Discussing Self Selected Chinese Company: Vision, Mission, Core Values

Saic Motor
Student’s Name
Institution
Saic Motor
Introduction
Saic Motor is the biggest automobile company in China, and its total equity amounts to 11.683 billion shares according to its website (Saic Motor, n.d.). The company strives to capture the trend of industrial development and use innovation to provide a wide range of vehicle products. According to the 2016 annual report of the company, it is mainly engaged in manufacturing and selling of automobiles (commercial and passenger vehicles) and research and development. Saic Motor also manufactures and sells automobile spare parts including powertrains, chassis, engines, transmissions, electronic appliances among others (Saic Motor, 2017). Saic Motor is also involved with automobile-related financial investments, trading, and services (Saic Motor, 2017). The firm is state-owned, and it has its headquarters in Shanghai. Although it is headquartered in China, the brand is known and sold world over. This paper examines major aspects of the Chinese-based firm. The paper begins by examining the company’s history, vision, mission, and values, its people, markets, and competition. The paper also looks at the performance of the company as well as its partnerships. SWOT analysis is used to analyze the company’s situation.
History
The company describes its history as one that began with trickles, then grew to torrents, to giant waves before finally culminating in an ocean. Over the last five decades, the company has transformed from a closed local firm to one that is recognized internationally. According to the company’s website, the development is majorly owed to China adopting reform and opening up policy. The reform and opening up policy fostered open-mindedness, seeking truth from facts, and being pragmatic and realistic. The focus of the company on innovation contributed to a great extent to its going global strategy. In the trickles phase that happened between the 1950s and 1970s, initiation of manufacturing vehicles took place (Saic Motor, n.d.). The automotive industry in Shanghai began whole motor vehicle manufacturing and eventually became mass production manufacturing base. In the Torrance phase, the company developed into a main company in the Shanghai automotive industry. A feature that characterized this phase according to the website of the company is joint ventures. The focus on technology and joint ventures have helped the company grow into what it is today; the biggest auto manufacturer in China and among the biggest brands in the world. It is evident that the company has been able to keep up the advancement in technology. The company took advantage of this to build its brand and compete effectively in the automobile market.
Vision, Mission, Core Values
Vision, mission, and core values play a significant role in guiding the operations of firms. They provide the direction both in the short-term and in the long-term. According to Sabrautzki (2010), the vision describes the firm’s main idea. It provides a picture how the firm should look like in the future. For employees, vision gives a sense of identity and mobilizes them to work towards a particular goal (Sabrautzki, 2010). In addition, with a clear vision, employees are convinced of the importance of their work and thus help in encouraging their commitment towards work and the organization in general. From its website, the vision of Saic Motor is to “build an innovative, globally-recognized company that pioneers the automotive future” (Saic Motor, n.d.). This vision provides a picture of how the firm wants to be in the future.
The mission of any organization provides the reason for existence and how it plans to serve its primary stakeholders. It thus describes its core purpose that sets it apart from others (Sabrautzki, 2010). Such statement should be unchanging and be enduring for as long as possible It is important that it reveals how the company seeks to accomplish milestones as it moves towards achieving its vision. In this regard, the mission of the company is to “create value for our stakeholders through a market-driven strategy, an outstanding workforce and continuous innovation of our products and services” (Saic Motor, n.d.). As seen, the mission describes how the company intends to provide value to its stakeholders. For Saic Motor, it seeks to provide value to its stakeholders through a business strategy that is market driven innovation and its workforce. Though these measures, the company can accomplish milestones as it moves towards achieving global recognition as per its vision.
The core values add significant aspects of the organization that may not be present in the vision and mission statements. The core values of Saic Motor from its website include innovation, responsibility and collaboration, integrity, aspiration, and enterprise. From these, one can understand the core values that drive the operations of the company. Innovation is necessary for success in the automobile industry. As described earlier, innovation is behind the development of Saic Motor from a local firm to one that is recognized globally. Responsibility is significant particularly in today’s environment where customers can easily access information about the operations of a company. For a manufacturing firm, it is expected to act responsibly towards the environment and its stakeholders.
Its People
The operations of the company are governed by many management levels. There is the board of directors, the board of supervisors, as well as the management. As for the board of directors, it is made of six people with the chairman being Cheng Hong. Another member of the board of directors is Cheng Zhixin. He is the president, board director, and Saic’s deputy party secretary. Other members that make up the board include Xie Rong, Tao Xinliang, Wang Fanghua, Li Ruoshan and Zhong Lixin. As for the board of supervisors, it is made up four individuals with Bian Baiping being the chairman. Other members include Chen Weifeng, Jian Baoxin, and Ding Ning. The management is made up of ten members and is chaired by the president of the company, Chen Zhixin. The management members oversee the operations in the different branches of the firm.
Employees contribute significantly to the success of firms. It is the employees that make operations possible. Therefore, it can be said that without employees, it is nearly impossible for an organization to serve customers better. According to the 2016 annual report of Saic Motor, the parent company has 8,589 employees who strive to make its operations possible. The main subsidiaries of the firm have a total of 162,806 employees which brings the total active employees for the company to 171,395. In addition, there are 44,869 retired workers whose expenses are taken care of by the firm and its subsidiaries. Of the 8,589 employees of the parent company, 1,431 work as production personnel, 396 as sales and marketing personnel, 146 as finance and auditing personnel, 5,298 as engineering technical personnel, 556 as administrative personnel and “others” who are 762 in number (Saic Motor, 2017). As seen, a majority of the employees (5,298) work as engineering technical personnel which clearly indicate the investment of the company in innovation. Such qualified personnel have the capacity to drive innovation needed to succeed in the competitive automobile industry.
According to the firm’s 2016 annual report, it complies with relevant labor laws to guarantee the welfare of employees. In this regard, the company has an established welfare and remuneration system that ensures employees are remunerated fully and on time. In addition, Saic Motor contributes to the social insurance schemes of employees. There is also the salary growth mechanism where the salaries of employees are increased in line with performance and productivity. Training is also a major part human resource management in the company. Senior management personnel members have to go through bi-week courses to promote work efficiency. For new employees of the firm, there is training induction that seeks to familiarize them with the culture and Saic Motor. The company is committed to improving the skills of its employees, and it does this through training and vocational skills competition (Saic Motor, 2017). This strategy helps in increasing the confidence of employees as they carry out their responsibilities. The result of this is increased productivity that consequently translates to better organizational performance. It is deducible that Saic Motor values its employees and it is concerned with ensuring that they are motivated enough to help the firm achieve its short-term and long-term goals.
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