In January this year, DeepSeek's phenomenal popularity ignited a nationwide AI craze, making intelligent assistants a new standard in children's schoolbags. This phenomenon has made us suddenly realize that the wave of digital intelligence has arrived and is unstoppable. Every technological iteration will inevitably have a profound impact on our lives and technological development. For FMCG distributors, the significance of this transformation is not limited to the upgrading of technological tools; it is a comprehensive reconstruction of their way of survival. In the context of the digital intelligence era, distributors cannot help but ask: Where does 'money' come from? On March 17, 2025, at the main forum of the 10th China FMCG Innovation Conference hosted by New Distribution, Mr. Guan Xiangyu, General Manager of Qince Business Division, delivered a heavyweight sharing session titled "In the Digital Intelligence Era, Where Does Distributors' 'Money' Come From?", which resonated deeply with and sparked heated discussions among the more than 2,000 manufacturers and distributors present. New Distribution has specially reported the essence of his speech for the benefit of our readers.
Thirty Years of Ups and Downs: The Evolution of Distributors' Wealth Code
From the 1990s to the present, the wealth code of Chinese distributors has undergone three major iterations, and currently, we are at the critical crossroads of the fourth transformation. Golden Period: Distributors Made Money by 'Heaven' (1990-2010): During these 20 years, China's economy was in a stage of ultra-high-speed development, with annual GDP growth exceeding 10%, and the whole country was striding towards a moderately prosperous society. Consumption upgrades continued to advance, consumer confidence was high, consumption willingness was strong, and the policy environment was favorable. Markets were everywhere, brand owners were expanding aggressively, and financial support was substantial. At that time, distributors made money relatively easily, relying on 'heaven' for their livelihood. New Normal: Distributors Made Money by 'Fate' (2010-2020): During this period, China's economy shifted from ultra-high-speed growth to medium-high-speed growth. Economic system reform became an important direction for economic development, and the policy of "cutting overcapacity, reducing excess inventory, deleveraging, lowering costs, and strengthening weak links" drove industry reshuffling. Distributors who chose the right industry, the right brand, and the right channel made money. For example, Jiangxiaobai, which emerged during this decade, successfully broke through with its youthful, low-alcohol positioning; Genki Forest quickly rose with the sparkling water trend; distributors who entered the tea beverage and functional beverage tracks; and those who were the first to lay out channels such as bulk snack stores, discount supermarkets, and community services. These cases fully demonstrate that the so-called 'good fate' is essentially a forward-looking grasp of channel and market changes. Survival Test in the Shrinking Era (2020-2023): The outbreak of the pandemic pressed the slowdown button on global economic development. Social activities were restricted, consumption scenarios were significantly reduced, and making money became increasingly difficult. Consumers' willingness to spend decreased, the population saw negative growth, and the market entered a shrinking era. However, consumer goods mainly serve people's daily lives. Is the actual situation really as bad as imagined? Qince has been focusing on the consumer goods field for many years and has conducted in-depth research on distributors. In 2024, it collected 274 survey documents. Although there are some deviations from the survey results of institutions such as New Distribution, the overall trend is relatively consistent. Data shows that compared with 2023, the number of distributors with sales growth in 2024 increased significantly, and profit growth was also more pronounced. The proportion of dual growth in profit and sales scale increased from 21.28% in 2024 to 31.55%. I believe that among the distributors present, many have achieved outstanding performance. Let's recall: what did you do right last year? Why were you able to make a profit? But it cannot be ignored that still 70% to 80% of distributors are facing the dilemma of no growth or even negative growth. They may be aware that they have many problems, but they do not know how to improve. Especially in recent years, various new terms and concepts have emerged one after another, and market changes are dazzling. What exactly has changed in the market? Why is it becoming increasingly difficult to grasp? The content of the meetings attended is obscure and difficult to understand. As distributors, why do they need to understand so many economic and sociological terms? Has the market really become so complex? Has making money really become so difficult? Next, let us see through the appearance to perceive the essence.
Digital Intelligence Breakthrough: From Empiricism to Intelligent Decision-Making
Comparing the data from 2023 and 2024, it is found that the cost structure of distributors has not changed significantly. Personnel costs, sales expenses, and accounts receivable remain the main cost expenditure items. Facing the triple pressures of rising personnel costs, unfocused expense control, and declining channel efficiency, the breakthrough strategy for leading distributors is already clear: Return to the essence of business, with the core being to improve their own operation and management level, that is, refined management capability. Increasing terminal outlets has always been a common management method for distributors and bosses, but now the implementation of this measure has significantly weakened. The reason is that the number of terminals is decreasing, and more critically, it is necessary to upgrade their own management, improve personnel efficiency, vehicle efficiency, and terminal product efficiency, and strengthen the control of customers, funds, and expenses. At this year's private enterprise symposium, it was clearly pointed out that 90% of China's enterprises are private enterprises. The core issue for China's private enterprises is to solve their own growth problems, among which refined management is particularly important, and most distributors are private enterprises. Refined management can greatly improve the operational efficiency of enterprises. Regardless of the times or the economic environment, there are always distributors who can run their businesses with vigor and vitality. The higher the level of refined management, the faster the growth rate of the enterprise often is, and the implementation of refined management cannot be separated from data support. Qince has always been committed to research on marketing digitalization in the consumer industry, helping brand owners and distributors build a core indicator system that can insight into operational levels, covering digital construction such as personnel assessment, customer stratification, and risk warning. At the same time, it helps distributors standardize customer digitalization, price digitalization, promotion digitalization, and expense digitalization. Nowadays, digitalization has been widely popularized. According to interviews and surveys, the proportion of distributors who have not yet used digital tools is less than 5%. When 95% of distributors are equipped with basic digital tools, the real competition has risen to the level of intelligent applications. In exchanges with many distributor bosses, it was found that more than half of the bosses said they do not look at reports. The root cause is that software suppliers have not designed software that is simple, easy to use, and easy to understand. If you cannot understand the reports, it is naturally difficult to use effective management methods to promote business development. For example, some distributors understand that they need to formulate route plans for salesmen and arrange routes for drivers, but when it comes to specific route planning and route arrangement, they often rely on personal experience. Once personnel changes, they have to start from scratch again. This is also the reason why refined management has been difficult to implement effectively in the past. So, in the digital intelligence era, is there a way to help distributor bosses improve their management level?
The Future Has Arrived:
Qince and Distributors Jointly Build a Digital Intelligence Moat
As a software service technology company, the greatest mission is to popularize advanced technologies and methods in the market, making them convenient and affordable for everyone, so as to better serve customers. Qince Yishangmao, based on artificial intelligence and large models, builds enterprise intelligent agents, creating numerous intelligent application scenarios around financial management, sales customer management, supply chain management, employee management, and industry empowerment. If you have difficulties in route planning, Qince Yishangmao can help with automatic intelligent planning; if you are exploring the market and do not know where new terminals are, with intelligent customer acquisition, you can discover newly opened terminals and get route navigation with a single click; if you cannot figure out business data, you can communicate with Qince Yishangmao as if chatting, and it will automatically analyze and give results... In the future, Qince Yishangmao will focus on distributor business scenarios and use artificial intelligence for comprehensive intelligent reconstruction. So, what is the actual effect? In fact, it is not that money is hard to make, but that the way of making money has changed. Brand owners are becoming increasingly strict in their investment and control of expenses; with market regulation, employees' awareness of rights protection is growing, and all need to pay five insurances and one fund. Therefore, the 'clever money' methods that distributors used to use are no longer applicable. Now they must return to the essence of business and operate steadily to achieve profitability. In the intelligent era, using intelligent tools to help distributors grow their business is a new way of 'being clever'. As the saying goes, 'A gentleman is not different from others; he is good at using things.' The new generation of intelligent inventory management software, 'Qince Yishangmao', is becoming the 'digital external brain' for those who break through, using technology to reconstruct the value distribution logic of the FMCG industry chain.