Behind the Miracles of the Chinese Market On the magical land of the Chinese market, it seems that miracles are born and shattered every day. Pinduoduo reached a peak in just three years that others could not achieve in a lifetime. Luckin Coffee went from zero to Nasdaq in 18 months, then fell to the bottom in just three months. Of course, there are also companies like China Resources Snow Breweries, which has been continuously creating miracles since its inception. 1) What is the decisive factor in market competition? Facing the constant occurrence and collapse of miracles, we have many questions: Why did Pinduoduo achieve such brilliance in the short term? Why did Luckin decline rapidly after its glory? Why did Snow Beer grow from a small brewery in Shenyang to become a leading Chinese beer company? Why has Snow Beer always won in the past, and can it continue to win in the future? We study the rise and fall of history to escape the trap of decline. We study the rise and fall of enterprises to find the laws of competition, hoping to bring a new future to our own companies. So, what is the decisive factor in market competition? There are countless books on competition, and numerous experts and business books try to find the right answer. There are resource determinism, strategy determinism, and in recent years, the most popular are "Internet thinking" and "model determinism." War is the highest form of competition; market competition is war without gunpowder. The world's best entrepreneurs and managers all seek laws and methods from historical wars. 2) People are the decisive factor in war. In a war, many factors affect the outcome, but what is the most critical decisive factor? In visible war treatises, most views focus on national resources, weapons and equipment, operational strategies, and military training. These are certainly correct and important. But we cannot consider these as the decisive factors in war. Otherwise, we cannot explain why the Chinese revolution succeeded in modern times, nor why the US military, 40 years ago and today, retreated from Saigon and Kabul. The so-called "decisive factor" is a "necessary but not sufficient condition," meaning "with it, you have the possibility of victory." Mao Zedong highly praised an ancient figure named Yi Yin. In history, Yi Yin was the first to emphasize the role of "people" in war, and thus achieved victory in the Shang-Tang war against the Xia dynasty. Mao Zedong's assertion was even more concise and direct: "People are always the theme of war." During the Liberation War, in response to many commanders' concerns about "American-style equipment," he proposed that "weapons are an important factor in war, but not the decisive factor. The decisive factor is people, not things." The view that "people are the first element of war" was later widely recognized. The 1986 US Army's "Operational Concepts" stated: "War is fought and won by people, not machines. As always, the human factor will play a decisive role in future battles and campaigns." Today, we are fortunate to have an in-depth investigation of the Hubei marketing team of China Resources Snow Breweries. In our research, we found that fully valuing the role of 'people' and leveraging their potential may be the core key to Snow Beer's past market victories. This article attempts to use the Snow Beer Hubei marketing team as a sample to present a real regional marketing team of Snow Beer, showing what kind of team creates what kind of performance. This article is also not short, but trust us, it is worth reading. Wuhan Snow: A Heroic Team Born in the Pandemic Nothing tests a team's mettle better than a arduous battle. In this peaceful era, the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan in early 2020 inadvertently became a perilous battle for the Wuhan Snow team. This time, however, the opponent they faced was for the first time an invisible enemy: the novel coronavirus. Let us take a timeline to record the activities of the Wuhan Snow team during the pandemic in 2020. January 23: Wuhan's outbound channels were closed, and the city entered lockdown. February 2: Wu Chenggan, General Manager of Snow's Wuhan region, who was spending the Spring Festival in Hainan, drove 2,000 kilometers back to Wuhan. For safety, he left his family in Hainan and returned alone as a "retrograde." Other leaders who stayed in Wuhan alone included Bao Changwei, General Manager of Hubei Snow Regional Company. February 14: After Wu Chenggan self-isolated at home while striving to stabilize morale, the Wuhan region restarted, and the first regional video conference was held. The entire Wuhan Snow team resumed work, working from home. February 15: Each business department organized customer video meetings to facilitate interaction between the manufacturer and distributor teams. February 16: The community platform 3204 was established. February 17: The first box of beer was sold since the lockdown. February 19: Established the "Epidemic Care Group," "Business Guidance Group," "External Liaison Group," "Party Member Model Group," and "Materials Group." February 22: The first full-truck delivery was made, and the Wuhan channel began to move. Subsequently, community orders continued to flow in. March 6: The Wuhan region established an "O2O" task force to address issues such as order aggregation, supply chain coordination, and community delivery. March 11: The first factory pickup was made, with the first batch totaling 13 trucks. Subsequently, Wuhan Snow's sales recovered at an unexpected speed. April 8: Wuhan was "unsealed." During the entire pandemic, Wuhan Snow sold over 320,000 boxes. For Wuhan residents, "some wounds are known only to Wuhan people; some pain is understood only by those who have experienced it. It is a fear with nowhere to hide." Facing the terror of the novel coronavirus, who is not made of flesh and blood, and who is not afraid? At that extraordinary moment, with panic everywhere, the Wuhan Snow team had every right to choose to "lie flat," and no one would have blamed them. But this team did not choose to lie flat. They firmly believed that the pandemic would pass and recovery would come. They used positive actions to enrich themselves and build confidence. They used video to strengthen interaction and communication with the business team and channel team, warming each other, encouraging each other, and resisting the terrible death every day by doing everything well. The Wuhan Snow team not only encouraged themselves but also provided the greatest help and support to channels and terminals. They promised to replace all inventory products, provided fee subsidies to channel teams, and extended the maximum payment period for terminals. Not just encouragement; the Wuhan Snow team creatively carried out sales work during the pandemic. They contacted community leaders, initiated group buying activities, and delivered beer to isolated consumers through contactless delivery. When consumers, confined at home and anxious about bad news every day, could still drink a fresh bottle of Snow Beer, wasn't that a great encouragement to the desperate and helpless public? A mere 320,000 boxes of beer may not be conspicuous in normal times, but who can deny that it brought precious comfort and confidence to over a million Wuhan residents? In September 2020, the Wuhan Sales Region of Snow Beer, for the "unforgettable commemoration," compiled the work content and experiences written by all members during the pandemic into a 200-page "Work Guide for China Resources Snow Beer Wuhan Sales Region during the Pandemic." (Figure 1) On September 29, 2020, Hou Xiaohai, CEO of China Resources Snow Breweries, wrote on the title page of this "Work Guide": "Salute to the heroic Wuhan sales team." (Figure 2) Focusing on People: A Tradition of Snow Beer The Wuhan Snow team, called "heroic" by Hou Xiaohai, was certainly not formed in a day. It was the unexpected pandemic that made the Wuhan team stand out in the fight. In fact, a high degree of attention to "people" is an old tradition of Snow Beer. It is precisely because of decades of emphasis on people and organization that heroic teams like Wuhan Snow could emerge. Snow has always advocated the spirit of "Every person is extraordinary, and every bottle of beer shines" ; the action culture it has always practiced is "Pack your bags and set off" ; the newly proposed "Everything comes from business and goes to business" is the standard for testing whether all actions are implemented. (Figure: Snow Beer Cultural System Connotation) Snow Beer has established a "Learning and Innovation Center" with a methodology of "combining training and warfare" (Figure), combined with the growth path of "aim, select, forge, and fight," to continuously cultivate and deliver talent to the market. At the same time, since 2017, China Resources Snow Breweries has launched multiple special projects related to talent development, such as the "1113123" management trainee growth path plan (Day 1, 1 week, 1 month, 3 months, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd years); the "3322" young manager growth project (three levels of top leaders, three driving wheels, two boosters, two teams). For readers outside the Snow Beer system, it is impossible to accurately understand Snow Beer's talent project concepts, but that is not important. The talent development system built by Snow Beer must be based on its own brand strategy, and these concepts may not be suitable for us. What is truly worth our consideration and reference is Snow Beer's emphasis on talent and organizational development, as well as the down-to-earth approach of "everything starts from business" in building talent projects. We have every reason to believe that with such a talent organization, heroic teams like Wuhan Snow are certainly not isolated cases within the China Resources Snow Breweries system. It's just that ordinary and normal market competition, no matter how fierce and brilliant, cannot move people's hearts as much as the Wuhan Snow team, which transcended life and death. But we may still have such questions: The Wuhan Snow team's performance during the pandemic was heroic, but can it be sustained? More than a year has passed since the major pandemic in Wuhan. How has the Wuhan Snow team, or even the Hubei Snow team, performed? For Snow Beer's new "Decisive Battle for High-End" strategy, how has this heroic Hubei marketing team performed on the ground? From Victory to Victory: Making Victory a Team Gene Because of the outstanding performance of the Wuhan Sales Region, at the end of 2020, Wu Chenggan, the former General Manager of the Wuhan Sales Region, was promoted to General Manager of the Hubei Snow Marketing Center. Wu Chenggan believes that the pandemic tempered the Wuhan sales team and the distributor team, which he calls "iron will." His leadership philosophy is "Temper the iron will of the Hubei team through a thousand hammers, and make victory a team gene of Hubei Snow." "On Protracted War" points out that based on the special nature of war, there is a special organization, a special method, and a special process. If we regard Snow Beer's high-end brand battle as a protracted war, then we must form such a special organization, method, and process. Wu Chenggan believes that war, to a certain extent, is a confrontation of systems. People, weapons, and the way people and weapons are combined are the elements that constitute combat effectiveness. To build an iron will in the Hubei marketing team, to lead the team to continuous victory, and ultimately to make victory a gene, we must also think and start from "people, weapons, and the combination of people and weapons." 01) Start with organizational restructuring to stimulate the potential of "people." "On Protracted War" points out: "To truly unite manpower and hearts, ideological mobilization alone is not enough; it is necessary to liberate people from old social relations through a series of changes, thereby truly stimulating people's initiative and enthusiasm for the war of resistance." Similarly, the Hubei Snow management team, represented by Wu Chenggan, realized that the pandemic tempered the team's will, but doing business with mere courage is not feasible; relying solely on ideological mobilization, the cohesion of hearts and manpower is also short-lived. First, it is necessary to break the cultural ills formed by past history and form a unique, clear, and standard team culture of "everything starts from business." All methods and actions that conform to norms and are beneficial to business should be actively tried and firmly implemented; all thoughts and actions that violate norms and are harmful to business should be resolutely opposed and eliminated. In more than a year, many members of the Hubei Snow team were promoted on the spot for outstanding performance; some managers were demoted or even dismissed for poor understanding of business and weak implementation. A clear culture is a clear team guide, and persistence will form a very strong and distinct team culture. This persistence is not easy, but it is indeed significant and valuable. Second, through organizational restructuring and functional restructuring, let ordinary people achieve extraordinary results. We can all realize that no one is omnipotent, but we are most likely to overlook this. Many perfect business models and market models are just paper talk, and once implemented, they fail miserably, often for this reason. Do you still need to manage those who are already extraordinary? The purpose of management is to let ordinary people achieve extraordinary results. Analyzing past business processes, the Hubei Marketing Center discovered many problems and subsequently made many changes in organization and functions. Due to the large amount of content, this article gives one example for illustration. In the past, the salesperson was almost the only contact point between the brand and the terminal, undertaking all brand functions, including developing and maintaining terminals, taking orders, counting inventory, arranging displays, taking photos, and verifying expenses. At the same time, they also had to serve distributors, respond to management requirements from superiors, research the market, produce data and reports, and even audit themselves. If you were a salesperson, could you maintain a vigorous and uplifting state for a long time and not be perfunctory in everything? It's hard, right? The Hubei Snow Marketing Center split the work that was originally done by one salesperson into two people. One person is specifically responsible for actions directly related to business, such as developing and maintaining terminals, taking orders, arranging displays, and making management requirements to distributors; the other person is specifically responsible for data-related research and auditing, such as terminal surveys, display spot checks, expense audits, and producing data and reports. The benefits of splitting into two are obvious: one is responsible for business results, and the other supervises the business process. But will this increase labor costs? No. On the one hand, the work content is simpler, the efficiency of a single terminal is greatly improved, and the area under responsibility becomes larger; on the other hand, the brand business mainly focuses on the development and service of high-ground terminals, mainly building momentum, while non-high-ground terminals naturally rely on distributors to complete, and it is enough to supervise and require them. Similarly, the Hubei Marketing Center has also implemented the innovative organizations determined by the headquarters very well, such as "brand ambassadors" and "flying teams" dedicated to terminal promotion and consumer interaction. 02) Sophisticated and effective weapons are the guarantee of combat capability. The first weapon is a scientific business plan. Many people think that business weapons refer to systems and market investment, but in fact, this is one-sided and even wrong. The business plan of the Hubei Marketing Center, General Manager Hou Xiaohai gave the evaluation of "achieving the integration of five elements," organically combining brand, product, customer, terminal, and consumer. The core of the five-in-one business plan is the market portrait. Through the market portrait, the market is scanned like a person to find market opportunity points. A scientific business plan is the first sophisticated weapon, which can give each region a focused annual goal and avoid being flustered and at a loss. The second weapon is the brand and product portfolio. Holding the two major brand families of Snow and Heineken, objectively speaking, the Snow Beer marketing team has the most and most complete brand and product portfolio on the market. But having too many brands and products is not necessarily a good thing. If they cannot be organically integrated with focus and diversity, so many brands and products may instead be a disadvantage. Taking Snow Beer's national "4+4" high-end product portfolio as an example, Hubei Marketing has summarized its own unique tactics based on local conditions. First, in the dining scene, line up by terminal grade, set a bottom-supporting product, and form the principle of lifting up and supporting down, layering the bottom, and highlighting the grade in increasing order. Currently, the largest segment is mid-range Yongchuang Tianya. Wuhan places the main growth point on the sub-high-end Yongchuang Tianya superX product, requiring no fewer than 7 products per dining terminal, forming a core+1, core+2 sales atmosphere. (Note: core is the product with the largest sales volume, such as Yongchuang Tianya; +1 is one grade higher, such as Yongchuang Tianya superX; core+2 is two grades higher, such as Snow Pure; and so on). Second, non-draft terminals mainly use small bottles (small bottles), cans, and portable packs, with a combination of large cans in small packs and small cans in large packs for small-bottle high-endization. It is required that each terminal has coverage of no fewer than 7 products, and small bottles must be covered in CVS and hypermarkets. Third, nightlife venues mainly use Yongchuang Tianya superX 248 bottles + Tiger Crystal Pure 300 bottles + Red爵 300 bottles + Mars Green 280 bottles + Heineken 250/330 bottles + Sol 330 bottles + Facial Makeup 330 bottles. Among them, international brands are mainly combined with domestic brands in CLUBs and bars. In terms of overall business rhythm, Hubei Marketing requires first to do well in 1+1, that is, Yongchuang Tianya and Pure, because the existing volume and consumer awareness of these products are there. Second, do well in 4+4, that is, Yong, Blue, Pure, and Heineken. Yong is Yongchuang Tianya, Blue is the small blue bottle (Yongchuang Tianya superX), Pure is Pure, and Heineken is Heineken. Third, on this basis, do well in pushing up Mars Green, Ingenuity Creation, and Facial Makeup, as well as the international brands Tiger, Red爵, Heineken, and Sol. 03) The "strongest brain" information command center creates the best combination of people and weapons. The information command center, uniquely created by the Hubei Marketing Center within the China Resources Snow Breweries system, is not only a weapon but also the best model for combining people and weapons. (Information Command Center) In today's highly developed information technology, technical problems are no longer obstacles. But for many enterprises, how to organically combine people and systems, let systems empower business work rather than add ineffective workload, is the biggest problem. The Hubei Marketing Center, starting from business, self-developed an online information command center system, which is a good reference model. The information command center has the following major functions: First, connect underlying data, let data flow quickly, and let data speak. Second, through data analysis, find prominent problems and form a supervision system. Third, remote communication and terminal interaction, allowing direct on-site command and feedback. Fourth, build a platform to improve the "digital intelligence" management capabilities of the two teams, digitizing terminal data and business actions. After the establishment of the Hubei Marketing Center's information command center, at least two major changes occurred in business. First, after information is connected, the data of terminal status doubles. Previously, things emphasized at many meetings were not as fast as the command center's promotion. The Hubei marketing team has several hundred people. When there is no handle, their status cannot be tracked. With the additional handle of the information command center, the command center can see their data, which urges them to do well. Second, information from distributors comes faster. The information flow used to be once every 10 days, but now core information can be accurately summarized in three days. The construction of the three major elements of war victory—people, weapons, and the combination of people and weapons—has been particularly effective in the 2021 development of the Hubei Marketing Center of China Resources Snow Breweries. According to market feedback, from January to June 2021, the Hubei Marketing Center of Snow Beer saw rapid growth in both total sales and market share. It is particularly noteworthy that in the high-end segment, the Hubei market had not broken through the 10,000-ton scale for many years, but in the first half of 2021 alone, high-end achieved several times growth. Another point worth mentioning is that Jingzhou, a long-term low-lying market, achieved rapid growth by overtaking in the mid-range and canned beer segments through low-lying market business actions. I think the excellent performance of Snow Hubei in the first half of 2021 is enough to prove that this is a team that can go from victory to victory. What Hubei's distributors and terminals say Yang Wenchao is a distributor of Snow Beer in the Wuhan Guanggu area. He entered the beer field in 2011, growing from 2,000 tons at the beginning to an annual scale of over 10,000 tons now. He mentioned that during the pandemic in Wuhan, distributors felt a disaster was coming, and it was Snow Company that solved all their worries, allowing the channel and terminals to catch their breath. Yang Wenchao said that what he remembers most is mid-March 2020: "At that time, I was really worried. Wuhan was locked down, and I had more than 20,000 boxes in inventory. It felt like the unsealing was far away. It was the leaders of the Wuhan region who contacted us to find ways together, how to sell online, how to do community group buying, which digested a large part of the inventory. In the end, there was still a part left, and Snow Company completely solved it for us." "In my many years of cooperation with Snow, what I feel most deeply is the responsibility and strength of China Resources as a central enterprise." Yang Wenchao finally said. Chen Huazhen is a distributor who cooperated with Donghu Brewery, which was acquired by Hubei Snow in the 1990s. She is a large distributor representing brands including Snow, COFCO Great Wall, Moutai, and Wuliangye, with an annual scale of over 300 million yuan, of which Snow is the core brand. "In 2001, after Snow Beer entered the Wuhan market, we quickly brought Snow into all KA terminals in Wuhan. In 2021, under the guidance of the decisive battle for high-end strategy, we did displays and promotions in KA terminals, and high-end sales grew several times. " "Of course, this is inseparable from the brand power of Snow Beer in Hubei. Snow Beer has always ranked first in Wuhan supermarkets. This year, we took the initiative to upgrade the structure, and high-end currently accounts for about 30%. " Chen Huazhen said when talking about the development of the high-end market. Xia's Claypot is a famous time-honored internet-famous restaurant in Wuhan, established 38 years ago, and its Wansongyuan main store has been operating for more than 20 years. In 2020, the main store's revenue exceeded 80 million yuan, with beverage consumption accounting for more than 25%, making it a typical high-ground terminal for beer in the Wuhan market. Chen Xing, executive general manager of Xia's Claypot, said that as a restaurant manager, he considers four aspects when choosing beverage cooperation brands: "First, brand power, which determines customer demand; second, product taste, whether consumers widely accept it; third, whether the brand service is high-quality and timely; fourth, whether cooperation is pleasant and the relationship between the two parties is good." "We have cooperated with Snow Beer for nearly 20 years, and the relationship between the two sides has become very trusting. Snow Beer has also given us great support, especially during the pandemic. This cooperative relationship will definitely continue." Chen Xing commented on the cooperation between Xia's Claypot and Snow Beer. Chen Xing said that Snow's terminal services have changed a lot this year: "In the past, it was mainly promotional activities, but now it's more about interacting with customers and playing together, such as playing dice, guessing riddles, and throwing darts. I feel customers prefer this new way." An article is certainly not enough to interpret the growth and changes of Snow Beer's Hubei marketing. But at least today, by observing the Hubei Snow sample, we can understand Snow Beer's unremitting efforts in regional marketing, especially at the "people" level. Of course, we cannot say that only the factor of people can win competition. But we can say that if the people link is weak, even with a good hand of cards, you may not win in the end. I think no one will deny that Snow is an excellent brand, and Snow people are a group of excellent marketers. In the past, they have already created countless excellent or even outstanding achievements, but we still look forward to these people continuing to create miracles and pushing Snow, a brand flowing with Chinese cultural blood, to a higher level. Are you "watching" me?