highstakesroulette| With his back on the Nickel King, he declared war on the "King Ning"

　　作为后入局者highstakesroulette，瑞浦兰钧只有一直保持技术的领先，才能保证公司在激烈的竞争中存活下来。

　　文|《中国企业家》记者孔月昕

　　编辑|马吉英

　　头图摄影|邓攀

　　去一线逛厂房，是瑞浦兰钧董事长曹辉保持至今的工作习惯。

　　在同事们看来，曹辉对于工作的投入，可以称之为“废寝忘食”。“他跟公司任何一个团队沟通时，基本上都可以无缝对接。除了工作，想不到他还能干什么。”瑞浦兰钧技术副总裁侯敏表示。

　　不仅曹辉“卷”，瑞浦兰钧内部也在积极拥抱“内卷”——“卷”技术、“卷”价格。

　　瑞浦兰钧成立于2017年，主营动力和储能电池，是业内最先布局“动储结合”策略的电池厂商。其背后是世界500强、全球最大的不锈钢和镍生产商青山控股集团。

　　拼命“卷”自己的结果是，成立不到5年时间，瑞浦兰钧就冲进了国内电池装机量的前十。2023年，瑞浦兰钧实现全球储能电池出货量排名第四、户用储能电池出货量排名第二、电力储能电池出货量排名第四。

　　来源：受访者

　　另一方面，电池行业竞争也进入肉搏阶段。2023年年底，二线电池企业率先将每瓦时价格杀到3字头，全行业陷入“苦战”。在曹辉看来，电池行业正在面临大洗牌，有些同行今年不一定能扛住。

　　“谁在创新层面走得快一点，就有可能实现局部反超。”曹辉表示，“二线电池企业的竞争力也非常强，而且跟一线差距在缩小。”

　　不过曹辉一直不认同以“最低价格”去竞争，他希望给客户提供一个最高性价比、全寿命周期成本最优的方案。“拼到最后不是靠品牌力，而是产品的极致性价比。”

　　2022年，瑞浦兰钧发布了“问顶”技术，该技术增加了电池整体的体积能量密度。同尺寸之下，性能更优的“问顶”电池打开了市场，拿到多个大客户的订单。

　　但挑战在2023年再度加剧。市场行情剧烈变动，瑞浦兰钧在营销层面的变更稍晚一步，错失部分客户。曹辉迅速调整公司策略，搭建市场营销体系，“过去我们一直专注于产品，以后就要产品、市场两手抓”。

　　2023年12月，瑞浦兰钧在香港挂牌上市。“最开始创业的时候，我们没想过要上市，只想把产品做到行业性价比最高、能赚钱。但后来我们发现行业的玩法不一样，上市虽然不是我们的目标，但上市可以加速实现我们的目标。”曹辉说。公司上市后，发展速度加快，很多海外客户也更认同瑞浦兰钧。

　　不过，上市后的瑞浦兰钧依然面临亏损问题。2023年业绩报告显示，瑞浦兰钧2023年实现收入137highstakesroulette.49亿元，同比下降6highstakesroulette.1%highstakesroulette；年内亏损高达19.43亿元，同比大幅增长331.1%，毛利率降至2.1%，目前该公司已连续4年亏损。

　　对此，曹辉表示，进入2024年，瑞浦兰钧的“失血量”在急速降低，随着搭载问顶技术的电池产品的推广，公司盈利能力大幅增强。

　　在曹辉看来，瑞浦兰钧这几年一直在进步，但从大数据和优质客户的积累、渠道力，以及产品等全方面来看，公司现在跟宁德时代还存在差距，“我们一直在向他们学习”。

　　从0开始创业

　　2017年开始创业时，曹辉39岁。“我想如果再晚一点的话，我就没勇气了。”曹辉回忆。

　　彼时，曹辉是中国航天科技集团公司下属的上海航天电源总工程师，此前主要从事相关电池研发。出于工作需要以及个人兴趣，他当时已经有了近10年的动力电池研发经验，也是国内最早一批尝试做动力电池的人。由于动力电池不是上海航天电源的主营业务，也很难实现产业化落地，曹辉有了“单干”的念头。

　　与此同时，青山集团在印尼开发的红土镍矿，在制造不锈钢后会剩下大量的镍、钴，为了能有效回收利用这两种金属，董事局主席项光达想到了开发电池。在一些交流场合认识曹辉后，项光达邀请他一同创业。

　　2017年，也是中国动力电池行业迎来快速发展的阶段，在政策推动下，各大电池厂商开始高速增长，宁德时代也首次成为全球出货量最高的企业。

　　但曹辉表示，当时宁德时代强劲的发展势头并没有让自己背负太大压力，“2017年，我创业前，宁德时代在当时看来还有很多不足的地方，不过它迅速地进行了改变，近几年基本上该补的都补上了，所以发展得很成功。但当时我们觉得，我们有自己很独特的技术，在内控管理也不一定比他们弱，不一定干不过它。”曹辉说。

　　摄影：邓攀

　　创业之后，瑞浦兰钧的发展也仿佛坐上了“高速列车”——2017年年底公司注册，2018年开始基建，2019年电池开始投产交付，2020~2022年的3年时间内，营收达到100多亿元。对此，曹辉形容“像疯了一样”。在他看来，他们团队每年都像在跑步，抵达一个小山坡后，休整一下，又开始爬坡再跑，每年都在变化。

　　在此期间，瑞浦兰钧也从只有几个人的小团队，发展为现在1万多人的大公司。“2017年底，全公司一起吃年夜饭庆祝，我们只开一桌就行了。”曹辉调侃。

From the perspective of product power, channel power and other comprehensive strength, the most competitive battery company in the industry is still Ningde era, but Ripu Lanjun also tries to "bend overtaking" in some areas. "Last year, we sent samples, and in many customers, our test indicators have exceeded that of the Ningde era." Cao Hui told Chinese Entrepreneur. Behind this, it is closely related to the "ask the top" technology released by Ruipu Lanjun in August 2022.

technological innovation

Based on SCL variable ear technology, Ripu Lanjun successfully solved a problem of twin-knife die-cutting (an efficient automatic machining technology for accurately cutting battery diaphragms or other battery components), allowing Ripu Lanjun to cut less than half of the number of die-cutting in Ningde era and free of burrs. "the company is also supported by this technology in the past two years." Cao Hui said.

But the technological progress of the battery industry makes the development of the company more and more passive. The knife die is quickly replaced by mechanical die-cutting, and laser die-cutting has become the mainstream in the past two years.

For the "late entrant" Rippland Jun, only by keeping the technology ahead can the company survive in the fierce competition.

While thinking about technological innovation, a big European customer happened to ask Cao Hui a question: "in the same chemical system, why is the single energy density of cylindrical cells higher than that of square ones?"

Although Cao Hui explained the customer's questions with professional knowledge, the topic still touched him greatly. "although columns can improve space utilization, in comparison, square structures are more controlled and have more advantages." The idea of making square batteries is getting stronger.

However, for the lead-acid battery industry, which has been developed for 170 or 80 years, it has always been a "one cover, one shell, one stack" structure. How to break this traditional thinking has become the most difficult thing for Cao Hui and others to carry out technological innovation.

Cao Hui wants to change the past "one cover plate" into "several parts", but changing the design requires changing the process and equipment, and even changing the complete structure. "it feels very simple to say now, but when this matter is not brought up, everyone is strictly following the 'convention' of the past, and solving this is tantamount to 'piercing two layers of paper'." Cao Hui explained.

The reason why we can quickly break the mindset is due to the technical brainstorming of Ruipu Lanjun technical team all the time. Hou Min said that about every two months, the technical executives of various departments will organize a cross-team brainstorm. After the question of changing the structure of the battery was raised, they quickly organized a brainstorming meeting and collided with five feasible directions.

After 3 months of exploration and test, Ruipu Lanjun finally found a feasible scheme. "when we found it feasible, we unswervingly broke down every detail, adjusting the control points from design to process manufacturing, and at the same time we also made some deployment of patent intellectual property rights." Hou Min said.

After locking in the feasibility plan, it took Ripland three years to really improve the R & D experiments, process experiments, equipment transformation, production details, and so on. During this period, nearly 100 difficult problems were overcome, and the R & D and production of "asking the top" technology was really solved.

Photography: Deng Pan

"for example, in the past, when we built a house of 100 square meters, the space utilization rate was only 85%, but now I have changed the overall building model to achieve a utilization rate of more than 90%, so that it is full, and when it reaches the top, it is called 'ask the top'." Cao Hui explained.

In August 2022, Ruipu Lanjun released the "ask the top" battery technology in Beijing. Through structural innovation and electrochemical system optimization, this technology not only enables the volumetric energy density of lithium iron phosphate battery to reach 450Wh/L, helps the electric vehicle to last more than 700km, but also ensures the safety and long life of the battery.

Hou Min said: "We currently use square batteries to compare the energy (the ability of the battery to store energy) to the ceiling." Up to now, we are still constantly breaking through our own ceiling and innovating, and we may have updated technology releases in the second half of this year. "

After the official release of "ask the top" technology, it has quickly attracted the attention of many customers at home and abroad, but also accelerated the speed of research and development of Ruipu Lanjun technology.

Ripu Lanjun also continues to increase its investment in research and development, increasing its R & D expenditure from 48 million yuan in 2019 to 257 million yuan in 2022. According to the financial report, although Ruipu Lanjun's financial losses continued to expand in 2023, the company still maintained a high investment in R & D, with R & D expenditure of 991 million yuan.

Make up the deficiency board

Ruipu Lanjun, which was devoted to building a technical moat at the beginning of its establishment, almost completely ignored the construction of marketing and channels.

Therefore, although the release of the "ask the top" technology brought a wave of attention to Ruipu Lanjun, which was even in short supply in 2022, peers quickly began to imitate after discovering that "batteries can still do so."

Cao Hui recalls that Ruipu Lanjun's "asking the top" technology changed from "nobody has nothing" in 2022 to "everyone has it" in 2023. Service is important when there is no obvious advantage over competitors in products and technology. However, the whole company, including Cao Hui, has not set up the consciousness of marketing and service. Ruipu Lanjun, which still maintains the original marketing rhythm, was quickly "defeated" by the marketing and service of competitors.

"early marketing staff will also give me feedback on customers' opinions, such as what is wrong with the product, after the 'ask the top' comes out, I send samples to the customer, nine times out of ten, the customer said yes, but still can not sell." Cao Hui said.

The reduction in the number of orders made Cao Hui and others very anxious, he went to ask the marketing staff and customers to know that he ignored the marketing promotion has become a big problem. At that time, Ripu Lanjun had very few marketing personnel, and the marketing department was able to achieve sales of 1 billion yuan per person. "although they worked very hard, they could not serve their customers at all."

Cao Hui learned that this led to the fact that the people who were looking for Ruipu Lanjun could not be found at all, the company's reputation in service became worse, and the industry reputation of Ruipu Lanjun was reduced. "the age has changed, and the smell of wine is also afraid of the depth of the alley." Cao Hui reflected, "A lot of competitors revolve around our customers, and we are still 'hiding at home' waiting for customers to come to our door. no wonder we can get orders."

In 2023, Cao Hui led the team to change, recruit marketing managers, build a systematic marketing system, learn from Huawei and other companies, and carry out regional and grid channel construction. "now we have to fight for products and services at the same time. If competitors cut prices, we still cling to the original prices, which is unrealistic." Cao Hui said.

　　在曹辉看来，2023年是他最重视市场的一年，去年的经历也给到他一个很大提醒：“管理没有哪一年不变的，每一年的主旨以及当年要做什么都在变化。”