In the global trade and shipping community, he is a miracle.
On March 23, 2021, a 400-meter-long, 224,000-ton mega gold-class container ship was stuck in the middle of the Suez Canal due to a sudden accident, “accomplishing the miracle of successfully paralyzing the Suez Canal without a single soldier.”
The “miracle” of the giant cargo ship “Ever Given” (Ever Given), can carry more than 20,000 containers, is today one of the world’s most advanced, the largest container ship, its operator for Evergreen Marine.
The founder of Ever Given Shipping is a miracle in the global trade and shipping world.
The New Global Maritime Hegemon
How can you not get your shoes wet when you are always walking by the river.
Evergreen Line’s encounter in the Suez Canal is considered a footnote to this saying. Because for Evergreen Line, Suez Canal is too familiar, so familiar that the water drops in the canal can recognize its LOGO.
This company, which was the world’s largest container shipping giant in 1985, is still one of the dominant players in global shipping, although it is not as powerful as it was in the past due to the departure of its founder, Zhang Rongfa.
Zhang Rongfa was born in Yilan, Taiwan, China in 1927, and entered the Japanese shipping company at the age of 14 from the handyman to the captain, his father, elder brother and second brother were also crew members. Because of this background, he often opened his self-introduction with.
“The whole family is maritime people, I was born for the sea, the sea is my life!”
In 1965, Zhang Rongfa supervised a new ship at Tsuneishi Shipyard in Japan.
At the beginning of his business, Zhang Rongfa took the partnership model and opened Xintai Shipping and Central Shipping in cooperation with others to do some close bulk cargo transportation around the island, but both of these cooperation ended up with parting ways. The common reason is that the partners think that Zhang Rongfa is overly ambitious and always wants to make a big one, while Zhang Rongfa thinks that they are short-sighted and uncomfortable.
Two failures, so Zhang Rongfa summed up two major lessons: First, most people out to do things just to support their families to live a good life, want to do great things, you can not cooperate with such people; Second, to do a career must rely on the strength of many people, so their relationship with these people can not be a cooperative relationship, but if the boss and employee relations, to use the identity of the boss to become the absolute authority in the company, in order to take He had to become the absolute authority in the company as the boss in order to lead these common people to make the company move forward according to his will.
So, in 1968, with all the assets from Central Marine – a general cargo ship that had been running for more than 15 years, and the outstanding loan of this ship, Zhang Rongfa founded his own shipping company – Evergreen Marine.
On September 1, 1968, Zhang Rongfa named the old ship “Ever Signal” and began his voyage of absolute mastery of authority, and as he had expected, the long wind and waves were invincible.
Evergreen was established in the seventh year, he was in the global oil crisis caused by the shipping depression, betting on the container is the future trend, opened up the Far East / U.S. East Coast all-cargo regular service, and became the first shipping company in Taiwan, China to open up a global container fleet.
In 1985, the 17th year of the company’s establishment, Evergreen Marine became the world’s largest container shipping company, the “King of World Container Shipping” and the “New Overlord of the Sea”.
Seeing the trend of container
In the 17 years of being the world’s dominant shipping company, Zhang Rongfa has encountered a variety of complex challenges, but he has become more and more courageous, the higher he stands.
At the beginning of Evergreen, Zhang Rongfa faced huge financial pressure. In his own words, he had to kowtow to the bank at every step forward. But he had the conditions to do it, and if he didn’t have the conditions, he created the conditions to do it, and sailed farther and deeper as soon as he had the opportunity.
When Evergreen Marine was founded, Taiwan’s economy was taking off and global trade was becoming more and more frequent, so Zhang Rongfa predicted that the world would be more closely linked together and shipping companies would have a future only by going deeper into the sea.
So, in the second year of Evergreen’s establishment, he decided to break the limitation that the routes only revolved around Taiwan, China, and opened up regular routes of “Far East-Middle East”. At that time, these routes were all in the hands of the European Far East Shipping Council (FEFC), which almost monopolized the international routes in Asia, and his move was tantamount to declaring war, thus attracting a series of countermeasures such as price cuts and blocking cargo sources.
Facing the strong enemy, Zhang Rongfa was uncompromising in spirit and meticulous in action. He led Evergreen to launch services that were beyond the reach of large companies with extraordinary diligence and innovative strategies, leveraging on the development of Taiwan’s manufacturing industry and successfully breaking out from the cracks.
One of the ultimate innovations was that he not only allowed Evergreen to help Taiwan manufacturing clients collect market intelligence in the Middle East, but also helped companies to market and secure orders in the Middle East market, and then watered down to enjoy exclusive access to the transportation of these orders.
Relying on this competitive advantage that customers could not refuse, Evergreen Line, which already had a home field advantage in the local market, not only tore open the mouth in the Middle East route, but also took advantage of the victory to open another Central and South America route, and continued to achieve the expansion of routes and business scale.
In the process of going deeper and further, Zhang Rongfa realized that the container was the future of the shipping industry. So, in 1972, he made an important decision that changed Evergreen and Taiwan’s maritime industry: gradually withdrawing from general cargo bulk shipping and upgrading to large container ships.
In conventional thinking, large container shipping must be large enough to go to the development of the company. Therefore, Zhang Rongfa’s decision was unanimously opposed, including shareholders, and some even ridiculed: “This small company also wants to do container ships?”
In the face of doubts, Zhang Rongfa stifled advance, continued to use the existing business base and industry reputation, both rhythmically from the general cargo bulk carrier exit, but also continue to rent large container ships, but also continue to open new international routes to support the container business, strongly promote Evergreen “metabolism”, to the deep blue.
In 1975, Evergreen achieved the maiden voyage of the regular service from Taiwan to the East Coast of the United States; in 1977, Evergreen opened up the European service, and the Far Eastern Shipping Association, and fought the market battle to each other’s door; by 1979, Zhang Rongfa had completed the complete transformation of Evergreen, and achieved the full containerization of all regular services.
Changing the world shipping pattern
When Zhang Rongfa after 7 years of battle, let Evergreen into a new era of full containerization, the world shipping container era also came as he expected. This new situation, so that he is ready and Evergreen, together with the global maritime transport stood on the big wind.
In the 1980s, Zhang Rongfa, who got the ticket to the new era of global shipping by the container, began to seek to overtake from the operational efficiency and business innovation, and Evergreen Line thus accomplished the feat of changing the history of the shipping industry by one innovation after another.
In 1981, Zhang Rongfa decided to move forward to a full containerized regular service in both directions. This was something that had never been done before in the history of human shipping, and under the market conditions at that time, it was a fool’s dream to realize this regular service. For example, where to find so much cargo to meet the capacity is an almost impossible task.
Although to many people this was an unrealistic dream, the Far Eastern Shipping Association, which watched Zhang Rongfa grow bigger and was constantly being swallowed up by the market, was still very nervous about this plan of Zhang Rongfa.
After losing in the frontal battlefield, the Far Eastern Ship Association began to attack Zhang Rongfa by any means, trying to sabotage his advance. They created a lot of public opinion, claiming that the high-speed expansion had already overwhelmed Evergreen, and that if a two-way regular route around the world was opened, it would be a total loss. Many international counterparts, whose imagination was limited by reality and who were just as uncomfortable with Zhang Rongfa, also sided with the Far Eastern Shipping Association.
Asia’s Zhang Rongfa has gone crazy, let’s sit back and wait for his bankruptcy.
Zhang Rongfa described this journey as “the most difficult challenge”, but he still bites the target and does not relax, convinced that this is the trend. On the one hand, he stabilized the army and told the staff and partners “do not mess up”; on the other hand, he started from all aspects, investigated, researched and optimized the design of the east-west bi-directional route after opening up, the various problems that will be encountered and the possible solutions.
In 1983, Evergreen Marine broke the monopoly of Europe and the United States and officially opened up the Atlantic route, becoming the first Asian shipping company to cross the Atlantic Ocean.
In 1984, Zhang Rongfa finally gave the world shipping industry a big change in history: the east-west bi-directional route was changed to a global route. Previously considered impossible by the industry, the regular east-west and two-way routes were not only made a reality by him, but also more efficient.
At that time, Evergreen Marine had already opened many routes from China Taiwan to the United States, China Taiwan to Europe, China Taiwan to the Middle East, etc., but its mode of operation was that it was a straight-line round trip between the two places, as was the case with other counterparts around the world. Under this model, the going cargo is full, but the return trip is often short of cargo, or even empty, resulting in a huge waste of capacity.
The global shipping industry was thinking hard to solve this problem, but could not find a solution, until by chance, Zhang Rongfa, who looked at the globe on the table and contemplated this problem, suddenly had a thought that changed everything.
“The earth is round, why not break the practice of direct navigation between two fixed points, so that the ship from Taiwan to the United States, and then from the United States to Europe, from Europe to the Middle East, from the Middle East back to Taiwan, and so on around the world in a continuous operation. As long as there is cargo to be carried between these fixed points, the problem of waste of empty ships can be solved. Moreover, if this works, it will take three ships to sail the United States, Europe, and the Middle East, but now only one ship will do.”
Zhang Rongfa, who was greatly encouraged by this inspiration, immediately launched an in-depth investigation to find out whether the cargo sources between the three places could support this idea. The result of the survey made him even more excited: 90% of the consignees and shippers of the European and American routes are the same.
This means that the model of making a ship run around the world works.
In 1984, Zhang Rongfa put this new model into practice, and the history of human shipping was once again rewritten by him.
The effect of the change was immediately apparent. In the past, three ships running three routes in the United States, Europe and the Middle East required 140 tons of fuel and 57 crew members per day. After the opening of the global route, a ship only needs 70 tons of fuel and 17 crew members per day, and it can finish the above three routes in one trip, and there is no need to make repeated port calls, which saves a sum of money for buying the way to the terminal.
This groundbreaking innovation made Evergreen’s competitiveness increase greatly. By 1985, when the ordered vessels were in place, Evergreen had unshakably become the new king of global shipping and the largest container shipping company in the world.
“From the initial 600 TEU, the eyes of the world lit up when we were the first to do 1200 TEU.” Zhang Rongfa once excitedly recalled during a visit, “Breaking the dominance of FEFC gave me a great sense of accomplishment.”
Flying into the sky
In 1988, Taiwan officially released the policy of opening up the private aviation industry.
Zhang Rongfa, who had been sitting on the throne of the “Sea Lord”, decided to fly from the sea to the sky. On September 1 of that year, at the 20th anniversary celebration of Evergreen Marine, he announced his new idea to the branches and agents from all over the world – to enter the airline industry.
At that time, the services of airlines on both sides of the Taiwan Strait were at a very low level, and even ranked among the “world’s worst airlines”. Therefore, Rongfa Zhang emphasized that he wanted to extend Evergreen Marine’s management and service experience to the skies, improve the quality of airline services on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, increase employment opportunities, and build a new reputation for Chinese airlines.
In October 1989, Rongfa Zhang officially established EVA Air and signed an agreement with Boeing and McDonnell Douglas for the purchase of 26 aircraft with a total contract amount of $3.6 billion, thus starting his flying journey.
But things were much more difficult than he had imagined.
The Taiwanese authorities openly supported the private sector’s entry into the aviation industry, but secretly it was full of games between various forces. After EVA Air’s application for establishment was submitted, it was first delayed in getting approval, and then it was told that it could only apply for air cargo first on the grounds of “flight safety”.
Zhang Rongfa, who was confident that he could overcome the market difficulties, was not confident enough to change the decision of the Taiwanese authorities. He has a habit of going all out to do something, but once he feels there is no hope of success, he will immediately give up no matter how much he paid before. He said.
“Once I fail, I don’t get caught up in it. The same goes for girlfriends, once they don’t want to, they have to dump them immediately!”
So, after a series of setbacks, Zhang Rongfa decided to quit the aviation industry. He called a meeting with his supervisors specializing in aviation projects, saying that he was ready to pay for the losses he had already invested 200-300 million NTD and then withdraw from the aviation program.
He told his subordinates with hatred, “The difficulties encountered by EVA Air cannot be solved by competitive strength, and the company’s decision is a choice of last resort.” In the meeting room, some executives who had been busy for EVA Air for a year or several months, some cried, some were upset, but more were defiant and unconvinced.
After adjourning the meeting and spending the day in a bad mood, the next day just after work, the young executives spontaneously appeared collectively in Zhang Rongfa’s office and implored him to continue the aviation business. They said that they would fight with him to the end regardless of the rewards.
After two days of careful consideration, Zhang Rongfa finally changed his decision and continued to do EVA Air.
On June 24, 1991, after nearly two years of hard work, EVA Air finally received its “civil air transport license” and on July 1, EVA Air’s flights finally flew into the blue sky, writing the first page of private aviation in Taiwan.
Thereafter, Rongfa Zhang and his team applied all of EVA Marine’s advanced management to EVA Air, and quickly created a new brand with a new fleet of aircraft and new services. During this period, he personally interviewed the first group of flight attendants, personally established a service system where all locator phones only had to be answered when they rang once, and also created the world’s first “fourth class” – between first class and economy class – which later led to the global peers to follow. The luxury economy class between first class and economy class.
Within three years of its establishment, EVA Air had opened more than 30 routes to Asia, Europe, the United States, Australia and other continents, creating the best record for a newly established airline in the world, and ranking as one of the two major airlines in Taiwan with Taiwan’s oldest airline giant, China Airlines.
In 2002, EVA Air went public in Taiwan. Zhang Rongfa, who dominated the sea, also had a splendid sky of his own in an even more vast sky. By August 2008, EVA Air’s fleet had almost doubled to 54 aircraft, making it the number one brand for international routes in the minds of consumers in Taiwan.
Since then, Rongfa Chang has always made better service the focus of EVA’s competitiveness, and EVA has been selected as one of the “Top Ten International Airlines” several times.
At the same time of establishing EVA Air, he also ventured into the land business, successively developing overland cargo business and entering into hotels, real estate, steel, financial services and other related fields, making EVA one of the most powerful large consortium enterprises in Taiwan, and he personally became one of the top-tier wealthy entrepreneurs in Taiwan, and even a world-class tycoon during the heyday of shipping.
A bold and meticulous do-it-yourselfer
It is the distinctive working style of Chang Rongfa to do everything by himself.
Zhang Rongfa believes that there is no small matter at work, and there is never the best, only better. As long as his energy allows, he will keep on thinking, keep on innovating, and keep on pursuing better.
When he first started his shipping business, he talked carefully with every employee, including the crew, to understand everything; when the company became bigger, he became the first entrepreneur in Taiwan to apply computers to promote information management. 1990s, he was able to see the status and trajectory of its container ships and airplanes on the electronic map in the president’s office at Evergreen headquarters at any time, and had all the key information at his fingertips.
Zhang Rongfa pays close attention to details. At a meeting, a supervisor wearing a Rolex watch noticed that Zhang Rongfa was wearing an ordinary watch and was deeply embarrassed, so he quietly took off his watch and put it in his pocket. Zhang Rongfa saw this supervisor’s action, also guessed his mind, smiled and snapped, “It does not matter, you wear a good watch means our company is treated well, this is my pride.”
Finally, he designed a watch with Evergreen’s logo by himself and made the company one piece for each person, exactly the same.
Doing shipping, doing aviation, Zhang Rongfa demanded to know the market situation and the equipment, technology and service of global counterparts like the back of his hand, and tried every kind of food in the air kitchen one by one. After doing the hotel, he traveled to wherever he was a student of the hotel industry, carrying a tape measure with him to measure various equipment, facilities and space layout of people.
Zhang Rongfa is willing to provide employees with a higher salary package than his peers, and spare no expense on talent training, but he has high standards and strict requirements, and pursues the policy of “streamlining”. He can spend a lot of money to send pilots, maintenance personnel, air service personnel to the United States and Japan for training, and pay for employees to make peers ashamed of the compensation, but he refused to use an extra employee, nor would he want to have a waste of electricity.
Zhang Rongfa said that “boldness and courage to take risks” are the most important keys to success in entrepreneurship. Therefore, he is ambitious and brave, but also a risk taker who attaches great importance to risk management.
In his journey to dominate the ocean, behind every bold move he made was careful risk management. He said, “I have never been lost to fame. If Evergreen does not know restraint, seeks to be big, and longs for the fame of being the world’s number one, it may also invite trouble for itself.”
His goal is to build the world’s largest shipping company, but instead of buying or chartering the world’s largest tonnage cargo ships, as many shipping business owners do, he always keeps the tonnage of his ships at a level he considers acceptable. The chairman of French shipping company CMACGM wanted to cooperate with him to build a super cargo ship that could carry 10,000 TEU, Zhang Rongfa refused, “Build such a big ship, what to do when the economy is bad, it is impossible to support such a big cargo ship.”
Even, he also frequently cautioned his peers not to join the club of giant ships, “and so shipping recession, I a few thousand TEU ship can be fully loaded, you tens of thousands of TEU’s, where to find so much cargo.”
Before the 2008 financial tsunami, the world’s major rivals were trying to expand their fleets, but Zhang Rongfa preferred to charter ships rather than build them, which allowed him to tide over the subsequent shipping winter with ease. “At that time, I already had a feeling that the economy would turn bad and was prepared for it. In a word, when building a ship, consider whether the economy can support it when it is bad?”
Zhang Rongfa said he, like others, there is no insider information, want to go far, the only way to be more sober and careful than others. “Accumulate grain to prevent drought. I’m not a prophet, but I’ve been in the industry for 40 years and have weathered many storms. When it comes to the inevitable recession, huge ships will suffer instability.”
It is also this boldness and carefulness, together with never-ending hands-on work, learning and innovation, that enabled Zhang Rongfa to win the battle of the century in shipping, “the small shrimp versus the big whale”, and to win the award from Lloyd’s List, the authoritative global shipping media. He was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by Lloyd’s List, a global shipping authority.
Until his death on January 20, 2016, Zhang Rongfa’s Evergreen remained a dominant player in global shipping. But the entrepreneur who beat the Europeans, beat the Americans, beat the Japanese and Koreans at sea finally lost out to his own children.
Media reports, before his death, Zhang Rongfa had made a will, will “my deposits and stocks, all by the fourth son Zhang Guowei alone inheritance; real estate all by the fourth son Zhang Guowei alone inheritance”, and also special emphasis, “after a hundred years, the fourth son Zhang Guowei to take over the group president “I hope all the children can get along and take care of each other”.
However, after Zhang Rongfa’s death, his fourth son Zhang Guowei, born to him and his second wife, did not inherit all this, but was expelled from the Evergreen Group by his brothers and sisters.
In the past, Zhang Rongfa was fond of philanthropy, as early as 1985, he set up the “Foundation Zhang Rongfa Foundation”, the Wenchuan earthquake in Sichuan, Taiwan floods, etc., are hundreds of millions of donations, and twice by “Forbes” (Forbes) as “Asian philanthropist. Since January 2008, he has also founded and published “Moral Monthly”, and participated personally in the design of the publication and the revision of articles, hoping to awaken the true beauty of humanity.
If his children acted in such a way, if he knew in heaven, he would also be ……
Recent Comments