Twenty years ago, due to the global industrial transfer and national strategy, the rapid development of China's manufacture industry triggered a surge in the demand for industrial automation. At that time, the domestic automation industry was just starting, and the technology was not mature, so the automation products applied on the equipment were mainly from abroad.

Imported products, with high quality, made production efficiency significantly improve, but their high price was prohibitive. It not only limited the enterprise’s benefit, but also hindered the development of China's manufacture industry. The development of domestic automation, is not only an economic opportunity, but also the only way to achieve the strategy of reinvigorating China through manufacture.

The history shows the future! In this issue of Exclusive Interview, we interviewed Mr. Cong Lin, general manager of YAKOTEC, to explore the opportunities, difficulties and growth in the development of domestic automation from the perspective of a historical participant and an enterprise operator.

In July 2006, YAKOTEC was founded in Shenzhen, specializing in stepper drive of industrial automation control field. At that time, there were only four companies specializing in the research, production and marketing of stepper drive in China, and YAKOTEC was one of them.
At the beginning of its establishment, the staffs in Research and Development, Sales, Manufacture departments were only about a dozen, respectively worked in Shenzhen, Shanghai. "It was like a small workshop back then," Cong joked.

Where to sell the products?

It was an era when imported brands dominated China’s market. A newly established start-up company that made domestic drive had technology and products, but without brand recognition, word of mouth and fund for advertisement. The worst was that we didn't even know where the customers were.

Seeking customers through “walking”

After some market research and discussion, Cong, who was the sales leader at that time, aimed at the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta region. "Looking for customers in different fields" became the breakthrough of the problem "where to sell". Then the salesmen visited customers all day with drives and datasheet as plan.

Cong said, "the initial working conditions were very hard, at that time the Internet was not developed, and transportation was backward. There weren’t any cars in our company, so all salesmen had to take the bus or walk to visit customers. If the salesmen went on business trip to other further places, they would try their best to save the money for accommodation and meal. No matter rain or wind or holidays, almost none of us would take a day off over a whole year, but no one had ever complained. We all regarded the company as our home, kept our eyes on work. Bearing hardships was the guideline of our team spirit.”

Despite the difficult conditions, our products had entered into the market finally because of the salesmen’s multiple visiting and negotiations with the customers all over the country. The whole process can be summarized into two steps: find the direction and take action. The second problem arose shortly after the products were introduced to the market.

Due to the late development of domestic automatic control technology, many technical problems had not been found and solved, but they began to arise after the product was applied to the machine, which was regarded as the defect of the industry. Our YAKO drives had also encountered many quality problems.

An emergency rescue action was took by Sales and Research and Development Dept. across the region. Our sales team provided support after sales and collected information all over the country, while research and development team worked overtime to find the solutions to improve the products. Fortunately, with timely remedy, YAKOTEC did not cause too much loss to the customers, and harvested a lot of recognition. In 2007, YAKOTEC began to be known by the industry as one of the earliest domestic drive brands.

Product quality is the basis of the marketing

The problem was solved, but also alerted everyone that good quality was the fundamental to keep the customers and market! Cong mentioned in the interview, "what we produce is industrial products instead of consumer goods. If a TV suddenly breaks down, it can be repaired or replaced without much impact on life. But our products are used in the production line, once they went wrong, it will influence the normal operation of the whole production line, and even production safety, which is very troublesome. Price is a marketing tactic, but quality must be the first priority in the market.”

After that, Cong wrote down the company's vision "to be the most reliable supplier of industrial control products in China". How to be reliable? Depend on quality! In fact, quality is not only the core competitiveness of YAKOTEC, but also the only choice for domestic drives to truly become "import substitution".

A choice at the moment of crisis

After two years of marketing and product technology improving, YAKOTEC is gradually on the right business track and the future seems to be prosperous. However, the crisis came!

In 2008, the financial crisis swept the world, all walks of life managed the business with trepidation, much less the domestic automation industry.
At that time, YAKO had just been established for more than two years and had not yet begun to make profits. However, it was hit by a lot of calamities such as shortage of funds, sharp drop in product sales and failure in purchasing materials, which made the company fall into a serious survival dilemma.

"In that special period, it was difficult for the enterprise to survive once the capital chain was broken. Later, Chairman Zhu and I discussed that we would take money from our family to support our company, in any case, to ensure the liquidity of the company." Cong recalled, "In fact, at that time we lived a very hard life and wanted to give up, but ‘there is no turning back’, no matter what would happen we should have to overcome it. Although no one could know how long the crisis would last, or these investments would become returns or all wasted."

A crisis, like a storm, came with fury but went away quickly. The global economy rebounded in 2009 and YAKO turned a profit for the first time.
After that, everything goes very well.

• In 2009, our team was expanded with a servo research and development team, and technical cooperation with South China University of Technology, Hunan University and other colleges was established to develop domestic servo drives. A year later, the first generation of servo drive AS1 series products were successfully developed.
• In December of the same year, YAKO obtained the national high-tech enterprise certification.
• Since 2010, YAKO has won many honors for its step drive series products.
• In 2012, YAKO restructured its business, established three centers of marketing, research and development, and production, introduced a new production management system. YAKO became more standardized.
• In 2015, YAKO introduced TOPBAND to strengthen the company's capital chain and plan for long-term strategy.

Industrial automation is a prosperous industry. With the disappearance of China's demographic dividend and the increase of labor costs, the future social demand for automation will be more and more.

Especially after Premier Li Keqiang put forward the guiding ideology of "promoting the strategic docking of 'Made in China 2025' and 'Industry 4.0'", the automation industry has been elevated to a new strategic height.

With demand increment and favorable policy, automation industry potential is infinite and competition will be more and more fierce.
How to face with the current competition and plan for the future marketing?

Cong believes that the industry needs to focus on the "overall solution" in the future, that is, "product + equipment application solution". Compared with purchasing a machine part, manufacturers hope to buy a full set of equipment solutions at one time.

He also referred: "we will fully mobilize the existing capital and technical resources, focus on products and customers, strengthen product innovation, improve the ability of providing comprehensive solutions, and create a unique YAKO solution.”

The spirit of daring to struggle and persevering makes today's YAKOTEC, and also contributes to today's automation industry!

The history of YAKO was full of movement

At the end of the interview, when it came to why to chose this field, Cong sighed with emotion:
"I was a graduate student majoring in automation in the 1980s. At that time, China's economy and technology were backward. We, who had lived a hard life since childhood, hoped that our country would become stronger and we would lead a better life.

At that time, people had the emotion of "Family-country". After I graduated from college, I thought I should contribute myself to my country. I happened to learn this major, so I decided to choose this field.

After all these years, my black hair turned white, and I realized how fast time flies. I remember the past as if it happened yesterday.
Looking back, I think I was lucky to learn automation in a great era and have the opportunity to work on it. Then I met a group of allies and clients who were willing to embrace us, which make the company into what it is now. I am grateful to the era and everyone!"

Since the establishment, YAKO has reached its 16th year. The company has expanded its scale by more than ten times, its performance has grown year after year, and its products have been updated for several generations. Our stepper drive series have ranked top three in the industry, which embodies the efforts of countless YAKO staffs. The history of YAKO is worthy of being record.