Click to read the original text for details 0****1 Current status of most companies' deep distribution systems: 1. Salesperson work: taking orders, visiting stores for customer relations, terminal display maintenance, freezing, expense allocation, and new product promotion. Current problems: 1. Low visit rate: The average number of stores visited per day is severely limited to 30-40, constrained by time and workload, making significant breakthroughs difficult. 2. Low per-capita output: Few salespeople achieve annual output above 2 million yuan, and product profits are severely constrained by labor costs. 3. Extremely high costs: Wages, social insurance, and housing fund expenses have increased significantly across major companies compared to previous years. 4. Management difficulties: Traditional management models and mechanical visit routines cannot adapt to the style of the post-95s and millennials. 5. Aging teams: Sales positions are severely unattractive to the post-95s, and the average age of frontline business teams in most brands is clearly aging. The average age of sales representatives in major companies is 30+, leading to a mismatch where many graduates cannot find jobs while companies face recruitment difficulties. 6. Severe talent attrition: At the same salary level, there are numerous job opportunities in the market. For example, drivers for Didi, food delivery, and courier services can earn 7,000+ yuan per month in prefecture-level cities, without requiring much effort or skill. 02 Why, despite such a severe situation, is deep distribution still the preferred distribution model for major companies and not eliminated? 1. Certain product categories require distribution through numerous mom-and-pop stores, but the current fragmented mom-and-pop store model still needs professional personnel for visits, display, restocking, and customer relationship maintenance. 2. Market competition is too fierce, shelf space is scarce, and competitive terminal display remains an important way for brands to build competitive barriers in the market. 3. Traditional distributors have lower management levels than manufacturers and cannot independently manage the market, requiring manufacturer personnel to execute terminal tasks. 4. Distributors offer limited salary, benefits, and growth space, making them less attractive to excellent salespeople, and they struggle to recruit top talent to serve the market. 5. Some second- and third-tier brands need strong terminal execution to compensate for insufficient brand pull. 03 Several directions for upgrading deep distribution in the current environment: 1. Improve efficiency: First, it must be clear that whether salespeople work for the manufacturer or the distributor is not the core issue. The core is how to make personnel work more efficiently and use digital tools to reduce time spent at terminals, thereby improving operational efficiency. 2. Reduce costs: Consider cost reduction by evaluating labor transfer, joint manufacturer-distributor management, and shifting personnel from the brand owner to the distributor, thereby reducing some labor costs for the company, with the brand owner bearing part of the personnel costs. Another way is to encourage self-employment or a small-boss model to activate sales representatives' enthusiasm, thereby reducing costs to some extent. 3. Standardized operations: The application of digitalization and SFA greatly improves the standardization of salespeople's work, using assembly-line methods to reduce personalization at terminals and lower work difficulty. 4. Big data support: Analyze data collected from SFA and retail to optimize salespeople's routes, processes, and operational efficiency at terminals. 5. Automated transactions: Use B2B platforms to achieve automated transactions, establishing B2B operation teams at the province or region level, and significantly increase the number and frequency of online transactions through online promotions, reducing time spent at stores for order closing. 6. Expand contact surfaces: Use B-end store communities, mini-programs, and online POP distribution on Moments to expand communication frequency and time with store owners during non-working hours through community network operations. 7. Extend transaction depth: Leverage C-end store owners' communities to reach local community consumers' social networks, using coupons and promotions to drive user acquisition and repurchase. The above seven aspects can be summarized as digital deep distribution: Transforming from a single-dimensional management system relying on human organization to complete product distribution, into using digital tools as leverage to free salespeople from complex, non-standard transaction processes, and enabling automated, online, digital, BC-integrated, and precise distribution through tools. In a sense, after digitalization, it is not just about using digital technology to improve efficiency, but more importantly, using digital technology and tools to redesign distribution logic and distribution chains. 04 Several logical issues to note in digital deep distribution: 1. The sell-through logic must be clear. So-called digital distribution essentially still revolves around building an irresistible purchase reason in transaction scenarios. This means that whether on online shelves, in-store shelves, or in Moments, the logic of distribution and sell-through must be connected. 2. Execution, management, processes, and business systems must form a closed loop within the digital system:

  • Execution loop: Outlets (attributes, SKU, inventory, shelf age), visits (regular visits, frequency, quality, number of stores, communication), display (competitive display), sell-through (consumer communication, merchandising, scenario experience)
  • Management loop: Standards (actions, processes), authenticity (data truthfulness), inspection (fast and efficient, timely correction), incentives (process incentives, achievement incentives)
  • Process loop: Orders (real, accurate), warehousing (standardized, accurate, shelf age, FIFO), accounting (timely, precise), delivery (efficient, timely)
  • Business loop: Willingness (attitude), products (differentiation, profit margin, TPO), tools (relevant digital tools, auxiliary materials), methods (irresistible purchase reasons) In this regard, Teacher Haiyou has written relevant articles in the New Distribution public account. If interested, you can check his distribution series; I won't elaborate here. 3. In management logic, you must first have methods for achieving performance, then standards for process management execution, then incentive standards, and only then can frontline execution, management inspection, feedback into management indicators, and finally aggregation into performance goals be achieved. 4. This system must ensure four aspects: Systematization (personnel, standards, processes, incentives); Synergy (online-offline linkage, internal and external joint promotion, store and community interaction); Continuity (goals, sustainability); Effectiveness (methodology, four closed loops). 05 The most prominent problems in current enterprise deep distribution transformation are: 1. Organizational rigidity: The processes, systems, and standards developed over the past 20 years are extremely difficult to reorganize when facing new digital technologies. It's like repairing a car while driving, and trying to turn a bicycle into a race car—the difficulty is imaginable. 2. In regional markets, interests such as expenses, sales, and budgets are deeply tied to relevant personnel. Individuals exploiting organizational loopholes for corruption and cashing out expenses are common, forming interest groups that are hard to break. 3. The market still has growth, survival pressure is low, and bosses lack sufficient understanding and determination, not daring to invest or break interest relationships. Subordinates either have vested interests or prefer to avoid trouble, resulting in insufficient overall momentum. 4. Lack of overall planning and design, often treating symptoms rather than root causes, or being information-centric or boss-dashboard-centric, rather than truly considering frontline combatants' actual operational efficiency as the guide. This leads to a series of reforms with slogans but no results. Summary: In the past 20 years, those who did well in digitalization have led in their fields. In the next 20 years, those who do not embrace digitalization will be eliminated by the market. Digitalization is a means to optimize and upgrade deep distribution. As a company, it is not only necessary to work on channel strength, but also to coordinate product strength and brand strength to truly complete the group's transformation breakthrough. However, it is essential to start from the big picture, begin with small steps, stand at the level of brand, channel, and product, take a high-level view, and use digitalization to complete the overall upgrade and optimization. Only then can the company achieve digital transformation. -END-