It has been more than two years since the COVID-19 outbreak began in late 2019, and the whole world has been dramatically changed by the pandemic. Now everyone in China must wear a mask when going out and has PCR tests done regularly. People use a QR code called health code in their daily life, and they will be checked whether their health code shows green when going out. If the health code shows yellow, they need to go to the designated place to do PCR tests. If it is red code, that’s so “lucky”! And you will enjoy a long holiday from 7 to 14 days at home or in a quarantine place. There are also a few permanent words in the news: "close contacts" and "asymptomatic infected persons". 

Cities across the country are routinely locked down. As an international metropolis, Shanghai has also been locked down for nearly three months. And the epidemic continues to rebound that cities in China are repeatedly locked down. Once blocked, enterprises and shops have to shut down, employees and bosses will have no income, but they still pay the rent and utility bill. Although the government will provide some subsidy, people can only support for a short time , while for a long time they can not make ends meet and the enterprises will go bankrupt.

Song Yuanming, an employee of Kinghelm, is working at home

My name is Song Yuanming, and I was still working in Shanghai before the 2019 Spring Festival. At that time, I got a small-batch order of mask machine, and the customer was very satisfied with my service. However, when I returned to the company after my annual leave, the COVID-19 broke out and the stock of face masks across the country was sold out. Although the factories put into production with emergency overtime work, the demand still exceeded the supply. Then I got a large order of over 6 million RMB from that customer, which was also the biggest order I had received since my graduation. During the period when we received the order, due to the shortage of manpower, we colleagues of business department were asked to assist the production of our company temporarily. At that time, we often worked overtime. Although we were very tired, we were very happy. It can be said that it was this order that made our company withstand the first wave of the epidemic impact. Also because of this experience, I began to get familiar with much knowledge about electronic components and PCBA.

Later, I returned to Shenzhen from Shanghai for career planning and development reasons, and I worked in two companies successively. The first is a trading company that sells sensors and code readers, and it aims to replace foreign brands with domestic brands. Its sales model is that the company provides customer’s information and the salesman contact the customer by himself. This model is inefficient and behind the times. In addition, due to the epidemic, customers can only be contacted by phone call or WeChat most of the time, which makes it difficult to impress them. It takes a lot of time to make phone calls to contact customers every day, and most customers will hang up the phone directly, which is close to destroy my self-confidence after a long time. Even after the sample test is passed, few customers will place a order directly. I've been in this company for two months and I haven't got a order. I think I have no future here, so I decided to leave this company! The second company I worked for is an agent of electronic components. It is an agent of Baihong's full series of LED, optocouplers and Zhaoqing Ruilong solid state capacitors, and its main business is PD quick charging of gallium nitride. The leaders of this company are very kind to us, they often take us out for dinner, and help me analyze customers during weekly meetings. The welfare is also very good during festivals. When I joined this company, the epidemic had been temporarily controlled, and we could often go out to visit customers. I also visited several customers, but the efficiency was very low because the sales model of this company was similar to that of my previous company. Moreover, many of the customers didn’t use the products of my company at all. I worked in this company for about half a year, and only completed two small orders.

The products on the website of Slkor (www.slkoric.com)

I joined Shenzhen Kinghelm Electronics Co., Ltd (www.kinghelm.net) after the New Year's Day of 2022. Kinghelm is a national high-tech enterprise, specializing in the research, development and production of Beidou GPS antennas and RF microwave connectors. The company's platform is excellent, and Kinghelm does a good job in the Internet publicity and sales. My colleagues are very kind to me. When I have questions in my work, they will actively help me to solve the problems, so that I can quickly integrate into the big family of Kinghelm. I completed two orders of Beidou antennas and connectors on the second day after I joined Kinghelm. All these depend on the strong online promotion ability, efficient supply chain system and customers' recognition of Kinghelm brand. It is said that at the beginning of the online promotion, Kinghelm had to spend a lot of money on Internet advertising every month. In addition, Song Shiqiang, the general manager of Kinghelm, often wrote articles on the website and worked overtime at weekends in the company. After a long time of accumulation, until now the Internet promotion of Kinghelm company and Kinghelm brand has been very effective. Now there are a lot of customer’s inquiries every day, and the information is very accurate, at this time I understand why Mr. Song has been engaging in the Internet promotion vigorously. The customers who come to enquire must use the products of Kinghelm, and they also have a good understanding of Beidou GPS antennas and connectors. Besides, the online inquiries and purchase orders were not affected by the pandemic, and the work efficiency is much higher than my previous two companies. In the traditional sales mode, the customer’s information is not accurate, and many customers do not need the products of the company, which leads to low efficiency and time consuming. Until now, I have understood the advantages of Kinghelm (www.kinghelm.net).

During the epidemic, many companies failed to make ends meet due to lockdowns and the economic downturn, and several established companies went bankrupt even their bosses suicided by jumping off the buildings because of debts. a lot of companies have laid off employees or adjusted their salaries more or less. Only a small number of companies haven’t suffered loss but get profit, including Kinghelm (www.kinghelm.net) and Slkor (www.slkoric.com). When the epidemic in Shenzhen was severe, dozens of Kinghelm’s employees couldn’t go to the company but to stay at home and work online, Kinghelm’s general manager didn’t skimp on our wages, instead he gave praise and bonus to the colleagues who went to the company and helped shipping during the epidemic control, which improved the enthusiasm of staff. Song Shiqiang, general manager of Kinghelm, said that Kinghelm should take the basic obligations of an enterprise as a social citizen.

At present, Kinghelm is developing overseas business. Kinghelm has launched its international website (www.kinghelm.net) and spent a lot on advertising abroad, and some foreign customers began to to ask for our inquiry. The company Kinghelm has registered a WeChat official account called "Beidou Expert" to publicize BDS, popularize Beidou knowledge and disseminate Beidou information. Song Shiqiang also finds time to write some popular science articles about BDS, which are published on the WeChat official account "Beidou Expert". In addition, a column of "Beidou Expert" has been opened on the website of Kinghelm (www.kinghelm.net) to publicize the meritorious deeds of Beidou experts such as Lu Mingquan, Cao Chong, Xu Qifeng and Xu Ying, as well as some professional technical literature on BDS, and to fly the flag for the development of China’s Beidou industry. Another company Slkor (www.slkoric.com) also registered a WeChat official account called "SiC expert"! 

Kinghelm’s IPEX RF connector and PCB board

During this period, I realized that the trade companies and Huaqiangbei business model can’t last for a long time, and they can make money in the past mainly because of the undeveloped Internet information. Now the information spreads very quickly with the rapid development of Internet, the era of traders has passed. The supply chain of traders is unstable and uncontrollable, and they have big risks.

Song Yuanming is working at Kinghelm’s office

As far as I am concerned, Kinghelm and Slkor should do long-term work on Internet promotion, so that there will be more and more customers. Besides, Kinghelm has its own factory in Tangxia, Dongguan, so we don't need to worry about the supply chain. In the future work, I will work hard to study the professional knowledge of Kinghelm’s connector and antenna products, constantly improve my capacity and finish the work seriously. Now I’m in charge of Kinghelm’s foreign trade department, and I want to make more contributions to Kinghelm’s  journey to the world.