At year-end, I attended annual meetings of many brand partners and found that more and more brand owners are trying different forms to empower their distributor partners, hoping that in the new year, distributors can work more closely with brands to achieve business growth again. Coincidentally, in 2021, New Distribution's internal team also participated in many brand-distributor empowerment training projects. At the turn of the year, on the one hand, we sort out, review, summarize, and extend how current brand owners (mainly leading brands) empower distributors. On the other hand, we hope to provide reference and inspiration for more brand managers when planning their joint business plans with distributors. _1. Big Distributor Plan 2. Corporate Operation 3. Digital Empowerment _4. Second-Generation Succession 5. Let Distributors Empower Distributors Big Distributor Plan Over the past three years, New Distribution has reported on many excellent distributors. These distributors have average annual sales of over 100 million yuan and have very strong operational capabilities in a regional market. Whether it's internal organizational management or external business management, they demonstrate a very professional level, fully comparable to a provincial company of an excellent brand. Looking closely at these distributors, it's clear that their logic for growing their business is not just because they represent an excellent brand and gain market share, but based on the brand, they can effectively achieve store coverage and carry out targeted promotional activities for core stores and core SKUs, especially on key sales days, such as weekend roadshows, morning market roadshows, cut-case displays, and new product tastings. Many brand owners have seen the value of these big distributors, with China Resources Snow Breweries as a typical representative. In November 2020, at the first National Channel Partners Conference of China Resources Snow, the concept of "Big Distributor" was publicly proposed, and in 2021, they clearly divided their key accounts into three levels: national, provincial, and municipal, corresponding to Huading Club, Huazun Club, and Huajue Club. The core purpose of China Resources Snow's promotion of big distributors is to match its strategic goal of winning in the high-end market. In addition to China Resources Snow, P&G also stated at its mid-2021 distributor partner meeting that it will continue to help its large distributors upgrade and evolve, with dedicated teams and budgets to support big distributors. Why do brand owners promote the "Big Distributor" trend?** The core reason lies in changes in the current market environment, especially the retail format shifting from a single scenario to multiple scenarios. Coupled with the emergence of e-commerce and the explosion of new retail, the multiple demands, new models, and new play methods in multiple scenarios place higher demands on organizations. Traditional distributors who want to survive in such an environment must match more capabilities to do business at faster speed, lower cost, higher efficiency, and better experience. Those with higher capabilities will inevitably grow into big distributors, while those relatively unsuitable will naturally be eliminated. This is the logic behind brand owners' promotion of the "Big Distributor Plan." Corporate Operation This dimension is from the perspective of the distributor's internal organization. If strictly divided, at least 50% of distributors still have sales of 10-20 million yuan. These distributors have gone through initial husband-wife or brother partnerships, then one or two external salespeople, and then business departments, administrative departments, and logistics departments, forming the prototype of a small company. But facing the current market environment of stock competition, this is still not enough. They need to go further by adding a promotion department, marketing department, or sales promotion department, incorporating market building work into the distributor's organizational system. This is a key point that many brand owners are promoting in the corporate operation of distributors.** Whether called promotion department, marketing department, or sales promotion department, there are two key roles: one is the shopping guide team, and the other is the assault team. The purpose of shopping guides is to promote new products or core SKUs in core stores, and to compete for displays or end caps in core stores; The purpose of the assault team is to execute projects in key times, key areas, and key stores, including perfect store creation, township roadshows, and holiday store attacks. Frankly speaking, a mature distributor's standard configuration must include an internal promotion department. Of course, promoting corporate operation of distributors is not only reflected in the establishment of promotion departments, but also other key indicators, such as the allocation of professional managers, quantitative market building assessments in salary incentives, improvement of daily business system management, and the degree of information management. From the brand owner's perspective, only when distributors have a complete corporate operation system internally can they complete the occupation of external business market share and meet the brand's continuous new product launch demands. Compared with the Big Distributor Plan, promoting the corporate operation of distributor partners is relatively more universal and more in line with the current situation of mainstream distributors. Digital Empowerment If corporate operation is about internal transformation to drive external business growth, digital empowerment directly starts from business to improve the level of distribution business management and achieve business growth. There are two types of digital empowerment: the first is the most direct, where brand owners promote distributors' use of their own business systems; The second encourages distributors to take the initiative to reform themselves, using cases of excellent distributors to advocate distributors to use digital management tools to reduce costs and increase efficiency. The first type, where brand owners promote distributors' use of their own business systems, has not shown obvious overall results, with only a few successful cases, such as Jinmailang's "Four-in-One" model. Perhaps the brand owners' original intention was good, hoping to empower distributors while also being able to see inventory, stores, and product trends for easier management. But as the system was implemented, in regional execution, it eventually became a monitoring tool. Data falsification and perfunctory handling occurred. The purpose of tool systems should be more about scientifically and standardizing distributors' local market operation standards, such as route visits, product distribution, cut-case displays, shelf facings, and expense allocation, rather than monitoring and punishing the market. The second type encourages distributors to take the initiative to reform, using cases of distributors, letting excellent distributors around them use digital tools in practical applications, and with real business growth results, reversely drive surrounding distributors to change voluntarily, such as Pepsi's "Ru Hu Tian E" project. This way is spontaneous and voluntary change by distributors, not forced acceptance. It is more likely to trigger learning among distributors, rather than a top-down push driven by a single brand owner's will. Second-Generation Succession Plan Second-generation succession, although not yet the mainstream of brand owners' empowerment of distributors, and more brand owners are carrying it out in the form of projects and seminars, it must be said that the overall age of FMCG distributor groups is about to enter their sixties. Assuming entrepreneurship in 2000, when they were 30 years old, they are now about 51 years old. Whether in terms of time or energy, it is difficult to keep up with the current market competition logic.** In the next 5 years, the retirement of the older generation of distributors is a high-probability event. How to smoothly hand over the baton is also a major issue facing brand owners. Either help distributors promote an internal professional manager system, or help distributors with second-generation succession; there is no other way. Of course, for the issue of second-generation succession, each brand has its own different thinking. But for brands that have emphasized exclusive sales and exclusive operation in the past, such as Yili, Mengniu, Liby, Arawana, and Nice, which are relatively strong in their categories and have relatively high brand concentration, it is necessary to promote the second-generation succession issue internally as soon as possible. Let Distributors Empower Distributors The first four types of brand owners empowering distributors are practiced by various brand owners in different forms, but letting distributors empower distributors is proposed by New Distribution from a third-party perspective. The logic is relatively simple: the current market environment, especially the retail format, can no longer be guided by a single perspective, a single playbook, or a national one-size-fits-all approach. It should be one policy per place, one policy per region, to achieve the occupation of local and regional markets. At the same time, with the development of business, many corresponding distributor partners have transformed from simple sales bosses in the past to commercial organizations with management awareness, changing from amateur players to professional players. Under the influence of brand owners, distributors have gained market operation capabilities, and even many distributors have advanced management capabilities. Change the past attitude of brand owners looking down from above, saying "You are not professional, listen to me," to "Your method is very good, I will learn from it and promote it to other regions." As the saying goes, "Experts are among the people." There are always some distributors who can successfully launch a new product in the local market or make a certain channel shine. Share these good measures, good methods, and good practices in the form of cases, so that more surrounding distributors can learn.** Use different labels, such as new product promotion, employee performance, store creation, etc., to find corresponding distributor partners with those characteristics, extract successful cases through interviews and surveys, and finally empower distributors through sharing. In summary, whether it is the Big Distributor Plan, corporate operation, digital empowerment, or second-generation succession, all can be achieved through the logic of "letting distributors empower distributors" to realize brand owners' empowerment of distributors. Moreover, this dimension is not from a single perspective of the brand, but from the perspective of excellent distributor partners under the brand. Let excellent people around you tell you how to do it! Instead of, I am the expert, you should do it this way! Focus on FMCG distributor new distribution/innovative consumer brand cases. If you need to communicate, you can add WeChat by long-pressing. When adding, please indicate your company, position, and name. Are you "watching" me?