Visiting Shoes Wang Baili: A Black Swan Revolution Is Taking Place.

The 23 blue and blue buildings at the junction of Lanxiang street and landi road in Nanshan District, Shenzhen, are the two special rooms of each girl's dream.

An office facing south, more than 40 pairs of women's shoes were placed on the open spaces on both sides of the entry. This is not a manifestation of the owner's taste collection. Instead, he wants to find inspiration from the old shoes of his own brand, and design new shoes to sell.

He was sitting on the bench, with his hands on his cheeks, staring at the foot of a young girl. Between him and the girl, there are hundreds of women's shoes covering five or six square meters of floor. Three or four seconds later, he shook his head and pointed to another pair. The girl stepped on her shoes and turned two steps. He blinked and pointed to another pair.

As a matter of fact, the sea of shoes on the ground is already a leader from another special room. It is more like a brand store under the line, including the platform, shoe rack, cash register and lighting. There are thousands of offline outlets in the country, but they are the exact ones here.

These two rooms are the starting point for Hu Bing to transform BELLE group's main brand BELLE (BELLE). As vice president of BELLE group and general manager of BELLE brand, Hu Bing is a male trader behind the fashion shoes brand.

Just when Hu Bing began to pick new products in spring next year, the 13 floor business center was still fighting for the "double eleven".

That night, the hour hand pointed to more than 8, and BELLE's brand operation director, Jen Jill, had been staring at the screen for more than 10 hours. The massage therapist invited by the group is trying to relax her acid stiff neck. Compared with Zhou Xiao Yue, vice president of the electricity supplier center, tired of throat inflammation, she could at least laugh.

The task of Yan Jieer and team is not easy this year. Boss Hu Bing's death order is to keep BELLE brand in the shoes shoes category sales first position. Compared to 2018, Cage won the title by surprise. Yan Jie's business is more stable this year: the customized version of Martin boots "black swan 007", only the pre-sale volume of more than 15 thousand pairs, the actual sales volume is still rising. This is a good omen.

Also rising, there are shoe boxes stacked at two meters away from Yan Jer station and at the door of a small office. Those are all seasonal new products that are temporarily transferred to live broadcast. From the beginning of the morning, the six or seven square meter small room is directly connected with the live broadcast: three female anchors take turns, and wear 60 boots on the rack, repeatedly explaining the design, texture, wear and how to get coupons for each shoe.

The BELLE group electric business center, which has been burning brightly all night, is the new background of the fashion empire.

Previously, the protagonist of the online story was for a long time, or the self built electric business of BELLE group -- Tao Xiu net and the shopping mall of footwear B2C platform. For the Taobao and Tmall that just started, the group electricity supplier team at that time designed a way to sell the brand goods first, then the online network to make contributions, and finally the new brand of the network. This was once considered a successful case for traditional enterprises to enter the electricity supplier before 2011.

Perhaps the attitude of the brand or the channel is wavering. The expansion of the electricity supplier business has not broken the sales pattern dominated by the offline and online. BELLE group once fell into the situation of online and offline. Before the establishment of the electricity supplier center, the Internet is still only a channel for BELLE to handle inventory.

Faced with the impact of online offline retail, BELLE's internal and external pathfinding is still out of order. At one point, Hu Bing was also puzzled: "it's not that we don't work hard, nor do we feel that we are not capable, not smart enough, and that the ability of our team is even improving. Why is it bad?"

At that time, it was still not very easy to use WeChat's BELLE group CEO Sheng Bai Jiao to take responsibility for the decline of the group's performance. In 2017, BELLE accepted the invitation of privatization with high leverage capital, and the buyer group completed the privatization of BELLE international at a price of HK $53 billion 100 million. BELLE needs to win the power of internal transformation from outside.

At that time, the outside world was guessing how high Ling could "catch the falling knife." Two years later, BELLE group handed over the two main businesses of footwear and clothing in 2019, including sales of online sales of one billion seconds, 600 million yuan for 1 hours, 55 hours for 6 hours, and double eleven for 2018, an increase of 43% over the same period last year, and a 25.5% increase over the same period. In the Tmall shoes industry brand flagship store TOP10, BELLE group won five seats in one breath. BELLE brand won the championship again after 2018.

It is true that the sale of discount and pattern marketing is not enough to explain the substantial progress of enterprise transformation. But BELLE, who repeatedly crashed on the line, is apparently starting to fall, with little change known to the outside world.

This is like the main brand BELLE is trying to use a pair of customized version of Martin boots "black swan 007" to tell a story about the Internet thinking fission. In the capital market, "black swan" has never been a good word. But BELLE group has been away from that country for more than 850 days.

　 Algorithm of dark Martin

Two months ago, when the black black swan 007 was put on the Huang Debin's desk for three days, he was extremely crazy. It's not that he has no talent. Before that, the name of "old tiger tooth" is his handwriting.

"Little jelly?" stares at the colloid sole. Huang Debin's brain flashes out this slightly adorable name, but it is negated in the group discussion, which is not consistent with the "black swan" positioning. "Black swan" is the name of the BELLE brand 2019 autumn winter dark Martin boots series. It takes the shape of a swan like the neck of a swan, meaning elegance, mystery and independence. In the end, Yan JE found the space in the number of shoes holes of 7.

If "007" is the result of aura, the "black swan" and the dark series it represents are more like a mathematical algorithm.

The basic logic of this algorithm is: at the beginning of each season, online or private traffic is used to measure consumers' feedback with small quantities of new products. This is only a small trend verification of a single shoe. Combined with industry trends, competitive research and strong domestic and foreign cargo carrying capacity KOL (key opinion leaders), the design team will predict the new theme of the trend in 3 months with the help of big consumer data.

"Last year, when capacity is not enough, we must constantly test. This year's capability has been improved, and data can make us more stable." Hu Bing explained that there are many algorithms behind this, such as the current calculation of a spring or sandals, although the amount of pre purchase will be very small, but with a single set of algorithms, repeated verification, you can draw more accurate conclusions.

Based on big data analysis, this method of online customized explosion has been verified many times.

Last year, double eleven used big data to figure out consumer preferences. The BELLE brand pushed the custom-made winter boots gift box, and 18 thousand stocks were "seconds empty."

At the beginning of this year, Zhou Xiaoyue was thinking of launching a net red spring and summer shoes with Juhuasuan. Two months of communication, Juhuasuan based on platform big data, predicted the explosive element "one word belt". BELLE is linked to R & D design and market development of new products. During the 618 period, the double horse Caron colored sandals were sold over 1.2 pairs in 7 days.

"Black swan 007" is just the way to play this game.

For online exploding, Hu Bing also has his own understanding: in line with brand positioning, to provide the ultimate cost performance.

Perhaps in the eyes of some consumers, the best price is the price is low enough. But in the eyes of this trader, too low price will damage brand value. The pricing of explosions must be based on brand tonality, product quality and user cognition. What Hu Bing needs to do is find the location of this shoe in all products.

"We will locate the black swan 007 in the middle class. This shoe adopts BELLE classic shoe last, the sole is very comfortable, and the brand custom handbag is delivered. All of these add up together, and the pre-sale price is 458 yuan. That's what I call the ultimate cost performance." Through the operation of the last year's gift box, the team finally set the quantity of the explosive stock to 15 thousand pairs this year.

"Iteration is our way of doing things." Hu Bing said that the idea of learning from the Internet business subverted his cognition of business and everything around him. Many things have new possibilities.

In the evening of November 10th, many netizens were surprised to find that a group of black trousers and black trousers had run to their own shoes platform. The amount of live broadcast has even surpassed the previous brand spokesperson Ma Sichun.

Boots landing

If the two special rooms are the source of the inspiration for the "black swan", starting from there, along the Nanhai Road North, the new Belle Industrial Park 30 kilometers away is the landing place of these black boots.

A strong contrast with the quiet atmosphere of the early entry park is that when entering the BELLE brand production workshop on the 3 floor of building 6, the huge roar of the machine made CD1-7 unable to resist raising the tone of speech.

Sun Fuchun, who came in together, habitually aimed at the electronic screen on the wall, and the red numbers of his eyes raised his eyebrows. He turned left and turned to the first working area. The red figures show that the completion rate of the semi-finished products in the group from 9 to 10 in the morning is only 80%.

After half a minute with the group's long ditch, Sun Fuchun's brows began to spread. The problem is not big: the casual shoes made by this group are quite stiff, and the workers are very tired when they are sanding. Besides, there are still some problems with the new shoe technology. The team leader adjusted the team configuration to see if the output could be equaled in the next few periods. If not, then the adjustment would be made.

As a BELLE brand production manager, Sun Fuchun works every day between three floors and more than 10 lean production lines. It was put into operation in 2008, and Sun Fuchun worked as a manager from a skilled worker to witness the changes here.

The same production workshop used to be an endless pipeline. Next to the long tables at the end of the table, the workers sit on their own workstations, and the two sides are the same process: a sewing machine before the production line is split by the lathe operator, and a row of water bottles before the production line of the shoe upper. Everyone is a small part of a pair of shoes in nearly 100 processes, mechanically repeating actions.

Today, half of the workshop is divided into "U" worktables. More than a dozen workers in the three or four U districts constitute the new production unit here. The circuit track is suspended on the top of the head, and the device like module can be repositioned in accordance with the working procedures of different shoes. In the other half of the workshop, the spare parts and semi-finished vamp are packed in the partitions.

From the cutting, the skin, the fitting shoe upper, the lathe operator to split, the mold to stick the last, then to the glued sole, the polished and polished... A rough estimate is that a pair of leather shoes requires more than 50 major processes and more than 100 small processes.

In the past, to understand all the procedures, we need to go to the other door from the workshop gate to a few hundred meters away. Nowadays, we can see the birth of a pair of shoes through 4 U zones, but twenty or thirty meters away.

In the past, if the problem of large flow operation was discovered, it would be very likely that a batch of materials were out of order, and the working procedure was prone to backlog. After adjustment, team members can stop at any time. "The team leader must solve it quickly." Sun Fuchun said.

The way of sitting was also subverted. When sitting, the workshop is full of "hard work" scenes, and now employees can exchange and walk around.

At first, many people were unable to wear shoes because they were not able to adapt to standing operations and swollen legs. Today's employees even ridicule: "after adjustment, the legs are not swollen, and even the cervical vertebra problem is cured."

In this lean management production line, performance appraisal is also different from the past. There is no individual performance, only the whole group of work points.

Sun Fuchun can not give a specific figure soon for the group's single hour output, but he can quickly calculate the productivity of everyone according to the whole set of work points. "Everyone must work hard to improve the whole team's work, otherwise the average income will be affected." Sun Fuchun said.

The change of assessment methods is gradually stimulating employees' participation in optimizing production. Previously, in order to be able to fasten the zippers quickly and quickly, a team member even invented a tool ruler to share the whole group.

As a direct manager, Sun Fuchun's work has become more challenging. The arrival date of the upstream procurement of leather materials; the mobile capacity required for the new order, the replenishment sheet; the single team's all day completion rate; the performance of each team's work. More and more mobile numbers are pouring into his work. He needs to find out the source of problems behind every exception quickly, solve them in time, and give feedback to his superiors.

But there is no amazing robot legion, the imaginary full automation scene.

For example, the initial process of shoemaking -- cutting leather, still need manual use of knife mold, with the help of machine tremendous pressure, manually extruding a shoe material. In Sun Fuchun's view, the machine can not effectively identify the tiny defects on the leather, even if it can achieve the efficiency and accuracy of human eye recognition, input is not cost-effective compared with output.

The shoe is a non-standard product. The complexity of the process is that the sewing machine from sewing to leather, reinforcing the lining and sewing the zipper, the machine is far from the control of the shoe's radian, not to mention the technology of high dependability of the leather and the middle sole.

The operator should manually adjust the angle of the mold to clamp the leather, so that the leather can be attached to the shoe last to the greatest extent, and the shoe will be worn away after a moment of hot pressing. Every quarter of BELLE has hundreds of SKU (Stock Keeping Unit, stock measurement unit, usually referred to as item number in retail), involving various models such as square, round, pointed shoes, etc. it is not realistic to rely on machine replacement.

This seems to echo the original intention of BELLE CEO Zhang Lei. He once said in public that the society could not develop to the end that 1% of the people engaged in high technology earned most of the money, so that seventy or eighty of the ordinary people were divided into money. "We can not deprive these jobs because of high technology. The better way is to use high technology to enable more traditional enterprises to participate in the process of industrial innovation."

　 chain reaction

There is no doubt that the optimization and upgrading of the supply chain is a required choice for product design and R & D to deal with the rapidly changing consumer market. The latter undoubtedly is transmitting the pressure to the production line that Sun Fuchun manages.

"I urge the technology center urgently to provide standardized tooling for them, and urge suppliers of leather materials to hurry." In order to save time, Sun Fuchun ordered the supplier to provide the soles of the good car line. The moving line is a very troublesome process.

After several days of communication with Sun Fuchun, he got the goods before the delivery date. His 5 teams produced 10 thousand pairs of shoes in 10 days.

He recalled that two years ago, there was another scene: the working environment of the workshop was not good, and the production line began to be vacant frequently.

"You see, now that the ground has been renovated, the workshop is not as crowded as before, and it can also provide a special rest area." Sun Fuchun marveled at the magic of management. In the workshop, 80% was the original equipment, but the production process was adjusted, and the unit capacity increased.

The chain reaction triggered by the iteration is so fast that in the past two years, BELLE has not settled and combed itself. However, from the outside voice of the top floor, the outside world can still see the direction of this change: small step run, lean management and digital transformation are three key words that can not be ignored.

As early as 2009, Sheng Bai Chai once summed up the success of an enterprise in order to occupy the dominant position in which the objective profit can be sustained in the value chain. At that time, BELLE's "vertical integration" system enabled it to control the profits of every link in the industrial chain.

Then, the story of BELLE's late expansion is also well known to the public: from 2012 to 2013, department stores closed shop, lost the response to the adjustment of shopping center stores, the transfer of consumer scenarios and the failure of the electricity supplier to test the water.

Before the delisting in 2017, BELLE, the main brand of the group, has caught the danger signal: the fast changing consumer market has directly impacted the original product development and sales system.

In the past, the group organized four orders for the four seasons in a year. The retail area came to pick the goods. After the order was confirmed, the group agreed to organize production and sell.

"All the shoes were designed at the beginning of each quarter, and there were many changes in the next three months." Hu Bing's judgment was that the old road was blocked. In the transformation of the test water, in addition to design research and development and supply chain, iterative thinking directly subverts the strong planning of production organization.

Specific to the development of 400-500 SKU per quarter, the traditional way is to calculate the good proportion according to the categories of casual shoes, work shoes, elegant shoes and so on. The iterative method is to develop 100 SKU according to the total amount of the plan. The rest of the week is redesigned through the calculation and trapping of the trend trend, and after the small batch production is calculated, the products of the repercussion are eliminated, and then the design is redesigned.

In fact, this small step run is not only a requirement for front-end design, development and production line.

"The future of BELLE international will be dual core driven by brand and retail." The president of BELLE international footwear department and President of the new business department are behind the conclusion that the transformation of the product marketing system caused by the supply chain transformation is the result.

Previously, BELLE's product sales system was a single core driven mode dominated by regional retail channels. Now it has become a dual core mode driven by brand. Although the decision-making power is always controlled by the headquarters, the dominant position of the terminal is changed from the retail area to the goods at the ordering meeting. The relative "decentralization" state has become the leading brand brain of the headquarters, focusing on putting this more centralized mode according to the needs of the consumers.

In Hu Bing's view, centralization can only be achieved quickly. But in supply chain management, fast does not seem to be the only indicator. In the past, BELLE relied on a complete supply chain to guarantee a 20 day shipment for a shoe. Today, this figure has not been smaller because of this upgrading.

Lean management optimizes the specific links of production, but the time saved needs to go back to more essential problems. "Good shoes, good quality? Save time. The original leather surface is knocked down 50 times, and now it can knock 100. What we need is the matching of production cycle with front-end design and market demand, rather than producing enough shoes. " Hu Bing believes that the previous supply and demand relationship, the dominant mode of regional retail channels can quickly hit the rivers and mountains, but in the future, enterprises need to improve their internal management in order to achieve long-term development.

In the face of the focus of the headquarters, the sales mode of Direct stores that BELLE still insists on and how the offline retail network is targeted? Li Liangceng, BELLE's international executive director, summed it up as "data transformation in whole process", providing data toolkit to enable stores to find a more suitable service mode, which seems to be connected with the logic of "de centralization" in the Internet industry in Li Liang's view. Many specific practices, such as using RFID (electronic tag) technology to provide smart chips for shoes, and monitoring customer preferences according to data such as trial frequency and time, are also in an iterative attempt.

With the brand as the brain's mode, BELLE is realizing the "three links" and "one lot of goods" through online, offline, products, members and services. This year's double eleven period, BELLE group online and offline have gained over 25% year-on-year growth.

The conclusion is that under the premise of brand, product and line store experience assurance, online can be successful. Online is the extension of offline capability. "Online and offline integration can enable products to reach consumers in the shortest path. In the new era, it is particularly necessary to complete the transformation of integration under the empowerment of digitalization and intellectualization.

In the face of such a systematic project of transformation, Li Liang said they had no treasure map, only the general direction.

"Everything is clear and clear. It is the industrialization and not the Internet thinking. What BELLE needs to do is to discard industrialization thinking and try it out until it finds a way. " Hu Bing said.

In November 1st, the BELLE brand also did a brave thing: abandoning the logo 20 hundred years of red.

If BeLLE was once "beautiful", it would convey softness more. Today, the all black BELLE indicates that this brand will go farther and farther on the road to highlight individuality and cool.

The bigger BELLE group behind him is just like a black swan floating on the lake: the water is elegant and underwater.