II factory buildings and auxiliary buildings constructed according to GMP standards, the Phase III production base has a total construction area of 100,000m2.

 

To satisfy the increasing demands of the market, Leadman will establish Phase III production base to enhance the manufacturing ability of IVD (In Vitro Diagnostic) products and biochemical raw materials，and set up the R&D center and reference laboratory reaching advanced international standards. The project of Phase III is expected to complete in July, 2012. Phase III production base consists production area, research area and service area. The plant and warehouse part owns 6 floors up the ground and 1 floor under the ground. The office and service part owns 8 floors up the ground and 1 floor under the ground. The façade of Phase III develops from the traditional medical cabinet as well as the permutation and combination of DNA. The glass lobby develops from the two-helical structure of DNA. In addition, some other parts develop from medicine bottle and the traditional tools which are applied to smash the Chinese medicine. The glass lobby between plant building and office building is well lighted and its height (15 meters) meets the requirement of ferment barrels. The design and construction of Phase III meets the requirement of environmental protection. Leadman may choose the solar energy panels to as the part of the roof and wall. These panels can convert the heat into the electricity while they can play a positive role in heat insulation and decrease energy consuming.

 

Chinese enterprises should prepare to dance with “wolves”

 

When talking about the importance of the brand, Shen said, when he walked on streets of landmark cities of some developed countries, he would see those advertising boards of commodities that are deemed to be city landmarks. Some of them were erected on roofs of buildings, and some were strikingly placed on a wall of buildings. Among them, however, it is hard to see the brand of products made by Chinese enterprises. Of course, Shen knows that the market operation of modern business does not merely rely on an advertising board for demonstration, but this is a problem worthy of consideration by Chinese entrepreneurs. The globalization has enabled Chinese economy to be an integral part of the global economy. Even if an enterprise does not export products, the rivals it faces at home are still global players. With China’s entry into WTO, more and more global brands have swarmed into Chinese market, and foreign enterprises aim at Chinese market. For example, Fortune 500 enterprises have almost established offices in Beijing and Shanghai. In the world, enterprises in no country but China are pushed to mount the stage of global competition in such a short period of time, and there is no exception to the bio-pharmaceutical industry. Such key enterprises as Ptizer and GE have successively employed specialized operation and management strategies upon Chinese market and their brands have achieved success in China.

 

Shen noted that it would be very difficult for Chinese enterprises to secure their market shares with increasingly notable trend of globalization if Chinese enterprises fail to foster their own core competitiveness and build their own brands in accordance with the global standards. For he has realized this long before, Shen and his team has, since the market tracking projects, conducted sufficient cooperation with professional institutions of Europe, US, and Japan, etc. From technical R&D, he stressed that the future roadmap for the enterprise’s development is to build a global brand.

 

In the past 20 years, as to the Chinese enterprises, the awareness towards brand may simply stop on the concept of trademark. Today when market competitions are growing increasingly intense, the importance of brand to business enterprises is self evident. During the operation and development of Leadman, Shen has also realized this significance, not only paying attention to the maintenance of enterprise brand at the beginning, but also working out strategic development orientation of brand management up to date. With the development of the enterprise, we must raise the brand management to the strategic level, which is relevant to the development strength of the enterprise. When the enterprise is not strong enough, we shall work steadfastly. In the future, we hope people working in labs around the globe can consider our Leadman as their choice when they need diagnostic reagents. This is the significance I see in the management of the enterprise’s brand. Chinese enterprises should realize the internationalization of local brands plays a positive role in contributing to the development of our nation and our country.

 

The soul of Leadman is Leadman spirit, in another word, team spirit 

 

When talking about the development of Leadman Group and his experience in the past 10 years, Shen said, “the most important thing to an enterprise is team, and our Leadman spirit is team spirit, which reflects our dedication, professionalism, and down-to-earth work style.” On November 9, 2007, Leadman held its 10th anniversary celebration party, taking “Celebration of Employees—Grateful for Employees’ Contribution to Leadman’s Development” as the keynote, and “10-year Experience to Plan the Future” as the theme. The ceremony was attended by Leadman’s Chairman and all employees, as well as representatives of old employees who once worked in Leadman and community representatives who witnessed the development of Leadman. Only from this point, we can see that an enterprise valuing human-oriented management does not forget its old employees after development, which reflects the enterprise’s emphasis on teambuilding.

 

The Leadman people always do the things at the right time, just like today we start to build the enterprise’s brand. Shen said, many of our domestic enterprises lose advantages due to lack of core technologies. Leadman has recognized this problem long before. Therefore, we started to build our own R&D team as early as 2000, and the technology department developed R&D products into market products. We’ve been doing this all the way to today. On one hand, our R&D information is from market, and we will initiate a project based on the needs of domestic and overseas market, in which the intuition is very important. On the other hand, we never stop our international cooperation. It is the foundation of Leadman’s corporate culture to combine international advanced technologies with transnational management experiences. The three basic parts of Leadman's values are esteeming talents, providing customers with the best service and pursuing outstanding operating performance.

 

At present, Currently, Leadman develops so fast that it has already become one of the companies which possess the high growth potential. Leadman started to introduce the cystatin into the domestic market long before, and has taken a lead in the market. Up till 2015, Leadman is expected to play a leading role in biochemistry area and gradually turn into a leading company in global biochemistry industry.

 

Since the very beginning, Leadman has treated the quality of its products as the lifeline of the enterprise, and passed certifications of ISO 13485-2003 Medical Devices – Quality Management Systems and ISO9001-2008 Quality Management Systems. Leadman has a complete range of products, covering biochemical system, chemiluminescence system, molecular detection system, and various medical instrument and diagnostic equipment, etc. Meanwhile, Leadman combines advanced Germany technologies with its own products, and continues to push forward the upgrade of Chinese laboratory medicine products and progress in manufacturing technologies of IVD (in vitro diagnosis) products. In addition, Leadman takes a lead in the industry regarding its investment in quality management and equipment. It sets strict standards for chromatogram, implements high quality control towards materials selection, and adopts strict procedures for sampling inspection and quality inspection.

 

The criteria for evaluation of quality management system of IVD (In Vitro Diagnostic ) reagent manufacturing enterprises requires that “the production of products of different types shall be effectively separated to avoid confusion and pollution”. In this regard, Leadman has established advanced product sub-package system, which can effectively prevent confusion and pollution of products and guarantee high quality of ex-factory products. For example, in order to prevent confusion in withdrawal of materials, relevant personnel will firstly check the identification carefully, and the sub-package group leader will, upon the receipt of production plan of finished products, arrange the withdrawal of materials. The withdrawer will hand over the plan sheet to the warehousing personnel, who will carefully check name, lot number, effective term, reagent constituent, specification, and quantity in terms of the plan sheet, and then hand over the products to the withdrawer if there is no any error. The withdrawer will again check name, lot number, effective term, reagent constituent, specification, and quantity, and then the warehousing personnel and the withdrawer will sign the outbound order. As for batched withdrawal of multi-constituent reagent and if the products contain more than 2 constituents, such as AMM having three constituents R1A, R1B, R2, the sub-package group leader will arrange 3 persons to withdraw the three constituents respectively, and they shall not to withdraw the constituents at the same time. For example, one will go to the warehouse to withdraw AMM R1A, and the other two will wait outside the warehouse until the one exits, and then the second one can enter the warehouse. It is such professional and prudent work attitude that enables Leadman to continuously win the market shares with its top-grade products.

 

Win market shares with excellent quality and superior service

 

Until now, Leadman has established one wholly-owned subsidiary, 8 offices, and built partnership with more than 100 distributors in China. Leadman’s sales promotion and brand development grows steadily and rapidly, taking a lead role in China’s biomedical diagnostics industry. When talking about the enterprise’s market sales, Shen said, “This is determined by the stability of our sales team; in this field, we have established technical support and after-sales service teams very long before, which purposefully serve our customers and to-be-customers.” Upon management, Shen thought there is no fixed model for enterprise management, but as long as the enterprise succeeds, the management model or method is successful. As to the current sales data, Leadman’s average annual increase in sales is relevant to our sales team and service. Leadman’s products are mainly used in hospitals. While continuously raising the market share at domestic market, Leadman is vigorously exploring overseas market, and has established partnerships with several overseas distributors. Therefore, the export business is expected to keep high-speed growth in the future.

 

Shen has unique understanding upon the building of corporate culture. He thought that the corporate culture of an enterprise is originated from connotation of its nation, and Leadman’s style contains Chinese culture. In Leadman, we need to create the people-oriented working environment with Chinese manner and culture. We are devoted to provide each employee with a platform to enable everyone to inspire their potentials and demonstrate their value. Finally, they will be proud of working in Leadman.

 

As to the short-term goal of Leadman, Shen said we are not focus on one thing, and will insist without compromise. Leadman’s success in the future can come true without everyone’s hard work. In the past 10 years, Leadman features stable and steady development, and I, just like Leadman, am positive and happy everyday, and this is the credit of every manager and every employee. Looking into the future, Shen hopes the enterprise can continue to grow and become stronger. As long as we human exist, Leadman will serve people. Shen also hopes that one day Leadman’s logo can be erected in the buildings in Europe and US. For reaching that target, Leadman will continually exceed itself and make innovation vigorously, and do everything that is conducive to the enterprise’s development.

 

While doing business, Leadman also make its own contributions to the society. From 1997 to August 2009, Leadman have achieved sales of more than RMB 500 million in total, and pay tax of total RMB 78 million, as well as donated to the earthquake-stricken area. Every part of Leadman carries the care of numerous people, and love of the society. It is the strength of such excellent team that secures the company’s sales performance of annual increase of 20%. Through 10 years’ development, Leadman has become one of the companies which possess the high growth potential and has laid a solid foundation for participating in future competition and industry integration. “The road is long ahead” and Leadman people will continue to contribute to the society with their pragmatic attitude, high- quality products, and hard work, so as to contribute to pushing forward progress in bioscience, and improving the living condition of people.

 

A successful enterprise making brilliant achievements must have a powerful and excellent team supporting behind. However, as the enterprise’s decision maker, talked about his 10 years’ dedication to the enterprise’s development, Shen just smiled without more words. In his opinion, everything seemed to be a fading memory, and what is really worthy of expectation is the enterprise’s future. Shen himself admires some people who make great success or achievement. When talking about his hobbies in leisure time, he said, ‘ When I am free of work, I enjoy touching nature in any way; I also like drinking red wine, tasting tea, or chatting with friends…’ It seems that the growth of an enterprise is the same as a man—the internal and the external are equally important.