Materials firm supports NEV sector

Video and photos by Lin Jianping

With its keen market insight, Futureway, a materials company based in Bao’an District, decided to develop silicone products when the new energy vehicle (NEV) industry was at its early stage in the country.

After years of development, the company now is at the forefront in the country whether in terms of the sophistication of technologies or the rapid increase in production or supply, according to Zhang Junchuan, vice general manager of the innovation department of Futureway.

Zhang Junchuan, vice general manager of the innovation department of Futureway, talks to Shenzhen Daily. 

Founded in 2010, Futureway is dedicated to becoming a materials expert for customers. At present, the company’s products have been successfully sold in aerospace, big data, electric vehicle, and rail transit markets.

Future-oriented thinking

Speaking of the English name of the company, Zhang said that the name not only sounds quite matched with its Chinese name in pronunciation, more importantly, it represents a path to the future.

The office building of Futureway in Bao'an District.

“In other words, we hope to explore longer-term future development paths,” said Zhang.

The company’s entry to develop silicone products is an epitome of the company’s future-oriented development strategy.

“Customers’ growing attention to the safety of new energy vehicles also boosted the demand for safe materials. Futureway has thus invested more in this regard to provide safe silicone products,” added Zhang.

Silicone products of Futureway are seen in a company room.

Rapid development in Bao’an

Futureway has entered a stage of rapid development after settling in Yanchuan, Bao’an.

According to Zhang, their first consideration is transportation.

“Geographically, we are in the northernmost part of Shenzhen next to Chang’an in Dongguan, which is a large manufacturing and high-tech manufacturing environment. The airport is located to the north of Bao’an District. The entire location provides us with favorable transportation, and it only takes 30 or 40 minutes to travel to the airport,” said Zhang.

Futureway researchers at work.

The second reason they settled in Bao’an is because a relatively simple environment may be more suitable for engineers.

Since 2017, Futureway has been expanding and adjusting their business every six months or at least once a year.

“We had a lot of interaction with the district government by having the government help us coordinate different resources so that the company, including the entire R&D center, can fully operate to achieve expansion,” said Zhang.

Competency building

As the company’s domestic business began to expand rapidly since 2017, Futureway has more resources to recruit more employees and to do basic research.

A view of Futureway employees work in the office.

“We recruited many high-level and highly qualified employees including those with master’s or doctoral degrees. Thus far, we have six full-time staff members with doctoral degrees. Our R&D team is very strong,” said Zhang.

“In the initial phase of R&D, we did a lot of formula and application research and development. The company now also has more resources to do basic research, for example, on how to improve the materials’ flame retardancy or ablation resistance,” added Zhang. 

In Zhang’s opinion, it requires a high competence level for enterprises to go global, especially when it comes to industrial products that are different from trade products.

“Industrial products are more complex. If you are not competitive, it is hard to go global,” said Zhang.

Zhang Junchuan introduces company products to Shenzhen Daily during an exclusive interview.

Futureway tried to go global starting in 2018, with its first stop in South Korea.

“In the past, many traditional European customers used to rely on American suppliers. Now they know that there are suppliers in China, so they have started cooperating with us,” said Zhang.

At the beginning of this year, Futureway gradually entered the U.S. market.

Zhang suggested that “although there were many difficulties in interacting with the U.S., we still believe that we must operate in the U.S. market. So, in the future, the U.S. will also be an important market for us.”

Some of the credentials of Futureway are displayed in an office.

“From the perspective of our current business layout and business development plans, we will still firmly invest more resources to expand our overseas business to seek more opportunities in the future. If we could make our overseas business account for 30% or 50% of the total scale, it will be very positive for our company and helpful to the diversity of our business,” said Zhang.