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- Source/Night Deep Finance
- Author/Night Deep Finance
01, personnel earthquake, what happened to Yonghui?
China's "supermarket brother" personnel earthquake!
15-year senior executives were also dismissed!
Source: Yonghui Supermarket announcement
On April 27, Chinese retail giant Yonghui Supermarket announced major personnel changes, announcing the removal of Wu Guangwang and Lin Jianhua from their positions as vice presidents.
According to the announcement, Lin Jianhua resigned due to health reasons, and the company had other arrangements for him, while Wu Guangwang was considered to be no longer suitable for the requirements of the position because of his ability.
This move has aroused widespread attention in the industry, and the market and investors have launched heated discussions about the reasons behind it and the possible impact.
It is reported that Wu Guangwang was born in 1976.
Since August 2009, he has served as a supervisor and information director of the company.
In 2008, Wu Guangwang was named the outstanding CIO of China's retail industry.
Since late September 2015, Wu Guangwang has served as the vice president of Yonghui Supermarket, with an annual salary of more than 2 million.
Since 2009, Wu Guangwang has been with Yonghui for more than 15 years.
He also served as vice president for nearly 10 years, but now he has been dismissed for being accused of competence problems.
The old hero was suddenly fired, which is really unbelievable and elusive.
Some netizens also commented, "The infighting in Yonghui Supermarket has become public. ”
Source: Weibo
In addition to personnel earthquakes. Previously, as an important shareholder of Yonghui Supermarket, Suqian Hanbang, a subsidiary of JD.com, announced that it would reduce its stake in Yonghui Supermarket by no more than 1%, a move interpreted by the market as JD.com may be gradually fading out of its investment in Yonghui Supermarket.
The cooperation between Yonghui Supermarket and JD.com began in 2015, with the main purpose of strengthening JD.com's offline retail layout, especially in the fresh food field. However, with Yonghui Supermarket's continued financial losses and declining performance, JD.com's expectations for this cooperation have clearly failed to materialize.
At the end of March 2023, JD.com's Suqian Hanbang announced plans to reduce its stake in Yonghui Supermarket by no more than 1%, a move widely interpreted by the market as JD.com may be gradually withdrawing its investment in Yonghui Supermarket.
This strategic change shows that JD.com is more cautious in the physical retail format against the backdrop of e-commerce giant Alibaba's return to its main e-commerce business and the rumors of a possible sale of Hema Fresh. JD.com's change not only affected Yonghui Supermarket's stock price and market expectations, but also put forward higher requirements for Yonghui's future strategic direction.
In the face of the pressure of continuous financial losses, Yonghui Supermarket has made a series of major strategic adjustments, especially in its asset allocation.
One of the most high-profile moves was the sale of a 65% stake in its Internet financial services platform, Yonghui Yunjin Technology Co., Ltd., in a transaction worth 336 million yuan. Slim down to restore blood and replenish the flow of funds.
02
Multiple challenges
The supermarket is difficult to see again
From the first quarter financial report, it can be seen that Yonghui Supermarket's operating income reached 21.665 billion yuan, an increase of 30.87% from the previous quarter, and the net profit attributable to the parent company reached 736 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 4.57%, indicating significant signs of improvement.
Source: Yonghui Supermarket official website
So far, Yonghui Supermarket has settled in 523 counties, districts and cities in 29 provinces across the country, with 977 stores open and 94 stores under construction.
Source: Yonghui Supermarket official website
However, even with the excellent performance of the first quarter, it was the result of Yonghui's continuous sales of assets to slim down, optimize stores, lay off employees, and reduce R&D investment in the past period.
Therefore, it is undeniable that Yonghui is still facing challenges from many aspects.
The first is to face the impact of e-commerce. With the rapid development of Internet technology, more and more consumers choose to shop online, which directly affects the traffic and sales of traditional retailers. E-commerce giants such as Alibaba and JD.com offer a one-stop shopping experience that allows consumers to shop everything from fresh food to home appliances without leaving home, posing a huge challenge to traditional retailers such as Yonghui.
Although Yonghui has also carried out some exploration in the new retail model, such as the launch of formats such as Yonghui mini, super species, Yonghui Minsheng warehousing membership store, etc., the results are quite small, in the final analysis, Yonghui "the ship is difficult to turn around", and the basic market is still an offline model.
This year, Yonghui's online business According to the financial report, in the first quarter of 2024, Yonghui's online revenue increased by nearly 2% year-on-year, accounting for 18.9% of total revenue, which is the initial effect of the reform.
Secondly, Yonghui needs to be sensitive to changes in consumer demand, and provide timely feedback and make adjustments. At present, consumers are increasingly inclined to pursue an efficient, convenient and quality-assured shopping experience, and their requirements for product quality and service are also constantly improving. This requires traditional retailers to not only be competitive in price, but also to meet the high standards of consumers in terms of service and shopping experience, especially when it comes to food safety.
Recently, some netizens posted that there was a problem with the sauce beef purchased in Yonghui Supermarket.
Source: Weibo
In Beijing, Mr. Wu, a citizen, drank a rubbery foreign body in a fruit drink he bought at Yonghui Supermarket. The party said that the promotional package he bought at that time contained a bottle of Pepsi, a bottle of 7-Up and a bottle of Fruit Fun, and drank thumb-shaped rubber when Guo Fun was halfway through drinking.
Yonghui Supermarket responded to this: it can only be returned.
It can be seen from the response that the service level does need to be improved, after all, the chicken-killing business, the cold is sooner or later.
Source: Weibo
In addition, supply chain construction is the core of supermarket operation and management, and it is the top priority of Yonghui Supermarket. For the traditional retail industry, there are often inefficient problems in supply chain management, such as inventory backlog, high logistics costs, etc., which may directly affect the cost control and market response speed of supermarkets.
In March this year, after the review and public announcement of 8 units including the Ministry of Commerce, Yonghui Supermarket was selected into the third batch of national supply chain innovation and application demonstration enterprises.
However, the supply chain construction of Yonghui Supermarket also has the problem of inflexibility of the supply chain model, which still needs to be improved.
03
Retail transformation
Yonghui still needs to open up the change
Basically, traditional large supermarkets are actively seeking a path of transformation.
Source: Yonghui Supermarket
In the context of fierce competition in the retail industry and the volatile market environment, such a major high-level change is not only the result of the company's strategic adjustment, but also a change of blood in response to the younger market and online retail.
Compared with the data of previous years, whether Wu Guangwang has really become the first driving force for Yonghui's performance decline still needs to be comprehensively considered in many aspects.
But the fact is that Yonghui Supermarket's market share is indeed gradually being eroded by e-commerce platforms, which is a problem that the top management should be aware of, but the top management is not ready to respond. Therefore, this personnel change will inevitably affect the future direction of Yonghui.
At present, the promotion of digital transformation of offline supermarkets has become the best choice to reform themselves and fight against e-commerce. A number of large retailers are accelerating the new retail model of online and offline integration, using big data and artificial intelligence technology to optimize inventory management and customer service, and improve operational efficiency and customer shopping experience. Yonghui must take this new retail express train and find its own unique way of playing to win the recognition of consumers.
Break through the homogenization of supermarkets and improve consumer experience. Although Yonghui has launched its own brand, the prefabricated food incident has caused consumers to criticize, which shows that it is still difficult for the Chinese people to accept the prefabricated food track. Yonghui's research and development of prefabricated dishes is nothing more than to strengthen brand differentiation, but it has chosen the wrong track.
On the other hand, large supermarkets such as Fat Donglai have strengthened their brand image through high-quality products, high-quality services and unique store experience, and have greatly highlighted the advantages of timeliness, touchability and perceptual offline shopping in the competition with e-commerce platforms.
Finally, Yonghui Supermarket's recent personnel changes, capital reductions, and asset sales have undoubtedly become a vivid example of the transformation of the retail industry.
This series of actions not only reflects the adjustment of the internal management of the enterprise, but also reflects the cognitive change of the entire retail industry.
Have any of your friends ever been to Yonghui Supermarket to shop?
What do you think of Yonghui Supermarket's service and shopping experience?
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