Three years after the epidemic, the logistics industry, as a cyclical industry with obvious macroeconomic impact, has endured many tests. Now, the epidemic is a thing of the past. So, in 2023, what new imaginative space does China's logistics industry have to return to the growth track? From August 8, 2023 to August 9, 2023 (the 12th) Yunlian Summit hosted by Yunlian was held in Shanghai. This summit attracted more than 550 practitioners from various subsegments of the logistics industry chain to participate, building a platform for communication and interaction for logistics entrepreneurs in the confused period of low growth.

    The so-called "slow growth" is a reaction to the normal state of the stock competitive growth market. This was a sentiment shared by many logistics entrepreneurs at the conference. In his speech, Wang Wenbin, president of STO Express, directly mentioned the problem of the stock market, which he believed would lead to unprecedented competition in the market. And Qin Xinghua, chairman of Aneng Logistics, pointed out the look of stock competition in the field of express transport with a very specific: "Our core goal is to achieve (total cost capacity) less than the industry-leading level of 1 cent."

    Whether it is STO Express or Aneng Logistics, they are already in the first echelon in their respective fields. Because of the obvious economies of scale and network effects, even if it is "one cent lower" than its rivals, it will bring hundreds of millions of dollars in cost reduction and savings. The ability to compete cost control has always been one of the core capabilities of logistics enterprises. But cutting costs is only one aspect of a company's efforts. The ultimate way to achieve growth is from new market additions. In 2023, many guests of logistics enterprises have "going out" as one of the ways of growth.

On the one hand, for coping with the stock competition in the domestic market to consolidate their own advantages, on the one hand, actively go out to find new opportunities, which is basically the dual-line development strategy of many logistics head enterprises in 2023.

"Roll" into it

    Why is today's logistics market more and more voluminous? How exactly does it work? At the summit's China Less than 50 People Forum, Nie Shujun, director of the Yunlian Research Institute, released the "China less than 50 load Enterprise Ranking: Top 30 in revenue & Top 12 in Express & Top 20 in Regional less than 50 load & Top 20 in special line" and made an in-depth interpretation.

According to the annual list released by the organizer, Yunlian. There are two points worth noting, first, the concentration of the market's leading enterprises has become larger.

    Although the market is down, the total revenue of the top 30 less-load enterprises in 2022 still increased slightly compared with 2021, with a total income of 119.87 billion yuan. The revenue of the top 10 enterprises exceeded 100 billion yuan, achieving 102.64 billion yuan, and the industry concentration was further improved, accounting for 85.6% of the total revenue of the top 30 enterprises, and the scale advantage of the first echelon continued to be far ahead. The total income of the 10 enterprises in the second tier of 11-20 enterprises decreased slightly from 12.88 billion yuan in 2021 to 12.75 billion yuan, and the proportion of the total income of the top 30 enterprises also declined from 11.1% to 10.6%. The total revenue of the 10 enterprises in the third echelon of 21-30 companies decreased slightly from 4.67 billion yuan in 2021 to 4.48 billion yuan, and the proportion of the total revenue of the top 30 less-than-trucking companies decreased to 3.7%.

    The increase in industry concentration means that the living space of some waist enterprises is being squeezed. The increase in concentration also means that the competition of the leading enterprises is more intense.

In addition, the Transport Research Institute pointed out to the titanium media APP that in the past, the logistics industry mainly divided the boundaries of different business types such as vehicle and less-load according to the kilogram segment. With the development of the market and the change of customer needs, some business boundaries are indeed blurred, and some new business types appear, including the division of large and small bills. Generally speaking, the finer the market division, the more conducive to differentiated competition for enterprises, which is also one of the ways to avoid internal volume. However, not all custom marketplaces can be established. For example, the concept of "large delivery" is not valid from the current market point of view, then this "custom" failure is also one of the signs of internal volume.

    Logistics leading management

    In the stock market stage, how to improve the fine degree of enterprise management has become the focus of thinking of many logistics company bosses.

Wang Wenbin pointed out that from the market point of view, the current economic express is already the ultimate cost-effective, "from the consumer point of view is already the national free mail, from the business point of view we are now a kilogram is within 3 yuan to send nationwide." In addition to the price, the national average signing period is now within 44 hours. This is extremely cost-effective. We are also pursuing costs today and returning cost dividends to merchants and consumers."

    This extreme cost performance means that the product form optimization space of the express delivery industry has been very limited, and the competition has been white-hot in the two dimensions of timeliness and price. In this case, the cost pressure is also increasing due to consumers' pursuit of experience. For example, more and more consumers are asking for packages to be delivered to their homes, which means that it is difficult for delivery companies to rely on third-party companies to reduce costs.

    In this case, Shentong in the production capacity, number intelligence, management of several aspects of the multi-pronged approach to meet the challenges of the market. In terms of management, Wang Wenbin pointed out that the key is to refine the granularity of management: "We have more than 20 provinces and regions in the country, and the following provinces and regions are outlets. From managing the provinces to managing every outlet, package, and small piece staff, this is the direction we want to do. From seeing data every month to seeing data every day, how can we see near-real-time data? When we managed the outlets, we had the outlet steward system, the district steward system, and these things were changes that we made when we did the management."

    On the Aneng side, Qin Xinghua obviously felt the changes in the market: "Today, the express industry began to accelerate the internal volume due to environmental changes in advance, and we were not prepared for the sudden change. Originally our management model, business model is still in the growth period, the past three months in the market to obtain 10,000 tons of goods, ten years time 1 ton to more than 50,000 tons of high volume, but the market environment suddenly changed, we have to adapt to the environment, how to live? To change, change the array, change the method of play, and change a series of structures."

    When sharing Anneng's approach, Qin Xinghua especially emphasized the playing method and significance of "the total cost is one cent ahead".

He pointed out that we want to achieve 1 cent lower than the industry leading level, and our total cost capacity of the express industry is 1 cent lower than the industry level. My site cost, transportation cost, unit price level, end coverage cost, combined with the comprehensive cost of the whole link than the whole industry is 1 cent. Total cost capacity is one of the core competitiveness of the entire logistics industry, today to focus on total cost capacity, to the ultimate challenge total cost capacity.

Compared with the express industry, consumers are increasingly demanding services, in the field of express transportation, Qin Xinghua has found a relatively simple and direct standard for how to do a good job of service, that is, to respond to demand with density and response speed: "Today it has been proven that as long as there is a store per kilometer, customers can make a phone call to pick up goods in 15 minutes, and can respond quickly to customer needs, so that you can occupy the market."

    At the level of organization and management, although Qin Xinghua did not use academic words such as de-bureaucbureaucracy, he basically followed the disease of large companies: "Now many enterprises have no process, or the process is relatively rigid. Today, we should let the places close to the water source get the first-hand process, first-hand decide things, first-hand decide the quotation, first-hand decide the action, first-hand decide the authorization, and be flexible. In the face of environmental change, only a flexible organization can respond quickly to all circumstances."

Looking overseas for growth

    Other than asking organizations for efficiency, where exactly is the new growth? Yu Zhenchao, general manager of Haier GoodayMart, shared GoodayMart's research with the participants. Yu Zhenchao believes that logistics enterprises should first study the policy orientation of the country, which industries are encouraged? He pointed out that there are currently two new tracks in the direction of national policy. First, national emerging industries or state-led and encouraged emerging industries. Second, the expansion of international business. In the past three years, many logistics companies have been defeated, but many logistics companies have also been achieved. For example, in the past three years, the China-Europe, China-Russia and Central Asian freight trains, combined with the rapid development of the Belt and Road and the RECP, also have many new opportunities. Three dimensions. First, regional growth. In addition to the booming e-commerce industry in Central Asia, Central East Africa + Russia and South America, the construction of basic energy is a very big new track in the past few months."

    In the roundtable dialogue "Industrial chain supply chain Reconstruction in the post-epidemic era", Dong Zhonglang, partner of Hidden Mountain Capital, pointed out that in the past few years, the right to speak of the global industrial chain has basically been in the hands of China and the United States, and this model is now being differentiated, so there are more and more enterprises in Southeast Asia to Vietnam, and the inheritors in North America are Mexico. This change in the chain brings new opportunities to logistics companies." Logically, China has reduced its exports, but China has exported more things to Mexico and Vietnam, and most of them are re-exported to Europe and the United States. There's still the same amount of stuff, but the logistics costs have increased. Originally, it went directly to the United States, but now it has to go to Vietnam, Mexico, and then go. Logically speaking, it creates new market space for us in terms of market increment."

    Geng Hao, president of Feilida, pointed out that the extension and transfer of the industrial chain has changed the functions carried by some logistics clusters in the past. In the past, when China was the world's production base, we promoted cluster bases. For example, in the whole supporting system around Chongqing and Kunshan, several other manufacturing bases have corresponding manufacturing clusters, and the automobile manufacturing industry and Toyota's model, the implementation is intensive. But now that global supply chains are being restructured, quite a few domestic auto factories are setting up overseas, following in the footsteps of Japanese and South Korean companies. These have led to the extension of the entire link from the parts to the assembly plant, the previously short warehouse with distribution within 100 km, can be supplied directly to the factory. In the future, it may become a stable supply chain, and the main domestic manufacturing base will be distributed to the main assembly plant base in Southeast Asia, which will bring the extension of the transport link."

    Rong Qing Logistics CEO Xiong Xingming said that in view of the impact of the entire supply chain restructuring, Rong Qing Logistics is also adjusting its strategy. In the past, multinational companies were mainly high-end customers, and now the strategy is adjusted to extend to waist enterprises. He also said, "In the process of rapid development, our management has been relatively extensive, and now it may have to be refined." Now the cost competition pressure is very big, now the incremental market is less, the stock market game when the competition is cost-effective advantage and ability, we have to make great efforts on this."

    Dong Zhonglang believes that when Chinese enterprises go global, it is important to bring out the efficiency capabilities of Chinese enterprises. The world is wide, but back then you need Chinese business support, it is not a local service, but end-to-end. In any case, the most important thing we see is to bring China's efficiency out, because we in China unknowingly logistics efficiency is very high in the world, especially compared to the Southeast Asian market."

    For the overall trend of the logistics industry in 2023, Wang Yang, president of Yunlian think tank, pointed out that a word he particularly values is tension. Because the tension is extended and outward. That way you look outward, not inward." Whether it is for enterprises or industries, our pursuit is always how to achieve qualitative change through innovation and change. Not only will our team take the initiative to create tension and manage tension, but we also hope that the industry will continue to have new development tension, continue to have higher pursuit and higher goals, and truly develop together in the direction of innovation."