Reporter Xie Zhiying
Edited by Jiang Yujun
When it comes to stationery, the two giants of Deli and Chenguang are competing for hundreds of millions of student party and office group markets.
Deli and Chenguang are not exactly competitors. Xu Bin, vice president of Deli Group, explained in an exclusive interview with a reporter from 21CBR.
After more than 40 years of upgrading and expansion, Deli has become a global cultural and creative technology industry group, and its industrial layout has expanded from stationery to office equipment, digital printing, children's education, boutique tools, smart office, office furniture and other fields.
At the same time, the group has built four major business channels: distribution, B2B, e-commerce and overseas, and has established a marketing network in more than 140 countries and regions around the world.
Our expectation is continued high growth. Xu Bin said, "I hope to reach the scale of 100 billion yuan and hit the brand overseas." ”
Digital transformation
I define 2022 as the first year of effective digitalization. ”
At the beginning of last year, Xu Bin joined Deli as vice president of the group. Previously, Xu had 10 years of experience as a CIO, "At that time, Deli was already doing IPD (integrated product development) and saw the group's determination to go digital. ”
Xu Bin's definition of digitalization is called the "troika" - process change, IT system solidification, and digital operation.
Focusing on process reform, we will build corresponding IT systems, generate normative data, and then operate data, so as to help Deli Digitally realize the end-to-end process of "research, production, supply, storage, sales and service", and realize the visibility and decision-making of order flow, goods flow, and capital flow.
For the six modules of "research, production, supply, storage, marketing and service", we have invested in many projects.
For example, omni-channel digitalization on the marketing side;The R&D side introduces the concept of digital R&D, from IPD consulting to PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) implementationA series of intelligent equipment has been launched on the production side, and intelligent algorithms have been applied to the logistics and warehousing system.
Taking manufacturing as an example, Deli belongs to the discrete type, and it is "multiple varieties, small batches".
We have more than 20,000 SKUs, and about 5,000 new products every year - from small erasers, to large digital printers, and even furniture and tools, the production line is very wide. Xu Bin mentioned.
In recent years, Deli has launched co-branded stationery such as Harry Potter, Naruto, Summer Palace, and China Aerospace, which has attracted a large audience. Stationery products are introduced very quickly, with a cycle of 3 to 5 months, which requires high flexibility and efficiency improvement capabilities of digitalization.
The group has formed a complete set of standardized operation (SOP) mode, from sales to SOP management, to the implementation of the final operation plan, which can be automatic, automatic transfer between warehouses, so that a large number of warehouses between goods can be quickly transferred.
The bug (error) rate of new products is managed through digitalization, involving R&D data, R&D collaboration, and R&D changes, which were not possible to be done by humans in the past. Xu Bin introduced.
In the sales process, there are distribution channels, e-commerce, overseas, B2B, as well as live broadcast, community**, cross-border e-commerce, etc. Starting in 2021, Deli has rolled out the digitalization of omni-channel marketing, and at the same time developed an after-sales intelligent analysis system to directly connect all platform data.
In this way, we will know which goods are selling well and which are out of stock, and provide a clear guide for the next marketing management and distribution. Xu Bin said.
Benefits landed
The transformation from investment to return is both a long-term opportunity and a challenge.
It's hard to measure the value of digitalization alone, and the benefits are reflected in every investment. Xu Bin said.
For example, since last year, Deli has optimized the internal logistics and warehouse management of the manufacturing system, standardized the operation process in the warehouse, improved the efficiency of material distribution, and realized the consistency of accounting flow and actual logistics.
At the same time, we found that some workshop material calling and material distribution still need to rely on manual handling. "The digitalization team led by Xu Bin considered using A** (Automated Guided Vehicle), and the investment was a lot of money.
We cannot afford to be sloppy with the presentation of this budget. What processes can be replaced after going live?How much labor is equal?All of them need to be rigorously measured. Xu Bin recalled that after the project was launched, it not only recovered the cost, but also saved a lot of manpower.
Since the epidemic, the domestic office supplies industry is gradually industrializing and scaling, the demand market is expanding, exports are growing, and the future factory comes into being.
Through the unified management and coordinated production of multiple digital workshops, we will build a modern factory with digital design, intelligent production, green manufacturing and high-end products. Xu Bin added.
The results are already being felt. The numerical control rate of key equipment is 100%, the production efficiency is increased by 25%, the product defect rate is reduced by 20%, and the energy consumption per unit of output value is reduced by 15%.
Xu Bin is implementing a digital investment management model.
When applying for a digital project, I will assess as an investor or referee, whether I want to invest?After the investment, we will do process coaching, and finally do efficiency management around the value closed-loop to measure the ROI (return on investment) of each project. Xu Bin mentioned.
Deli's digital service procurement platform "Jishi**" has a revenue of more than 10 billion yuan in 2021. Faced with the potential risk of slowing down B2B business growth, process upgrades are critical.
Deli Jishi's business mainly serves state-owned enterprises, and their ability to pay has weakened. We started to think about whether there were some other aspects of empowerment. ”
For example, Xu Bin said that the acquisition of customer orders, the flow of internal orders to warehousing and logistics, the internal delivery management of the warehouse, and the effective digital system solidify the empirical operation process through process and data analysis, combined with industry benchmarking, and force the upgrading of business processes.
Business goes overseas
This year's challenge may be greater than last year's, and everyone is playing on stock. Xu Bin pointed out that the domestic market has been relatively saturated, "going overseas is our most important strategy at present." ”
As early as 1998, Deli began to expand its international layout, and after 2000, it began to promote the globalization of its own brands.
After more than 20 years, from Southeast Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, all the way to Eastern Europe, Western Europe, North America, Deli has laid out 12 regional marketing headquarters and 32 overseas branches in the world, and has established a marketing network in more than 140 countries and regions, forming long-term and stable cooperative relations with local partners.
Deli sells things abroad, but the products go to sea, not the business. ”
Xu Bin emphasized that it is necessary to export its capabilities, that is, to build business entities, factories and chains abroad.
We carry out fast production and fast delivery for all overseas users. Consumption habits are not completely consistent between countries, and it is necessary to meet the demand for products in different countries. ”
Xu Bin said that the effective "ability export" has covered more than 140 countries and regions, and has entered the forefront of the industry in more than 30 countries around the world.
Digitalization is an important part of the rapid layout process.
The world is an infrastructure network, and process management, chain management and marketing management should be rolled out overseas at the same time as the business. ”
Xu Bin realized that the cost of setting up a digital team in every place was too high. At this stage, the goal is to realize the construction of intelligent infrastructure overseas.
Deli cooperates with large multinational enterprises to build an international network system, and at the same time, it is building an artificial intelligence operation and maintenance service brain "AIOPS", which can remotely supervise and automatically recover faults, and train local basic operation and maintenance personnel.
We will strive to turn the business of 1.4 billion people into a business of 8 billion people. Xu Bin mentioned the vision of strength.
From stationery to cultural creativity to science and technology, Deli has moved from domestic to global, and the four strategies of globalization, branding, digital intelligence, and integration have become a new power engine.
In the future, Deli will focus on building a digital chain control tower. "It's like a dispatch tower at an airport, it's the control brain that coordinates all the internal operating units, and strives to achieve it within five years. Xu Bin set a goal.
Impacting the volume of 100 billion, Deli is cultivating the second growth curve.