Anti-epidemic guidelines from 12 consumer companies and investors.
Editor’s note: This article comes from WeChat public account “Inspur New Consumption” ( ID: lcxinxiaofei), author Zhang Xiaojun.
The epidemic is still continuing. The number of new cases of pneumonia diagnosed in recent days has been increasing, and the inflection point has not yet arrived. Most people have limited their consumption behavior to the community or online for a period of time.
Affected by this, the big consumer industry in which people eat, drink, and live daily shows a two-pronged trend.
On the one hand, the retail and catering industries with experience and service attributes have been greatly impacted, and stores have been shut down in large numbers. Even leading industry leaders such as Sibei and Laoxiangji also claim that the cash on their books will not last three months , more small and medium-sized retail enterprises will directly enter the hell mode, which will require difficult suffering and waiting.
On the other hand, some e-commerce or new retail companies in the fields of health, snack foods, fresh produce, etc., have remained calm, but have ushered in higher growth, or have basically maintained their chassis. Including uncontested retail companies, which have been controversial before, are undergoing a new round of transformation. Among them, many enterprises have benefited from previous difficult explorations in the supply chain and efficiency.
No one can predict this sudden change and the next situation. The consumer companies that can survive the epidemic in recent months and become even more powerful will definitely have their own uniqueness. Because at this stage, it is no longer realistic to rely on capital and dividends, and to rely on policies or employees. In the end, you still have to rely on yourself. The industry also has its natural laws.
But this does not prevent us from listening to more voices and suggestions. Inspur New Consumer recently interviewed 12 consumer companies and investors, including consumer goods, community retail, logistics and other fields. From their practices and judgments, they may provide some reference and hope that more consumer companies can live to spring.
Pan Yuxin, founding partner of Langran Capital: Community format online and offline integration is imperative
The impact of this epidemic on retail. Online retail (home, live broadcast, flash delivery, membership, etc.), health products will benefit greatly. In addition, the epidemic has a huge impact on catering, and pure takeaway catering may develop faster.
In the face of the epidemic, I think retailers will strengthen their control and empowerment of upstream supply chains. Without its own ecological supply chain, e-commerce is just a messagePlatform, out of stock can not be resolved.
For community freshness (in fact, there are very few home-based models), it will be short-term negative. Because the supply of fresh produce will be fine in the future, but if the epidemic lasts for a long time, isolation and panic will cause too few people to shop. In addition, the high-quality fresh supply chain will choose the mode of priority supply to home in the short term, which is also negative for the freshness of the community;
Conversely, this also forces community fresh companies to pay more attention to home service. Stores are inherently front warehouses. Excellent community fresh companies’ home service capabilities will quickly increase in the short term, which will be beneficial in the long run. Convenience stores are mainly fast, the product structure is not suitable for the home model, short-term negative, Long-term depends on the development of the epidemic.
For Hema, Dingdong, Daily Fresh, and other home-made fresh products, the short-term benefits are good. The upstream supply chain gives priority to support them. Some companies had difficulties in cash flow and financing difficulties. Obviously got life extension and performance improvement, and even changed the future perception of some institutions, financing will be resolved;
In the long run, it may be negative, because offline fresh retail also pays more attention to home services, such as Yonghui, Wal-Mart, etc. In the face of competition, the sales scale of Ding Dong and Daily Fresh is still very different. .
Finally, for the community format, the online and offline integration is imperative. The product structure, it system, distribution, marketing, personnel, and cooperation ecology must be adjusted simultaneously to meet future needs.
Zhong Xuegao’s founder Lin Sheng: Harvest in autumn and winter, and strive to make yourself alive in spring
The impact of this epidemic on consumer products is first and foremost offline. Because Zhong Xuegao is mainly online, he is less affected.
But this is only now, because we must also have upstream production and supply chain, including fulfillment billing. If these supporting links are delayed for a long time, there is no way to operate normally, it will definitely affect For us, this impact is directly omnidirectional. For example, it may be more risky until April.
So compared with the impact of the epidemic on offline, the consumption of leisure snacks on our line is actually greater online, but this only means that the demand has been amplified. What really restricts online is supply and Shipment, not demand.
More profoundly, first, it will make more people’s online shopping habits stronger. Second, I am not so pessimistic. I believe that after the epidemic has passed, the entire online and offline consumption will usher in an explosive rebound.
So Overall, this is aThe relationship of breaking balance, which is lost at this stage, will bounce back in the next stage, and all fluctuations will eventually return to its original law.
But for the entire brand and business, first depends on who can support that time; second is who can grasp the rhythm better before and after the entire epidemic, for example, you can go faster than others To resume production and logistics, to take advantage.
I believe that no company likes to see such a thing, and it is difficult to predict in advance. It is a sudden outbreak, all your information points come from the official.
When we are all talking about how to live now, it may be short-sighted. I also recently saw a lot of friends in the circle of friends who were talking about cash for a few months and their length, which were basically after all.
Everyone hopes that the company can be extremely flexible, saying that the cost can be reduced instantly when the cost is reduced, and that the reserve cash can be changed out instantly. In fact, this is itself a paradox. So I ca n’t control how others are. I just hope that I can get through this level, because I feel that waiting for our spring is still behind.
In fact, as early as the 30th year of the New Year, we had a remote conference call internally, and it may take a full two or three months to judge the impact of this incident on us.
I said that we need to be prepared for this. The preparation includes several aspects:
First, take care of yourself first. Each department must take care of the people in their team, because people come first.
Secondly talk about business , we can clearly see that the natural traffic of online sales has grown very much and did nothing.
In January, we saw an increase of about 200%, and in February, we expected an increase of 600%. We can also see that many online merchants are growing.
Next, we urgently communicate with the factory to see when it is safe to resume work. There is a premise is that we require all foundries to resolutely not start without strict control measures. If you do not prevent or control loosely to make money, even if you can start construction is short-term, the trouble will be very big.
The other thing is to communicate with our logistics company, to communicate with each other every day, to grasp all the trends.
The third is to tell you that we will start working from home on the 3rd. We will pay as soon as the salary is paid. It is time to take a holiday and give all employees a peace of mind. As the founder, there is no need to pass this panic and pressure down, we still hope to cheer everyone on.
As for the challenges and opportunities of this epidemic for consumer goods companies.
Assuming that the epidemic is one month, then we should see how many companies can last for one month. The epidemic is three months. All opportunities are for companies that are alive after three months. All challenges are For companies that can’t live for three months.
Everyone knows that there are opportunities, but the question is whether you can survive to the end, and this is not at all how much cash your company has, or A normal company has normal capital turnover and normal liabilities, and no one else Will be idle and leave a lot of cash, unless it is a giant enterprise.
In order to continue, I think we need to do less irrelevant actions, and try to reduce all costs that are not directly related to the survival of the enterprise. Second, it can be moderately optimized or slimmed down in stages.
It ’s like a company with 10 departments, some of which are for long-term planning, and some of them are for earning bread right now. If you have to make a choice, then you will definitely leave the bread-making first. Some companies will use this approach this year, but we hope to avoid that step as much as possible.
Besides that, don’t think about more things, think more and worry more. Taking this opportunity to focus more on sales and do some internal work might be better.
In fact, it is the concept of Autumn Harvest and Winter Collection . At this time, I judge it to be winter. Then you have to do some winter collection work. All your purpose is to save the current power and wait until spring. After coming and going. I think, All brands now should strive to make themselves a company that can survive the spring.
Gao Yang, President of Guangkong Zhongying Capital: In addition to direct consumption, more relationships should be valued
In the face of this epidemic, consumer product companies that rely on offline experience for a living, including catering, beauty, and so on, will definitely be greatly impacted. This is undoubtedly economical.
But I think consumer goods companies need to do long-term business, so at this time, not only to build direct consumer relationships with consumers, but also to pay more attention to other relationships, from the product and process level Towards a deeper level of interaction.
In fact, consumer goods companies like Dongpeng Special Drinks and Dali Garden have done a good job in this area. And this is not competition on the product dimension, and no new business format is possible in the short term.
So new brand companies like Hi Tea, Naixue, etc. need to dig deeper and handle relationships other than direct consumption, such as social responsibility. Because of consumption
The impact of this epidemic on consumer products is first and foremost offline. Because Zhong Xuegao is mainly online, he is less affected.
But this is only now, because we must also have upstream production and supply chain, including fulfillment billing. If these supporting links are delayed for a long time, there is no way to operate normally, it will definitely affect For us, this impact is directly omnidirectional. For example, it may be more risky until April.
So compared with the impact of the epidemic on offline, the consumption of leisure snacks on our line is actually greater online, but this only means that the demand has been amplified. What really restricts online is supply and Shipment, not demand.
More profoundly, first, it will make more people’s online shopping habits stronger. Second, I am not so pessimistic. I believe that after the epidemic has passed, the entire online and offline consumption will usher in an explosive rebound.
So Overall, this is aThe relationship of breaking balance, which is lost at this stage, will bounce back in the next stage, and all fluctuations will eventually return to its original law.
But for the entire brand and business, first depends on who can support that time; second is who can grasp the rhythm better before and after the entire epidemic, for example, you can go faster than others To resume production and logistics, to take advantage.
I believe that no company likes to see such a thing, and it is difficult to predict in advance. It is a sudden outbreak, all your information points come from the official.
When we are all talking about how to live now, it may be short-sighted. I also recently saw a lot of friends in the circle of friends who were talking about cash for a few months and their length, which were basically after all.
Everyone hopes that the company can be extremely flexible, saying that the cost can be reduced instantly when the cost is reduced, and that the reserve cash can be changed out instantly. In fact, this is itself a paradox. So I ca n’t control how others are. I just hope that I can get through this level, because I feel that waiting for our spring is still behind.
In fact, as early as the 30th year of the New Year, we had a remote conference call internally, and it may take a full two or three months to judge the impact of this incident on us.
I said that we need to be prepared for this. The preparation includes several aspects:
First, take care of yourself first. Each department must take care of the people in their team, because people come first.
Secondly talk about business , we can clearly see that the natural traffic of online sales has grown very much and did nothing.
In January, we saw an increase of about 200%, and in February, we expected an increase of 600%. We can also see that many online merchants are growing.
Next, we urgently communicate with the factory to see when it is safe to resume work. There is a premise is that we require all foundries to resolutely not start without strict control measures. If you do not prevent or control loosely to make money, even if you can start construction is short-term, the trouble will be very big.
The other thing is to communicate with our logistics company, to communicate with each other every day, to grasp all the trends.
The third is to tell you that we will start working from home on the 3rd. We will pay as soon as the salary is paid. It is time to take a holiday and give all employees a peace of mind. As the founder, there is no need to pass this panic and pressure down, we still hope to cheer everyone on.
As for the challenges and opportunities of this epidemic for consumer goods companies.
Assuming that the epidemic is one month, then we should see how many companies can last for one month. The epidemic is three months. All opportunities are for companies that are alive after three months. All challenges are For companies that can’t live for three months.
Everyone knows that there are opportunities, but the question is whether you can survive to the end, and this is not at all how much cash your company has, or A normal company has normal capital turnover and normal liabilities, and no one else Will be idle and leave a lot of cash, unless it is a giant enterprise.
In order to continue, I think we need to do less irrelevant actions, and try to reduce all costs that are not directly related to the survival of the enterprise. Second, it can be moderately optimized or slimmed down in stages.
It ’s like a company with 10 departments, some of which are for long-term planning, and some of them are for earning bread right now. If you have to make a choice, then you will definitely leave the bread-making first. Some companies will use this approach this year, but we hope to avoid that step as much as possible.
Besides that, don’t think about more things, think more and worry more. Taking this opportunity to focus more on sales and do some internal work might be better.
In fact, it is the concept of Autumn Harvest and Winter Collection . At this time, I judge it to be winter. Then you have to do some winter collection work. All your purpose is to save the current power and wait until spring. After coming and going. I think, All brands now should strive to make themselves a company that can survive the spring.