Tuthill China Group is a wholly owned group companies by Tuthill Corporat ion, headquartereds in Chicago, the United States.Tuthill is a 118-year-long family business and
multinational group. Its business covers 9 groups of businesses including Tuthill Vacuum and Blower System, Tuthill Pump Group, Tuthi l l Control Group, Tuthill Driving System, Tuthill Transfer System and Tuthill Coupling. At present, Tuthi l l owns 28 plants global ly and operates in America, Canada, Argentina, Britain France, Germany, China, India, Singapore, and Australia with products extensively applied in such industries as petroleum and petrochemical industry, environmental protection, new energy, medical service, heal th, electricity, shipbuilding and automobiles.
Back in 1999, Tuthi l l has entered into the Chinese market formally with a name of in Chinese. However, it has been in a low-level development until PH.D. Raymond Shaw is assigned as the president of Tuthill China and chief representative of Tuthill Shanghai Representative Office in May, 2007, which brought new pportunity for the reformation and the implementation of new development strategy in China. Shaw expressed us with his thinking mode like a philosopher, his artistic management philosophy and his outstanding managerial effectiveness when he was with Multinationals in China as the president of Actuant China Group five years ago. This time, as the winner of Shanghai Magnolia Award, he is generous and friendly as usual and shows us his good personal behavior ability yet again. Serving as the President of Tuthill China, he has already guided his work group into a new steady development stage through bold and resolute reformations.
Shaw begins his work with a large number of investigations and researches, and discovers that " ", the transliteration in Chinese, is not only hard to pronounce, but also has no corresponding popularity in the Chinese market. Whereas, actually, this one-hundred-year family corporation has already developed to its successor of the fourth generation Mr. Tuthill and the key for its generational prosperity is the particular quality of its products. "Our products are not the commercial goods of large volume so that the average consumer s can not under s tand our products. However, our products have a very broad application covering a large number of industries and also are the essential critical components in many projects. This determines the generality and specificity of our products in the industrial domain. On how to introduce the products into the Chinese market,he s ays : "Confucius' s thought is that correct terminology brings others to follow. We firstly start an activity of soliciting name with prizes." After several turns of collection and vote, " " translated by Shaw is finally selected. Shaw explains: " eans mperturbability, stable like the most famous of mountain Tai of China and means awareness, we can make correct decision only if we comprehend and aware of the market. awake of what we are doing." Meanwhile, under the leading of Shaw, the tedious pamphlet that centers on the corporation itself and gives priority to introducing the products and parameters also shows a brand-new look.
The revised pamphlet lays focus on the customers as the center and the market application and corporate image as the highlights by adopting some pictures of major projects, so that the anyone who may involve in a purchasing decision with the customer are able to comprehend the advantages of Tuthill products through these vivid pictures. For instance, the Olympic Torch is tested and developed with the vacuum system of our company.
Our equipment plays a decisive role in the Olympic Torch Relay at the Mount Zhumulangma without extinguishing at low temperature and oxygen deficient conditions. This pamphlet will attract the customers immediately no matter whether they know technologies or not. And this is more interest than only reading those product information and specifications."
The new image of Tuthill of "collecting a hundred years of resource, serving for the Chinese market" is vividly showed to the customers through the aforementioned steps. Shaw decided to use this more culturally attractive phrase in Chinese to replace the English s logan of Rest easy, it s Tuthill. We need translate the English to Chinese not only word to word, but also the culture to culture to achieve the same impact and image association, considering the different culture environment , said Shaw.
2007~2009 are doomed to be extraordinary years for Shaw. Before then, Tuthill had an unhealthy state that the corporation had a large investment in China for about ten years but had little return. The business was facing a series of burning problems in such aspects as market orientation, personnel management and day to day operations.
Taking the post of president in a critical situation, Shaw carried out bold and resolute reformations with support of the group headquarter, participated in
the decision-making or directly presides many significant capital operation projects, closes the Beijing subsidiary with products that had a very bad market situation, sold the shares of a blower manufacturer that was a jointventure with B-Tohn of Japan in Yixing that has been using the Tuthill intellectual property of blower manufacturing technology, sold out a great deal inactive property of the Shanghai Vacuum Factory that Tuthill purchased many years ago, relocated the Shanghai epresentative Office in the city center, dismisses some jobbery easy riders, persuades some mediocre men who kill time at Tuthill China to leave, and kept and promoted those hard workers, and employs a group of ambitious persons who were in urgent need. In two years, more than 140 employees were dismissed while another more than 140 new comers were employed at the same time. The employment and de-employment refer to so much human communication hardship, managerial arts, employment skills and unknown risks.
Meanwhile, he also carries out adjustment based on the human resource policy of Tuthill China. "So long as our reformation conforms to the interest of majority people, it is righteous and will succeed. Therewith, those employees who leave are not necessarily bad, they are just inadaptable to the company under certain conditions, and their leave will be good both for the corporation and for themselves. On handling those problems, we persisted principle of consciousness, people-orientation and ensure all the operations conform to those specified in the Labor Law completely; furthermore, we also consider not hurting the feeling of the employees with respect. Absolutely, the reformation in human resources not only brings Tuthill China with new energy, but also makes it awarded with the copper plaque of "Harmonious Enterprise" by the local government.
Before the global financial crisis arrived, the newly reformed Tuthill China under Shaw proactively liquidized the slow assets, got rid of businesses that disagreed with the market orientation or company need, made the business very lean but with an excellent cash condition and a strong new team. Its year over year annual sales increased by 18% in 2008, and increased again by 29% in 2009, Tuthill China becomes a shining star in a dark economic background for all industries.
Speaking on the experience of this reformation, Shaw tells: "On the first day I am here, I tell the employees and distributors that I hope they will not think that I, the new president, am lack of experiences or lack of planning in the future. I have thorough plans on each step of the business development." Over these two and a half years, his commitment is realized and implemented step by step. Among the four strategies established by Shaw, the first item is not profit but establishment of a respectable and
attractive Conscious Company. Shaw says: "Mr. Tuthill popularizes a kind of concept named as Conscious Company. A company without consciousness will not attract conscious people and it will have no prospect definitely. To construct a Conscious Company where people work happily is our forever goal."
Hereon, in order to create and cultivate employees, Tuthill China is changed its company structure from a traditional official-orientation into one of people-orientation and customer-value-orientation. Therewith, more training plans are formulated on the most precious human resources in Tuthill China. "Tuthill China is one group company although it is not very large. It has six different product lines that are all at different development stages, for which different management philosophies, approaches and systems
are adopted, this is a wonderful learning opportunity and development platform for those employees who hope to improve themselves by learning in the company."
Shaw said that he once observed closely an ice engraver making an ice sculpture. You may think that each move looks simple. However, the full image is in his heart. Once he completes the sculpture, you will learn what was in his heart and that he is able to deliver the perfect art by hundreds and thousands looking simple moves. Making a successful business is the same way . Confidence from knowing and experience, Shaw had his great reputation is the industry back to the time when he worked for Actuant, a Forby s top 400 best large American Corporation.
Finally, Shaw declares: "After more than two years of reformation and resource realignment, we now dare to say that Tutill China returns to a new starting point, it is of small scale but is much healthier. Although the business is far away to reach my perfect state, we have already broken the fast ice and rebuilt the foundation well. At present, 60%~70% of our products are imported, and we hope 80% of our products can be made locally in the next several years. In the wake of rapid development of China, we will seize this opportunity and develop in the Chinese market."
