The exciting story of Haier and my experience ..

When I was doing my engineering,  Haier was just waiting to happen ..👍 excellent 45 min youtube video story of Haier.. 👍👍

https://youtu.be/WK7mxBy1fNw

Every Bschool student should watch this video. How the firm belief to give ONLY the best product to the customer, whatever it may cost, transformed a company to be the world's largest white goods manufacturer. The story of QingDao Refrigerator company in China.

The CEO of Haier Zhang Ruimin, the person responsible for bringing the quality revolution in Haier, asking the employees of Qingdao refrigerator company who built 76 faulty refrigerators to destroy them in 1984 made big news. The cost of a refrigerator then was two yeas pay of an employee. Within 3 years by 1987, it was a sought after refrigerator company of the world. When GE wanted to buy it in the early nineties, Haier snubbed them by refusing a buyout.

Later in 2014 when GE Home appliances merger with Electrolux, did not materialise, GE turned to Haier in 2016, asking them to takeover GE Home appliances. Why, GE did not find it worthwhile continuing to be in the home appliances division, because aircraft turbines, medical equipment and finance were high in GE's radar than the ordinary refrigerator and washing machines white goods business.  The deal was for $5.6 billion. The competition from Korean companies was great, LG and Samsung.

The Rendenhai model where the company was divided into 60,000 Rendenhai, each trying to work on it's own entrepreneurship model, was changed by Kevin Nolan, the new CEO from GE, who divided the company into different businesses. After winning lot of laurels for bringing in innovation, the Internet of Things (IoT) fridge, connected with the other elements of the domestic ecosystem, was a big change for Haier, which in 2019 generated a revenue of Yuan 200 billion ($28.2 billion).  

Recently due to the heavy advertising Haier is doing in India, I bought a Haier top loading washing machine. This machine they claimed is assisted by AI, fuzzy logic. True to the word, compared to the earlier Godrej top loading automatic washing machine, this washing machine uses just half the water, washes neat, with effective rinse cycles and what not .. With Godrej to reduce the water consumption, we used to interrupt the cycle and carry out manual interventions.  

Just simple application of fuzzy logic which tells what is the washing time at the beginning of the wash cycle, the different washing movements etc is decided by the machine.

I am impressed how the Qingdao refrigerator company in 1980s has now transormed to become Haier with GE Household Appliances under it's wing, giving a run for the money for Korean competitors, LG and Samsung.  ..

George