Breaking the Situation with Reform and Setting an Example with Thought — — Song Zhiping

Cement is a great cause, carrying the people's yearning for a better life, and laying a solid foundation for economic and social development. Over the past decades, China's cement industry has been developing continuously and making great progress, realizing the technological leap from shaft kiln to new dry process, completing the transformation from following to leading in the world, and becoming a basic industry with great international competitiveness in China. In the course of the vigorous development of the cement industry, a large number of dedicated outstanding figures have emerged, who have profoundly reshaped the development pattern of China's cement industry and injected strong impetus into the iterative upgrading of the industry. In the near future, China Cement Network will review the industry figures who have made outstanding contributions to China's cement industry from a third-party perspective.

Today, we bring Song Zhiping, former party secretary and chairman of China Building Materials Group Co., Ltd. and former chairman of China Pharmaceutical Group Corporation.

He is known as "the godfather of China's mixed ownership" for promoting the reform of mixed ownership, "Mittal of China" for large-scale integration of cement and pharmaceutical industries, and "Kazuo Inamori of China" for successfully bringing China Building Materials Group and Sinopharm Group into the world's top 500. His business achievements have also been selected as a case of Harvard Business School in the United States. He is Song Zhiping, the former party secretary and chairman of China Building Materials Group Co., Ltd. and the former chairman of China Pharmaceutical Group Corporation.

from re-stimulating the enthusiasm of employees, Song Zhiping led Beixin Building Materials to be selected as a pilot unit of 100 modern enterprise systems in the next year when he was the factory director, which is the only enterprise selected by the State Bureau of Building Materials. After that, he put forward the slogan of "wages rise every year, houses are built every year", and made this sentence into a banner, flying over the factory area. During his 10 years as a factory director, he built more than 10 dormitory buildings, and the wages of the workers in the factory were much higher than those of the surrounding enterprises.

Song Zhiping's success in Beixin Building Materials made the Central Committee of Large Enterprises at that time see the potential of this young man. After 23 years of

work, Song Zhiping was appointed general manager of Zhongxin Group in March 2002, but this promotion was a "fire fighting". At that time, Zhongxin Group basically relied on the "blood transfusion" of Beixin Building Materials, and 3.2 billion yuan of loans were all overdue.

In the first year of Zhongxin Group, Song Zhiping did two things, the first was to deal with debts and restructure debts, and the second was to think about the future and look for vitality.

"I can't eat today because I didn't think about strategy yesterday. If I don't think about the future today, I still have no food to eat tomorrow, so I have to think about the future even if I'm hungry." At that time, Song Zhiping insisted on strategic development. Through strategic discussion, Zhongxin Group agreed that if it wanted to become bigger and stronger, it must withdraw from ordinary decorative materials, cultivate cement industry, and promote new building materials industry. In April of

the following year, Zhongxin Group officially changed its name to China Building Materials Group, and opened the road of industry integration with cement as the main part.

With the rapid development of the main cement industry, Song Zhiping also put forward the concentric circle model of industrial expansion, that is, the strategy of adjusting the product from a single variety to a comprehensive product portfolio, and the business orientation of developing new building materials, new materials, new housing and building materials logistics.

Under the leadership of Song Zhiping, China Building Materials Group has developed into a leading enterprise in China's building materials industry, a leading global building materials manufacturer, a comprehensive service provider and a material developer, giving full play to its industry influence and driving force as a central enterprise.

In 2009, Song Zhiping, as the chairman of China Building Materials Group, was appointed as the chairman of Sinopharm Group at the same time, leading Sinopharm Group to complete the reorganization with four central enterprises, namely, China Biotechnology Group Corporation, Shanghai Pharmaceutical Industry Research Institute and China Overseas Personnel Service Corporation, and the new group became the pharmaceutical and health industry platform of the central enterprises.

In 2013, CNBM entered the world's top 500 for the third time with a revenue of 34.46 billion US dollars, and China National Pharmaceutical Group Corporation entered the world's top 500 for the third time with a revenue of 2.61 billion US dollars. With both companies on the list, Song Zhiping became the leader of the two companies in the world's top 500 at the same time.

At the beginning of the new century, the cement industry was leaderless." Vicious competition, especially in Zhejiang, almost all cement enterprises are losing money. Song Zhiping will come forward to occupy half of the four major enterprises in Zhejiang market: Sanshi Cement , Hushan Cement, Jianfeng Cement and " are different from the past. Song Zhiping specially brought out "three plates of beef" to entertain the guests. The first "beef" is fair price, fair trade between central enterprises and private enterprises, and win-win development. The second "beef" is to reserve 30% of the equity for private enterprises. In the past, enterprises were immersed in price war, and 100% of the equity brought 100% of the losses; now 30% of the equity brings 30% of the profits. The third "beef" will employ the bosses of private enterprises as professional managers.

It is precisely because of these "three plates of beef" that the Wangzhuang talks went smoothly. It is said that someone immediately returned the ticket to Malaysia to sign the joint venture agreement the next day. The Wangzhuang talks laid the foundation for the later integration of China's building materials, and made " from the initial industry "recruits" to today's "industry model". Southern Cement has not only witnessed the process of transformation and upgrading of the industry, but also always held high the banner of joint reorganization, integration and innovation, competition and cooperation, and practiced the corporate governance mechanism of "central enterprises and municipalities", the new management concept of "PCP" and the "three-five" management mode of CNBM, and achieved remarkable results, which has been affirmed, recognized and respected by all sectors of society.

If Southern Cement, " former China Building Materials and former China Sinoma have been operating separately for 16 years, the homogenization competition is serious. Merging is not easy. Song Zhiping spent more than two years from receiving the task to the formal approval of the reorganization in 2016. Since then, the group has completed the reduction of headquarters-level personnel in one month and the integration of secondary companies in two months.

This reorganization has not only changed the pattern of China's building materials industry, but also changed the pattern of the world's building materials industry.

With the efforts of Song Zhiping, the industrial concentration of the cement industry has been greatly improved, which has made great contributions to the structural adjustment and industrial upgrading of the building materials industry.

From competition to competition and cooperation to change the state

of low-price competition in the industry, enterprises must establish a reasonable price system if they want to make profits.

Song Zhiping believes that the price reduction under the surplus economy can only bring about mutual retaliation within the industry, which is not in line with market rules, and the industry should return to rational competition. To maintain good self-discipline among peers and maintain a healthy market, especially the leading enterprises in the industry should play an exemplary role. If they take the lead in the price war, the industry will be in a mess.

Under the guidance of this concept, China's building materials industry has always been a healthy builder of the industry market. Standing at the height of the country and the industry, CNBM proposes to take the lead in achieving "six unswerving", unswervingly restricting new production capacity, unswervingly eliminating backwardness, unswervingly implementing peak staggering production, unswervingly promoting market competition and cooperation, unswervingly promoting joint restructuring, unswervingly carrying out international capacity cooperation, and resolutely maintaining the health of the industry.

From vicious competition to benign competition and cooperation, China's cement industry has rebounded from the bottom after encountering the trough in 2016, and the industry profits have repeatedly reached new heights, which has laid a good economic foundation for the high-quality development of the cement industry and promoted the healthy development of the overall market of the cement industry.

In addition, Song Zhiping also creatively put forward and implemented a series of new concepts and measures, such as "central enterprises and municipalities", "integration and optimization", "grid management and control", "counselor system" and "eight major construction methods", which are widely respected by the industry.

In particular, the book "Anti-Involution" published in 2026 has sounded a deafening alarm for the cement industry which is deeply in the predicament of involution. This book is not only a practical guide to analyze the development dilemma of the cement industry, but also a sharp weapon to respond to the call of the national policy and pierce the fog. The book not only systematically combs the underlying logic and practical path from "price war" to "value war", but also constructs a unique theoretical system of anti-involution. It focuses on the understanding of the nature of the volume, policy guidance, anti-unfair competition, elimination of backward production capacity, industry self-discipline and cooperation, mergers and acquisitions, reasonable pricing, new blue ocean development, intellectual property protection, and the construction of a unified national market.

Along the way, he has always maintained the spirit of entrepreneurs. It is this perseverance, perseverance and progress that has made Song Zhiping a "double chairman", "double president" and "double scholar". He used facts to prove that as long as we have this entrepreneurial spirit and feelings, whether state-owned enterprises or private enterprises, we can do a good job.