Hardware tool companies should take the path of “small specialization” with Chinese characteristics

Since the beginning of the new century, the domestic manufacturing industry has accelerated the pace of technological transformation, and domestic CNC machine tools have begun to enter the manufacturing sector in large numbers. As a result, a sharp contradiction quickly surfaced. The advanced CNC machine tools were not equipped with advanced domestic tools and had to be equipped with imported tools. The product structure of China's hardware tool industry for several decades has finally exposed serious flaws at the time of the international financial crisis and dragged the manufacturing industry to a halt.

Since the beginning of the new century, China’s hardware and hardware tool industry has begun to accelerate the process of structural adjustment and industrial upgrading, but the pace of progress has been slow. In the face of the financial turmoil, many companies have a strong sense of crisis.

So how can we realize the adjustment of the industrial structure as soon as possible and give full play to the huge advantages of the hardware tool industry in China? First of all, we must give full play to China's hardware and materials resources unique advantage of resources and human resources, seriously change the hardware and hardware tool business concept, strengthen services, to meet the needs of the manufacturing industry in the first place. Second, we must also give full play to the characteristics of China's hardware and hardware tools companies, and avoid weaknesses, and take the small, specialized, small and refined road.

Utilizing Advantages China's hardware and hardware tools companies have a large gap from capital, technology, equipment, and management levels compared to advanced multinational hardware and hardware tool companies, and they seem to find no advantage. However, there are at least two major advantages that are valuable resources for the development of the hardware and hardware industry in China. That is: natural resources and human resources.

Then, how can we give full play to China's resources and manpower advantages and push the development of the hardware and hardware industry to a new level? First of all, we must start with changing concepts and strengthening services. Hardware and hardware tools companies must completely lose the same old-fashioned habits that have been cultivated for decades, and have the old habit of selling them, putting the needs of satisfying the manufacturing industry first. Having established such a guiding ideology and development policy, even without a large amount of modern equipment, it can produce good products that users welcome. With this kind of guiding ideology, waste of resources and the squandering of wasteful talents, they will be greatly reduced. In recent years, China's hardware and hardware tool industry has begun to emerge a number of technology-based private enterprises. This is how it has developed. Its growth rate exceeds the strength of state-owned enterprises and deserves attention.

The hardware and hardware tool industry must solve the problems of modernization, strengthen service awareness and improve service levels. The urgency is far more than the improvement of equipment. We have had a lot of hard lessons. Some companies have introduced foreign advanced equipment at a great price, but the old concept has not changed, and standard cutters are still produced. The result is not welcomed by the market, and it ends up losing the fate of the wife.

In order to avoid weaknesses, the modern hardware and hardware tools manufacturing industry in developed countries today has undergone mergers, reorganizations, and enhancements since the 1980s, showing the characteristics of “high starting point, large investment, large-scale, and internationalization” and a trend of centralization. Ten of the largest multinational hardware and hardware tool groups occupy two-thirds of the international hardware hardware tool market share. Compared with hardware and hardware tool companies in China, there is a wide gap between product development capabilities, process development capabilities, equipment development capabilities and marketing service levels. It must be admitted that this gap cannot be caught overnight. After all, hardware and hardware tool industry is a traditional industry, and it is different from the law of high and new technology development. Many technologies and experiences rely on a long-term accumulation process. It took 20 years to create 1 or 2 companies in China that can compete with multinational hardware and hardware tool groups. It is already the best expectation. The majority of hardware and hardware tools companies must seek truth from facts, and do not use transnational corporations as a model for development. The modernization road of most Chinese hardware and hardware tools companies must set realistic goals for development. The “big and full” and “small and complete” model of development will definitely not work. We must make up our minds to lose some areas, give full play to their characteristics, and make every effort to avoid weaknesses, and take the small, specialized, small and refined path.

From the perspective of international experience, there is much to do with small and specialized programs. In the international arena, in addition to the top ten multinational hardware and hardware tools companies, the enterprises engaged in hardware and hardware tools, not just the thousands of companies, they have found their own living space in the development. It should be pointed out that the service field of hardware tools technology is very broad, and it can penetrate into every area of ​​the manufacturing industry without obvious industry boundaries. This creates a good environment for the development of small businesses with service features. In recent years, China’s hardware and tools industry has also begun to notice the problem of accurately positioning and choosing a reasonable development model based on its own conditions. Many large and medium-sized enterprises have given up their “bigger and full” and “small and complete” development models and have begun to present their own characteristics. This is a very welcome phenomenon. However, the proportion of featured products and services is still not large enough, and the transition speed is not fast enough. It shows that the sense of urgency is not strong enough to completely shake off the influence of the traditional system, so the pace of reform must be accelerated.

Creating an Orderly Market Environment Under the conditions of market economy, enterprises are the main players of competition. They must be responsible for their own survival and development. Therefore, the current development of China's hardware and tools industry can not meet the needs of the manufacturing industry, first of all to find the cause from the company itself, come up with solutions. On the other hand, it must be noted that the development history of the market economy in our country is still very short. There are still many areas of non-standard and imperfect markets in the operation of the market, affecting the healthy development of the company. Sometimes this effect is still very serious. It is necessary for the government and enterprises to communicate and reach consensus and the government should come forward to solve the problem. For example, the “vicious competition of inferior and low-priced products” and “unfair investment orientation” have hindered the healthy development of hardware and tools industry for many years. Both of these issues are directly related to government actions.

As mentioned before, China has produced 40% of the world's hardware and materials, but the sales of hardware tools and finished products are less than 6% of the world's total. This amazing waste of resources will be shocking to anyone. The waste of resources has also caused vicious competition for inferior and low-priced products.

Over the years, the hardware tool industry has long been subject to the “unfair investment orientation” and the phenomenon of “relying on the mainframe and supporting it lightly” is an institutional issue that should be corrected as soon as possible. The corrective measure is not to ask the government to “back up parts and light mainframes”, which is also a problem. Instead, it hopes that the government will return investment decision-making power to enterprises, let the market decide the rational allocation of resources, and create a fair and competitive investment environment for the development of the spare parts industry including the hardware tool industry.