Dong Mingzhu's dream of "micro store" was shattered, and Gree canceled all sales?
Gree Electric Appliances (000651. SZ, referred to as Gree) is changing the all-staff sales system that has been implemented for five years.
In response to the rumors that Gree has canceled the full sales system since April this year, the first financial reporter learned from an industry insider close to Gree on April 20 that Gree's full sales have changed from individual indicators to team indicators. This means that Gree's practice of involving all employees in sales development from 2019 has ended.
When asked "is it that the all-staff sales system has been canceled this year", a Gree employee said on the same day: "It can be understood that the indicators of middle-level cadres (middle-level cadres) have been greatly reduced, and there are no indicators for individuals." When further asked "whether the department can complete a certain target", the Gree employee said, "It seems that the standard has been reached now".
As of press time, Gree Electric has not made an official response on whether it has canceled the all-staff sales system.
According to public information, Gree Electric Appliances launched the "full sales" activity in 2019, and Gree once denied the so-called sales assessment task of 10,000 yuan per capita. In that year, on the representative channel of the "National Two Sessions", Dong Mingzhu, chairman and president of Gree Electric Appliances, also advertised for his own micro-store. Gree employees opened a micro-store in "(Gree) Dong Mingzhu's store" to implement full sales.
According to its 2019 annual report, in 2019, in the face of the new consumption mode and communication mode of the e-commerce market, Gree Electric Appliances will allow all employees to participate in the development of the company's sales channels, promote high-quality products to relatives and friends, and realize the upgrading of the marketing model of Gree Electric Appliances. In 2019, there were more than 100,000 registered distribution stores in "Dong Mingzhu's Store", and the annual sales exceeded 1.4 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 660%. However, this accounted for only 0.7% of Gree Electric's revenue of 198.153 billion yuan in 2019.
Gree Electric's revenue in recent years has hovered around 200 billion yuan, and last year it exceeded 200 billion yuan, which will hit a record high. Its performance forecast revealed that Gree Electric is expected to achieve a total operating income of 205 billion yuan to 210 billion yuan in 2023. The number of employees of Gree Electric has decreased slightly in recent years, from 88,846 in 2019 to 72,380 in 2022.
The above-mentioned industry insiders close to Gree believe that the advantage of Gree's full-staff sales system is that it can sell something, but for some employees who have less contact with external resources (such as factory production line employees), it is a kind of pressure, which will affect bonus income and lead to brain drain. At the same time, the burden of sales tasks can be a distraction for employees in non-sales positions, especially in the R&D department.
"Gree's all-staff sales system has now canceled the individual indicator and changed it to a team indicator. The above-mentioned industry insiders said that this means that the team's sales target can be completed.
This is a kind of behavior of Gree to re-correctly understand the laws of market operation. Zhang Yanbin, a senior observer of the household appliance industry, told the first financial reporter that the biggest feature of the market economy is the professional division of labor, that is, "professional things are handed over to professional people to do." In the Internet era, the home appliance industry is facing the pressure of marketing change and innovation, Gree has also made an attempt in this regard, one of the important contents is that all employees participate in sales, and each employee of the company has a certain sales task to increase the company's breakthrough in marketing.
However, after several years of practice, this method has not worked, and it is far from being as good as expected. On the contrary, there are some negative effects, such as affecting employees' own work, so that they can not concentrate on completing their own work, and even have an excuse to evade responsibility. After weighing the pros and cons, Gree canceled the full sales system. Zhang Yanbin said.
He believes that the abolition of the full sales system, on the one hand, shows that Gree has the ability to self-correct, when practice proves unrealistic, it can take the initiative to terminate the relevant system; on the other hand, it also shows that enterprises need to go a long way in marketing innovation, not necessarily every innovation is in line with reality, and it takes a long time of practice to prove right and wrong. This also reminds home appliance companies that in the Internet era, marketing innovation must not only have confidence and patience, but also have the ability and courage to correct errors. ”
Duty Editor: Rainforest