In the face of economic downturn and the era of shrinking volume, brand owners and distributors are both thinking about how to reduce costs and improve efficiency, how to preserve existing markets and find new growth. Digitalization has become an unavoidable topic for both brand owners and distributors. Because digitalization can genuinely make information transparent, business online, business data-driven, and data business-driven, thereby driving operations through data and achieving cost reduction and efficiency gains. Today, digitalization is no longer a question of whether to do it, but has become a standard for enterprises. We have entered the deep water zone of digital infrastructure and operations, where every enterprise wants to build its own private digital assets. While brand owners and distributors are both building their own private digitalization, a new industry pain point has emerged: fragmentation, where data between brand owners, distributors, and stores cannot be connected. Because channel data is not transparent, marketing expenses that brand owners allocate to stores are easily intercepted by distributors. Manual expense verification is not only inefficient but also poses risks of human error and fraud. New products cannot be quickly promoted to terminal outlets, and distributors fear that new products may not sell well and become dead stock. Brand owners lack terminal channel data to support new product development, and they are in the dark about whether channel inventory is truly sold to end users or piled up in distributor or store warehouses. Brand owners are accustomed to the traditional deep distribution model of pushing inventory and stocking shelves, but they do not know the real channel inventory and sell-through data, operating completely blindly. Especially for mature large brands, a large number of salespeople are stationed at distributors to push inventory and stock shelves. In the face of the overall economic downturn this year, distributors' warehouses are not moving goods, and cash flow pressure is high, leading to significant production cuts and sharp year-on-year declines in performance for brand owners. At this time, brand owners particularly want to gain insight into channel data rather than see a false prosperity. To control channel data, brand owners use various means to connect with distributors. Currently, there are four main connection methods: Method 1: Strong control over distributors. Require distributors to use mainstream ERP systems like管家婆 (Guanjiapo) for their ERP. Advantages: Unified master data flow. Disadvantages: When distributors handle multiple categories, they will definitely use two ERP accounts, with real data in their own private account. The ERP provided by the manufacturer is only used to cope with brand owner verification and to claim promotional rebates and other expenses. Method 2: Strong connection with distributors. Use F2B2b2c channel integration digital systems to connect distributors, stores, and even consumers. Advantages: Integrated digital channel. Disadvantages: The brand's channel influence must be strong enough to promote it. Method 3: Weak connection with distributors. Use data extraction + data writing + DMS/DMC middleware, suitable for distributors operating multiple brands and categories. Advantages: Real-time data extraction and writing. Disadvantages: Need to address human issues (distributors' concerns about data security and interests). Method 4: Empowering large distributors. SBB + WMS/TMS, integrating business, finance, and distribution. Advantages: Empowering as a third party, alleviating distributors' concerns about credibility. Disadvantages: Brand owners need to pay or jointly empower distributors with third-party service providers, achieving indirect goals. Brand owners face the dilemma that channel data cannot be connected, and even when connected, the data is not authentic or real-time, putting them in an awkward position. Distributors themselves also expect to build their own private digitalization. How to achieve B2B+SFA+SCRM+ERP+WMS/TMS integration of business, finance, and distribution, integrating multiple systems, truly connecting front, middle, and back office, and connecting the supply chain upstream and downstream, to achieve cost reduction and efficiency gains and data-driven operations. However, due to the game of interests and data security, distributors both want to embrace brand owners and have to guard against them, fearing channel flattening, gridization, and marginalization by brand owners. How to crack the hard nut of digital integration between manufacturers and distributors? On August 21, at the 6th China FMCG Conference hosted by New Distribution, we specially invited some leading brand owners and digital service providers with practical experience in channel digital integration, 任我行快马科技 (Renwoxing Kuaima Technology), to discuss how to resolve the trust crisis among distributors, how to improve industry consensus, and how brand owners and distributors can each maintain their boundaries. You have me, I have you, forming a community of shared destiny, not just a community of interests, jointly solving the efficient collaborative channel digital supply chain system, and jointly responding to the path of united development in the era of shrinking volume. Everyone reached the following three major consensus on the difficulties of integration: 1. Human issues. To address distributors' concerns, brand owners need to change their mindset, shifting from the past "1" centralized strong control model to a "1+N" decentralized empowerment model. This includes signing data integration confidentiality agreements with distributors, offering higher rebate ratios for online data collection than offline reporting, empowering distributors with B2B+SFA+CRM+ERP+WMS/TMS integration of business, finance, and distribution, front, middle, and back office; empowering distributors through supply chain integration to expand product categories at low cost rather than pushing inventory; helping distributors with product selection and inventory management through data analysis, improving sell-through, and guiding distributors on how to conduct store promotions and sell-through services, genuinely solving distributors' trust issues, interest growth demands, and cost reduction and efficiency improvement and profit increase issues. These are the core motivations for distributors to willingly embrace and engage in long-term cooperation. 2. Industry experience. To achieve channel digital integration, it is necessary to find a credible third-party technology service provider to endorse the process, a third party that does not touch any data of brand owners or distributors, does not commercialize data, and each party maintains data security boundaries, thereby resolving the concerns of both brand owners and distributors and reaching consensus on manufacturer-distributor integration. The technology service provider must have served a large number of distributors, have years of ERP development and industry experience, and be a leading enterprise that fully understands the tens of thousands of fields and unwritten rules of ERP. 3. Technical difficulties. After solving human trust crises and industry data security boundaries, the final step is to have solid technical skills. Only enterprises with years of practical experience in integrating brand owners and distributors can solve this industry pain point. Data services include three important capabilities: data extraction, data writing, and DMC data middle platform (or DMS distributor management system). Facing the comprehensiveness of hundreds of ERP versions used by distributors, business accuracy, and data real-time performance, these require time and years of industry experience, having stepped on pits and cleared mines, truly representing industry credibility to solve the respective demands of manufacturers and distributors and promote healthy industry development. Data must be able to interact in real-time at the minute level, accurately understand the integration rules of tens of thousands of ERP fields of distributors, not only collect sell-out data to DMC or DMS, but also solve the problem of writing SFA or B2B data into ERP, which distributors like most. Truly help distributors achieve online-offline integration and real-time data, reducing the pain of manual data entry on both online and offline sides. Especially for distributors with high-frequency, low-value, large-volume orders daily, the service of writing online orders into ERP is deeply loved by distributors. At the closed-door meeting, brand owners reported that current channel digitalization methods either require distributors to unify ERP versions, use SFA to push deep distribution, or use data extraction services + DMS distributor management systems for control. Overall, distributor usage is low, data is inaccurate, and real-time is out of the question. The specific problem is that past approaches were control-oriented, from the brand owner's control perspective, not from the perspective of empowering distributors, so they cannot solve distributors' trust concerns, and naturally the promotion effect is poor. For example, most brand owners currently use SFA to drive channel sales. Manufacturers send personnel to station at distributors, using SFA systems for brand salespeople to help distributors expand stores and place orders on their behalf, then export orders and enter them into distributor ERP, and use SFA for store display and shelf promotion expense verification, order rebate verification, and field sales performance assessment. At this point, a problem arises: the brand owner's SFA and the distributor's ERP are not connected, so distributors need to manually export SFA order data and then enter it into their own ERP system. At the same time, most distributors represent multiple brands and categories, so they need to interface with multiple brand owners' SFA systems. This leads to a large workload for ERP entry due to responding to various manufacturers' SFA data uploads, forcing them to increase staff, which actually reduces efficiency and increases labor costs. At the meeting, COO Zhou of digital service provider Kuaima Technology shared that when they visited a large number of管家婆 (Guanjiapo) ERP users, they found that distributors often have multiple brand owners' SFA and other sales management systems installed on their computers. To cope with brand owners' expense execution, they only use SFA to report data when brand owners conduct assessments. In daily work, they use their own ERP for inventory and financial management, and use their purchased管家婆快马数字 (Guanjiapo Kuaima Digital) B2B marketing management system for order placement. This leads to unresolved pain points for brand owners, such as inaccurate and non-real-time channel data, imprecise expense allocation, and unclear channel sell-through. Zhou shared that among the dozens of leading brand owners they serve, nearly half of the downstream distributors use管家婆 (Guanjiapo) ERP, as well as other SaaS ERP systems like用友 (Yonyou) and金蝶 (Kingdee). Different customers, based on their actual situations, use four connection methods: strong control with unified promotion of管家婆 (Guanjiapo) ERP, strong connection with F2B2b2c, weak connection with QCT data writing + extraction + DMC empowerment, and joint empowerment of large distributors with logistics companies and financial payment companies using SBB+ERP+WMS/TMS business-finance-distribution integration solutions, each with pros and cons. Currently, more brand owners realize that weak connection and strong empowerment is a more acceptable approach for distributors. Through Kuaima Technology's more than ten years of Quanchengtong DMC capability, they have connected multiple brand owners' SFA/B2B systems and hundreds of ERP series from over a hundred vendors, achieving three core capabilities: data writing, data extraction, and DMC data middle platform. This solves both the distributors' desire for B2B/SFA+ERP+WMS/TMS business-finance-distribution integration, eliminating manual order entry and information silos, truly empowering distributors to become digital distributors, and also solves the brand owners' need for weak connection with distributors. The original intention is to empower distributors, giving them the authority to decide which fields, categories, and brands to share, allowing distributors to make their own data sharing settings, and handing the initiative to distributors. This way, brand owners only obtain data related to their own brand as agreed with distributors. Only when distributors' trust issues are resolved can brand owners accurately gain insight into channel data, expense and rebate verification, and channel deep cultivation. In this way, brand owners and distributors can ensure the feasibility of manufacturer-distributor integration from multiple aspects such as trust crisis, data security, collaboration boundaries, and technical experience. Currently, more and more brand owners are transitioning from the past "strong control" model to today's "weak connection, strong empowerment" model, jointly embracing the challenges of business downturn in the era of shrinking volume. Finally, CEO Chen of New Distribution summarized that this meeting was a new achievement in exploring the industry challenge of manufacturer-distributor integration in the deep water zone of digitalization. Such discussions are very valuable, and we look forward to more brand owners coming to exchange ideas on how to jointly solve industry pain points and create a new ecosystem and new pattern for the digital collaborative development of FMCG manufacturers and distributors.