As the sun rises and nature awakens with the essence of spring, the MU Group’s 2023-2024 Middle and Senior-Level Cadres Meeting took place on March 1st at the Shangri-La Hotel in Yiwu. Over 2,000 middle and senior-level cadres, along with colleagues from the Yiwu Operation Center, attended the event in person, while others joined online, coming together to review the past, commend achievements, and plan for a new chapter of high-quality development!
It was a solemn pledge and a call to action. We officially sounded the charge of “Victory! Victory! Victory!” in the Yiwu theater command. President Tom Tang, along with MU Group leaders Jeff Luo, Henry Xu, Amenda Weng, Eric Zhuang, Amanda Chen, William Wang, Sam Zhu, as well as leaders from various business divisions and subsidiaries, attended this event.
The meeting began with the resounding national anthem. The Financial Department, Document Department, Human Resources, and Design Department delivered their reports, reflecting on the past year, identifying areas for improvement, and strategizing on how to empower business development through data analysis, logistics supply chains, human resources, and brand design, especially adapting to and better empowering new forms of business such as cross-border e-commerce. The dedication and hard work of MU Group’s various functional departments over the past year were evident.
“At MU, you can also have your own company.” Every March 1st, we hold the customary new division signing ceremony, which continues our entrepreneurial culture and represents the enduring spirit of growth. During the signing ceremony, several new business divisions were established, including NINGBO FLYING TANGO CO., LTD., NINGBO GLORY MAGIC CO., LTD., NINGBO FUTURE STAR TRADE CO.,LTD., ONLINE DIVISION OF SKYLARK NETWORK CO.,LTD., MARKET SELECT DIVISION OF MARKET UNION CO.,LTD., HOUSEWARE DIVISION OF NINGBO MULTI CHANNEL CO., LTD., AMERICA DIVISION OF MARKET UNION CO., LTD., NINGBO S2G CULTURE CREATIVE CO., LTD. and CREATE DIVISION OF NINGBO ROYAL UNION CO., LTD.. With this, the total number of group business divisions and subsidiaries reached 67, further expanding the organizational structure!
The meeting also featured the pledge signing ceremony and collective oath ceremony, symbolizing not only objectives and targets but also the driving force and direction of progress. Our goals must be achieved, and they will be!
The awards ceremony for outstanding colleagues and the medal-conferring ceremony were the highlights of the meeting, including the “Necklace Grant” for 5th Anniversary Colleagues, the “Ring Grant” for 10th Anniversary Colleagues, the “New High” Award Ceremony, and Team and Individual Awards. The continuous development and progress of our careers stem from a simple passion and dedication. Shimmering necklaces, sparkling diamond rings symbolize the golden years of growth shared by each colleague with MU; glittering medals, weighty trophies, and vibrant banners silently narrate the stories of MUers facing challenges and overcoming difficulties.
Striving is the most radiant backdrop of youth. Emerging colleagues such as Excellent Newcomers, Youth Model Units, Top Ten Outstanding Young Persons, and Top Ten Outstanding Youth Arch showcased the power of youth. During the debate, the “Top Ten Outstanding Young Persons” clashed with the “Top Ten Outstanding Youth Arch”, engaging in intense debates about whether competition among business competitors and internal competition can promote company development. Competition pervades the business world, both externally with business competitors striving against each other and internally with departments competing for better performance. These two forms of competition collectively influence the pace and direction of business advancement. Through the debate, we believe everyone gained a deeper understanding of the dialectical relationship between competition and cooperation.
MU Group has always advocated that “With cultural prosperity and ideological prosperity, the businesses will natural prosper”. Shine Tu, General Manager of ONLINE DIVISION OF SN, spoke as a representative of the new business division, emphasizing the transition of the team from “joint development of traditional trade and cross-border e-commerce” to “focusing on online channel customers and e-commerce business”. This transition necessitates a greater emphasis on product quality, design and fashion, and rely on better pricing and supply chain advantages through source factory development, continuous optimization of product endpoints based on real-time feedback from online shopping platforms, and building a good brand image.
Anita Zhou, General Manager of TOLEAD, as the recipient of the Best Operation Award, believes trends are both the strongest ally and the strongest opponent. The global market still has vast room for the penetration of e-commerce. Any advantage is subject to dynamic changes, and only through specific analysis of concrete problems can one transform and fully leverage their own strengths. Whether it’s cross-border e-commerce or traditional foreign trade, attention must be paid to the essence of business, focusing on pricing, timeliness, reach, and customer experience. The pace of industry growth is accelerating, and TOLEAD will orient itself towards market trends and demands, leveraging its advantages in supply chain and product strength, adhering to refined operations, and exploring diversified sales channels.
Ken Huang, General Manager of SKYLARK NETWORK, shared a special presentation titled “A Quarter-Century Retrospective, Yiwu Skylark Sets Sail Again”. He summarized his transformation and growth in MU Group, emphasizing the accumulated value of continuous work, thought, and progress. The company’s operations on platforms such as Alibaba International, Global Resources, Made in China, and group website have become significant stages for young colleagues to develop and realize themselves. 2024 will be a year of Skylark’s continuity and transition. The company will continue investing in platform construction and participation in exhibitions, offering colleagues comprehensive channel development and successful paths while strengthening the supply chain to drive customer development capabilities and develop the C-end business at any time.
Jeff Luo, Vice President of MU Group and General Manager of GENERAL UNION, shared a special presentation titled “The Difficulties & Challenges: Faced in General Union Business Group’s Leapfrog Development”. Based on the extraction of past development experiences, he critically analyzed the difficulties, challenges, and opportunities faced by General Union Business Group in its leapfrog development. From experience, firstly, establishing a product team matrix to accumulate systematic large customer docking capabilities; secondly, internally incubating and externally introducing outstanding talents, while providing proper guidance and support, coordinating management, and assisting in empowerment; thirdly, continuous investment in all aspects to build a “protective moat”; fourthly, fully utilizing customer resources and traffic, rhythmically conducting inter-departmental customer flow imports; fifthly, being adept at learning internally and externally, seizing every opportunity that arises. In the future, we must set ambitious goals, adhere to customer-centricity, continuously create value for customers, optimize and improve our service capabilities and product quality, persist in doing difficult and correct things, enhance our competitive advantage through upward and superior development, and view changes in the industry with a dynamic, scientific, and developmental perspective, seizing opportunities to create excellent, industry-leading, self-characterized product companies, thereby incubating outstanding brand companies.
The global digitization is advancing into deeper realms, with artificial intelligence emerging as a major force. Under the waves of new technologies, multimedia, and multi-dimensional trends, how can B2B businesses accelerate digital transformation? This is not just about constructing online platforms, automating processes, synchronizing supply chains, and innovating marketing; it also involves breaking cognitive barriers, revolutionizing thinking, and refreshing their ability to execute for traditional international traders. The answers cannot be found in brief conversations; they resonate within the conference halls and within the hearts of every colleague!
As cross-border e-commerce enters its second half, do new companies still have opportunities? Reflecting on the golden age of MU e-commerce, we ponder whether the first half has truly ended. From platform e-commerce to live streaming e-commerce, social media e-commerce, and interest-based e-commerce, from B2B to B2C, and B2BC, different forms conceal the same underlying logic. We must shift from product exploitation to product R&D, learning to forget past experiences, resources, and strategies, adapting to the ever-changing market environment. We believe that greater opportunities in cross-border e-commerce are on the horizon!
The night sky is beautiful because of the shining stars. The 20-year journey of MU cannot be separated from the dedication and hard work of every MUer, nor can it be detached from the recognition, support, and assistance of every customer and partner. We cannot choose to forget, nor should we. Building upon the 20th-anniversary ceremony, Outstanding MUers were awarded, and nearly 1000 Contributing MUers were publicly recognized. After the conference, each business unit and company will confer medals upon Meritorious Partners, Outstanding Partners, Contributing Partners, and Meritorious Customers, Outstanding Customers, and Contributing Customers, marking a fulfilling and far-reaching conclusion to the 20th-anniversary medal conferment series.
Lastly, President Tom Tang shared his insights on “Liberating Thought, Seeking Truth from Facts”. He emphasized high-quality development, creating value for customers and partners (suppliers), and highlighted that quality equals orders and profit.
MU aims for fair distribution, rejecting bookishness and dogmatism. Complexity and importance are not related to job titles; there are static tasks in sales department and dynamic tasks in operational department and financial/design department. Many tasks lack standards, and even if standards exist, they are not necessarily followed completely. Leaders need to take on more responsibilities, actively shoulder complex tasks and pressure, allowing subordinates to handle simple yet repetitive tasks.
2024 is a critical year, testing our recruitment, training, management, and risk control systems. Human resources must prioritize the return of outstanding former colleagues (those who were outstanding during their tenure or became outstanding after leaving the company) as a key task for the new year. Each business unit and HR department should treat retaining existing employees as social recruitment work; retaining staff is also a form of recruitment. Competition involves collaboration, and collaboration fosters innovation, which in turn promotes prosperity. We should be grateful to our business competitors, providing them with customers, talents, and supplier resources. This is the direction we need to explore next.
The key to innovative development lies in liberating thought and seeking truth from facts. The brain commands the body; without liberated thinking, actions will stagnate. Business divisions should be established as swiftly as forming departments, from business divisions to business groups, with resources concentrated at the upper level, forming a system where the upper level plans and the lower level executes. If the past was a dividend of the departmental model, then the future is a huge dividend of the political commissar system and counselor model, from general managers to political commissars, from operational support business units to counselors.
To be No.1 in the next twenty years. We value our customers and always honor them as priority. Let us liberate our thoughts, seek truth from facts, continue to struggle until we succeed.