Source: Visual China
Author 丨 Sun Yu
Editor 丨 Kang Xiao
Produced by 丨Shenwang Tencent News Xiaoman Studio
On June 18, 2020, JD went to Hong Kong for the second listing, and the bell was not the founder Liu Qiangdong, but Xu Lei, ceo of JD Retail Group. In the live speech, Xu Lei said, "Thank you Liu Qiangdong for giving the management team the greatest trust and stage. ”
This morning, Xu Lei's position in JD.com went further. According to the announcement issued by Jingdong Group, Liu Qiangdong will no longer concurrently serve as the CEO of Jingdong Group, and Xu Lei, president of Jingdong Group, will be responsible for daily operation and management, and report to Liu Qiangdong, chairman of the board of directors of Jingdong Group.
The announcement also shows that Liu Qiangdong will continue to serve as the chairman of the board of directors of JD.com, and he will devote more energy to long-term strategic design, major strategic decision-making and deployment, young leading talent training and rural revitalization.
In September last year, Xu Lei was promoted from the head of JD Retail to the president of JD Group, responsible for the daily operation and coordinated development of various business segments. It is worth noting that compared with the announcement at that time, Liu Qiangdong was responsible for the content of this announcement to add a major strategic decision-making deployment, which may mean that Liu Qiangdong still has decision-making power over Jingdong's important strategy.
Some people from Jingdong told Shenzhen Net that the resignation of the CEO of Jingdong Group is only a follow-up to last year's job change, and Liu Qiangdong's current position in Jingdong and the business he actually participates in "will not change".
From the factual sense of the second in command to the nominal second in command, Xu Lei's change of position is not unexpected. In recent years, in addition to the second listing in Hong Kong, JD Health, JD Logistics listing, Liu Qiangdong did not attend; major events such as the earnings conference call and 618, Xu Lei was also the main spokesman.
Unlike Ma Yun, who is also the founder of the e-commerce giant, who has basically faded out of the management, Liu Qiangdong still firmly controls the company through voting rights. According to a recent document filed by JD.com on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange last year, Liu Qiangdong held 434.5 million ordinary shares, accounting for 13.9% of the shares and 76.9% of the total voting rights.
Xu Lei broke through in the dark at night
In December 2018, Xu Lei, together with almost all the core executives of Jingdong Mall, held a three-day and three-night long meeting in Zhaoqing, Guangdong Province. Before this meeting, Xu Lei also arranged for the Business Analysis Department to set up a project called "Darkest Hour", which was designated as a special classification level. Recalling the original intention of the project, Xu Lei said that JD Retail must change, "to let everyone know how serious the actual situation is." ”
Subsequently, JD.com carried out a new round of organizational structure adjustments. This adjustment is known as the largest organizational structure change in the history of JD.com: Jingdong Mall is divided into three parts: front desk, middle office and back office; the platform operation business department and the shopping business department are newly established, and the fresh food business department is integrated into 7 Fresh; at the same time, Xu Lei is pushed to the front of the stage, as the rotating CEO, and the three major business groups within Jingdong are reported from Liu Qiangdong to Xu Lei.
After this change, Liu Qiangdong became more like a spiritual leader within Jingdong, and Xu Lei smoothly became the "commander of the group army" from his original status as a general. From this moment on, the "big yard boy and tattooed man" who was recommended by Xu Xin, an early investor in JD.com, gradually became the actual trader of this super e-commerce giant.
For JD.com, this is the best successor, and some media reports have said that in JD.com's system, Xu Lei is one of the few executives who can directly argue with Liu Qiangdong. In the past decade of Jingdong's career, Xu Lei has performed well in many key positions, and when the big ship of Jingdong encountered wind and waves, Xu Lei naturally came to the forefront.
But for Xu Lei, this may not be the best time to take over JD.com. In January 2019, Temasek liquidated its stake in JD.com. In the past year, JD.com's stock price has fallen from more than $50 to less than $20, a decline of more than 60%; revenue growth has declined for 6 consecutive quarters, while cash flow data and user reputation have declined; there is news that in the 2018 Double Eleven promotion, JD.com did not even carry out a large number of advertising as in previous years.
More capital is watching from the edge of the big ship, and once there are signs of capsizing, it is difficult to imagine that they will stick to the warship like Xu Lei. In this dark night, Xu Lei led Jingdong through the fierce wind and waves on the sea.
On the last day of 2019, JD.com's stock price stayed at $35.23; on the last day of 2018, JD.com's stock price stayed at $22.27. Leading JD.com back to the top in a year is not an easy task, but Xu Lei still stays awake about it, "Time is the best friend and the worst enemy." ”
From this moment on, someone finally realized that the word "rotation" in Xu Lei's former CEO position had been quietly removed.
After becoming the most powerful figure in Jingdong, Xu Lei was placed in the spotlight by a considerable number of media, and the labels of Beijing courtyard children, like rock football and fashion clothes, playing with bracelets with big gold chains, emphasizing logic and rules, and advocating winning battles were all attached to this middle-aged man with a flower arm.
In 2020, the challenges facing Xu Lei are more severe, but under the dual pressure of the epidemic at home and abroad, Jingdong has achieved good results.
The second listing in Hong Kong was the highest light moment of the year for JD.com, with JD.com, which was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, opening at HK$239, up more than 5.75% from the issue price of HK$226.
After The Double Eleven, JD.com handed over the last financial report of the natural year of 2020, with revenue of 174.2 billion yuan, an increase of 29.2% year-on-year; net profit of 7.6 billion yuan, up 12.6 times from the same period last year; annual active buyers increased to 441.6 million, an increase of 32.1% year-on-year, and the growth rate refreshed the new high in three years.
But for Xu Lei, who officially took over JD.com this time, it may be necessary to break through the dark night again.
According to the latest financial report data released by JD Group, the net loss attributable to JD.com in 2021 was 3.6 billion yuan, compared with the net profit for the same period in 2020 was 49.4 billion yuan. According to the data of previous financial reports, in the past 10 years, JD Group has only achieved profitability in 2019 and 2020.
What is more troublesome is that the general environment is also not friendly to the new boss Xu Lei, and almost all e-commerce companies and e-commerce industries have faced unprecedented difficulties in the past year. According to the data, in the first 11 months of last year, online retail sales of physical goods maintained a growth of 13.2%, but the total retail sales of consumer goods accounted for only 24.5%, compared with 25% in the same period last year. This is the first time since 2015 that the market share of online channels has declined. This means that the phenomenon of online channels rapidly encroaching on the market share of offline channels no longer exists, and online and offline have entered a stage of stalemate.
Fatigue, June Red Xu Lei to find a new way
Like Alibaba's second-generation figure Daniel Zhang, Xu Lei also stood out among many "heirs" by relying on an "e-commerce festival" created.
According to the data, Xu Lei graduated from China Europe International Business School with a master's degree in e-commerce management. In 2007, Xu Lei, who had been responsible for brand and product network promotion at Lenovo, began to work as a marketing consultant for JD.com; two years later, Xu Lei officially joined JD.com. Xu Lei was mainly responsible for marketing promotion, market branding and other related work in Jingdong at the beginning, but in fact, Xu was one of Liu Qiangdong's most trusted executives and participated in various business lines.
In 2011, Xu Lei left JD.com to join U-Buy. Two years later, Xu Lei returned to JD.com, and when he first faced the media, Xu Lei bluntly said that he did not want to recall the reason for leaving JD.com.
In any case, the second generation of JD.com leaders returned to the battlefield he was most familiar with, although at the time he also joked to the media, "Just recognized everyone." It is rumored that before the return, Xu Lei and Liu Qiangdong had spoken about the wine several times, and finally he chose to return with a straightforward personality.
Xu Lei, who has just returned to JD.com, served as vice president of JD Group and was responsible for the work of the group's marketing department, but above him there was also the group CMO Lan Ye and CEO Shen Haoyu; in April 2017, Xu Lei was appointed as the CMO (chief marketing officer) of JD Group, reporting to Liu Qiangdong that the newly established CMO system is fully responsible for integrated marketing functions including malls, finance, insurance, logistics, JD cloud, etc., as well as the domestic market public relations strategy planning functions.
At that time, the appointment letter of the CMO commented on Xu Lei, "Making outstanding contributions to the construction and shaping of the JD brand and the strategy of transforming to mobile terminals." ”
If you use three other numbers to sum up this passage, it is "618". Prior to this, JD.com's marketing campaign was "Red June", but in 2014, Xu Lei advocated refining "Red June" into "JD 618": Red June is too general, and only by playing a new shopping symbol can Ali's Double Eleven be balanced.
Today, the status of 618 needs no further elaboration. In the first 618 without Liu Qiangdong, Xu Lei, who stood at the forefront, handed over a good data of 201.5 billion yuan.
But it is worth noting that the era of e-commerce festivals and consumers rushing to them may have passed. Last year, the growth rate of Tmall and JD.com's transaction volume has slowed down sharply: Tmall Double 11 has a total transaction rating of 540.3 billion, and JD.com handed over a new record of 349.1 billion yuan in orders, with only 8.5% and 28.6% year-on-year growth.
According to the incomplete statistics of "Deep Network", there are now more than 100 kinds of e-commerce shopping festivals, plus 618, which has been stretched to 20 days of double eleven and almost lasts for the whole month, and there are nearly half a year of e-commerce platforms in various promotions every year. For brands, with the infinite lengthening of e-commerce festivals and the normalization of marketing, Double Eleven and other e-commerce festivals are no longer as important as they were 14 years ago. ”
Not only double eleven, but also the 38 Queens' Day, 521 shopping festival, 88 shopping festival, 818 shopping festival, 99 bargain festival, 116 shopping festival and even 618 made by e-commerce over the years, are much quieter than in previous years, and the last e-commerce shopping festival in 2021, double twelve, is almost silent.
The fundamental reason is that the vast majority of small and medium-sized businesses can not accept losses at all, "the cost of raw materials rises rapidly, labor costs are also very high, the manufacturing industry has to raise prices, the profit margin is already as thin as paper, and participating in discount promotions is purely a loss." Some small sellers said that it is possible that they may not be able to earn a roar, "The people who care about the price are wool parties, and they will not come after the promotion." After double eleven, there is often a large number of return orders and returns, which increases the workload. ”
In the announcement, JD.com said that Xu Lei is a representative leading talent who has grown up in JD.com, and since taking over as the president of JD Group, he has made outstanding contributions to the daily operation and coordinated development of various business sectors. At the same time, after more than three years of operation, the Strategic Execution Committee (SEC) composed of heads of various business sectors and functional systems and the Strategic Decision Committee (SDC) composed of dozens of leaders of the group's front-line business units have formed a good collective decision-making and rapid response mechanism.
However, when the former shopping festival model is becoming increasingly depressed, Xu Lei, who has made "outstanding contributions", may want to help JD.com find a new way out.
The sinking market is blocked
Since 2019, Liu Qiangdong, once the iconic figure of JD.com, has rarely appeared in the company's large-sized business meetings, except for high-level management meetings.
The founder of JD.com, who was once a hands-on person, began to learn to delegate power, and Liu Qiangdong focused more time on thinking about the way out and the future of the group.
In this announcement, Liu Qiangdong's thinking in the past three years may have begun to see the beginning: "rural revitalization". In 2019, the hindsighted Jingdong began to enter the sinking market, and in September of that year, Jingdong renamed the previously launched purchase to Jingxi, and then directly connected Jingxi to the first-level entrance of WeChat. Judging from the 618, Double Eleven and financial report data in recent years, Jingdong's trading volume and turnover in the sinking market have shown rapid growth, and it is Jingxi who plays an important role.
In that year, Jingdong also made continuous investments in the sinking market: five-star electrical appliances, Di Xintong, life worry-free and other brands with perfect sales networks in the sinking market have become members of the Jingdong alliance army.
In addition to Jingxi, Jingdong's format layout for the sinking market is also accelerating. In 2019, the layout of 12,000 Jingdong home appliance stores was completed, which emphasizes "one town and one store", which is obvious for users in the sinking market; there are also Jingdong convenience stores and more than 1 million cooperative stores of Jingdong Treasurer Bao; at the same time, combined with Jingdong Logistics' "24-hour reach of thousands of counties and towns" plan and jd.com's financial services, the sinking emerging market is comprehensively expanded in a combination of fists.
A person close to JD.com once told The Deep Web that Liu Qiangdong has always attached great importance to the sinking market internally, "The significance of the sinking market for the new version of Liu Qiangdong is like the significance of JD Logistics to Liu Qiangdong in the past decade or so." ”
At the end of 2020, Liu Qiangdong directly shot in the sinking market. On the evening of December 11, Jingdong officially announced the establishment of a strategic emerging business "Jingxi Business Group" for the sinking market, and the Jingxi independent brand includes four major types of businesses: Jingxi APP, which focuses on social e-commerce, Jingxi Pinyin, which focuses on community group buying, Jingxitong (formerly Jingdong Xintong), which provides high-quality goods and services for offline stores in the sinking market, and Jingxi Express, which provides efficient and reliable logistics services. It is understood that the person in charge of the business group will report to Liu Qiangdong, and Han Rui, the person in charge of the Jingxi Business Department, will report to Xu Lei.
At the same time, Jingdong Group issued an announcement that it would strategically invest $700 million in Hunan Xingsheng Preferred E-commerce Co., Ltd.
According to the late LatePost report, Liu Qiangdong also announced at the company's executive meeting that he would personally lead Jingdong to fight a community group purchase battle. This is the first time since the Minnesota incident in September 2018 that Liu Qiangdong has proposed to be responsible for a specific business.
On July 10, 2018, Jingdong launched the community group buying mini program "Jingdong Neighborhood Group", which was later renamed "Jingdong Neighborhood Group"; in November 2018, it launched the "Youjia Shop" community group purchase mini program; in March 2019, it launched the "Jingdong District District Purchase", mainly around BaoMa, ordinary residents + offline outlets to do regional deep ploughing.
In this announcement, the rural market is still an important direction for Liu Qiangdong's future attention, but the former core grip Jingxi is moving towards recession.
There is news that Jingxi's Jingxi Spelling will all lay off employees, and Jingdong insiders told the "Deep Web" that Jingxi is indeed laying off some areas, and will also focus on strategy. At the end of March, some Jingdong employees broke the news to the media that a large number of laid-off employees were waiting for their resignation at the employee service center of Building 1 of the Jingdong headquarters building, and the number queue list showed that the number had exceeded 1,000.
In JD.com's latest financial report, the loss of new businesses, including Jingxi, has reached 3.22 billion yuan, an increase of 230% year-on-year.
Previously, the community group buying industry has undergone a drastic reshuffle: the first to fall is Tongcheng Life, a unicorn with a cumulative financing of more than $400 million and a valuation of $1 billion declared bankruptcy in July last year; the second to fall is the food sharing club focusing on the community fruit business, which also left in July and transformed into a community snack convenience store; in October, Meiyi Jiaxuan announced the suspension of operations; and companies such as Shihui Tuan and Orange Heart Preferred contracted their business.
Second-in-command, third-in-command, JD's structure is stabilizing
At the end of 2018, Liu Qiangdong issued the "Announcement of the Adjustment of the Organizational Structure of Jingdong Mall", and the heads of multiple business groups directly reported to Xu Lei, then CMO of Jingdong Group and rotating CEO of Jingdong Mall.
At that time, the problem of the lack of Jingdong's "second in command" was beginning to appear. The Wall Street Journal has reported that when Liu Qiangdong was not present, it was technically difficult for JD.com's board of directors to move forward, because JD.com's charter stipulates that in the absence of Liu Qiangdong, the board of directors cannot hold formal meetings unless he himself recuses himself.
Liu Qiangdong had to reduce the dependence of JD.com's operating system on himself, and then he began to resign from his position in the JD company. According to the incomplete statistics of "Deep Net", in 2020 alone, Liu Qiangdong stepped down as the legal representative, chairman or other senior management positions of more than 40 companies, including Jingdong operation entities Beijing Jingdong Century Trading Co., Ltd., Jingdong Digital, Jingdong Logistics, Jingdong Cloud Computing and other important companies. According to the data of Tianyancha, Liu Qiangdong has withdrawn from nearly 300 companies so far.
In the past few years, JD.com's senior management team has never stopped changing. On the eve of 2021, Jingdong suddenly changed coaches intensively, and in addition to the changes in the top management of the retail group, Chen Shengqiang, CEO of JD Digital, and Wang Zhenhui, CEO of JD Logistics, were transferred from the front-line posts, after shen Haoyu, CEO of Jingdong Mall, Lan Ye, CMO of Jingdong Group, CHO Longyu of Jingdong Group, Yingchun Yingchun, senior vice president of Jingdong Group, Wang Xiaosong, senior vice president of Jingdong Group, Yan Xiaobing, head of 3C electronics and consumer goods retail business group, Hu Shengli, head of the fashion home platform business group, and other elite generals have been transferred from the front-line posts or left JD.com.
At the beginning of 2019, JD.com even confirmed to The Deep Web that it would eliminate 10% of executives above the vice president level at the end of the year.
When Xu Lei was promoted to president of JD Group, Xin Lijun, CEO of JD Health, became CEO of JD Retail, and Jin Enlin, head of JD Health Pharmaceutical Department, became CEO of JD Health.
One of the most noteworthy is Xin Lijun, who took over the position of CEO of Xu Lei Jingdong Retail, which is an old "newcomer" left behind after the frequent changes of Jingdong's executives in recent years.
According to the announcement, Xin Lijun joined JD.com in October 2012, and after the independent operation of JD Health, Xin Lijun served as the CEO of JD Health in July 2019, and concurrently served as vice president of JD Group and president of JD Retail Life Service Business Group. Previously, he also served as the general manager of the home improvement department of the open platform of Jingdong Mall and the president of the home life business department of Jingdong Mall.
"The field of health is done well, and we can recreate a Jingdong." Many years ago, Jingdong founder Liu Qiangdong described the future of JD.com's health to Xin Lijun. Compared with the opponents in the industry, Jingdong Health was established late, in response to this reality, Xin Lijun told the "Deep Web", "Good food is not afraid of late, and doing late can make me see the pattern of this industry and the pain points of this industry more clearly." ”
The change of JD.com executives is the epitome of the changes in the entire e-commerce industry and even the Internet industry, and Huang Zheng and Zhang Yiming have resigned as CEOs of Pinduoduo and ByteDance. In 2021, several of the most prominent names in China's e-commerce field have successively changed core executives, but the year-end financial report shows that these changes have not yet achieved results. At the beginning of 2022, Dai Shan, the new head of Alibaba's e-commerce, directly promoted the merger of Tmall Taobao, which has been separated for many years.
In the new year, can newcomers deliver better report cards? Will Tmall Taobao's re-merger help Alibaba get rid of the stereotype of traffic traffickers? Can Pinduoduo Chen Lei, Gome Huang Guangyu and JD.com Xu Leixinlijun help their companies get back on the fast track? Who wants to take over Suning, which has no actual controller status?
Perhaps the answers to these questions will not be seen until the end of 2022.
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