Meeting O2O: Difficult to close the ring

With the development of China's economy and the process of internationalization, China's conference industry has undergone a great leap forward in the last 20 years. And today, in the electric business era, in the consumer's vision, a conference O2O as the name of the industry revolution has been unable to tide surging, all the way horses and horses, not lively: Tang nets, will be small two, hotel brother and other traditional teams in the bustling financing, mergers and acquisitions, The upstart blue cursor microphone from the public relations activities industry across the border can not be underestimated, in addition to Cvent, Starcite and other foreign pioneers of the Chinese market coveted for a long time, a group of stragglers also in perseverance to try every opportunity to reverse attack.

The only certainty is that, regardless of the final winner, the traditional conference industry in China is confronted with the deep deconstruction of the Internet, and the meeting market ecology faces large-scale shuffling and restructuring. And after the restructuring, the new market pattern, is likely to depend on the 2015-year "qualifying"-the conference O2O melee into a white-hot year, each hero's development strategy and development speed, will decide to a large extent to the conference O2O market and even the entire conference market future ecological environment.

Meeting O2O: Difficult to close the ring

The meeting O2O the meeting organizer telephone inquiry, the hotel sale visits the supply and demand information matching way, will the meeting supply and demand information online match. The meeting organizer needs to match the information of the site, guest room, catering, material, construction, etiquette and so on, among which the most important requirement is the easy standardization of the site information and the strict stock pressure on the hotel site sales. In addition, the meeting "compliance", "transparency" requirements so that more and more enterprises around the travel agency and other middlemen direct procurement of hotel venues, this model requires a conference management system to achieve direct procurement, payment, supervision, data integration. In this view, the conference industry seems to be the entrepreneurs and investors can not refuse the practice of O2O the perfect field. The reality is that, in the last decade, the conference O2O this seemingly reached Mirage, has made large and small more than 20 companies fell on the Long March road.

Question, where is it?

"The successful experience of the Internet in the business-to-business market has led to a great misdirection of the search for an online business model." "Will Tang Net founder, joint CEO Liang to the author said." 2007, the establishment of the Tang network, the initial information Yellow pages to provide site information, found that the drainage effect is not good; 2012 began to explore "site search engine + online booking" mode, finally in 2013 ushered in a round of tens RMB financing. Liang revealed that a new round of financing is expected to be finalised in February 2015.

And the Tang business model and the general meaning of the 2C market O2O different, simply, will Tang is online, offline two o together, which offline conferencing services (including conferencing software) revenue accounted for its total revenue of 80%. Not long ago, Tang also wholly-owned mergers and acquisitions of Chengdu DMC Si Award, in the southwest cloth town. Liang is a rather cynical temperament of the literary youth, but he relied on the line of strategic thinking is stable and mature.

The author thinks that the main reason why the conference O2O can not abandon the line is that it is difficult for the conference O2O to complete the closed-loop transaction. This is because, although the site information can be standardized, however, the need for each meeting activity is not standardized, and the larger the scale of activity, the more personalized requirements, which means that the buyer to find the site on the line, there is a lot of communication work to be done to ensure that the site and its own activities need to match. For buyers, if the O2O platform to provide information, then once the venue to contact, the platform has lost its real value, the remaining communication and trading links to the buyer will naturally and the hotel alone to complete. In order to stick the customer in the closed loop of the O2O, it is necessary to solve the customer's actual needs in every aspect, and in the meeting business-to-business, the complex communication links can not be optimized on line alone. Therefore, if only rely on the line to match the meeting business-to-business supply and demand information, this model can only lightly rub the market demand for the epidermis, and did not touch the core of demand. Such a ring, can not be closed.

The response of Tang is that since the simple matching information is not closed on the ring, then rely on the line to obtain traffic, combined with search booking, conference software, public relations promotion, offline services to provide from the line to the offline full package of conference solutions, as far as possible to circle the profit point to their own ring. "How many balloons, how many flower doors, led size, build and venue how to match ..." These complex meeting-activity requirements are not fixed by a standardized Internet product, which is completely different from the business logic of Business-to-consumer. And this truth, many internet gene companies, investors do not understand. Liang admits.

Doing O2O with business-to-business thinking

"Meeting Business-to-business is a process that needs to surface." "The blue Cursor's blue strategy president, the President of the activity tree, the founder of Luojian, said when asked about the difference between business-to-business and buyer demand. Blue Cursor is the first public relations company in China, Asia's largest public relations company, in its digital strategic direction (another direction is global) under the guidance of the Activity management platform "activity tree" and its symbiotic brand, small micro-conference O2O product "Microphone" in 2014 came into being.

"Microphone" is the variant of meeting Package (Conference packaging), as its name, this product through the standardized meeting Package to solve the enterprise 70 people below, 3 days under the small micro-conference requirements. When received the meeting demand from enterprise customers, the microphone under the line of customer service team through the system for customers to choose and combine the signing of the hotel meet Package, with 3-4 Standard modular program for customer needs to do a combination, and take the next two-way communication and advances and other links.

"More than 20 years of meeting activities, the deepest feeling is that most of the time, customers do not have a clear demand for the meeting venue, for customers to make site plans, in fact, is to help customers to carve out the demand, so that the demand surface of the business-to-business process." But in small conference activities, we found that customer demand is more pseudo demand-most of the time the hotel site hardware and services are the same, the only hard standard for customers to choose venues is price, and the more small, standardized meetings, the more the price plays a decisive role. "Luojian said.

It can be understood that the product logic of the microphone is to do subtraction, in the demand for relatively standardized small micro-conference market, with standardized meeting package to highlight the most core of the lever, weakening the location of the site, such as "pseudo demand." At this time, the breadth of business-to-business communication is controlled by a volume of replication services, and what microphone does is to use the O2O online system combined with the online customer service team, to serve from the selection of conference packaging, parity, to communicate, confirm, pay the entire business-to-business process. In this model, the core value is to optimize the docking process between business-to-business, in the rapid response, efficient matching resources, so that customers do not have to abandon the "service sense", in order to generate user stickiness, to achieve O2O closed loop.

The earliest use of business-to-business mode to do conference O2O Enterprise, was founded in 2012, in August 2014 to get IDG tens of millions of yuan (failed to verify) financing will be small two. The second is not the size of the meeting to delineate the target market, and no man-made standardization meeting packaging, but it has successfully done through the service to the entire business-to-business transaction process. It is reported that December 2014 will be small two-month transaction reached more than 3,000 single.

"Early many companies chose to enter the market with conference intelligence systems such as check-in software, however, this system is part of the customer's overall plan, is compared to the upstream of the non-standard services, higher costs," will be small second founder, CEO Yangliang to the author, "will eventually small two chose another entry point, That is, relatively standardized site services. "Yangliang that at present, the home is still groping and mending their own business model, also do not rule out the next two or three years will appear in other industry players from the new point of entry across the border, bringing a fresh model, but because the mode of exploration takes time, combined with large market capacity, so this market will not appear in the short run of hand-to-hand-style competition.

Who can pull out the sword in stone

After the transformation of the conference market, there will be a group of travel agencies, conference companies were "revolution." The internet is rapidly disrupting market information asymmetry of the Iron Curtain, relying on the "difference" profit-making business model life soon. Ten years ago, when I first entered the tourist circle, many tourism enterprises proudly declare "capital flow is king", "scale is King", "channel is King", and only ten years these advantages are crushed by the Internet, this brutal reality, now turn to the conference market operators face. The irreversible Internet process has begun, and the profits of travel agencies and conference companies will soon be left with only service charges, and products and services will be the only core competencies that such companies can commend. In this process to tear down the old order of responsibility, not meeting O2O Enterprises can play-Luojian in the press conference, has clearly played the "to intermediary" banner. Gradually, the conference O2O Enterprise will replace the travel agency company, become the whole conference activity industry chain integrator, rule-makers, and the travel agency company will degrade to the pure offline service provider, as a link of the industrial chain embedded in the conference O2O Ecological Circle.

I guess, if there is no accident, will tang and blue mark microphone most likely in 2015 to form a conference O2O market first group. Tang has initially formed a relatively benign commercial ecosystem, although there is a pattern of excessive suspicion, but in fact, under the line of the city is a moat, but also to bring stability and considerable water; The big tree behind the blue mark is the blue cursor and the blue strategy, the former is the Nineth-ranked PR company in the 2014. The latter is the country's largest public relations conference activity market leader, with a golden spoon born microphone, in the capital and resource acquisition capacity of the general start-up companies can not be. In the two quarter of 2015 years ago, the main objective of the microphone was to market test water, in the words of Luojian, "it takes a while to perfect the pattern and run wrong", and the model is validated and perfected, when the advance regiment in the new position of a firm footing, is the blue standard mobilization and integration of internal and external resources, the real beginning of the Army combat phase.

In the label with the activity tree and the microphone to make up the short plate, Tang is gathering resources, a city of a pool of stormed activities in the market. Liang in the circle of friends in 2015, said: "Next year will become Tang's most critical year, if the internal strategic plan can progress as scheduled, the entire conference activities, public relations, the hotel industry will be from this new entry into the world of great changes." Will Tang's competitor only label, I am very happy to see finally has a decent opponent, this kind of excitement and the surprise is like the monitor to see the study Committee. ”

It is not difficult to infer that the ultimate goal of multifaceted is to build the ecological kingdom in which the activities of the Conference are spread, and the O2O of the Conference is the key to the opening of the Chinese conference market in the valuation of 3 trillion. The war on the surface is a meeting O2O, in fact, in the future to seize the campaign to spread the strategic commanding heights. Who can pull out the meeting O2O this "stone sword"? Who will be the unification of the new era of the conference/dissemination of the sword? 2015 we will witness history.