More than three years after its establishment, SAIC Audi has not yet found the answer to "who am I".
In mid-March last year, Yang Siyao succeeded Jia Mingdi as the general manager of SAIC Audi's marketing division. Now, in less than a year and a half, SAIC Audi's marketing "No. 1 position" has been adjusted again.
Recently, it was learned from SAIC Audi that Xie Shiqi, the former executive deputy director of SAIC Volkswagen-Volkswagen brand marketing business, will be appointed as the general manager of SAIC Audi's marketing division. As soon as the news came out, it quickly sparked heated discussions in the industry.
"Three years for three commanders"
Relevant information shows that Xie Shiqi's major at the university is industrial engineering, but the specific school and academic level are not disclosed. After graduating, Xie Shiqi entered the car company as a production planning engineer. However, in the course of his work, his focus gradually shifted to the field of automotive marketing.
In 2011, Xie Shiqi joined SAIC Volkswagen Sales Company, where he was mainly responsible for sales planning. Since then, with his outstanding work performance, Xie Shiqi has been sent to various countries since 2014.
Over the years, Xie Shiqi has worked in SAIC Volkswagen's sales and service centers in North China, South China and Central and South China, and has successively served as the vice president of sales of SAIC Volkswagen Volkswagen South China Sales and Service Center, and the general manager of SAIC Volkswagen's Central and South China Sales and Service Center, during which he has accumulated rich front-line sales experience.
In particular, in 2018, the market share of the Volkswagen brand in the central and southern regions increased by 0.33% year-on-year, ranking first among brands. It is not difficult to see that Xie Shiqi has a strong ability to work. Subsequently, in 2019, he returned to the SAIC Volkswagen brand headquarters.
In 2022, Xie Shiqi began to serve as the head of SAIC Volkswagen's ID model group, until SAIC Volkswagen carried out a large-scale personnel adjustment in March last year, Xie Shiqi was appointed as the deputy manager of SAIC Volkswagen's Volkswagen brand marketing division, the manager of the Volkswagen brand sales and channel department, and the manager of the SAIC Volkswagen brand ID marketing department.
At the same time, Fu Qiang served as the department manager of the brand marketing department of SAIC Volkswagen and was the "direct" leader of Xie Shiqi.
It is worth noting that Fu Qiang's transfer this time is to replace Yang Siyao, who was transferred to the marketing division of SAIC Audi. After Yang Siyao took office, SAIC Audi's sales have increased significantly. According to the data, SAIC Audi will sell more than 30,000 vehicles in 2023, a year-on-year increase of 377.8%; In the first half of this year, SAIC Audi sold nearly 20,000 vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 107%. This is also the height that Jia Mingdi, the "father of SAIC Audi", has never reached.
Jia Mingdi is a participant in the planning, a witness to the formation, a witness to the operation, and a practitioner of SAIC Audi, who has witnessed the SAIC Audi brand from scratch, and was once praised as the "father of SAIC Audi" in the industry.
Now Jia Mingdi has jumped to Lincoln next door to serve as the president of China, and his "son" SAIC Audi is still looking for direction in confusion and panic.
Doubling sales is not enough
In fact, for SAIC Audi, doubling sales is far from enough, especially since this achievement is achieved on the basis of exchanging price for volume. It is understood that the strategies adopted by Yang Siyao to increase volume after taking office include official price reductions, the introduction of limited edition models, and highly discounted in-staff purchase prices. According to online sources, A7L can be discounted by more than 80,000 yuan at most, and the price of internal employees can be cut down by more than 100,000 yuan.
Although selling cars at employee prices is nothing new, many car companies have done so last year, including SAIC Audi. I still remember that in March last year, SAIC Audi launched an employee in-house purchase activity, and the employee prices of its three products, SAIC Audi A7L, Q6 and Q5 e-tron models, were reduced by 70,000 to 160,000 yuan compared with the official guide price.
At the same time, there were also many posts related to the sale and transfer of car purchase quotas by SAIC Audi employees on second-hand platforms, with prices ranging from 15,000 yuan to 20,000 yuan.
At that time, SAIC Audi brand customer service responded to the media and said: "It is normal for all companies to have employee internal purchase activities, and information leakage is currently being strictly investigated." If there is an employee who is qualified to resell, it will be traced to the end once it is discovered. In addition, its employees are required to sign a contract when purchasing a car, and the transfer of ownership cannot be carried out for at least one year. Therefore, welfare activities have not affected the normal market trading environment".
Ironically, it seems that the employee price quota no longer needs to be purchased on second-hand platforms, but can be enjoyed in stores, but with the addition of a restriction such as "limited to 10 units".
Of course, exchanging price for volume is a "double-edged sword", and the price it pays is far more painful than imagined, and its biggest sequelae is the significant damage to the brand's reputation and value, which is difficult to make up for this negative impact, especially for SAIC Audi, a "new" luxury brand that was born three years ago.
Cadillac, for example, has been using price-for-volume marketing in China for many years, and although we have to admit that this marketing strategy has indeed allowed it to gain a firm foothold in China and its sales have skyrocketed, the ensuing sequelae are also very obvious, and the president's car-level brand has been reduced to a second-tier luxury brand.
If SAIC Audi continues to do this, it will make consumers subconsciously think that it is inferior to FAW Audi, which is also the last scene that SAIC Audi wants to see. Now it seems that SAIC Audi, which has been established for more than three years, has not yet explained the question of "who am I".
"Three years for three handsomes, SAIC Audi welcomes the "fire captain" (below)" will be released in the near future, so stay tuned.