New energy vehicle companies have begun to ring the alarm bells for anti-corruption.Not long ago, Li Feng, Vice President of Xiaopeng Automobile, was taken away due to an internal anti-corruption investigation

New energy vehicle companies have begun to ring the alarm bells for anti-corruption.

Not long ago, Li Feng, Vice President of Xiaopeng Automobile, was taken away due to an internal anti-corruption investigation. Xiaopeng stated that "for corrupt behavior, we will not tolerate it when we discover and correct mistakes together.

Actually, not only Xiaopeng's family, but also some other car companies are fighting corruption. Industry insiders have revealed that there are corruption and other issues within Weima Motors, where founder Shen Hui ran away. In August of this year, BYD encouraged all employees to report corruption, and whistleblowers had the opportunity to receive bonuses ranging from 5000 to 5 million yuan. According to data, in 2021, BYD has investigated and dealt with 94 individuals who were dishonest and severely violated the rules.

We all know that corruption is a worm that eats away at enterprises. Why have corruption incidents in new energy vehicle companies been frequent in recent times, and the anti-corruption efforts have significantly increased?

Of course, corruption is a weakness of human nature and a difficult to completely eliminate "ancient curse" that exists in all walks of life. But in different industries and enterprises, the motivation, process, and even difficulty level of corruption are different.

In the new energy vehicle industry, it now appears that corruption is more likely to breed and spread.

Yidian Finance focuses on the business aspect this time, focusing onThe Birth of Corruption, the Losses Caused, and the Ways to Combat CorruptionCalculate an economic account for the anti-corruption efforts of new energy vehicle companies from three dimensions.

This account will not only sound the alarm bell, but also point out the way out for anti-corruption.

Corruption "Cultivation Record"

Understanding how corruption is born is essential for better anti-corruption efforts.

From a theoretical perspective, the most widely recognized and comprehensive model on the causes of corporate fraud is the risk factor theory. It divides the reasons for employee corruption in enterprises into individual risk factors and general risk factors.

Individual risk factors refer to factors that vary from person to person and are beyond the control of the organization, includingMoral qualities and motivation.

Simply put, it is greed in human nature.

General risk factors refer to environmental factors outside of the subject of corruption, includingThe opportunity for corruption, the probability of being discovered, and the degree of punishment after being discovered,They determine whether employees take risks and engage in corruption.

Individual risk factors, namely human weaknesses, exist in various industries and are not representative. On the contrary, from the perspective of general risk factors, the new energy vehicle industry is relatively more prone to corruption.

Firstly, the opportunities for corruption in the new energy vehicle industry are greater than in many other industries.

The automotive industry has always been regarded as the "jewel in the crown of modern industry", and new energy vehicles are no exception. The length of its industrial chain covers almost all manufacturing sectors. A large and complex number of departments often provide opportunities for corrupt individuals to seek benefits. In addition, due to the heavy asset and high investment characteristics of the automotive industry, it further induces the greed of corrupt elements.

Among many departments, the procurement department has become a high-risk area for corruption due to its abundant resources and large profit space. Li Feng, the vice president of Xiaopeng Automobile, who was exposed to corruption this time, is responsible for the company's procurement department. This department has been integrated from the original supply chain service department, marketing service procurement department, and component procurement, involving many interests.

Secondly, the probability of corruption being discovered in the new energy vehicle industry is lower than in many industries.

Industry insiders have formed a consensus that the second half of new energy vehicles will be intelligent, and many car companies' business processes will also tend to be intelligent and online. Therefore, many companies have become as diverse as internet companies in terms of carriers that can be priced internally, including traffic import, evaluation management, user information, business algorithms, and so on. Previously, Tencent found through investigation that a large number of corruption issues within the company exist in traffic trading, and some teams think about how much money they can make from it every day before helping the company do some business. Many new energy vehicle companies also have the same situation.

This also means that there are more ways for employees of new energy vehicle companies to seek benefits, and they appear more covert under the cover of intelligent technology. The anti-corruption experience and measures of traditional enterprises are difficult to curb the breeding of these "technological corruption".

In addition, the rapid development of the new energy vehicle industry in recent years has also led companies to overlook the intensity of corruption and punishment.

Scholar Huntington said, "The period of intense modernization is often the period when corruption is most rampant

In recent years, the rapid development of new energy vehicles has driven the modernization of some industries, while also giving rise to a frenzy of capital and flow. Driven by capital, many new energy vehicle companies have formed a crude business logic of "time is money, efficiency is life". This also puts a large number of car companies in a state of fanaticism and impatience, constantly investing limited resources into unlimited expansion, but instead not investing enough energy in anti-corruption.

The effects of capital and flow are immediate, but the negative consequences of corruption are being delayed.

In the first half of new energy vehicles, the negative impact of corruption can also be concealed through industry dividends and rapid expansion. But in the second half of this year, the overall growth rate of the industry has slowed down, and the impact of corruption has begun to increase. Naked swimmers are unable to sustain themselves, and new energy vehicle companies must start to pay attention to "internal pests".

Otherwise, the ultimate result is that the 'corrupt ledger' becomes thicker and thicker, becoming a 'life and death book' that devours oneself.

Tangible and invisible losses

To calculate the economic account of corruption, it is necessary to understand what losses corruption has caused.

Avoiding these losses, on the other hand, is an increase in economic value. According to Yidian Finance, the losses caused by corruption in new energy vehicle companies can be divided intoTangible and Invisible.

Tangible losses are naturally visible losses of assets such as market value and funds. On the day when Li Feng, Vice President of Xiaopeng Automobile, was suspended from work for investigation, Xiaopeng's stock price plummeted by more than 10%.

A well-known association of registered fraud auditors estimates that the amount involved in corruption can devour 5-7% of a company's total revenue. Leading new energy vehicle companies such as BYD have achieved revenue of over 200 billion yuan, and "Weixiaoli" has also achieved revenue of tens of billions of yuan. If corporate corruption is severe, the losses caused may reach billions or even tens of billions of yuan, which can be shocking.

Compared to tangible losses, intangible losses caused by corruption are more severe, with a more profound and hidden impact, which can be roughly divided intoOrganizational management, business development, and brand imageThree dimensions.

There is a "curse of 20000 people" circulating in the technology industry -20000 people is the threshold for the number of employees, and once this threshold is exceeded, the efficiency and performance of the company will decline. Behind this, there are both the reasons why the "big company disease" makes organizational management difficult, and the growing problem of corruption.

Zhang Yiming, the founder of ByteDance, has a clear understanding of the relationship between organization and corruption:

Why do some companies stagnate at a certain stage of development? Corruption has a devastating effect on a company's effective incentives, not only due to the unreasonable distribution of internal wages, bonuses, and options, but also the failure of a culture of integrity.The failure of internal integrity culture can cause the overall cooperation within a company to fall from a positive sum game to a negative sum game.

Organizational cooperation is the source of combat effectiveness for a company or department. When it falls from a positive sum game to a negative sum game due to corruption, it will affect business development.

In the trend of reducing costs and increasing efficiency, the budget of car companies is limited, and money needs to be spent on the cutting edge. Once corruption is severe, it will inevitably lead to increased costs and low efficiency. These will be passed on to users, reducing their product and service experience, ultimately affecting the business development of car companies.

Corruption, which slows down and stagnates business development, is a visible loss, while a setback to brand image is a hidden and even more fatal blow.

In 2022, a director assistant of BAIC New Energy Marketing Company was sentenced to 7 years in prison for taking bribes of 1.43 million yuan, which is undoubtedly adding insult to injury for BAIC New Energy. In the midst of the vast wave of new energy vehicles, BAIC New Energy has fallen behind, and the corruption case has caused a significant setback to its brand image, making business development even more difficult.

The damage of corruption to brand image still exists in various competitions among car companies.

Not long ago, a blogger posted that the sales of the Ideal L7 had plummeted in the week, due to individual manufacturers purchasing navy accounts to smear the car. Li Xiang, the founder of Ideal Automobile, responded that car brand executives should pay attention to their team's operations and advertising, as it has no practical effect and can also bring about corruption. And Li Xiang stated that automotive brands recognized by the industry as severely corrupt have the most such investments.

After corruption damages brand image, user stickiness will be seriously affected, and enterprises need to spend more costs to maintain old users and explore new users, forming a vicious cycle, making the development pace of enterprises increasingly heavy.

Many enterprises know that corruption is a pest that must be prevented and controlled, but they do not know how to take action.

In fact, corruption belongs to the dark side of human nature, which is difficult to completely eliminate and can only be prevented and contained as much as possible. Yidian Finance believes that new energy vehicle companies need to take anti-corruption actions from three aspects:

Recently, Xiaomi Motors has gained increasing popularity, and there are market reports that its first sedan will be unveiled soon. Not to mention how well Xiaomi Motors are built, they have performed relatively well in anti-corruption.

A bad system can turn excellent employees into bad ones.After all, there is always a element of greed in human nature. If there is an imperfect system in enterprise management, it is easy to lure out the demon of greed and breed corruption.

Huawei has formed a strong brand appeal in new energy vehicles. In fact, Huawei's management system can also provide inspiration for new energy vehicle companies in the fight against corruption.

Huawei likes to send senior employees with a large number of stocks to purchase key positions that are prone to corruption. Many of these veteran employees are themselves millionaires or even multimillionaires. If suppliers bribe them with small amounts of money, they will not be taken seriously. Giving large amounts of money also increases the cost of bribery, thereby reducing the possibility of corruption.

Of course, anti-corruption systems are often enforced by people, and there will always be moments of negligence. At this point, technology can play a supervisory role beyond that of humans.

2013

The devil is one foot tall, and the way is ten feet tall. If someone is technically corrupt, companies need to use more advanced technology to prevent them from corruption.

JD founder Liu Qiangdong has publicly stated that if an employee is greedy for 100000 yuan, the company will also investigate and send him to prison for spending 10 million yuan. From an economic perspective, corruption is the result of balancing costs and benefits. When employees discover that the cost of corruption far exceeds the profits they have embezzled, they will naturally take back their extended black hands.

In addition to providing heavy rewards for reporting corruption, new energy vehicle companies also need to increase their efforts to punish corruption.

epilogue

After experiencing a period of rapid development, the new energy vehicle industry has now slowed down its growth rate and become more competitive.

The large-scale price reductions and promotions in the industry have become a helpless move for car companies to cope with fierce competition, while also putting pressure on the profits of many car companies. Tightening the waistband to reduce costs and increase efficiency has become the norm for domestic new energy vehicle companies. Even top player Tesla, due to its recent financial report showing a four-year low gross profit margin, has seen its stock price plummet and its market value shrink by over 200 billion overnight.

A thousand miles away, destroyed by ant nests. We need to use high-pressure anti-corruption efforts to nip the seeds of corruption in the bud from the beginning.

Bright sunlight and transparent air are the best preservatives. Openness and transparency are the fundamental measures for new energy vehicle companies and even society to prevent and control corruption.

Disclaimer: The content of this article is sourced from the internet. The copyright of the text, images, and other materials belongs to the original author. The platform reprints the materials for the purpose of conveying more information. The content of the article is for reference and learning only, and should not be used for commercial purposes. If it infringes on your legitimate rights and interests, please contact us promptly and we will handle it as soon as possible! We respect copyright and are committed to protecting it. Thank you for sharing.(Email:[email protected])