Dialogue With Customers CEO Age: The Electricity Supplier Is Not A Fixed Pattern But Just Started.

4 years of entrepreneurship, experienced 3 years of speeding growth, in 2011,

That is to say, in the past year, he has adjusted the internal organizational structure, completed the pformation to the "department system", and reconsidered many mistakes, including the shrinkage of category development margin, the challenge of scale, and how to manage a growth firms with tens of thousands of employees and tens of billions of sales annually.

But in these changes, Chen neglected one thing: himself.

This is considered to be a strong literati color.

But after all, companies grow too fast, and the Internet is a highly pparent world.

Deliberately low-key old age, not only does not appear to be "not sociable", but also let the outside guess "what is the guest"? So huge losses of 2 billion yuan, capital chain breakage, loss of executives and other rumors suddenly become overwhelming.

In an exclusive interview with reporters, he admitted that he used to "do things in peace and do nothing to fight the battle of words" but began to understand the importance of active communication and the elimination of mystery.

In fact, this low-key and mysterious attitude has something to do with his inner two insistence: humility in front of all users, believing in the belief that "situation is stronger than man".

What is meant by "stronger situation than human beings"?

In his words, many people often find that they have seen many opportunities, but the "big era" has passed by itself.

This is in line with his judgement of the trend of e-commerce in China: in the face of the external shocks of capital cold winter, a group of electricity suppliers will not see dawn, and the competition pattern of large platform companies is just beginning.

Scale challenge

The challenge of management is the biggest after "scale".

Our front steps are very easy, and this year we face challenges.

Interviewer: what do you think will affect the company this year?

Old age: I think it's a challenge to "scale up", and the biggest challenge is management.

At the beginning of this year, someone told me that when the scale of enterprises reached three or four billion scale, it would be very different from hundreds of millions or billions of dollars.

In the first year, the revenue was over 100 million, the growth of over 100% in second years, followed by the growth of 300%, and every step was easy.

Now we are facing challenges.

Reporter: what adjustments have you made in management?

Chen: from the organizational structure, the most significant difference between today and the past is the establishment of the business unit this year.

In the past, fragmentation, product, promotion, marketing and brand were completely separated.

This year, five business units have been set up. Each department has passed all functions from product, marketing to promotion.

The change was completed in the third quarter.

The five business divisions are classified according to category, such as the basic products division.

The future will be divided into more business units, and now it is not enough.

The reason is that every business department needs a leader. Now we have five. We need more leaders in the future.

Reporter: how to carry out financial management for each department?

Chen: you will repeatedly discuss new product planning, including how big the sales space is, how many new users and how many old customers will buy it.

In addition to the budget system of each division, the company has the most basic budget system, which is based on the growth of new users and the purchase rate of old customers.

For example, adding thirty thousand new users today, the thirty thousand new users will buy two times in the long term. This is the most fundamental starting point of the budget.

Reporter: what if we do not know the trend of user numbers?

Old age: it will become more and more precise. Since 2008, we have accumulated four years of data, and the prediction is very accurate.

Forecasting has at least two functions: first, accurately predicting market trends; user growth rate, market segmentation growth rate and two is the effectiveness of inspection channels.

No matter what channel (including search engine, web site navigation, network alliance, client, etc.), we have timely statistics on its conversion rate.

Some earn 1 yuan, earn 20 yuan, and some throw 1 yuan but earn only 1 yuan.

It is not so simple to earn 1 hairs. Things are not so simple. Sometimes, the efficiency of other channels can be reduced by cutting 1.

This is a system that tells you that you can't cut off the "1 yuan to earn only 1 cents" channel.

Behind the system is the mathematical model, which is the representation of "technology is productivity" and "Internet technology is productivity".

This system is an evolving system, like a complex mathematical model. It is interesting that we add variables every day.

The cost of trial and error

There are more mistakes than right products.

I could not afford to pay a bigger price for trial and error than today, with a price of less than 5% of sales.

Reporter: since the initial establishment of a customer, do you have a vague and vague idea and advocate a "lifestyle"?

Chen: at the very beginning, as our team, the starting point is to respect all the users, that is, all the people I speak are my guests. This is the attitude we want to express.

But behind this is my inner entanglement, which is what I did before.

This remarkable thing disgusted me. For many years, a person who wrote something said that I was excellent. I was very annoyed, and the two words were excellent.

This is something deep inside me, so there must be an obvious opposition to it - I am very opposed to the attitude of excellence.

Reporter: respecting all users, how to "grasp" mainstream users?

Age: users will tell us.

For example, in 2009 decided to sell canvas shoes, sold fifty thousand pairs in two days.

At this point, you can analyze the attributes behind this group of users and see how large the circle is.

For example, in 2010, we made large scale printed round T-shirts, sold about 2000000 pieces a year, sold 10 million pieces this year, and many children went to buy many different styles. This is their "self expression".

Reporter: is there a time when we are "grasping" wrong?

Old age: there must be.

There are more mistakes than right products.

For example, mop, rice cooker and other things, from the perspective of user acceptance, from the perspective of company operation, are wrong.

Interviewer: there is a price for trial and error. What's the bottom line that you can tolerate?

Old age: to this day, I can tolerate it. If it is more expensive than today, I can't afford it, for example, I can't afford to order a batch of cars.

The cost should be less than 5% of sales.

Reporter: in the border expansion of this piece, your mode compared with the opponent's advantage?

Chen: our advantage is exclusive brand.

Compared with other B2C websites, all channels hope that our products can be stationed, especially if goods are put in their storehouses, because they are very clear that the products of customers will bring new users to them, allowing their customers to buy two times, and have the power of bestsellers or stars.

Reporter: in other words, someone else is either an online electrical appliance store or an online bookstore.

Old age: Yes.

But it is not a boundary issue. When you find these companies are beating hard, we are out of the picture.

In 2011, everyone expanded quickly enough, and he was still making mistakes, but no one said he would compete with anyone.

Reporter: F round of financing $230 million to prepare how to spend?

Chen: I really didn't think so.

In the long run, it is investment infrastructure, especially system automation, such as warehouse automation.

The new system should adapt to B2C's large-scale warehouse sales.

Since all customers are the largest B2C websites in China, the system automation is very important.

No matter storage or distribution, the quality of service, the efficiency of operation, the third parties can not reach our requirements, and need to improve their own investment.

Reporter: is there a boundary for a guest? Where is the boundary?

Chen year: I think, deep ploughing the Chinese Internet, will find the various needs of each user.

We have not reached the border yet, and the absolute value has been increasing.

But the experience of 2011 has clearly told us that there must be boundaries in category development, but the user boundary is not yet there.

This forced us to focus on ourselves and do some deep tillage.

Changes in the electricity supplier

The change of capital market does not mean that there are great changes in the enterprise itself, but the changes in the capital market may frustrate some enterprises.

Reporter: in 2011, China's e-commerce industry experienced a roller coaster from peak to low. How do you evaluate this fluctuation?

Old age: my own judgement, behind this phenomenon, is the change of capital market.

The change of capital market does not mean that there are great changes in the enterprise itself, but the changes in the capital market may cause some enterprises to suffer setbacks.

Especially in the second half of last year to the first half of this year, many entrepreneurs think that the electricity supplier is a new opportunity. Many new enterprises have appeared. These new enterprises will encounter some difficulties, which is normal.

Reporter: what will happen to those companies that are facing difficulties? Will there be a large number of companies going bankrupt? Will big companies merge and integrate industries?

Old age: it depends on the number of people who are worthy of merger. This may be the problem I will think about.

For anyone, who do I merge with? When you can't blurt out, it's actually not.

In addition to our Jingdong (micro-blog), Amazon (micro-blog), Dangdang (micro-blog) and Taobao Mall (micro-blog), who do you mean to merge with?

For the time being, we can not see which one has the ability to annex another family.

Reporter: so do vertical mergers and acquisitions, and make category supplements?

Chen: I really think about this recently.

Including the focus of these entrepreneurial teams themselves, what scale or scale may be a complement to customers.

But I didn't want to understand.

Reporter: do you think many business failures are inevitable?

Old age: Yes.

Over the past three or four years, many companies have been established with us, plus more group buying, more than 5000.

The establishment time of these companies is very short, and they haven't reached a position, that is, the user scale, brand influence and product scale have not reached a location, which is very dangerous.

In particular, companies built in recent two years are more dangerous.

Because in the past two years, venture capital has been driven by venture capital. Basically, it is "spoil the growth of the crop".

Over the past few years, I have been observing the industry pattern.

Who am I concerned about in 2008? I care about PPG. In 2009, I was concerned about Martha Marceau. In 2010, I was concerned about dream bazaar and Mcglaughlin.

At that time, they were dramas and concerned, but today I found that they did not need to pay attention.

This is my curiosity question.

That time was very important to them. He was going to show up, but he didn't show it.

Why? I am also very strange.

Reporter: did you analyze it later?

Chen: I basically understand that their traditional colors are even heavier.

Reporter: how to define traditional colors?

Age: just do not understand the Internet.

When consumer habits change, you must not stick to your original set, you have to follow user needs to change, users have already regarded it as consumer goods, you still think it is durable goods, then you will conflict with his needs.

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Profile: his 1984

Perhaps it is related to George Orwell's "1984", which is very impressive in 1984.

I remember many things in that year: my high school life, China's return to the Olympic Games, the 35th anniversary Losangeles National Day parade.

In that year, he read Duras's "lover" and Marcks's "hundred years of solitude" and so on. To this day, the latter is still a book he often read at bedside.

Chen said he "grew up in 1984, had a complex", while fan served "generation 1984" generation.

In his view, the generation that grew up in 1984 or the generation born itself is in an important position.

Looking back at history, perhaps in 1984, Chen had been hazy to realize that he wanted to make his way different. This became the inner motive of his agitation, rebellion and seeking for change.

So he made a teacher in the third year of senior high school and went back to his hometown. After he went to college, he went back to the university a year earlier and went over the steel. "That's purely for survival, and I want to earn a lot of money."

He recalled that luckily he also did it.

After that, he worked as a journalist, editor, and set up magazines like "good books" and "book review weekly" to retain his memory of temperature.

He has always said that he is a "writer" and never hides the fastidious and partiality of perfect words. Therefore, he sniffed at the 140 character micro-blog.

Now talking about dealing with outstanding writers and scholars in those days, every day, "a lot of people talk about the highest level of novels", the old age is still excited.

And that is the end of 1990s. The tide of Internet is surging from the other side of the ocean. The old age is also strange now. "Why did people read and write everyday as a top priority?"

He welcomed the challenge of the new wave, joined the excellent network in 2000 and began his Internet career.

"I think the excellent network as an Internet selling book is definitely more influential than the book review weekly."

He explained in such a simple way.

Excellent network has been successful, but it has become an eternal pain in the heart. The conflict between "excellence" attitude and his personal pursuit of peace and mind is more painful than the cultural conflict and loss of value after selling it to Amazon.

"We embraced Amazon wholeheartedly, but Amazon did not embrace you.

It also does not talk about integrity, law, deception, you have no way. "

In memory of this, he was still unable to get excited.

Later in an article he wrote, "the so-called strong culture is not equal."

The cruelty of capital does not talk about the universal value prevailing in the West.

This is seen as a turning point in the old "revisions of values".

Fan is the product of the conflict between internal contradictions and values.

Chen said, "I feel mild, not contradictory, to be a guest.

Rooted in China, more and more users, users get the value, so that you feel healthy and safe.

I really led a team and grasped the fate of a company.

In 2011, Chen and his team suffered setbacks.

But also because of being born in 1984, it makes the old age feel what he has experienced, and reflects on what is "Ben Ben" and "insignificant".

As a result, when he did a lot of internal action, he chose to temporarily communicate with the outside world.

He is also beginning to reflect on it and start changing himself to adapt to the rapid, fragmented and networked era of communication.

But he has his respect and persistence.

In his exclusive interview, he repeatedly referred to Guo Henian, chairman of Kerry Group, a Chinese business leader: in 1984, Guo Henian invested in International Trade Building or Cetra Building.

Today, China World Trade Center has become the landmark of Beijing.

In the eyes of the whole world, this is the landmark origin of "China's rise".

Chen said: some people are destined to become history, because at that historical moment, he was there.