As we cross into the new year, pausing for reflection is often the best time window. From the human need for dopamine, we always want to summarize something special; it seems only novelty can stimulate our nerves. Business is always a continuum interspersed with steps or breakpoints. As we dig deeper and deeper, we find that many things are essentially similar: when the overall situation is bad, there is much news but little novelty. Retail is a collection of multiple formats, markets, methods, and levels. Not all formats or enterprises face the same situation, and even the crux of a single problem may differ. There is no standard that can define all the complexity of the past. Therefore, it is difficult to find "one" summary that readers feel relates to them. We can only use an observer's perspective to organize fragmented insights and present as many characteristics as possible, so it must be multidimensional. Correspondingly, 2024 will surely be a continuation of old dimensions, differentiation, and the unfolding of new dimensions.
Macro Perspective: Economic Momentum Shifts, Savings High, Consumption Low—Short-Term Unlikely to Change, Retail's Overall Momentum Still Insufficient
In 2023, the macroeconomy achieved its growth target amidst twists and turns. Based on this, experts' forecasts for 2024 generally follow the central government's direction of "seeking progress while maintaining stability, promoting stability through progress, and establishing the new before abolishing the old." They list facts, express hope, and then predict an overall positive policy direction, but no one dares to be too definitive.
We believe in the existence of economic momentum from new energy, energy storage, hydrogen energy, biopharmaceuticals, smart driving, and national trends, but currently, these cannot compensate for the losses in real estate and exports, nor support new economic growth. China's macroeconomic momentum is currently in a cycle of shifting gears and accumulating strength.
The source of consumption power directly comes from residents' income expectations and income levels. Currently, consumption contributes about 40% to GDP, which is generally low. On the other hand, savings are very high, and we can clearly feel the disconnect between GDP growth and business sentiment. According to economist Xu Gao's view, the consumption and savings issue is related to China's redistribution economic model: A. In Western private ownership economic systems, asset appreciation, whether flowing to enterprises or residents, essentially pierces the corporate veil and ultimately converts into demand-side momentum. However, in China, due to the dominance of state-owned economy (51.5% of GDP in 2022), residents hold fewer corporate equities, leading to a lack of correlation between corporate profits and savings changes and personal wealth. This ownership structure and relationship prevent residents from directly seeing the savings of the corporate sector or fully enjoying the wealth effect from this appreciation. Therefore, for safety needs, residents tend to increase personal savings rather than spend. This leads to a persistently high total savings rate and insufficient consumption momentum. B. Since consumption is final demand and investment is derived demand, and corporate investment lacks constraints from the consumption sector, continuous investment leads to further oversupply on the supply side, and its marginal returns will inevitably decline accordingly. This affects investment confidence and further lowers income expectations.
Overall, at the macro level, national income does not sufficiently flow to the consumption sector, so household consumption is low; at the micro level, because residents do not own enterprises, corporate wealth and resident wealth are separated, and together they affect economic momentum. Therefore, in 2024 and beyond, if the mechanism for adjusting consumption and investment does not change significantly, and the pattern of wealth transfer from the corporate sector to the household sector remains unchanged, the split between macroeconomic and retail development sentiment will not change much. The source of retail momentum will hardly undergo qualitative change!
On the other hand, the Chinese market will show stronger "policy market" performance. The trend of the US and Western allies suppressing China will not change, China's vast market foundation and sufficient room for maneuver will not change, and national governance capabilities will also upgrade. But relying on oneself should be the biggest source of momentum the macro can give us.
However, this does not mean that at the micro level, all markets and enterprises will perform the same:
A. Cities and markets with a high proportion of private economy, large investment space, and active new industries will show greater vitality due to more efficient wealth transfer effects; B. From a demographic perspective, the new generation's willingness to consume will be higher, and there is still huge space for circle consumption and quality consumption; C. New supply such as smart driving, national trends, entertainment, sports, market sinking, and capacity transfer will have certain consumption expansion effects.
These reflect some structural benefits. It is very important to understand this long-term trend, control the drivers of consumption, and know the reasons behind it.
**Retail Enters a Stock Game: Low Growth, Intensified Competition, and ** Struggle for Value Chain Pricing Power Are High Probability Events
Judging by expectations and growth reality, retail has indeed entered a middle-aged game, a bottleneck period! 1. Macro expectations are met. In 2023, China's economy overall approached the preset growth target of 5%. In the first three quarters, GDP grew 5.2% year-on-year; in the first 11 months, CPI rose 0.3% year-on-year; consumption contributed 83.2% to economic growth. At the macro level, the target was achieved. In 2024, the growth rate will not be too large, and meeting expectations is also a high probability event. 2. The micro sentiment in the retail industry is full of difficulties. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, from January to November 2023, commodity retail grew 5.9%; among limited retail units, convenience stores, specialty stores, brand stores, and department stores grew 7.4%, 5.1%, 4.5%, and 7.7% respectively, while supermarkets fell 0.5%. For specific companies, Yonghui Superstores' revenue in the first three quarters of 2023 fell 12.44% year-on-year; RT-Mart's revenue in the period ending June 2023 fell 11.9% year-on-year; Suning.com's revenue in the first three quarters fell 12.39%... The reality is: macro growth and micro sentiment are split, and industry total and individual enterprise performance are diverging. If total volume grows but most companies see severe declines, it indicates that super categories or super sectors are driving the total, but we estimate that retail currently lacks such sectors; perhaps online live streaming and platform-driven growth count. This also means that in the macro structure, stock retail may already be a negative factor, or most formats are at an inflection point in the macro structure.
From the long cycle of human social history, stability and downturn are the basic state, while high-speed growth is rare and short-term. Like everyone's life, the crazy growth of youth may only be one-third, and most must face adulthood. So, the stock game is a very important positioning. It will at least reflect the following characteristics: 1) Total volume has boundaries: For example, the total number of formats, total sales scale, or regional capacity saturation; 2) Result feedback has a certain stable state: Unlike the earlier multiple or even dozens of times growth, under the stock state, the basic performance may be small growth or even negative growth, marginal benefits decline, and business strategies often fail; 3) Structural crowding-out effect: Competition among enterprises intensifies; under similar capabilities, quantity and individual scale are inversely proportional; incremental growth mostly comes from structural adjustment or limited share after competitors exit; 4) Center collapse and edge innovation intensify: In stock business, primary and secondary brands are relatively stable, market patterns change slowly, risk levels rise, and any change can be huge; but new small brands are light, constantly exploring and innovating, thus accumulating new increments for the industry, such as membership stores and discount stores. 5) Upstream and downstream value chain games are intense: Because horizontal expansion opportunities are few, industry enterprises mostly consider competing for pricing power with upstream and downstream, seizing each other's territory, and putting pressure on each other. Examples include private brands and source cooperation.
Of course, for any organism, survival and development are the first law, and hope may lie in the effort to break the stock game. Everything has a process from quantitative to qualitative change. 2023 or 2024 may still be in the process of accumulating quantitative changes.
This is our basic judgment, and this judgment defines expectations and may also define our subsequent action standards.
Structural Shift in Formats: Platform Giants, Super Individuals, and New Retail Forces Grow; Stock and Inefficient Retail Enterprises Continue to Deteriorate
If 2012 was the inflection point for offline retail, 2023 may be more like the inflection point for the entire retail industry. The three years of the pandemic delayed this node, but the post-pandemic scar effect also made 2023 show a violent shift.
1. Evolution of Platform Giants
Over the past decade, platform giants have always been in the spotlight, with news mostly about the powerful. But starting in 2023, giants also began to feel anxious; big companies seem to lack aggression. The internal memos from Alibaba and JD.com both reflected the ambition for change. After the glitz, incremental growth hit the ceiling, and the performance patterns of giants began to diverge. The discussion triggered by Pinduoduo's market value surpassing Alibaba seems like the beginning of the fate evolution of Chinese era giants. Reality seems to prove that wisdom logic > platform logic, service logic > selling logic, ecosystem logic > control logic, user logic > customer logic. Adhering to a platform-based, intelligent positioning and doing things within one's capability circle seems more enduring than being omnipotent. At the end of the year, Pinduoduo's "refund only" policy was followed by Taobao and JD.com. A small matter reflects the year's landscape; in the future, the balance may tilt further. Era enterprises rarely escape the fate of losing speed; the accidental contains the inevitable, and everything depends on the power of time.
Retail professionals should not just watch the drama from the sidelines. Today, most retail enterprises have relationships with platform giants. Choosing whom to partner with, how to use them, how to allocate resources, and what talent to absorb require us to understand platforms. The thinking of platform enterprises is always worth learning.
2. Super Individuals and New Retail Forces Grow
This is a phenomenon that has existed for many years, but compared to the difficulty of the year, the minority in 2023 is more worth mentioning.
This year, live streaming e-commerce fully upgraded to the main vortex of public opinion and human connection, with circle explosions. Li Jiaqi's apology, Xiao Yangge's slice distribution, and Dongfang Zhenxuan's essay incident: the live streaming circle evolved from crazy growth to hierarchical stratification. Super head anchors, head anchors, waist anchors, and small anchors finally welcomed the direction of normal values and upgraded professional thickness; PGC, team operations, and specialization will achieve some de-headification, and the proportion of waist anchors will increase, but the rare super individuals will still be the crown jewel. Douyin will be the king of an era.
Unlike previous years when online was dominant, in 2023, in the physical field, hard discount stores became a hard force in Chinese retail. Snack discount stores seem to have reflected the endgame of first-mover brands through strategic mergers, and discount or low-price retail is sweeping everything. Digging deeper, besides the price killer characteristics of these brands, we believe their growth is not only due to format dividends but also because these enterprises' organizations are light, simple, and therefore fast. We predict that in 2024, they still have huge space to transform and replace traditional inefficient retail stores, so they will continue to grow, but the problems brought by rapid expansion also need warning.
In addition, foreign membership stores, hypermarkets in lower-tier markets, scene collection stores that cater to emotional value, and experiential retail stores that follow efficiency and value principles, such as Pangdonglai, Yasi, Guilin Liyuan, Yuanchu, Dezhou Braised Chicken, Aotele, etc., will continue to grow in strength.
We don't know in which dark corner brands that adapt to new demands and provide new value will emerge. They are carrying out colorful edge innovations and quietly accumulating strength. The inspiration for most of us is that innovation can always be on the way; within our capability circle, find value that matches and exceeds user value. Incremental growth is definitely there!
3. Traditional Inefficient Retail Struggles
Saying hypermarkets are finished is somewhat biased. In the supermarket format, there are also many that have been reborn after transformation. Many hypermarkets in fourth- and fifth-tier cities are booming, so much so that some say it's not that hypermarkets are finished, but that your hypermarket is finished. Calling them traditional, like Carrefour, Walmart, Yonghui, RT-Mart... In recent years, they have done a lot in terms of product power, online, community, and private domain, so their actions are not traditional. Therefore, we can only say that the declining ones are those with aging organizations, aging products, decaying business models, and systemic operational problems. This is actually a capability system issue, not a format issue.
From the perspective of resident employment, the closure of large stores is always distressing; behind them may be dozens of families! What they deserve to inspire us is a warning about systemic stall. Many brands, once entering a downward channel, often enter a systemic stall channel, often beyond rescue. Many local state-owned capital entering only plays a buffering role from a social value perspective, but ultimately, they need a capability system to get ashore. But how difficult is that! Therefore, enterprises must guard against the chain of "market share decline → cash flow decline → systemic risk," which can lead to major problems such as fraud, capital chain rupture, and breach of contract. Risk certainly does not happen in a day. In 2024, there may be more such tragic cases, but we hope fewer.
Digging deeper, structural changes in stock formats are mainly influenced by the founder's vision and organizational efficiency. Online (giant differentiation) and offline (format differentiation) are all the power of organization.
Don't just watch the show; others and history can always be a mirror!
****Industry Technology and Organizational Innovation Broaden Business Connotations
Business has always been expanding in the dimensions of "more, faster, better, cheaper," but these words have their own era meanings and stage characteristics.
1. More: Precise "more" is a capability
In the early days of reform and opening up, in the era of shortage economy, having more products and services was a strategy. But in the current stage of abundant goods and services, we emphasize less, reducing SKUs, and having "moderation" is more efficient. In 2023, membership stores and discount stores generally had such requirements; but if there are too many discount stores on a street, whoever has more SKUs may have an advantage! In 2024, precise "more" should be a capability.
2. Faster: Depends on digital-physical integration
Next-day delivery, half-day delivery, hourly delivery, 30-minute delivery, and ultimately instant delivery. Considering physical and temporal constraints, instant retail is more realistic. It requires strong "digital-physical" integration capabilities and is also a direction for continuous breakthroughs in future retail. Currently, various intelligent applications, unmanned equipment, and smart terminals are constantly upgrading, and the "faster" strategy is continuously breaking through. But in 2024, the "faster" strategy will have difficulty making significant progress.
3. Better: Has rich levels and connotations
This is the value point with the most space, the richest levels, and the strongest era characteristics. After reform and opening up, we pursued quality and brands, then appearance, and then extended to meaningful, emotional, and circle value... The connotation and dimensions of "better" have been continuously enriched. In 2024, enriching the spiritual world remains a key direction.
(1) "New" is an important manifestation of "better"
A. Applying new technologies. For example, live streaming and store broadcasting may look similar to TV shopping, but from the entire value chain, live streaming is a significant leap in business form. Xiao Yangge's live room "earning 15 billion in a year," "online anchor Li Jiaqi's annual net income exceeding 93% of listed companies," "Dongfang Zhenxuan's 2023 performance explodes, revenue surges 651%"... Behind these hot news, what is more worth dissecting is the product selection logic, communication efficiency, cost logic, and data efficiency. This organizational energy will not easily disappear. In 2024, everything continues.
B. Achieving new combinations. In 2023, hard discount stores actually used new merchandising methods to leapfrog efficiency, from compressing supply chain water, competing for pricing power upstream, and improving operational chain efficiency. Of course, formats must optimize their system capabilities to last. In 2023, hard discount stores seemed to be in a capital year, with brands growing in the fast lane. 2024 may continue this process.
C. Adding new dimensions to the original business dimensions. Live streaming adds real-time feedback value to selling; Yasi adds scene experience value to shopping; instant retail adds time efficiency value to delivery. In 2024, physical retail will increase store broadcasting, strengthen community operations, and optimize services. It is important to understand where the essence lies.
D. "Better" also has a degree issue. In the original business dimensions, achieve ten times better quality and efficiency. In 2023, the student enterprises of the Lianshang Donglai Business Research Institute made comprehensive progress in the "better" dimension. This is a value worth learning from the entire industry. In 2024, the seeds of dandelion will spread more, and goodness will continue.
4. Cheaper: Rising to the theme of the era
Pursuing cost-effectiveness is the theme of 2023 and an unchanging theme in the retail industry. In 2024, this topic will continue, but new dimensions will definitely be added, such as better, more, and faster.
There will also be logical conflicts among these four elements. Many times, "more" affects "better," "faster" may affect "cheaper," and "better" and "cheaper" also have some real paradoxes. Business progress often leaps in a single dimension or by resolving paradoxes. For example, Pinduoduo, with "more" and "cheaper," continuously conquers "better"; JD.com, with "better" and "faster," also wants "cheaper." Any brand enterprise will more or less have two or three dimensions, but an enterprise that covers all four should not exist in 2024!
The above purely theoretical discussion connects people, goods, places, and data, which is our common dimension for judging the industry. That is, from which dimensions has the industry or enterprise significantly leaped the efficiency level of "more, faster, better, cheaper"? If yes, it represents growth; if not, it may represent decline.
Business has evolved to the current stage, and the industry has raised the basic threshold for "more, faster, better, cheaper." To break through on a single point requires more detailed work, which is a realistic difficulty. So, what is the "new," "more," and "better" for my format, my market, and my store? This determines our yardstick for viewing 2024 and also for measuring the future of 2024.
Describing these theories and comparing them with the actual performance of entities sometimes makes us feel somewhat ashamed. In many decaying hypermarkets, we see more on-site collapse: fresh food is not fresh, operations are not active, employees are powerless, operations are lying flat, and the whole is in a vicious cycle. Even some booming discount brands, developing too fast, have prominent problems such as out-of-stock, price issues, lack of SKUs, and insufficient service, and their foundations are still not solid. Behind this, it is clearly an organizational power issue. The worse the overall trend, the more simplicity is needed, and the less internal friction. Many retail organizations are buried in paperwork and meetings, online 24 hours a day, everyone works hard, employee happiness is poor, and organizations lack initiative. No matter how much capability or technology is talked about, it is empty talk.
Of course, each enterprise has its own reality, but for survival and evolution, without dimensional upgrades, there will be no growth in results. The waves behind drive the waves ahead, and new people emerge. In 2024, new technological forces, new formats, and new brands will continue to emerge, and we will still be in this bustling channel.
****Operational Logic Gathers Toward Simplification and Efficiency
In 2023, affected by international and domestic political patterns, capital investment in the retail industry also dropped sharply. Without capital transfusion, enterprises lack the backing to squander, and efficiency becomes an inevitable choice.
Labor efficiency, sales per square meter, cost efficiency, turnover rate, ROI, CVR... Retail has various specific indicators, which are the result of the collision of numerator and denominator. Therefore, the way retail returns to efficiency, whether in the same direction or negative direction, inevitably extends into many dimensions, such as labor efficiency:
Different dimensional actions have different effects and subsequent impacts. Enterprises have different resource endowments and values, so suitable strategies also differ.
In 2023, most enterprises chose internal optimization: layoffs, job consolidation, closures, and basic internal sorting. In 2024, there is much room to work on improving performance.
In the operational dimensions of real business, many financial indicators have boundaries, especially in physical retail formats. For example, cost efficiency: we cannot reduce costs to zero. In 2023, many enterprises overcorrected. In some stores, employees were almost halved. Whether the remaining employees do not complain and can take on tasks is important. It looks like efficiency optimization, but employee happiness, customer experience, and terminal capacity decline, which in the long run further lowers efficiency. Among these, there is an optimal inflection point for efficiency that enterprises need to explore. At the same time, there are losses between theoretical models and actual operations that need to be evaluated. For example, we set employees to be multi-skilled and multi-tasking, but if the requirements are too high, most employees cannot do it or do it poorly, and efficiency is fake. This point differs among enterprises due to different cultural momentum.
In 2024, if there is no major technological revolution, the efficiency situation may be like this. Enterprises that control the efficiency inflection point will bring real efficiency improvements; enterprises that fall into a vicious cycle may see efficiency decline further! We expect enterprises to improve efficiency through new understanding, new technologies, and new combinations. The efficiency foundation laid in 2023 will, in 2024, only be in relatively simple dimensions, focusing, being extreme, and going into deep water.
Simplification means reducing or correcting dimensions, returning to the original state of things, with less gimmicks and more sincerity. For example, marketing with fewer tricks, low prices to the end, extreme single products, focused service, and exchange management...
Capability Logic Surpasses Trend Logic Dominates Market Position** For Enterprises, Everything Has Come to the Time to Rely on Real Competence!**
From the logic of doing things, crossing the early stage of technology, shaving off the dividends of the era, and losing the push of capital, enterprises have truly reached the time to rely on their own abilities.
Returning to the essence of business, what is true capability? It is altruism, providing value, so business is all about altruism; it is altruism + efficiency, and everyone seems to be within the boundaries of efficiency; it is more comprehensive and systematic, and everyone seems similar; it is more detailed, product power... All these are needed, but looking at the situation in 2024, under the given difficulties, given systems, and given resource endowments, the ability to break the situation may be very important!
The environment is external, but the measures to deal with the environment are mostly internal. We say that most difficulties are caused by the entropy accumulation in the systems that enterprises have established, or even by the "knowledge barriers" of past successes. To have confidence in 2024, shouting slogans is useless. Enterprises need a new capable person, a breakthrough point, to pull the enterprise into a positive cycle. This turn must be made, just like Dong Yuhui for Dongfang Zhenxuan.
How exactly to turn depends on the specific actions of each enterprise to give the answer.
(1) Some need to improve the system: This is for those enterprises that expanded crazily before 2023. Most of their current difficulties may be due to deficiencies in their corporate genes; during development, they grew and partially compensated, but because they were fast and lacked sedimentation, their business elements have obvious shortcomings and need system capability upgrades.
(2) Some need to change the system: This is for those traditional systems. They need to break the situation, continue to shed historical burdens, and the core is to optimize the current efficiency system.
(3) Some need to improve skills. Especially for supermarket fresh food operations, community operations, processing technology, private brand quality control, and logistics chains.
(4) Some need to add technology. Technology has become the cornerstone of industry revolution; no AI, no application, marketing digitalization, and intelligence, but many retail enterprises have not even achieved basic digitalization and need to make up for it.
(5) Some need to strengthen operations. This is a different topic from management. Quite a few enterprises have no problems with organization, technology, and capability, but the management thinking in the retail gene is too heavy, so efficiency cannot come out. Such organizations need to replace management thinking with operational thinking.
...
Capability depends on organizational genes and also on the founder's cognitive genes. To judge the direction of enterprises in 2024, first look at the continuity of the enterprise, its pattern genes, reflection genes, and action genes; second, look at the founder's changes and team model. In the current era where business logic has been upgraded, if founders or business owners are willing to lower their posture, learn humbly, iterate and evolve, and translate this into pragmatic action efficiency within the enterprise, there is still hope. Self-closure, arrogance, and lying flat mean no hope! Learning and building a learning organization: everyone knows the concept, but not everyone has this awareness. There are many levels of difference between knowing, doing, and realizing.
For many companies, if they have done enough in the past but the results have failed, the most likely thing is not to continue to drill into a dead end, but to go in the opposite direction. Here, we need to judge whether our capabilities are truly close to the essence. Nadella said when leading Microsoft's breakthrough: "We all need to shift our attention from 'cool' to 'mission.' New technology is not cool; new value creation is cool!"
The breakthrough point is the core new value point.
From a capital perspective, whether investment institutions or entrepreneurs, in 2024, everyone is waiting for changes in valuation. The fundamental reason is that everyone's requirements for "value" have increased. Many investors now focus not on the future growth of the enterprise, but on whether there is a profit margin now. This is an essential change.
In 2024, enterprises with strong product power, service power, marketing power, and supply chain capabilities will emerge, and the market will further differentiate.
Emotional Consumption, Structural Shift, and High-End Opportunities Remain Unique
Only with capability can there be opportunities and room for growth.
Putting aside all models, technologies, and systems, retail services ultimately must be implemented in goods and services. Deeply cultivating users has always been the main direction. Looking at oneself from the user's perspective should be the most important way of thinking that all retail enterprises must persistently adhere to, but it is also the easiest to lose, dilute, and shelve.
Every year, there are trends. Some foresee trends, some catch up with trends, and some abandon trends. Trends often represent new increments, and the bottom of trends is new growth.
From the perspective of product power, new consumption growth points such as digital consumption, green consumption, health consumption, smart home, cultural tourism, sports events, and national trend products are more than 80% from new business forces; new demands such as immersive, shared, co-created, dynamic, interactive, and experiential are more than 80% targeting young people. All this inspires both supply and retail sides: be younger! Difficulty actually forces enterprises to innovate, follow trends, and practice craftsmanship.
Retail has always been an intermediary business: selecting, combining, and then transporting and delivering. This was the mainstream before 2022, but 2023 seems like a turning point. Retailers and suppliers are penetrating each other on a larger scale, starting to compete for value points and price bands. Retailers are cutting into private brands and building vertical supply chains, invading suppliers' value territory; suppliers are doing live streaming, expanding operations on platform e-commerce, and even opening direct stores. The game of the total value chain is generalizing, and everyone seems to be doing difficult but correct things.
In addition, China's digitalization will definitely continue to sink. Enterprise-side operations and overall maintenance need to be digitalized, and we will see more investment focused on the supply chain side. Digitalization penetrates from the C-end to the enterprise end, first software, then algorithms advancing to artificial intelligence, and then AI will be applied to machines. Enterprise operations and work methods will change dramatically, more software will be cloud-based, and supply-side efficiency will be higher.
Therefore, the focus points of both supply and retail will move toward each other's greatest value points. Meaning, emotion, replacement, and high-end still have unique opportunities. This is an opportunity on the supply chain side, naturally extending to retailers. But what exactly emotion, meaning, and high-end are, we do not know. We only judge that in 2024, this is still a strong wind.
Retail Enterprises' Breakthrough Points Need Investment, Core Forces Need to Be Consolidated, Continue to Adhere to Cash Flow First
Retail operations have many elements and are a complex system, but approaching the essence is often a simple thing. All trends are aggregated from enterprises in the industry. What does the surging trend have to do with me? What should I do?
Enterprises ultimately have their own way of living. Enterprises must acknowledge their continuity and rely on it. To deal with 2024, we still want to extract three points to emphasize:
(1) Increase investment in breakthrough points
In 2024, there is no money, it is so difficult, and we still need to invest? Absolutely! For enterprises like Bubugao, state capital entering is an investment, and Mr. Yu Donglai's guidance may be a more strategically significant investment. The more difficult the times, the more value investment is needed; the more long-term the impact, the more long-term investment is needed; for era elements, we need to invest following the times.
Is it cognition? Talent? Culture? Product power? Supply chain... In 2024, what is our own breakthrough point?
(2) Adhere to core force innovation and consolidate momentum
Being able to break the situation does not necessarily mean long-term competitiveness. The core of supermarkets is, first, organization, and second, products and services. Enterprises must identify their own business genes, have a core, and consolidate momentum:
A. Adhere to organizational self-evolution: In 2024, quite a few entrepreneurs are worth re-learning. No matter how great the past success, it means a ladder. The new challenges and problems currently faced require new evolution and learning. Either step aside or learn!
B. Adhere to self-upgrading in business content: If system performance enters a stall point and an irreversible continuous decline channel, it likely means that the brand enterprise's business content needs upgrading, because with the existing structure, if there were space, it should have been converted long ago.
C. Adhere to achieving efficiency advancement through technology: Including organizational design, operational technology, internet technology, AI intelligent technology, etc.
Business competition is a card game, especially offline. Often, as long as competitors do not die, competition continues. Online, the winner takes all, and this is even more so. The competitive landscape is often the organizational behavior of brands forming user minds. Enterprises are like people. In 2024, we need to change! Need to evolve! Need to persist!
(3) Adhere to cash flow first
This can only be a principle, a wish for enterprise operations. Sometimes, some extraordinary measures may be necessary. At the end of the year, Biyide's capital chain rupture warned many business owners, and the reality can only be managed by the bosses themselves. 2024 will be difficult, and it remains the baseline for enterprise survival and development.
Retail Professionals Persist in Personal Growth
Refuse Internal Friction, Embrace Relaxation
For people in the industry, most retail businesses are low-margin, hierarchical management. When enterprises are difficult, it is transmitted layer by layer, and personal pressure is often very high. A slightly larger retail company will have its own system. Individuals are just a link in the system. Regardless of position, there are always places beyond one's power. Do not lie flat, do your best, but it does not mean you cannot compromise. Wang Shuo said: "If life cannot change, I will change. No one can affect my mood!" This can be a guide for living through 2024. If you are unhappy and under too much pressure, jump if you have the opportunity; if not, choose to read, cultivate positive emotions, relax, and find meaning.
When times are difficult, it is a practice for enterprises and even more so for individuals. To live well in 2024, refuse internal friction and embrace relaxation.
In summary, economic momentum is shifting gears and accumulating strength. The situation of high savings and low consumption is unlikely to change in the short term, and retail's overall momentum remains insufficient. Retail has entered a stock game. Under this pattern, formats differentiate, edge innovation occurs, efficiency requirements increase, and capability dominates. Only then can there be opportunities for incremental growth and rebirth.
Of course, everything we say may be wrong. What each person has under their feet is the most correct.
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