Chen Kaixuan, the head of Liby Group, you may scarcely hear of this name, Liby Group is a household name. “In success, one tries to let others be benefited. The stronger ability is，The bigger responsibility is”. Chen Kaixuan said repeatedly while interviewed by Forbes China.
From starting a business to gradually growing stronger. Guangzhou Liby Washing Products Co., Ltd,, the predecessor of Liby Group, was founded in 1994. Three years later, Liby washing powder became the best seller in Guangzhou Province. Since 2004, Liby Group has stepped into the big daily chemical industry. In 2018, Liby Group released the “1+2” strategy for the first time and entered a new stage of transformation and upgrading.
Through 26 years of development, under the support of the reform and opening policies, Chen Kaixuan led Liby Group to grow from a little known company to a backbone of China's daily chemical industry and form a great power brand. Just like what he experienced in public welfare over the years, “Public welfare is not an accomplishment overnight but a lifelong career. As the company grew bigger, my determination to devote myself to public welfare becomes firmer. I always believe that a company should repay the society when it becomes bigger, which is also my original intention to constantly engage in public welfare.
With large-scale growth of Liby, Chen Kaixuan invested more and more in public welfare year by year. “At the beginning, I just did what I can to help people around me.As the Company grows stronger, I cared for and helped more people. It’s meaningful to support public welfare and help people in need.” Chen Kaixuan believed that social responsibility not only enhanced employee’s trust but also improved their cohesion.
Liby Group is headquartered in Guangzhou City of Guangdong Province. According to historical data of Forbes China’s Charity List, Guangdong topped three among donor enterprises throughout the year. This year is a decisive year of poverty alleviation. Under policy support, entrepreneurs opened up their wallets and poverty alleviation has become a hotspot of donation. 30 Guangdong enterprises with donation up to 9.5 billion Yuan accounted for half of the charity list of this year.
“Both the richest and the poorest Chinese come from Guangdong.” The gap between the northwest of eastern Guangdong and the Pearl River Delta has always been a chronic disease. So Liby Group has been deeply engaged in targeted poverty alleviation for many years. Chen Kaixuan introduced: “We have done a lot through the platform ‘Guangdong Poverty Relief Day’. We helped people in poor areas get rid of poverty and become rich through poverty alleviation donation, employment poverty alleviation and other ways of combining ‘blood transfusion and hematopoiesis’.
On the first “Poverty Relief Day” on June 30, 2010,”, Liby Group made a one-time donation of 35 million Yuan. Liby Group donated 12.8 million Yuan on “Poverty Relief Day” in 2019 and over 100 million Yuan up to now, which was mainly used to help improve living conditions and quality of poor villagers.
“Support education to support the poor.” Education is of great importance for a country and every family. “What impressed me most deeply among so many public welfare establishments was Chen Baowen School.” Chen Kaixuan said, Chen Baowen School was a key project of Liby Group in the education charity. Liby Group aimed to help poor families out of poverty by educational investment.
“In my hometown Puning, education resources are scarce in some areas, It’s very common that one teacher takes charge of several classes with more than 100 students in each class.” In order to provide a better learning environment and better education resources, in August 2013, Liby Group donated more than 45 million Yuan to build Chen Baowen School in Puning of Guangdong, equipped with teaching facilities such as library, auditorium, dormitory and computer and sports facilities such as plastic track, badminton court and basketball court, which from the educational need from primary school to junior high school.
In term of software, Liby Group also helped the school introduce excellent teachers, and invested 2 million Yuan in setting up scholarship and subsidies to students excellent in character and learning and teachers setting up an example for others.
Besides targeted poverty alleviation, Liby Group set up the first volunteer team caring for left-behind children of Guangzhou City early in 2012. , Chen Kaixuan signed with emotion on the social issue of left-behind children: “In the current society, many people need care and help, but we can’t do everything. To do something, we must focus on a certain field. Children are the future of a country, so we focus on helping ‘children’, especially left-behind children.” Chen Kaixuan said that left-behind children are in a critical period of growth and development, live a hard life and lack companion and guidance of their parents, so they need more care and help.
In 2019, Liby Group and Yileyuan Company supported rural women to start a business by donating a small-sum guaranteed loan with discounted interest of 1.08 million Yuan to Guangdong Women’s and Children’s Foundation, helped 150 rural women solve the problem of startup capital and donated an educational fund of 1.2 million Yuan to poor women in Liangshan of Sichuan to help them acquire necessary employment knowledge and skills In order to help rural women with employment and solve the problems of left-behind children from the source.
Chen Kaixuan, who always kept a low profile in front of the media, spent most time on work. “Although I am busy with my daily work, I will spare as much time as possible to participate in various public welfare undertakings sponsored by the Group. In the preparation stage of the aid project, I often carried out field investigation on local needs.” It’s reported that Liby Group has established a sound public welfare mechanism, with a special department in charge of organization and coordination of public welfare activities. All public welfare activities are carried out through systematic and organizational strategic layout.
2020 is a special year, in which the outbreak of COVID-19 has touched the heart of hundreds of millions of people. Since the outbreak, many private enterprises have become the backbone force fighting the epidemic by practicing corporate social responsibility and value and actively donating money and materials.
After the outbreak, Liby Group immediately donated disinfection products valued 200 million Yuan to all the designated hospitals all around the country. In order to ensure production and supply of such disinfection products, the production bases subordinate to the Group resumed production ahead of schedule. Besides, Liby Group developed capacity improvement plans to improve the production capacity of disinfection products. “Our factories underwent 24h three-shift full-load production” Chen Kaixuan said, the capacity of disinfectant increased from 165 t/day to 375 t/day.
In order to deliver disinfection products valued 200 million Yuan to the front line rapidly, Liby Group has mobilized 1,000 drivers and 1,000 transport vehicles to deliver more than 10,000 tons of disinfection products to more than 2,000 designated hospitals in 363 cities across the country. On March 15, Liby Group completed distribution of all donated products 5 days prior to the time agreed with Red Cross Society of China.
When COVID-19 just broke out, masks became the most urgently needed epidemic prevention material instantly. Many private enterprises switched to the production of masks and protective clothes. “When epidemic prevention materials were most needed, Cheerwin Biotechnology subordinate to Liby added a production line of disposable non-woven masks on the basis of the original production line of Xilan children’s mask.” Chen Kaixuan considered that businesses should stand out when the society needed them most.
In order to stabilize the market and ensure supply, Liby group and Cheerwin Group rejected a rise in the price of all disinfection products by a strict order. Road closure made material supply and transportation difficult during the epidemic. As a result, there was a bigger difficulty in supply chain management of Liby Group and the cost increased.
Most importantly, Liby Group still rejected “a rise in price” in the later period, which posed huge pressure on other enterprises. “We were indeed stressed not to raise the price to stabilize the market. However, as a domestic leading daily chemical enterprise, we should come into play when the country and the society need us, so that consumers can buy whatever and whenever they need most” Chen Kaixuan considered it of greatest significance.
Up to now, we have made staged achievements in fighting the epidemic. A great many “heroes in harm’s way” emerged in Liby Group during the epidemic. Chen Kaixuan told us, “During the Spring Festival, drivers returned home, so it was hard for them to return to work. A crowd of ‘heroes in harm’s way’ appeared. For example, Master Zhang, who received the transportation task of Leishenshan Hospital, went to the construction site without hesitation and successfully completed the distribution of disinfection products. Master Zhou alone delivered materials to Wuhan Jinyintan Hospital from Panyu base, during which there was no car on the road.” There are more than 1,000 such “heroes in harm’s way” in the logistics distribution system of Liby Group.
During the epidemic, Liby met consumer needs through diversified online marketing channels such as live broadcast and other new media. Liby Group put forward the development idea of digital transformation in 2015. In 2018, the "1+2" strategy was released first, marking a new chapter of its digital transformation. Furthermore, Liby Group also initiated the “online purchasing meeting” mode, which helped nearly 90% of brand service providers and more than 20000 upstream retails to resume work by virtue of live training. The digitalization construction results fully supported the production and transportation scheduling during the epidemic.
After the outbreak of the epidemic, domestic and overseas kind-hearted people and enterprises generously donated to support the frontline and all industries showed great responsibility, indicating the spirit of great love. “A number of outstanding private entrepreneurs took the initiative to shoulder social responsibility. When the country and the society are in need, they actively support the frontline physically and materially to help win the battle.” Chen Kaixuan said that the spirit of great love that private entrepreneurs displayed during the epidemic showed that private enterprise’ responsibility to actively repay the society after attaining long-term development with the support of the reform and opening policies.
The epidemic posed certain stress on China’s economy. “During the epidemic, the government introduced many favorable policies to help private enterprises and small and micro enterprises resume work and regain confidence and support for production and operation.” Chen Kaixuan was full of confidence in China’s economic growth.
At present, Liby Group focuses on education charity, poverty alleviation and care for left-behind children and has donated a total of 500 million Yuan to charities. Charity has been included in the annual planning system of the Group’s social responsibility strategy and has been implemented yearly as planned and step by step.
“Enterprises should repay the society when they become bigger.” Chen Kaixuan always believed.
