Currently, the FMCG industry has fully entered an era of oversupply. With incremental growth disappearing, labor costs soaring, and channel influence slipping away, the core challenge for brands is: how to completely shift from "distribution-oriented" to "sell-through-oriented" and regain true command over channels and terminals?

On March 17, the CFC Forum on Building a C-end Command Center for Manufacturers, hosted by New Distribution and co-hosted by Ronghui Data, was held in Chengdu.

Dong Wenbo, founder of Ronghui Data, was invited to attend and delivered a keynote speech titled "Building a C-end Command Center: How FMCG Brands Can Regain Command with bC Integration."

Dong Wenbo previously led the entire digital marketing construction for Dongpeng Beverage from 200 million to 20 billion in scale, and in 2024 he founded Ronghui Data. This article is a compilation of the core content of his speech.

From Distribution Logic to Sell-Through Logic: A Top-Level Restructuring

Many companies talk about digitalization, but in essence, they are still using it as a management tool rather than a business engine.

Dong Wenbo believes that the underlying mission of digitalization is never technology for technology's sake, but must deeply serve sell-through scenarios, solving the core problem of moving goods from terminal shelves to consumers' shopping carts.

In the past, the deep distribution model represented by Master Kong was a product of the era of incremental growth: brands relied on high-density manpower for distribution. As long as goods entered the dealer's warehouse, performance targets were considered met. As for how goods flowed to consumers after entering terminals, brands had almost no visibility and didn't need it.

But today, this model faces two fatal challenges:

  • Cost redundancy: With the demographic dividend disappearing, the labor cost of maintaining channel operations through manpower has become prohibitive.
  • Black box effect: Traditional digital methods mostly stop at dealer management. Brands are almost blind at the data level regarding how terminals sell and what the real consumer profile is.

A harder reality is that dealers' willingness to cooperate is directly linked to their profit share.

Currently, there are very few brand-exclusive dealers in the market. Most dealers represent multiple brands simultaneously, and a single brand's share in their business is not high.

This asymmetry in interest alignment makes it difficult for brands to force dealers to cooperate with in-depth digital data collection through mandatory means.

When the top-down data pathway is blocked, brands completely lose command over terminals and consumers.

Therefore, brands must shift to sell-through logic—not just managing dealer warehouses, but truly intervening in terminal consumption scenarios, with the ability to directly drive C-end demand and thereby reverse-leverage B-end distribution.

Five Core Roles: Reconstructing the Underlying Logic of the Marketing Chain

How can data efficiently link millions of terminal stores with hundreds of millions of consumers?

As early as 2014-2015, Dongpeng Beverage chose a reverse path—starting from C-end consumers and working backward.

At that time, the traditional promotional method "buy one get one free" in the beverage industry had diminishing marginal returns. Dongpeng upgraded the promotion from physical prize redemption to scanning codes for red packets. Dong Wenbo was one of the core builders of this system.

This upgrade seemed simple but was actually the first cornerstone of the digital command center: it allowed the brand to bypass multiple channel layers and directly reach consumers for the first time.

In practice, Dongpeng redefined the participants in the chain as five key roles, serving as the underlying architecture for marketing digitalization.

Traditional management thinking is one-way forward: manufacturer → dealer → wholesaler/distributor → terminal. This role reconstruction logic redefines and connects the five core roles in the chain:

  • Consumer (C): The initiator of demand and the source of data feedback.
  • Terminal store (small b): Through digital connection and incentives, transform mom-and-pop stores and restaurant waitstaff from sales points into brand promoters.
  • Distributor (large B): Focus the functions of dealers and wholesalers on efficient logistics distribution and service assurance.
  • Salesperson: Shift from selling to empowering terminal sell-through.
  • Promoter/merchandiser: Flexibly defined by scenario; restaurant waitstaff in the foodservice channel and store owners in the circulation channel can all be promotional roles.

This logic has been fully validated at Dongpeng: where each product is unboxed, where it is sold, how many consumers are covered behind that store, and the repurchase frequency of consumers—all are visible in real time, no longer relying on layer-by-layer false reports.

After leaving Dongpeng and founding Ronghui Data, Dong Wenbo brought this battle-tested methodology, refined over ten years at Dongpeng, into services for other brands.

Core Scenario Implementation of bC Integration

After clarifying the underlying logic of the five-in-one, the true value of marketing digitalization needs to be realized through specific application scenarios.

The core of this system lies in using the five-code association as the foundation, and through the circulation of coupons, achieving a full-chain closed loop from manufacturer (F) to dealer (large B), terminal (small b), and then to consumer (C).

Ronghui Data has summarized ten major application scenarios for marketing digitalization. Due to space constraints, the following selects four key scenarios for analysis.

  1. C-end Connection: From Promotional Tool to User Command Center

One product, one code is the basic means to connect with the C-end, but currently most brands in the industry only use it as a replacement for promotional forms, without uncovering its strategic value.

The real value lies in: when massive scan data accumulates, brands can conduct in-depth consumer profiling—age group, income structure, channel preference, and even occupation distribution.

Through analysis, Dongpeng found that blue-collar workers, truck drivers, and construction workers are its core consumer groups. This led to the reverse development of the "Construction Site Special Project," precisely targeting terminal distribution at construction site stores, logistics stations, and similar scenarios for targeted strikes. Its hydration series grew from 500 million to nearly 4 billion, precisely because of precise irrigation of core scenarios based on user profiles.

  1. Terminal Operations: Direct Benefits to Stores, Forcing Rejection of Cross-Region Sales

In the past, manufacturers used "10+1" or large rebates to deliver benefits to dealers, but these costs were easily broken during downward transmission—either intercepted by dealers or converted into price-cutting leverage. Manufacturers could neither see the flow of goods nor control terminal prices.

Dongpeng's strategy: decouple core benefits from dealers' "purchasing" and link them to terminals' "unboxing." The only way for store owners to profit is to unbox more and sell more; the more unboxing, the higher the immediate incentive.

At the same time, through five-code association technology, the system can identify whether the goods come from legitimate dealers. Legitimate goods earn 1 yuan per unboxing scan, while goods from cross-region sellers earn only 1 cent—this gap of 1 yuan vs. 1 cent mechanically forces terminals to actively reject cross-region sales, completely changing the passive situation where manual inspection was needed to control cross-region sales.

This strategy also breaks through the bottleneck of manpower coverage.

Dongpeng's salespeople cover about 1.2 to 1.5 million terminals through manpower, but the active terminals actually reached through code linking amount to 4.5 million. The 2.7 million stores beyond manpower coverage are fully self-connected through product codes, without the need for salespeople or dealers to visit each store.

  1. Direct Expense Delivery: Precision Irrigation Instead of Flood Irrigation

The traditional logic of gifts and rebates is "flood irrigation": once expenses leave the warehouse, they flow with the goods, with unclear destinations and unverifiable effects.

Digitalization changes all this. Brands push coupons directly to store owners' phones, replacing the inefficient model of dealer advances and layer-by-layer verification. The trigger conditions for expenses are real sell-through actions at the terminal—which store, what behavior—clearly traceable.

Dong Wenbo provided a calculation: with the same 100 million in marketing expenses, in the past flood irrigation could produce at most 50 million in effect; with basic digitalization, it can achieve 100 million in effect; and through refined operations, Dongpeng can achieve 120 million in effect from 100 million in investment.

This is the core driver behind Dongpeng's expense ratio dropping from a historical high of 29% to 16%, and net profit margin jumping from about 10% to 22%.

  1. Channel Inventory: Three Segments Combined, Managing by Sell-Through

Traditional channel management only focuses on dealer inventory, but that's far from enough. True channel inventory should cover three segments: dealer + wholesale/distribution + terminal stores.

If goods flow from dealer to terminal but are not bought by consumers, they are still inventory backlog for the brand.

Dongpeng's logic is "addition and subtraction": goods from factory to dealer are inbound (addition), and each unboxing or scan at downstream stores or consumers is an inventory reduction. As long as no unboxing occurs, regardless of which level the goods are at, they are uniformly considered channel inventory.

This transparent inventory monitoring directly changes the logic of operational commands: when the system shows high channel inventory in a certain region, the command center's action is no longer to urge dealers to stock up, but to incentivize regional managers and sales reps to drive sell-through.

The KPI for sales reps is also restructured—from mechanical visits to focusing on "unboxing volume." Relying on five-code association technology, Dongpeng's unboxing rate can reach 98%, allowing real-time control over the sell-through situation of every terminal.

Ronghui Data: Making bC Integration Truly Land

Ronghui Data was established in 2024 by marketing digitalization experts with extensive practical experience. Focused on the FMCG industry, with the mission of "Digital intelligence empowerment, making consumers more willing to buy and terminals more willing to sell!" and from the brand's perspective, it assists clients in building a marketing digitalization management system characterized by "refined operations, lean terminals, visible channels, and digital decision-making."

I. Founder Introduction

Founder: Dong Wenbo

  • Former Deputy General Manager of Digitalization Construction Center at Dongpeng Beverage Group;
  • Tencent Cloud TVP Most Valuable Expert, Marketing Digitalization Expert;
  • 2021 National Outstanding CIO;
  • Nearly 20 years of experience in informatization/digitalization, leading the overall marketing digitalization construction at Dongpeng Beverage.

II. Core Capabilities

III. Products and Services

  1. Marketing Digitalization Consulting Diagnosis and High-Level Recommendations (Duration: 12 months)

Marketing digitalization training courses;

Marketing business interviews;

Co-creation salons;

Marketing digital transformation workshops.

  1. Five-in-One Marketing Digitalization System Development and Implementation (Duration: 6-8 months)

Produce "High-Level Recommendations and Blueprint for Marketing Digitalization" through in-depth preliminary research;

Overall planning, step-by-step implementation, deep integration with existing digital systems.

  1. Annual Marketing Digitalization Operation Support

Complex project group management

Marketing strategy design (TP strategy)

Digital operation support

  1. Hui Changxiao SaaS System (bC Integration + SFA System)

  2. Big Data Operation Services

Scan heat maps, analysis reports, user profiles

Full-dimensional data analysis across supply chain, sales, channels/terminals, consumers, finance, and human resources

Final Thoughts

From Dongpeng Beverage's growth trajectory from 200 million to 20 billion, this bC integration digitalization logic runs through it all, smoothly navigating every so-called "growth hurdle."

Dong Wenbo, as a witness and core builder of this journey, has distilled it into a reusable methodology and is exporting it to more FMCG brands through Ronghui Data.

For FMCG brands currently mired in the oversupply dilemma, the key to regaining command lies not in how many systems are deployed, but in whether they truly establish a complete operational closed loop with sell-through at its core, data-driven, and with terminals and consumers as the battlefield.

Ronghui Data is a practitioner and enabler of this path, committed to helping more brands achieve the top-level logic reconstruction from "distribution" to "sell-through."