Liu Shiyu is here, can the 69-year-old supply and marketing cooperative sprout new shoots from the old tree?

Liu Guosheng, who once served as the general manager of China Supply and Marketing E-Commerce Co., Ltd., once said: "For a long time, the average profit margin of enterprises affiliated to supply and marketing cooperatives has been basically less than 1, and this is still the result of policy subsidies. ”

What is a supply and marketing cooperative?

On the afternoon of January 26, important personnel changes occurred in the capital market. Yi Huiman, former chairman of ICBC, was transferred to chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, and former chairman Liu Shiyu went to the All-China Supply and Marketing Cooperative (hereinafter referred to as: Supply and Marketing Cooperative) to serve as deputy secretary of the party group and director of the board of directors.

What is a supply and marketing cooperative? Does it still exist?

Liu Guosheng, who served as the general manager of China Supply and Marketing E-Commerce Co., Ltd., once said: "For a long time, the supply and marketing cooperatives have The average profit margin is basically less than 1, and this is still the result of taking into account policy subsidies.”

So what does this institution, which sounds a bit contemporary and not very profitable, do? It is vigorous and resolute, and I dare to say it. Can the courageous Liu Shiyu give the supply and marketing cooperative a new look?

Source: Supply and Marketing Cooperative website

The earliest supply and marketing cooperative was established in 1950. In the subsequent development, it merged with the Ministry of Commerce many times. The current supply and marketing cooperative was reestablished in 1995 and mainly serves agricultural products. Now it also involves modern service industries and strategic emerging industries such as logistics, finance, energy conservation and environmental protection, and culture.

In 2017, the China Supply and Marketing Cooperative achieved total sales of 5.42181 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 13.5%. Among them, sales of agricultural production materials were 883.18 billion yuan, an increase of 10.6%.

At the same time, despite the vicissitudes of her name, it does not prevent her from being at the forefront of the e-commerce industry.

Various electronic charts carefully record prices, reserves and other data. A huge central computer quietly calculates information compiled from across the country. Many monitoring screens can view the real-time cargo status of each site. .

Visualization, cloud computing, the last mile, and the integration of the entire industry chain are all fashionable words and advanced concepts that have been implemented here.

Here is a key organization under the General Supply and Marketing Cooperative: "China Supply and Marketing E-Commerce Co., Ltd."

Everything starts with cotton

Cotton is a very common thing in our daily lives, but what many people don’t know is that cotton is a very important strategic material.

The reason is very simple. On the one hand, cotton is widely used and used in large quantities, and fluctuations in cotton prices can easily have a great impact on social and people's livelihood; on the other hand, my country's cotton production areas are concentrated, and 60% of them come from Xinjiang , which means that although my country's cotton market prices have been liberalized, based on Xinjiang's special geographical location, the government still plays an irreplaceable role in the adjustment of cotton prices.

As an important arm of the government, supply and marketing cooperatives play an important role in every aspect of the production, warehousing, transportation and sales of cotton, especially Xinjiang cotton.

Take transportation as an example. Xinjiang’s cotton-producing areas are far away from the main cotton consumption areas and the road conditions are complicated. Truck drivers and freight companies are unwilling to find customers in Xinjiang without confirming orders, so they must Railway transportation is used in most cases, but this brings problems such as poor mobility and high cost for small-scale transportation. To this end, the supply and marketing cooperatives took the lead in establishing a network platform to complete the connection between shippers and carriers. If this platform is slightly modified, wouldn't it be the "Didi" of truck drivers?

As mentioned at the beginning, as far as cotton is concerned, supply and marketing cooperatives have completed the entire industrial chain from production to after-sales, and "visualization" and "last mile" seem to have recently Things that just appeared have been used for many years.

If these excellent experiences only stay in the cotton field and cannot be promoted, it will be a waste of resources.

Strategy and tactics National and local

Unlike all e-commerce platforms at home and abroad, supply and marketing cooperative e-commerce adopts an "umbrella" structure. That is, with a national e-commerce platform as a link, each regional e-commerce platform across the country performs its own duties and learns from each other's strengths.

It should be said that this idea is wonderful. As far as product sales are concerned, on the one hand, it gives local platforms sufficient independent power to adjust things suitable for the region according to their own conditions; on the other hand, because the information is replicable, national and local platforms can release it at the same time. It will not prevent goods from entering national circulation channels.

In other words, this kind of approach of letting the right information enter the right platform is equivalent to combining local websites with national e-commerce. At the same time, it completes the filtering of invalid information and improves retrieval. efficiency.

For example, commodities such as fertilizers and pesticides can be placed on the regional platform, while organic food and green vegetables can be pushed to the national platform simultaneously.

More importantly, "wonder" is not only reflected in the sales of goods. Internet application-level issues such as technology development, user management, and payment and settlement will be handled uniformly by the national platform, while policy docking, specialty product development, and outlet construction will be handed over to regional platforms.

Nationally and locally, one is responsible for strategic adjustment, and the other is responsible for tactical execution. Each performs its own duties and uses its strengths. To a certain extent, this ensures light capital and high efficiency in every link within the enterprise. Light business operations.

Zero profit, zero gimmicks

"To be honest, the average profit rate of enterprises owned by supply and marketing cooperatives has been basically less than 1, and this is still the result of policy subsidies." Tan Tan. and profitability issues, Liu Guosheng, who served as general manager of China Supply and Marketing E-Commerce Co., Ltd., once said.

The reason why such a phenomenon occurs is that efficiency is naturally an issue, but more importantly, it lies in positioning.

For all enterprises, rural areas are often synonymous with "rewardless efforts" and "high costs and low returns." Taking banks as an example, China Construction Industry and Peasants, why is it that compared with the other three, Agricultural Bank of China... The data are slightly inferior.

However, there is a saying that "agriculture is the foundation of the national economy." Although it is difficult, the foundation must be solidified.

In finance, the Agricultural Bank of China and the Postal Savings Bank are in charge; the production and circulation of physical commodities are handed over to the supply and marketing cooperatives.

Especially today, when food safety issues become increasingly prominent, rural areas are the source of all food, from vegetables, fruits, to fresh meat (note: pigs, fish and eggs are agricultural products), and supply and marketing cooperatives have to shoulder The burden is getting heavier and heavier.

When it comes to "food safety", one word has become very popular in recent years - "visualization". Many e-commerce platforms use the banner of "visualization" and claim to allow consumers to "see is believing and eat with confidence."

In this regard, Liu Guosheng said with a smile: "If you point a cabbage at the camera, can you tell whether the pesticide residue exceeds the standard? Or, you can see the scene of spraying pesticides on the camera, but you can see Did you know the pesticide ratio?"

Indeed, "What you see on the Internet is just what he wants you to see." For consumers, visual e-commerce is more of a gimmick. , a comfort. Its real use lies in internal management and the integration of online and offline.

Take the cotton management system as an example. Online, the real-time storage volume of cotton can be monitored, while offline, various indicators such as cotton weight and quality must be tested.

Visualization allows management to avoid blindness, while manual inspection makes management practical. Both are indispensable.

In addition to visualization, green food and organic food are also receiving more and more attention, but again, what consumers rely on is only that small label.

“For the vast majority of e-commerce platforms, all they can do is test finished products, but real organic food, real food safety, and food quality management require Starting from seeds, fertilizers and even from the land," Liu Guosheng said when talking about green agriculture.

Real food safety, especially food quality, should really start from the soil. For example, those green foods will not kill people anyway, and the basic nutritional factors are not very different. It is difficult to detect them in finished product testing. .

But there is a fatal problem - cost!

You must know that all previous monitoring links, including finished product testing, only involve investment and no return, at least in the short and medium term. There is no reward in sight, and the cost of trial and error is too high.

"No return", just three words, has discouraged many companies.

As for why supply and marketing cooperatives have entered this profit desert? In fact, every friend should know the reason.

"Generally, for enterprises, profit is the most important, but for us, quality is our first priority." Liu Guosheng said, "The nature of our enterprise determines that we have responsibilities To strengthen quality management, there is no reason to engage in quality fraud.”

Indeed, for supply and marketing cooperatives, although there may be some bonuses for expanding sales, neglecting quality will definitely lose their jobs, which is worse. Which one is more important can be understood by anyone who understands.

Therefore, supply and marketing cooperatives have made many attempts for their own jobs and for the jobs of the people across the country.

1

Land transfer

After the acceleration of urbanization, many farmers have moved to cities to work, and the phenomenon of land abandonment has become more and more serious. After the introduction of the land transfer system, supply and marketing cooperatives began to try to conduct land management, which can not only avoid the problem of "farmers losing land" in private transfers, but also conduct intensive management to avoid abandonment while ensuring the quality of the land and crops produced. 2 Experts go to the fields to provide work guidance." In fact, behind the news, there are often many problems, such as a mismatch between regional expert resources and the disaster situation.

As the so-called technical industry has specialization, the knowledge mastered by each and every unit expert is limited, but the types of agricultural products in a certain area are diverse. If at a certain point in time, the number of agricultural products affected by a disaster exceeds that Things become troublesome within the area handled by regional experts. If it goes through government agencies, it requires layer-by-layer reporting and level-by-level approval, and it is easy to miss the best time for disaster relief. After the supply and marketing cooperatives' national and local level e-commerce platforms are completed, the national e-commerce platform can fully build the "scientific research institutes and scientific research experts" database to schedule resources. Once a problem occurs, one-click connection between the disaster-stricken area and the appropriate experts can basically be completed. match. More importantly, with the help of this platform, 24/7 real-time monitoring is entirely possible.

3

Cooperation with local enterprises

Problems encountered by enterprises in the food processing process may be subjective reasons driven by profit, or they may be caused by insufficient technology. Objective factors such as meeting standards. Supply and marketing cooperatives are actively cooperating with such enterprises. On the one hand, they use their expert resources and technical advantages to help enterprises solve objective problems. At the same time, they can also supervise during the guidance process to prevent subjective problems from affecting food quality. of substandard.

4

Cooperation with testing agencies

Another major reason for China’s constant food safety situation is that there are problems with the formulation of standards. For example, the relevant indicators are not comprehensive, detailed, and grounded.

The supply and marketing cooperative holds corporate resources in one hand and scientific research institutes in the other. It is trying to connect the two resources. On the one hand, based on the actual situation, we formulate and adjust food safety indicators that are truly realistic in a more comprehensive and timely manner; on the other hand, in the process of formulating relevant indicators, we also complete the supervision of enterprises.

5

Cooperation with the postal system

The postal system, to some extent, is somewhat similar to the supply and marketing cooperative.

Today, as the "various communications" in the express delivery industry are growing day by day, the post office seems to have been forgotten. However, just as the basic network of supply and marketing cooperatives still exists and has been operating, "the People's Republic of China and the People's Republic of China" "Post Office" is still there!

Moreover, compared with "all kinds of communications", although the postal system is not efficient in operation and delivery speed is not fast, it has hardware measures such as network distribution, warehousing construction, and time-point monitoring. But relatively perfect. This is a good thing to ensure the quality of food during transportation.

At the same time, it is foreseeable that although the software has disadvantages, it may not be impossible to complete the reform and transformation in a short time under the leadership of the supply and marketing cooperatives and in the process of cooperation with the supply and marketing cooperatives.

To borrow a sentence from Liu Guosheng: "Food safety and quality are far from being guaranteed by just one report. They should run through every link of production, processing, warehousing, transportation and sales, and a complete system is required. Be supportive. ”

Obviously, the supply and marketing cooperatives have done a good job in cotton, and the supply and marketing cooperatives are also working hard to bring “very good” to every commodity through the construction of e-commerce platforms.

In fact, friends can also see some clues from the above measures-the supply and marketing cooperative is "playing a big game."

If these attempts are successful, they will not only ensure the quality of agricultural products, but also be of great benefit to the improvement of production efficiency. Moreover, supply and marketing cooperatives can fully play a linking role and reduce the fragmentation of agricultural products. , all kinds of idle "government system" resources are connected together to achieve the effect of 1 1> 2.

Every family has its own sutras that are difficult to recite.

As mentioned above, "If these attempts can be successful, they will have effects such as 1 1> 2".

But if you want to delete the word "if", supply and marketing cooperatives still face two obstacles: talent and market.

To be honest, the senior management of the e-commerce platform of the supply and marketing cooperatives, their strategic vision is no less than that of any company. The speed and quality of the construction of the national e-commerce platform have also wiped out people's suspicion of "government enterprises' procrastination, "Lazy" prejudice.

But the problem is that good strategies and good policies require people to execute and implement them. For supply and marketing cooperatives, the pain of talent is mainly concentrated in regional platforms.

For many regional platforms, middle managers lack Internet awareness and front-line employees lack practical experience. What’s even more fatal is that although they are aware of the existence of the above problems, they are faced with many difficulties in solving them. On the one hand, existing employee training is first faced with efficiency issues. It is said that "it is easy to change, but it is hard to change one's nature." After experiencing the influence of traditional business concepts for more than ten years or even longer, if you want to obtain true Internet thinking, it is far away. It cannot be solved in one class or one meeting; secondly, there is the issue of quantity. Although the national e-commerce platform is actively helping regional platforms train personnel, resources are limited. We want to rely on a team of dozens of people to complete the number of supply and marketing cooperatives. The training of 100,000 people is nothing short of a fantasy.

On the other hand, it is difficult to recruit and retain talents. When it comes to supply and marketing cooperatives, many people of the older generation do not know much about their current situation, let alone young people in their early twenties, and it is precisely this group of people who have the most Internet thinking. In contrast, everyone is definitely willing to choose BAT instead of the supply and marketing cooperative "in memory". The problem of information mismatch needs to be solved urgently.

More importantly, even if excellent talents can be introduced, they are difficult to use and retain.

Because as the command center of the supply and marketing cooperative’s e-commerce system, the national e-commerce platform’s demand for talents is limited, and more gaps lie in local platforms.

However, it is not easy to get newly graduated college students to return to their hometowns, which requires frequent visits to the fields.

It is difficult to train employees and introduce talents, and difficulties need to be acknowledged. But "difficulties are meant to be overcome."

First of all, overall, the development of regional platforms does have many shortcomings, but excellent platforms also exist, and even in some temporarily backward areas, there are still Lots of great staff.

In response to this situation, supply and marketing cooperatives have carried out activities such as selecting "e-commerce demonstration counties". First, they can tap into the existing internal momentum for progress. Second, they can exchange successful experiences through various regional platforms. Horizontal activities reduce the burden on national e-commerce platforms and maximize resource utilization efficiency.

What’s more important is that the supply and marketing cooperatives are older but not rigid. They are very willing and are carrying out various forms of in-depth cooperation with experienced companies.

With years of accumulation, but a forever young mentality, such an enterprise has great potential.

Wine must be delicious!

The two major problems of supply and marketing cooperatives are talent and marketing.

It is true that the supply and marketing cooperatives are trying to deliver safe and healthy food to everyone’s dining table through their own efforts, but the so-called aroma of wine is also afraid of the depth of the alley. Especially in this era of "cross-flow of information", too much useless information disturbs people's nerves. Good products require good publicity.

However, it is a good thing for products to keep pace with the market, but the core is always product quality. No matter how deep the alley is, the wine must be delicious!

Just like the "One County, One Product" project created by the supply and marketing cooperative e-commerce company, we strive to turn the supply and marketing cooperative platform into a synonym for "high-quality and reliable" products.