---
title: "Finding the Password to 'Resilient Growth' in the New Normal of Uncertainty"
description: "In the new normal of uncertainty, companies must focus on details while keeping the big picture in mind, aiming to create long-term value. By cultivating organizational culture, capability systems, and resource systems, they can truly navigate cycles and build lasting competitiveness for resilient growth."
author: "Foodaily"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2022-06-13"
language: "en"
canonical: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/finding-the-password-to-resilient-growth-in-the-new-normal-of-uncertaint-fc0da528/"
markdown: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/finding-the-password-to-resilient-growth-in-the-new-normal-of-uncertaint-fc0da528.md"
original_source: "https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/gIrrSWwppuH3_P1gXgFaiw"
translation: "https://xinjignxiao.com/zh/articles/%E4%B8%8D%E7%A1%AE%E5%AE%9A%E6%96%B0%E5%B8%B8%E6%80%81-%E5%A6%82%E4%BD%95%E6%89%BE%E5%88%B0-%E9%9F%A7%E6%80%A7%E5%A2%9E%E9%95%BF-%E5%AF%86%E7%A0%81-fc0da528.md"
attribution: "New Distribution — https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/finding-the-password-to-resilient-growth-in-the-new-normal-of-uncertaint-fc0da528/"
usage_policy: "https://xinjignxiao.com/ai-policy.txt"
---

# Finding the Password to 'Resilient Growth' in the New Normal of Uncertainty

> In the new normal of uncertainty, companies must focus on details while keeping the big picture in mind, aiming to create long-term value. By cultivating organizational culture, capability systems, and resource systems, they can truly navigate cycles and build lasting competitiveness for resilient growth.

“ _Keep an eye on details, keep the big picture in mind, aim to create long-term value, and cultivate organizational culture, capability systems, and resource systems to truly navigate cycles and build lasting competitiveness for resilient growth._

This year, the multi-point outbreaks of the pandemic have had a significant impact on the food and consumer goods industry. However, if we take a longer-term perspective and maintain a calm mindset, the pandemic may just be a microcosm of the new normal of uncertainty.

In the course of business operations, crises are inevitable, especially given our highly volatile external environment. From the Russia-Ukraine war to trade tensions, as China strives to ascend to the world's largest economy, it will inevitably face more threats and challenges. Crisis will become the new normal.

But every crisis may provide companies with a good opportunity for introspection and reflection. In an era of high uncertainty, how should companies cultivate their internal strengths and enhance their ability to withstand crises, thereby achieving resilient growth through crises?

On June 5, Foodaily and Shixin Bu'er Research Institute jointly launched a closed-door seminar titled "Navigating Crises, Resilient Growth," inviting seasoned brand experts, chairmen of listed companies with global vision and experience across multiple economic cycles, leaders who achieved counter-trend high growth during the pandemic, outstanding leaders of China's new brands, and decision-makers focused on consumer sector investment to discuss strategies for the food and beverage industry under the new normal of crisis.

Synthesizing the forum's viewpoints, companies can plan for the short, medium, and long term: in the short term, flexibly adjust market strategies and resource allocation to quickly respond to fluctuations and turn crises into opportunities; in the medium term, fill capability gaps and enhance both software and hardware strengths; in the long term, prepare in advance and lay out blue-ocean markets early. Keep an eye on details, keep the big picture in mind, aim to create long-term value, and cultivate organizational culture, capability systems, and resource systems to truly navigate cycles and build lasting competitiveness for resilient growth.

******New and Established Companies: Resilient Response to Crises**

Professor Cao Yangfeng defined "organizational resilience" as "the ability of a company to restructure organizational resources, processes, and relationships during a crisis, recover quickly from the crisis, and leverage the crisis for counter-trend growth." He summarized that organizational resilience includes strategic resilience, capital resilience, relational resilience, leadership resilience, and cultural resilience.

During the discussion, we found that whether it's young new brands or seasoned established companies, they have all shown strong signs of organizational resilience in the face of the pandemic.

**New Brands Flexibly Respond, Break and Restructure Strategies**

In Shanghai, the epicenter of this pandemic, OATLY has more than half of its business operations, and its suppliers, warehouses, logistics providers, headquarters, and employees are all in Shanghai, meaning a significant portion of OATLY's business was affected. However, in the sharing by David Zhang, President of OATLY Asia, he mentioned that growth in April and May this year far exceeded expectations. What did OATLY do right?

**1) Identify problems and adjust quickly.** After the management team realized the issues, they considered several points. First, they adjusted their grand goals to short-term survival. Second, they quickly adjusted strategies according to this goal. Third, they fully tapped their own potential.

**2) Transform strategies and rebuild three major balance systems.** In February and March this year, when the pandemic fluctuated nationwide, OATLY keenly and accurately judged the demand for home scenarios, strengthened the retail team, and enhanced O2O layout.

At the same time, they launched new products like ice cream and tea drinks that enhance "happiness," achieving a balance between foodservice and retail, online and offline, and first-tier and non-first-tier cities, bringing short-term incremental growth and long-term full-model benefits to the brand.

**3) Business for good: brand values drive positive energy from the inside out.** OATLY has always adhered to values of nutrition and health, trust and transparency, and sustainable development.

Practicing the concept of "business for good," OATLY joined hands with all sectors of society to donate oat milk to volunteers on the front lines, medical institutions, universities, and closed communities. With the idea of serving the community and helping solve urgent problems, OATLY launched community group buying and mobilized employees to serve the community with their own efforts.

The pandemic has set many unknown turning points on the plant-based milk track. OATLY's oat milk breakthrough has revealed the power of its brand, providing a successful case for the recently struggling food and beverage industry.

In the face of uncertainty, we cannot really predict what challenges lie ahead. What we truly need to do is comprehensively enhance our "basic capabilities" and grasp more "initiative." Core competitiveness is the hard strength of a company.

**Established Companies Focus on Community Ecosystem Layout, Accumulate Strength for a Comeback**

Under the pandemic, community group buying has become an emerging model, also prompting companies to further think about community scenarios. According to data from the Ministry of Commerce, China has about 190,000 communities, including about 500 million households; there are over 54 million supermarkets and convenience stores around communities, and 70% of future consumption will focus on the last-mile living circle around communities.

The large-scale outbreak of community group buying during the pandemic has given companies a taste of success, but new retail companies like Lai Yifen have long established an ecological value chain around family life services in the Shanghai area through deep community ecosystem construction. Under the pandemic, this deep community value chain played a huge role, ensuring stable operations and efficient, timely fulfillment.

**1) Return to the source: user-oriented corporate layout.** Lai Yifen's chairman, Shi Yonglei, pointed out that user orientation is the golden rule upheld by Lai Yifen, with the key indicator being the number of effective users. Around this golden rule, Lai Yifen proposed a community-centric family life platform layout, building an omni-channel system through internal and external ecosystems, offline and online coordination, and internal touchpoints linked with external resources.

**2) Serve the community with stores as units.** Lai Yifen has 1,500 stores in Shanghai, covering basically all communities in Shanghai. Each store manager is also a community leader, and their operations are not limited to generating revenue in the store but also serving the needs of various scenarios in the community and studying how to connect more closely with users.

Stores provide service scenarios through breakfast, lunch, and dinner time dimensions, and online through APP and WeChat groups effectively combined with store operations to further serve the community. Lai Yifen has now formed an efficient linked grid system of districts, urban areas, community leaders, and group leaders, enabling orderly fulfillment even under high uncertainty.

**3) Strengthen backend system construction.** In addition to channel construction, system construction is also a core competitiveness that Lai Yifen insists on, and it supports Lai Yifen's development towards omni-channel. Lai Yifen has built a collaborative platform with backend suppliers and partners, linking various resources with systematic digital capabilities to jointly build a family life ecosystem platform.

**Experience from Famous Companies: Both Companies and Organizations Must Maintain Resilience and Flexibility**

Business operation is not a one-day affair but a long-term endeavor. Cultivate internal strength during crises and seize opportunities when they come. Wei Junxian (Chairman of the Board of Dachan Food Asia), an executive with experience leading major companies through unknown challenges, shared several thoughts and suggestions on how companies can resiliently navigate crises from the perspectives of business operations and organizational management:

1) Always pay attention to cash flow; the primary task is to survive.
2) The harsher the environment, the more you need to return to the essence and think clearly about what is your strongest competitive capability and what is your core value proposition. Focus limited resources on core competitiveness and achieve breakthroughs at a single point.
3) As a company leader, first maintain physical and mental health to withstand pressure; second, unifying thoughts is also an important task. When truly facing difficulties, how to make the team confident in the future, customers confident, investors confident, and capital providers confident—leaders need this influence.
4) From a management perspective, a flatter organization is more helpful, allowing frontline opinions to be heard.

******Introspection and Targeted Capability Gap Filling**

The pandemic is a major test of capability systems for companies, especially for new brands. From the 0-1 stage, if a brand's long board is sharp enough, it has the opportunity to quickly complete 0-1, but from 1 to 10, and 10 to 100, companies need to continuously fill gaps in supply chain, brand building, organizational coordination, and management.

The repeated pandemic has, to some extent, inspired many new brands to slow down from a fast pace, introspect, take a longer-term view of the brand's reasonable growth path, and gradually build the brand's foundational moat with the end in mind, creating long-term resilient growth guidance.

Lu Xiuqiong (Bain, Global Expert Partner) summarized the capabilities that new consumer brands need to cultivate as the "Five Hearts."**

**1 Don't forget the original intention.** Ask yourself the soul-searching question: What was your original intention when starting the business? **2 Focus on the core.** Focus on core products; less is more; learning to do subtraction is actually the hardest. **3 Omni-channel ambition.** The reshaping of channel and traffic structures allows brands that truly create consumer experience and trust to achieve omni-channel growth. **4 Supply chain craftsmanship.** Controllable R&D material selection, deep equity participation, and aggregation of multiple factories continuously iterate the supply chain. **5 Scenario patience.** The secret to growth in the entire food and beverage industry lies in high-frequency, rigid demand; find the most suitable scenario and quickly build consumer habits.

**Supply Chain Is a Path That Brands Must Take for Long-Term Operation**

A basic feature of new consumer brands is that they can quickly complete the 0-1 validation process with a sharp entry point. But all products and brands that can persistently navigate cycles must ensure supply chain stability. In the future, China's mass consumption will still be dominated by cost-performance.

Future competition will be between stable models of supply chain efficiency, cost, and quality, and the ability to sustainably create hit products.

China's food supply chain is not yet mature, and the division of labor in the industry chain is not fully formed. Relationships are still adversarial and competitive. Achieving win-win supply chain cooperation through simple OEM is very difficult. If supply chain controllability is too weak, R&D value will diminish, and brands will be exposed to attacks from giants.

How can new brands systematically build a supply chain system step by step? Zhou Weiping, founder of a1 Snack Research Institute, said they iterate supply chain construction in three stages: ODM, joint ventures, and aggregated factories.

The first stage is the ODM stage, where controllable R&D technology and raw material supply are kept in their own hands. At this stage, they mostly choose foreign-invested export-oriented enterprises that have been educated by high standards of overseas products for many years. But when the brand reaches a certain scale, this model shows defects and bottlenecks.

The second stage, a1 takes the joint venture equity participation route, participating in about 7-8 factories, and these joint venture factories use 100% of their capacity to supply the brand. The advantage of this model is that it forms a completely interdependent and loyal back-to-back relationship with the factories, ensuring stable supply without worrying about the risk of core technology leakage.

The third stage, with horizontal category expansion, problems such as aggregation, team, and quality control under the multi-factory model begin to surface. The founder of a1 revealed that in the 3.0 stage of the supply chain, they will attempt to use digitalization to connect production and sales ends to create a super factory, integrating dozens of production workshops, turning the vertical supply chain into horizontal division modules, and centralizing industrial control, warehousing, distribution, procurement, and HR modules into shared services.

**Omni-channel Exploration Helps New Consumer Brands Achieve Deep Reach and Conversion**

A single online or offline channel is no longer sufficient to support brands in achieving deep reach and conversion. Brands must expand omni-channel scale on the basis of original channels, launch comprehensive three-dimensional attacks on consumers with dense touchpoints, and actively explore more precise and segmented channel and traffic models.

After the online traffic dividend peaked, offline has become a must-fight traffic value depression. Zhang Tianyi (CEO of Baman) pointed out that China has experienced more than 10 years of rent increases, but this year saw a turning point with rent declines, and offline stores may see a round of traffic dividends.

Some consumer brands have already turned their attention to the omni-channel layout of online + offline, reshaping the overall channel and traffic structure to allow brands that truly create consumer experience and trust to achieve omni-channel growth.

Wang Xiaolu, which started on the internet, began large-scale distribution to KA stores, convenience stores, and mom-and-pop shops, increasing penetration of offline channels and returning to the marketing model of big brands and big channels.

Zhenwei Xiaomeiyuan leveraged emerging models like community group buying. During the pandemic, the brand reached nearly 2,500 communities in Shanghai through community group buying, achieving rapid brand promotion and customer acquisition, and through KA channels like Hema and JD.com and offline self-operated stores, completed conversion of natural traffic, significantly increasing PSD. At the same time, the brand also made efforts on Douyin short video platforms, achieving high-frequency brand awareness through online-offline linkage.

Xiaoxiandun uses online to broadly attract new customers and enhance influence, and opens offline stores for deep user communication, experience, and education, greatly improving operational efficiency and quality.

Baman's practical exploration extends from restaurant stores to food retail channels, using stores to occupy offline traffic nodes, reducing brand marketing costs, and conversely, when expanding to surrounding supermarket shelves, the sell-through rate is higher.

**Organizational Iteration and Upgrade: Enhancing Soft and Hard Strength**

In the stages from 2 to 10, and future 10 to 100, organizations need continuous iteration and optimization.

A good organization is actually fighting against human inertia, removing various noises in corporate culture, maintaining efficient collaboration, self-driven values, correct atmosphere, and being full of vitality rather than rigid. This requires brands to gradually build high-quality combat teams with common value propositions through repeated trials.

At the same time, "sharp tools make good work." The application and layout of tools such as digitalization also need continuous iteration and upgrade to synergistically enhance the organization's soft and hard strength.

**Accumulate Brand Assets and Build a Mental Moat**

Looking back at domestic food new consumer brands, many may harbor the vision of becoming "the next Coca-Cola, Nestlé, or Mars." Indeed, strong brands are the most important capability to resist economic and pandemic risks. Brand building is the most important investment for medium- and long-term resilient and effective development.

But brand power requires long-term persistence and accumulation. Only by building a clear brand asset path can a strong brand moat be formed over a long cycle.

How to become a high-quality, sustainably growing brand that can navigate cycles? Wang Xing of Kantar shared three lessons that brands must cultivate:

1) Make brand ideals bigger. Don't just focus on yourself, but make consumers' lives better, society better, and the world better. In the past 12 years, brands with good brand ideals and active practice have grown at a rate of 212%, far exceeding ordinary brands.
2) Full-chain innovation to achieve innovation that consumers can perceive. Innovation and the sense of innovation are two different things. If consumers don't perceive innovation, the meaning of innovation is zero. The sense of innovation not only comes from product innovation but also from starting from the core product, creating innovation from the front-end business model to the back-end experience chain, and continuously investing in end-to-end innovation.
3) Balance of brand and performance for sustainable growth. Building strong brand power requires maximizing overlap at different touchpoints, achieving synchronized or even superimposed delivery, and achieving creative synergy. 55% of marketing effectiveness is determined by creative content. Whether in the era of television or today's live streaming era, content power is crucial for building brand assets.

**Prepare in Advance: Examining New Consumption Opportunities in Change**

The pandemic has had a huge impact on consumption scale, but it has also triggered changes in consumer emotions, lifestyles, and even longer-term fields and demographic generations, bringing new consumption habits and market expansion opportunities.

Wang Xing pointed out: "Difficult times define opportunities." In uncertain times, consumer changes accelerate. This period may be a good time for brands to sow seeds of opportunity.

**1) Emotional changes under crisis: What are consumers paying attention to?**

Kantar's April consumer survey data shows that global consumers are most concerned about inflation. Rising living costs will cause 49% of global consumers to change their lifestyles. 72% of global consumers consider war the most worrying issue. In Asia, including China, 55% of consumers feel anxious about repeated outbreaks.

Wang Xing suggested that brands need to pay attention to these emotional changes, starting from close scenarios like life, family, community, and country, to provide consumers with comfort, security, and certainty. In terms of specific changes in consumption demand, several keywords were mentioned at the forum:

**1 Cost-performance.** Under life pressure, wallets need to be tightened; products must be worth the money, good quality and cheap. Gao Hongqing (Founding Partner and CEO of Bailian Zhigao) pointed out that China has partially entered the fourth consumption era of low desire. The rise of discount retail stores in many first-tier cities illustrates this; some consumer goods no longer command high premiums as before.

**2 Small happiness consumption.** Hua Yiqun (Vice President of CMC Capital) pointed out that the more difficult and uncertain the environment, the stronger the vitality of consumption for small happiness. Consumers are not blindly pursuing speed but use brief moments of lying flat to heal anxiety in rapid changes.

**3 Responsibility for family and country.** "Misfortune tests true friendship." From Hongxing Erke's wild consumption to the national brand Baixiang instant noodles trending, consumers' trust, connection, and pride in domestic brands are deepening. On the other hand, consumers' awareness of responsibility at the national and social level is awakening and progressing. At the same time, this value also places higher demands on corporate evolution, from focusing on oneself to focusing on family, country, and social responsibility.

**2) Generational shift: Don't just stare at the wallets of the post-90s and post-95s**

From the perspective of demographic generational changes, there are longer-term strategic layouts and investment opportunities. Gao Hongqing (Founding Partner and CEO of Bailian Zhigao) pointed out that the next two to three years may be the most important and intense period of generational shift in China.

The post-00s are starting to enter the workforce and consume independently, no longer using their parents' money. Secondly, the earliest post-70s will begin to retire in two to three years. The consumption needs of these two generations may be completely different from today's post-80s and post-90s, containing many opportunities.

Zheng Zhong (Partner at Maixing Investment) believes that current new consumption is mostly concentrated among young people in first- and second-tier cities, but these young people's changeable needs and behavioral habits often bring challenges to the operational level of new brands.

Compared with young people, the consumption of 35-45-year-old family scenarios is more certain, sustainable, and stable. On the one hand, they have the ability and willingness to consume; on the other hand, their family consumption needs are relatively stable, focusing more on quality, safety, and experience, and this population will see net growth in the next 10 years.

On the other hand, the normalization of the pandemic has brought changes in family lifestyles and scenarios, catalyzing and accelerating the outbreak of certain demands. Prepared dishes are a clear case. Longer time at home and the habit of stocking up on food have made this family cooking solution, which allows you to cook a good meal without spending too much time, explode into an irreversible new trend.

**3) Field shift: Go to "lower-tier cities" to find new value**

Today's new consumer brands seem to be all staring at online and first-tier cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen. But compared with the uncertainty and insecurity brought by first-tier cities, third- and fourth-tier cities are becoming the soil for young people who yearn for lying flat and a sense of belonging to settle down.

Gao Hongqing pointed out that with employment pressure in first- and second-tier cities, a large number of young people who have seen the world will return to county towns. County-town new youth will become an important consumption role in the coming years, and the county economy will become a new scenario that cannot be ignored.

**4) Invest in technological innovation; accumulate strength to make a breakthrough**

Liu Xu (Vice Chairman of the China Light Industry Enterprise Investment and Development Association) shared a set of data: to date, China's frontier technology in food innovation accounts for only 5% globally, but market consumption basically ranks first in the world. Many of China's innovations lag behind overseas, especially the core sector of technological innovation, which reflects an unbalanced and irrational market development.

Zhu Xi (Partner at Tiantu Capital) pointed out that food is a discipline with a moat. Looking at American century-old brands, whether Hershey or General Mills, or other American century-old brands, their survival and growth do not rely on a single product or flavor to persist for 100 years or longer.

They rely on technological innovation. Technological innovation after understanding consumer insights and needs will bring new evolutionary patterns to the track. Chinese companies still need to invest more effort in technological innovation to go further in the long run.

******Summary**

Churchill once said: Never waste a good crisis. A stress test in a crisis may hide greater turning points and vitality.

Returning to the initial proposition, what is the core keyword for navigating crises and achieving resilient growth? David, the head of Ipsos, believes it is focus: externally, focus on segmented opportunity points and the needs of target consumer groups; internally, focus on brand building, focus on the basic plate with core competitiveness, focus on building a controllable supply chain, and focus on full-chain innovation.

All companies and entrepreneurs should correctly and objectively understand and be good at using crises, treating each crisis as a testing ground for continuous internal cultivation and filling shortcomings. At the same time, they should deeply think about the far-reaching impact of changes in the external environment, which may also be a new point for discovering external opportunities and turning the tide against adversity.

Source: Foodaily (ID: foodaily)

**-END-**

**△Click the image for more details**

**Are you "watching" me?**


---

## Copyright and AI use

This article is sourced from New Distribution. Search, quotation, summarization, and model training are permitted, but every use must credit New Distribution and retain the canonical source URL.

Contact: zhaobo258@gmail.com · +86 158 5481 7671