Electricity business, is also outdated?

Newspaper reporter Zhing

A few days ago, suning a paper to rename the "cloud Business" announcement led to many speculation in the industry: "Cloud Business" is the name more than the essence of the new concept, or the existing business model of all subversion? According to the introduction, open line under the two "platform", become "cloud quotient" mode core content.

Before Su Ning announced its name change plan, Jingdong Mall CEO Liu a more than 800 words but there are 40 exclamation of internal mail a stone stirred thousands of waves, because he revealed that the completion of the fourth round of about 700 million U.S. dollars financing of Jingdong Mall, will not have to take into account short-term financial performance, based on the future of Logistics platform, open platform, information platform, Financial platform for long-term investment. Before this, Ma Yun's expectations of Alibaba is also a good platform to support more "small but beautiful" business development, Gome's electrical development strategy, also stressed the "platform" role.

"Platform" the term, more and more frequently appeared in the past to develop the electric business proud enterprise mouth.

is the "electricity quotient" also outdated?

From "price war" to "platform warfare"

"The economic development of the past century is a longitudinal integration of the century, the future of a century of economic development, will be the platform of the economy of the century." Feifang, executive director of Shanghai Jiaotong University's Economics Institute, pointed out the impact of the Platform on Economic development.

Fifangvic said that the platform (platform) is essentially a transaction space or a place, can exist in the real world, can also exist in the virtual network space. The space directs or facilitates transactions between the parties or multiple clients, and strives to attract the parties to the transaction to use the space and place, and ultimately to maximize the benefits, by charging the appropriate fees.

Xu Jin, author of platform economics, for example, has many examples of platforms in the real world, such as operating system platforms, telecommunications, bank cards, the internet, shopping malls, media ads, and so on.

Since last year, the online dealers and the online shop competition is increasingly fierce, at first it seems to be a channel dispute. However, as the competition escalates, it will be found that the competitive essence of the electric quotient and the shop is no longer limited to the common factors of product variety, price and service efficiency, but the two platforms on line and offline are competing. In the past, people think that the online electric dealer more like a platform to display more space, involving more enterprises, industry chain long. But further observation will find that offline stores are also a platform: shopping malls and even supermarket stores are connected to the brand and consumer platform. These traditional platforms also have advantages: free buses and directional ads for them to capture potential consumers more specifically, and in terms of contact with suppliers, such platforms have gained more experience with longer life spans.

As more and more electric dealers begin to emphasize their platform functions, the new round of competition will be more complicated than the "price war". Xu Jin said that the platform war has both "internal warfare" and "external warfare". For example, a shopping center or a shopping site, there are different brands, there is a competitive relationship between them, this is a typical battle within the platform. However, competition between different platforms, and because the platform itself represents the convergence of different industries, will make the external competition of the platform more complex.

In the new round of competition, the platform is not only for end consumers, but also for a variety of service providers. This is why more and more electric dealers promise in the new year, will devote more human resources to build an open platform. Because the winner of the Platform competition, it won not only the consumer and sales, but also the participation of other service providers, and the platform itself has the right to share multiple industries upstream and downstream interests.

What is the future trend of the platform?

Years ago, there was a gamble in the retail industry: the real estate industry said that the future of the retail model is a commercial real estate dispute, the electric business leader said, the competitive strength relies on the network operation service. But when the original electric dealers no longer highlight their "electrical quotient" properties, but to strengthen the "platform" role, online and offline has changed from a simple competitive relationship into a competing relationship. Especially for those who want to win the battle of the Platform, online and offline two platforms are indispensable.

Mengxiangxie, vice president of Suningyun, said: "In my opinion, the retail model is not determined by commercial developers, nor by Internet service providers, but by the retailer itself." He said that looking at the internet era of the global retail industry, whether it is "electric dealer" or "shop", it is difficult to meet the market changes in the new demand, so, the development trend of platform economy, must be "shop + Dealer + retailer" Composite mode.

According to the Operation system adjustment scheme disclosed by Suning, I am afraid that we should completely break the original structure of the enterprise to realize the platform development. Suning revealed that in order to become a "cloud merchant", its headquarters at the operating level to create a line of E-commerce, offline chain platform and merchandise operating three major headquarters, under the entity products, content products, service products three categories of 28 business departments, forming a "platform sharing + Vertical synergy" business portfolio. According to the new plan, the number of suning at home and abroad will increase from 44 to 60, the city terminal from more than 100 to more than 200, which means "cloud quotient" tentacles will be more extensive and in-depth.

A good platform must have efficient operation system support, but also emphasize value-added services. Similar to Alibaba, Jingdong Mall, Suning, Gome and other original electric dealer to build the platform, is the same time service consumers and product service providers of Third-party platforms. In Xu Jin's view, third-party platform to provide value services for all aspects of the platform, "Amazon's success lies not only in its ability to fully, timely and effectively meet the needs of the reader, but also through comments, information links and other interactive plate to provide high-quality consumer experience." He suggested that platform development needs to integrate marketing, requires the platform side always to customer demand-oriented, fully grasp its personalized needs on the basis of a combination of various resources, the customer integration into the information business, suppliers, distributors, distributors, service providers together in the marketing process, Do the right products in the right way to provide to the right customers, and to help customers produce real, lasting value, thus forming a comprehensive, value service system.

Only platforms are not enough

At the moment, many companies value the size of the platform most, but they will find that the size of the platform facing the "chicken eggs, eggs, chicken" problem: Is it first to provide good services and products to attract consumers, or to attract more popular in the product and service providers to settle in? This question seems difficult to answer, but if the platform as the information age of a large market, you will find that the product or service itself, is the core content of the platform. This is like a shopping center, no matter how big the space, decorate how magnificent, if lacks the attractive brand and the product, cannot be attractive.

At present, some enterprises have seen this. This year, every customer Prudential product CEO aged in public has ceased to say that they are "electric business", also do not emphasize their "platform", but stressed to do a good brand. In the "2012 China Business Market Scale Report" published by Eric, the customer accounted for 1.2% of the market share of Chinese clients, and was ranked tenth after the day cat, Jingdong Mall, Suning and so on. What distinguishes the customer is that it is the only independent brand platform, that is, use their own platform to promote their products. In fact, every customer in the previous development has also asked other products and service providers to enter the third party platform "V", but the reason for the new year more emphasis on the brand rather than platform, because every guest has experienced "platform pain."

In the second half of 2011, due to the emphasis on platform scale, where the customer has a bloated management structure, 240,000 kinds of products require a large number of suppliers, but the shirt started with the customers are not good at home appliances, digital, department stores and other category marketing. At that time, every customer has dozens of division and product line, directly resulting in product similarity and inventory increase. In order to solve this problem, where the customer cut off a lot of product lines, to re-establish the organizational structure, the biggest change is the original product quantity and sales focus on the assessment criteria, into the gross margin, inventory turnover concerns. Aging explanation, a brand if a large number of inventory, or product problems lead to poor terminal sales, or supply chain efficiency is too low. Where customers ' daily orders are up to millions, the problem is clearly in the supply chain. At this point, where the customer found that the platform for their own is not big, but to have a better supply chain. From last fall, where the original 200 suppliers to reduce to 100, at the same time the quality inspection links before the production of products from suppliers to all over the storage, efficiency increased by 50%. At present, the total inventory turnover days from more than 3 months to less than 30 days, 2012 years of the Four seasons reached 16 days. It is reported that Zara completes a supply chain turnover of around 15 days.

Clearly, the "platform war" is the nature of the traditional business war, even relying on internet technology to build a new platform, or according to the sale of products and services to determine the direction of development.