Alumni Interview | LI Renwei: A Contemporary Chinese Medicine Practitioner

Born in a family of traditional Chinese medicine and influenced by traditional Chinese medicine since childhood, LI Renwei has great affection for this excellent traditional treasure. In 2007, after several years of professional exploration, he decided to return to his original heart: to inherit the family tradition. Therefore, he founded Shanghai Yongjiahe Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., and has been engaged in the Chinese medicine industry for more than ten years. Up to now, Yongjiahe's business scope has been expanding, involving Chinese herbal medicine wholesale, chain pharmacy retail, e-commerce, cultural & creative industry and so on. At the same time, Yongjiahe has cooperated with the American Ginseng Agricultural Association and the subordinated community committee of Shanghai Jiading District. Under the support of national policies, LI Renwei is looking forward to contributing to inheritance and development of Chinese medicine.

Committed to Chinese medicine: from conforming to the trend to returning to the heart

LI Renwei, who grew up with Chinese medicine, did not study Chinese medicine related majors in university. Instead, he chose to study information management in Singapore and dealt with programming and code. At that time, as the computer industry developed rapidly and the employment prospects were quite good, LI Renwei successfully entered Apple Inc. as technical support. However, he was not satisfied with the work in large enterprises. With the rise of the national entrepreneurial tide in 2005, he joined the entrepreneurial ranks.

“At that time, there was no concept of entrepreneurship. We just did business without theoretical support, let alone any entrepreneurial empowerment guidance. Everyone was groping forward and doing some business that seemed to have a market.”

During this period, LI Renwei worked as a print intermediary to control the quality of design and materials, and later he operated food-grade woven bags, hoping to succeed through the advantages of service and quality.

However, after a few years, neither the company’s profitability nor scale met LI Renwei’s requirements. He began to reflect on whether there was a problem in the field he was engaged in, or whether there was a problem with the company's strategy and management. In 2007, LI Renwei decided to return to his heart and re-emerged in the Chinese medicine industry, which is the field the most familiar for him with abundant resources and contacts. LI Renwei is well aware of the high demand for “professionalism” in the pharmaceutical industry, and it is not enough even if it is infiltrated in the Chinese medicine environment since childhood. Therefore, while running Yongjiahe, he studied the undergraduate major of pharmaceutics in Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine and obtained the qualification of a professional pharmacist of Chinese medicine.

“I used to think that the audience of Chinese medicine is not wide enough, and the market is underdeveloped so I chose to develop by adapting to the trend. However, I forgot that I have the responsibility and obligation to inherit and develop Chinese medicine as a part of the family of Chinese medicine. Moreover, it’s much more reliable to do what you are good at in a field that you are familiar with than to follow the trend. Nowadays, national policies vigorously promote the development of Chinese medicine. As for me, I also seized the best opportunities prior to the trend.”

Global MBA: Learning from professional management to promote Chinese medicine

Yongjiahe, managed by LI Renwei, is a company that dares to innovate and reform. After the expansion of the medicinal materials wholesale business, the company actively expanded its retail business. Online, Yongjiahe is one of the first companies to settle in Tmall (a total of 1,500), and now has opened the "Yongjiahe Healthy Living Museum" WeChat mini program shopping platform. Offline, Renyi Zhongxi Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of the company, is responsible for the retail business of pharmacies. In 2017, Yongjiahe reached a cooperation with the American Ginseng General Association, becoming their official authorized partner.

LI Renwei believes that this series of advancement is inseparable from the correct decision-making and scientific management of the management which is greatly promoted by the KEDGE-SJTU Global MBA programme where he was enrolled in 2013.

• Systematic management knowledge: Knowing the most advanced international management knowledge at that time, you may scientifically and objectively “diagnose” the enterprise and use the methodology to formulate strategies, rather than just relying on leadership preferences. Especially the statistics course and the marketing course - the latter is to expand the marketing thinking from B2B's word-of-mouth marketing to the retail field - are very practical for the self-prepared retail business.

• Efficient and practical student exchange: There are many students from the medical industry, especially some midlevel and senior managers in the western medicine industry. By communicating and learning with them, I could better understand the management model of Western medicine companies, especially for employee training. Professional and standardised employee training is very beneficial for individuals and companies to promote their business. Understanding product and medical knowledge is the basis for respect and trust from customers (such as hospitals).

• English proficiency and international perspective: The project is taught in English and greatly help improve the participants’ English level. During the International Business Seminar (one of the key modules of the Global MBA programme) in the United States, with many students from all over the world, we visited official institutions such as the US think tank (Obama think tank) and the Foreign Trade Bureau to let ourselves know more about foreign cultures and ways of thinking. This way effectively accelerated the Cooperation between Yongjiahe and American Ginseng Agricultural Association.

Inheritance and innovation: promoting Chinese medicine in the modern market

In recent years, the Chinese government is vigorously promoting the Chinese medicine industry, and many favorable policies have also been released (such as Opinions on Promoting the Innovative Development of Traditional Chinese Medicine (《关于促进中医药传承创新发展的意见》) adopted by the Central Reform Commission in July 2019). LI Renwei also wants to accelerate the development of Yongjiahe through the integrated layout of retail-e-commerce-culture, and to increase the depth and breadth of Chinese medicine in the modern market.

“As for obstacles facing the promotion of Chinese medicine, LI Renwei said, “From my experience, the main difficulty in the promotion of Chinese medicine in the market now is that long onset time of the product and difficulty of standardisation, the Chinese people's weak awareness of health care products and the unattractive traditional form to attract young people.”

How to overcome these difficulties? LI Renwei thinks that it is possible to break through the combining of Chinese and Western cultures, cultivating awareness and increasing the intensity of cultural creativity:

• Increase the investment and promotion of granules and Chinese patent medicines that are easy to standardize and marketize, e.g. the Bailing Tablet (百令片) made by Jolly Pharmaceutical (佐力药业).

• Cooperate with hospitals and Chinese medicine universities, enter the residential communities, set up professional health classes, and improve the Chinese people's awareness of healthcare Chinese medicine and of scientific health.

• Launch branded cultural & creative derivatives (such as the “Chinese herbal café” piloted by Hu Qingyutang) and organize Chinese medicine culture promotion activities (such as “Little Chinese Medicine Doctor” Activities organized by Yongjiahe and Shanghai Jiading District in order to make young people understand the history and culture of Chinese medicine in a relaxed and pleasant way).

While looking forward to the future, LI Renwei also reminds himself that in the industry of medicine, “not deceiving people, not deceiving yourself” (修合无人见，存心有天知。Literally meaning “although no one knows the manufacturing process, the heaven knows”). The most important thing is always the quality assurance of the drug and the compliance of the process. From supplier GMP, GSP to sampling third party testing, the company must be meticulous.

Advice to entrepreneurs and outlook of alumni club

For the younger alumni who have entrepreneurial ideas or are preparing to start a business, LI Renwei’s suggestion is that considering the difficulty of starting a business and the higher cost, it is necessary to have some work experience before starting a business, and it would be better to start from the field that you are familiar with, instead of blindly following the big trend. When entrepreneurship has certain results, it is essential to maintain a scientific and rational management vision, always maintain a "start-up mentality", pay attention to market hotspots and competitors' trends, and also do more social research.

LI Renwei concluded, “In China, the fast-growing country, entrepreneurs must continue to learn in order to ensure the long-term development of the company. With the help of previous MBA studies, I have learned in advance the operating modes and management methods of international companies (especially the pharmaceutical industry), and I understand the development of the company from a global perspective, which indirectly contributed to the cooperation between Yongjiahe and the American Ginseng Agricultural Association and which also laid the foundation for the internationalisation of Yongjiahe."

In addition to professional courses such as MBA, the discussion and exchange between industry experts is also a good platform for entrepreneurs to learn and develop. During his study in KEDGE - SJTU Global MBA, LI Renwei became a board committee member of the Healthcare Club (one of the KEDGE Business School Alumni Clubs) and now serves as the Vice President of the Club. Through this Club composed of medical elite alumni, LI Renwei has benefited a lot: He not only met a group of industry backbones of Chinese and Western medicine background, but also received many medical and even cross-border resources.

Talking about the prospects of the club next year, LI Renwei said that he would combine the hotspots of medical frontiers with the topics of public concern, organize professional medical theme forums and company visits (for instance, medical artificial intelligence, 5G telemedicine, etc.) and some experiencing activities with scientific significance (such as Chinese medicine acupuncture and beauty, medical beauty lectures, etc.), so as to further expand the Club's influence in the healthcare industry and to bring more substantial help to the alumni's personal development and career / entrepreneurship path.

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