From August 20-22, at the 'Digital Operations Practice' forum of the 2024 6th China FMCG Conference, Zhang Huan, CEO of Shanghai Yishupan Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. and CTO of Heyin Network, attended as a guest and delivered a keynote speech titled "Digital Intelligence Empowers 'Heartbeat, Instant Gratification' New Retail." Mr. Zhang has years of experience in major internet companies and entrepreneurship, focusing on industry digitalization and intelligent construction. He possesses excellent business experience in e-commerce, O2O, and content platforms, as well as outstanding product design and R&D capabilities in B2B, B2C, data, and strategy. He has led SaaS tools with millions of customers and designed and implemented data intelligence solutions for multiple industries. New Distribution has compiled Mr. Zhang's insightful speech for our readers (with some deletions).

New Changes in Retail The three years of the pandemic catalyzed and accelerated the development of instant retail. After the pandemic, users formed the habit of ordering at home and having riders deliver goods to their doorsteps, and this user mindset has been established. The instant retail industry needs to return to healthy growth and the essence of business. Currently, this business has shown a healthy growth trend, but the problems of traditional industries or channels remain unresolved. At the same time, many intelligent technologies, such as AI and large models, have emerged, providing additional support for the development of the instant retail industry. Let's analyze the changes among several players in the platform ecosystem. First, platforms. For example, Meituan, Ele.me, and JD Daojia have begun to establish "warehouses," such as flash warehouses and front warehouses, to better aggregate traffic and improve fulfillment capabilities. Therefore, platforms tend to favor this warehouse model. Second, retailers. For instance, supermarkets are increasingly embracing the O2O model by developing their own mini-programs and conducting traffic operations on various platforms. The main advantage of this approach is the ability to integrate online and offline traffic and effectively manage private domain traffic strategies. Third, distributors. Currently, many distributors have their own ordering malls, but how to better manage small stores and help them operate better on O2O platforms like Meituan and Ele.me is actually an opportunity for distributor friends. Finally, for brands, the market always has peaks and troughs. Brands must ultimately return to brand value itself; blindly pursuing low prices and white-label products does not align with the industry ecosystem. The existence of the O2O model allows us to conduct deeper and more granular management and operations of supply and operations, which is also an important opportunity for the instant retail industry. Currently, many people have very different understandings of instant retail. As an early participant, Mr. Zhang believes that instant retail originally evolved from food delivery, being just a subcategory of delivery. Food delivery covers offline restaurants, while instant retail covers offline retail stores. Taking Meituan as an example, nearly 60% of its stores are mom-and-pop shops, but it also includes KA or CVS convenience store chains, as well as new supply (such as flash warehouses). These are all fulfillment formats for instant retail. Instant retail and e-commerce are complementary, not substitutes, as they meet the consumption experience needs of different consumers in different formats. Online instant retail adopts e-commerce tactics, still allowing advertising, coupon distribution, and various promotional activities. However, on the fulfillment side, it leans more toward offline methods, requiring goods to be distributed to various small stores and supermarkets to complete fulfillment. Therefore, the overall complexity of the business has increased.

What is Digital Intelligence? Digital intelligence encompasses many concepts. The academic terms often heard, such as digitalization, onlineization, and intelligentization, all fall under the category of digital intelligence. Simply put, these concepts have a progressive relationship: first, digitalization must be achieved, then onlineization, and finally intelligentization. In other words, first, everything must be connected to data, then online operational management can be achieved, and ultimately intelligent decision-making. Taking smart cars as an example, there are generally four key points.

  1. Collection. Smart cars have numerous sensors, including laser, camera, and various radar sensors. Their main purpose is to retrieve data, i.e., collection.
  2. Decision-making. Smart cars need a powerful processor to perform various real-time data processing.
  3. Execution. Even if the strategy is excellent and the collectors are advanced, basic elements cannot be ignored, just as vehicles need chassis, wheels, and steering wheels; these are indispensable.
  4. Review. Only through continuous experimentation and simulation can autonomous vehicle technology be substantially improved and perfected, becoming more reliable. Only when we have a complete system of collection, decision-making, execution, and review can we meet the basic requirements of digital intelligence.

How Digital Intelligence Empowers New Retail Yishu Intelligent has proposed the concept of RTM 2.0 for all-domain new retail. What are the biggest changes compared to traditional RTM? First, deep integration with O2O. Taking O2O as an opportunity, it is embedded into the distribution system. A data-driven approach is adopted to build an RTM based on data and strategy, achieving very fine operational granularity. Second, by managing the handles of salespeople, sales representatives, and special channel distribution, control over the entry of entire stores or products into the market is achieved. Third, providing deep operational services to stores. For example, activity operations and points growth systems bring successful operational strategies from platforms like Meituan into ordering malls, thereby driving continuous merchant growth. A hybrid model combining offline visits with online continuous incentives and operations drives sustained business growth. Fourth, O2O linkage. After consumers place orders on Meituan, small stores are responsible for delivering goods. Through O2O platform linkage, it ensures that distributed products continue to generate sales after arriving at stores. This way, small store owners will have continuous retention and repurchase intentions for brands, distributors, and products. With rich industry experience, Yishu Intelligent has proposed a comprehensive all-domain new retail solution. First, brand consulting. Yishu Intelligent can provide overall brand consulting services from perspectives such as brand building, marketing, brand mindset, brand love, and even investment and financing. Second, all-domain data analysis, diagnosis, and insights. It can complete all-domain analysis, diagnosis, and insights from different perspectives, including sales diagnosis, supply-demand diagnosis, attribution analysis, and scenario diagnosis, based on multiple indicators and dimensions. Finally, in distribution, marketing, and sales promotion, a model combining intelligent tools and services supports the implementation and iteration of the entire business plan. At the same time, detailed data after implementation is reviewed and diagnosed to continuously adjust and optimize brand strategies. Yishu Intelligent has also developed a comprehensive product matrix for the long-term development of the all-domain new retail industry, ensuring that the entire solution can be smoothly implemented and successfully empower brand business development.

1. All-Domain Cockpit It is not just a BI intelligent data dashboard for the O2O new retail industry, but also includes attribution models, strategic dashboards, and AI analysts. The attribution model adopts Amazon's advanced data indicator management philosophy, dividing indicators into intervenable input indicators and output indicators, ensuring they can be connected to business or operational actions, helping business partners build their business models, and achieving business monitoring and diagnosis with minimal indicators. At the same time, according to management needs, Yishu Intelligent has designed PC and mobile data dashboards, allowing managers to understand the overall business situation in real time and efficiently adjust business strategies. Additionally, AI analysts use large model methods to replace some traditional temporary daily basic work, allowing them to have more energy for business insights and analysis.

2. Supply-Demand Compass The Supply-Demand Compass can achieve street-level granularity monitoring of online and offline supply, including demand and scenario insights. For example, it can determine whether the late-night snack scenario or afternoon tea scenario is more popular at different stages, and propose a supply-demand diagnosis model based on this. Yishu Intelligent will establish a complete supply-demand diagnosis model for brands or distributor friends. Finally, these diagnostic results are linked with crowdsourcing tasks and new store expansion tasks.

3. Merchant Plan Simply put, it uses internet strategies and tactics, such as growth systems, points incentives, and activity operations, to fully integrate the ordering malls of distributors or brands themselves. This reduces reliance on traditional offline BD visits, completes more online expansion and business growth, and achieves significant improvements in operational efficiency.

4. Smart Investment Cube It mainly supports marketing and sales promotion services for instant retail, such as RTB advertising, O2O activities, activity expense consumption & effect analysis, etc. Through the Smart Investment Cube tool, it is fully possible to achieve advertising and intelligent placement, continuous analysis and monitoring of scenarios, and social listening monitoring. It is worth mentioning that Yishu Intelligent has optimized coupon strategies on the platform, integrating coupon distribution and strategies into product functions to provide partners with a better service experience.

Brand Digital Intelligence Example How to use digital intelligence capabilities to monitor brand power? Yishu Intelligent has developed a methodology and implementation tools for quantitative analysis and monitoring of brands. Taking a certain tobacco and alcohol brand as an example, first, it is positioned as a hero personality brand, conveying a trustworthy and reliable image to consumers. Quantitative analysis can start from several aspects. First, hero personality brands tend to use cool color schemes. Second, hero personalities must use trustworthy copy or messaging. By continuously polishing and monitoring these elements, it ensures that the brand's personality attributes do not deviate from the original intention and can clearly convey a personality attribute to consumers. Additionally, by monitoring brand love, the number of loyal fans, and consumer loyalty, the brand's influence can be further quantified. Second, introduce platform gameplay to help brands refine product tools. Through several core functions, such as online ordering, online and offline activity operations, and points growth rights design, various linkages with brand private domains are made to provide better support and services for distributors and stores. Yishu Intelligent uses a complete methodology of one-code-one-product, traffic attraction and seeding, and repurchase fission to achieve continuous operations for retailers. Retailers also use this tool to efficiently manage 150,000 terminal stores nationwide. Finally, Mr. Zhang concluded that "any business cannot do without the support of the ground team." In O2O business, successful fulfillment and ensuring customer experience cannot be achieved without the hard work of the offline team. Meituan currently has a cumulative total of over 10 million merchants, covering both food and retail sectors. However, Meituan only has about 10,000 BD personnel, meaning each BD needs to be responsible for over 1,000 stores. Without effective tools and refined strategies and tools, this would be difficult to achieve. Currently, Meituan has achieved industry benchmark level in managing offline teams. Yishu Intelligent has also borrowed this concept, using public sea and private sea mechanisms and BD task incentive systems to effectively manage offline teams, helping distributors and brand partners better manage offline business.

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