Create Value, Solve Problems and Grow with Fosun

By Wang Qunbin, CEO, Fosun International

Create value through Fosun’s entrepreneurial platform

When someone starts his career, he or she will often confront the question: “Who I am, where I come from, and where I’m going?” I think the answer from  Fosun’s fellow classmate’s answer should be: “I want to be an entrepreneur who continuously creates value, sticks to principles, yet thinks out of the box”. The ideal of becoming an entrepreneur is be the decisive factor of joining Fosun. Then, the next question to answer is: “Why do you choose to join Fosun instead of starting your own business or joining others?” I think the answer is also very clear: “Fosun has a special appeal to entrepreneurs”.  I would like to elaborate on my points as below.

First of all, Fosun itself is not only a true global company with entrepreneurship dedicated to its principle of doing right things, big things and difficult things, but also a value creation platform which provides room of development for entrepreneurs. The core essence of entrepreneurship is to create value, and Fosun pursues the path of value creation through technology innovation and global strategy. Thus, it truly solves problems for customers, and enables entrepreneurs to create values in high-net-worth areas. For example, one entrepreneur alone might suffer from limitation of scale.  However, within Fosun's ecosystems, entrepreneurs can mobilize all resources and leverage large projects with high growth potential to serve global customers.  At the same time, the road to entrepreneurship is full of difficulties and challenges.  If you do it collectively with fellow entrepreneurs, there is strength in numbers.

Secondly, Fosun's agile organizational structure can fully empower entrepreneurs. The traditional organization structure is a triangle with the chairman and CEO at the top and the employees at the bottom. The agile organization is an inverted triangle with the employees at the top and the chairman and CEO at the bottom, taking on the role of empowerment. Fosun is such a platform that actively evolves into agile and flat organizations and fully empowers entrepreneurs. It is our hope that all Fosun entrepreneurs can communicate and empower each other. One side benefit of doing so is when you can communicate with Chairman Guo, me and other global partners; you will have the confidence and skills to communicate well with any other entrepreneurs.

Thirdly, Fosun’s corporate culture can provide entrepreneurs with fertile ground for growth. I believe that the success of entrepreneurship is inseparable from the guidance of right values, and fellow classmates who choose to join Fosun should recognize the values ​​of Fosun from the depths of their souls. What is my value principle to dedicate to my work in Fosun for so many years? My motto is consistent with Fosun’s credo: self-improvement, taking care of your family and your career development while serving the world. I believe the shared values will drive Fosun employees to work together, keep up entrepreneurial spirits and continuously create values for the company and society as a whole.

Finally, Fosun’s global partners shall be a career goal for all Fosun entrepreneurs. To achieve this goal, it is of paramount importance to keep up entrepreneurial spirits. Thus, the entrepreneurship can constantly drive Fosun to blaze new trails and forge ahead.

Two "121"s and three "100"s

I would like to share with you some recent takeaways from my experience: Two "121"s and three "100"s. The first "121" is to boost investment in Fosun's health ecosystem. Through continuous technological innovation, we will overcome diseases such as cancer and strive to make human life exceed 121 years old and benefit the whole society. The second "121" is to continue the organizational evolution, making Fosun a company with a life span of more than 121 years. Secondly, three "100"s, the first "100" refers to our post-investment 100-day plan, which is to empower the portfolio companies through Fosun's global C2M ecosystem blueprint; the second "100" is to guarantee the quality of our projects as the cream of the crop or “the best one out of one hundred”. To make this happen, we will making the best business judgments and choices through diligent work and research, which is also in line with Fosun’s value investment discipline; the third “100” means we encourage new employees to study about Fosun 100 days before coming on board. Thus the new hires became familiar with Fosun’s mission, vision and corporate culture beforehand and can quickly adapt to workload.

Seven Drivers of an Entrepreneur

I believe that being a value-creating entrepreneur should possess the “seven drivers”, namely self-driven, goal-driven, tech-driven, market-driven, value-driven, global-driven and leadership-driven. First of all, self-driven is the core driver. We are in a fast-changing business society. If we can't drive ourselves to create more value for our customers, we will fall behind. Therefore, every day, we should have a sense of crisis and have a strong desire to work hard to figure out solutions. Second is goal-driven, Fosun fellow classmates should explore their own interests and find his or her value positions and contribute to the grand mission of Fosun, which is to create happier lives for global families. I believe companies with world-class goals attract most talents. Where are the best talents going? They always look forward to joining world-class companies. Although Fosun is still on the way to become world-class company, it has already established its world-class vision and a clear path to realize it. It is very attractive to the best talents, because Fosun can be the place where they can grow faster and realize the value of lives.  In addition, as a new-era organization, we must attach great importance to the driver of science and technology. Science and technology comply with the principle of doing the right thing, the hard thing and the big thing with time to accumulate. Once there is a breakthrough, it will benefit the global family customers and promote social progress. Another important factor is leadership. Some people say the number of employees a manager can lead is limited. In my dictionary, I would like to call it bottleneck because it can be broken by improving leadership skills.  Once the bottleneck is broken, the number of employees that a leader can manage will grow exponentially. Some other important drivers include market-driven, value-driven, and global drivers, which are also worth our due attention and abidance.

Entrepreneur's six quotients

I think entrepreneurs should have six quotients: IQ, EQ, health quotient, financial quotient, psychological quotient, and adversity quotient. I don’t need to explain IQ and EQ. I want to talk about health quotient first. Only by maintaining good health can we create value for the society over longer period of time. To maintain a physical and healthy wellbeing, we must exercise, while reading more books, cultivating health quotients, and better understanding and managing our physical conditions. There is also financial quotient. Financial quotient means a quantitative and logical way of thinking. We talk about projects that often encounter dazzling concepts, but does the project really create economic and social value? We still have to let the numbers speak for themselves. Therefore, I encourage Fosun classmates to learn more about financial management and cultivate business skillsets. For example, my academic background is in science and engineering. I was a layman in accounting and finance when I started my business. However, I took the initiative to study first, opened the CPA book and read it many times while learning through practice as well. Finally, I can talk through with our financial staff without any hurdles. Therefore, I believe that an entrepreneur is a generalist with a command of knowledge in different areas, thus being able to communicate with business partners effectively. Of course, the psychological quotient is also very important – it is critical to stay positive. For example, in the face of criticism, the first normal reaction is always feeling uncomfortable. But after 0.01 seconds, we have to use our minds to adjust our moods and form a second and more appropriate attitude, namely “criticism makes progress. I want to remain modest, learn and grow from criticism”.

Opportunities await for those who are diligent and ready to seize the moment

Despite the challenges, we are in a great era full of opportunities. If we want to grasp the opportunities of the time, we must work diligently. The first principle of success in Inamori Kazuo’s “Six Advances” is to pay no less effort than others.  In reality, not many people can stay the course and carry through to the end.  Therefore, the road to success is not crowded as long as you persevere.  I encourage Fosun entrepreneurs to work hard, motivate themselves, and continue to learn. We also established Fosun University to empower all Fosun classmates through training, while calling for them to constantly teach themselves including reading at least ten theoretical books to lay solid knowledge of the industry and learn from the different perspectives of different authors. In addition, we should form an atmosphere within Fosun to learn from each other.

Criticism and self-criticism

As an agile organization, our daily operations should evolve around value creation, project implementation, solutions to the problems and openness to criticism.  I would like to take this opportunity to advocate criticism and self-criticism.  To be frank, it is not an easy job to establish an environment for criticism and self-criticism, because criticism often makes people feel uncomfortable. Therefore, we adopt the format of democratic salon on a regular basis, where everyone can air their own views and problems, and leverage the wisdom of all participants to solve the problems collectively.  It is also a great platform where people can learn from others' experiences and grow together.

Entrepreneurship is a race against time. We should not waste time in pointing fingers at each other.  We should always stay positive and spend more time solving problems for customers.  In this case, criticism and self-criticism is a very useful tool to put the problems on the table and seek common grounds and real solutions, thus moving this company forward.

Walk the extra mile and put the foot in the mud

Opportunity waits for no one.  We should be more proactive to reach out for the first-hand information so that we can be more competitive in the market.  Moreover, I find the proactive approach can facilitate a long-lasting cooperative relationship with business partners.  As Fosun fellow classmates are still young, the world is your oyster as long as you have the eagerness to explore the opportunities and take the pleasure in those endeavors.  We have embarked on an exciting journey to blaze new trails and create new values for our customers.  We will brave the challenges and stay the course to work the miracles together.

Finally, let’s work together to create value and grow along with Fosun!