Chapter 24 Chapter 22 Special Channel Management

Formal chain, also known as company chain, refers to the combination of many decentralized stores under the control of the same capital.The characteristic of a regular chain is that all stores are directly controlled by its headquarters. The headquarters implements unified procurement, unified pricing, unified accounting, and unified distribution. In fact, each store only has the function of sales.Formal chain is the closest form of chain organization. Chain operation is a modern business operation mode and organizational form commonly adopted by many countries in the world today.A chain store refers to an affiliated network formed by many small and medium-sized enterprises through organizational and operational alliances.The operations of chain stores are controlled to varying degrees by the head office.

The main characteristics of chain stores are that their management system is quite standardized, with appropriate scale, large quantity and wide distribution, and they can obtain various benefits of large-scale operation.For example, a unified chain image can improve and expand the reputation of the store’s large-scale operation; it can reduce the purchase cost through mass purchases; the market information is relatively sufficient, which is conducive to understanding changes in consumer demand at any time and making corresponding changes.Of course, due to the unified management and centralized purchase of chain stores, the flexibility of each separate store is reduced to a certain extent.

Watsons Personal Care Store was founded in 1828, its predecessor was Guangdong Pharmacy in Guangzhou, China.Today, Watsons chain stores have spread over 13 countries and regions around the world, and its more than 1,500 branches sell more than 25,000 kinds of products, including medicines, cosmetics, personal care products, fashion boutiques, candies, gift cards and toys. In the retail industry in mainland my country, there is an interesting phenomenon-many chain stores follow Watsons to open stores, because Watsons stores are always popular.Most of Watson's stores are set up in the most prosperous business districts, including bustling streets, large shopping malls, airports, stations or office buildings where white-collar workers gather.

Watsons, like some technologically-leading retail companies, used a geographic information management system when selecting locations, and put in some parameters, including the flow of people nearby, the number of offices, the number of residents, etc., and then combined with map information to calculate the location of the selected store. The radiation effect of the address.Watsons uses this to infer the store's revenue and other data, so as to make a store opening decision. At the front end, Watsons’ expansion pressure comes from choosing prime stores and decorating stores attractively to attract more customers, so as to quickly recover investment and make profits; at the back end, its pressure is that the supply chain must keep up with the ever-expanding scale and maximize operational efficiency.

In all links of the supply chain, Watsons strives to use IT to improve efficiency.For a retailer like Watsons that emphasizes product diversity and differentiation, fast replenishment is one of the elements of its core competitiveness.After closing every night, Watsons' supply chain system starts to automatically collect orders from each store and calculate warehouse inventory.For goods that are out of stock, the information system will automatically send the procurement requirements to the supplier through the B2B platform connected to the supplier; for the goods that are already in stock, the system will automatically match and deliver the delivery information before the store opens the next day To the warehouse, the warehouse will start shipping immediately.

With its powerful IT center, Watsons headquarters can know which shelf is out of stock in any store across the country, and thus strengthen the replenishment mechanism. When the warehouse has stock, the goods needed by the local store will be confirmed and informationed through the IT system. Circulation, it can be shipped in half a day. Just as the secret of Watson's success lies in the strict control of inventory and logistics through the IT system, chain operation, as a close organizational form, must form a series of strict and complete internal systems to regulate various behaviors and relationships to ensure the efficient operation of the organization .The management and control of the chain store by the chain headquarters is mainly manifested in two aspects: one is the implementation of the operation and management model, and the other is the grasp of information flow.

The essential characteristic of chain operation is that chain headquarters shares resources and capabilities with all chain stores.As the specific management of the management philosophy of the chain operation headquarters, the chain headquarters must use advanced management concepts to manage staff training, staff work arrangements, responsibilities, service standards, store display, advertising, marketing, customer relations, customer complaint handling procedures, inventory, etc. Conduct in-depth research on all aspects of chain store operations such as control procedures, accounting procedures, cash and credit management procedures, safety production, and emergency handling, and standardize every task in the chain store operation and management process to form a chain list shop manual.It is the most important training material for chain store staff, and also a quick reference manual for the daily operation of chain stores.The chain stores carry out all daily operations accordingly and share the operating technology of the headquarters.

Fully grasping and utilizing information flow is also an indispensable magic weapon for the success of chain operations.The development of chain operations determines the characteristics of increasingly dispersed stores.In the face of scattered chain stores, the headquarters must enable all sales front desks and back-office support organizations to share information in real time. The information involved is recorded in real time and analyzed in depth.Otherwise, it will not be possible to form a chain network, and the advantages of chain operation that the whole is greater than the sum of the simple parts cannot be reflected.

Franchise chains are characterized by independent accounting of franchise stores and certain operating autonomy under the premise of abiding by the franchise agreement. Franchise chain, also known as franchising chain, is a chain company that signs a franchise agreement to transfer its store name, mode of operation, and products it operates to stores outside the system for use, uniform distribution of goods and business guidance, and at the same time It is required to operate in accordance with the unified requirements of the company.Franchise chains are characterized by independent accounting of franchise stores and certain operating autonomy under the premise of abiding by the franchise agreement.Franchise chain is a relatively loose form of chain organization.

Since 1998, Shuanghui has taken the establishment of 2,000 cold meat chain stores across the country as a major strategy for enterprise development, and through direct sales, joint ventures, franchises, etc., in Beijing, Henan, Sichuan, Shandong, Hubei, Hunan, Hebei and other More than 500 chain stores have been opened in Anhui.This kind of brand store has completely changed the backward and traditional meat sales model, and it has aroused great popularity everywhere it goes. In 2002, Shuanghui also opened this new type of meat chain store to the gate of Yurun—Nanjing City, which brought a huge impact to the traditional Yurun meat store.Where there is an attack, there is a counterattack. In May 2003, Yurun invested 10 million yuan to register and establish Nanjing Yurun Business Management Co., Ltd., and began to vigorously develop franchise chain stores.

Compared with Shuanghui's higher requirements, Yurun Food Store has the characteristics of less investment, small storefront and flexible franchise methods.The required store area is only 30-40 square meters (Shuanghui is more than 100 square meters), the decoration of the store only needs 5,000 yuan, and the licensed brand usage fee is only 5,000 yuan, so it can be established with an investment of 50,000 yuan. A Yurun food specialty store, which makes the joining speed much faster than Shuanghui.In just two years from its birth to the present, Yurun has developed 810 chain stores across the country, covering more than 40 cities in 11 provinces and municipalities directly under the Central Government, forming a network with Ningxia, Shanghai and Hangzhou as the axis, and various cold stores. A chain network centered on fresh meat processing companies.The strategic innovation carried out on the basis of its own resources has enabled Yurun to advance its channel strategy faster, and its advantages in controlling the channel have become more prominent. As a franchise store of Shuanghui, Yurun has reached a cooperation with Shuanghui, which has effectively promoted the sales of Shuanghui meat.Franchise chain is a relatively loose form of chain organization.According to the form of its franchise, the content and method of authorization, and the different strategic control methods of the headquarters, there are generally the following three types: 1. Production license.The franchisee invests in building a factory, or uses the franchisor's trademark or logo, patent, technology, design and production standards to process or manufacture the franchised products through OEM, and then sells them through distributors or retailers. Humans do not deal directly with end users, i.e. consumers.Typical examples include Coca-Cola bottling plants and the production of Olympic logo products. 2. Product-trademark licensing.The franchisor uses the franchisor's trademark and retail method to wholesale and retail the franchisor's products.As a franchisee, it still maintains the trade name of its original enterprise, and sells the products produced by the franchisor and obtains the trademark ownership solely or at the same time as selling other commodities. 3. Franchised business model.The franchisee has the right to use the franchisor's trademark, trade name, corporate logo and advertisements, and operate in full accordance with the single-store business model designed by the franchisor; The franchisee's internal operation management, marketing and other aspects implement unified management and have strong control. Marketing channel essentials are not limited to the distribution of physical products.Manufacturers who provide services and advice also face the problem of how to make their products accessible to and adopted by the target public. With the advancement of technology and the development of marketing concepts, channel management is no longer just a matter of physical product marketing.Service industries such as banking, insurance, travel and stock trading have also begun to build their own channels. With the gradual promotion and application of bank cards, ATMs, and POS in my country in the 1990s, new banking business channels such as domestic online banking, telephone banking, and mobile banking began to sprout.The most representative of these is online banking. The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China opened its own website on the Internet in December 1997, and was one of the first domestic banks to launch online services.After three years of internal informatization, ICBC launched the original and leading corporate online banking and personal online banking in February and August 2000 respectively.Since then, the bank's online banking business has continued to innovate, versions have been upgraded rapidly, and functions and performance have been continuously improved.In particular, corporate online banking has successively launched many domestically pioneering products such as group wealth management, online settlement, online toll booth, B2B and B2C online payment, bank-enterprise interconnection, VIP room, financial room, and online payment and settlement agency.These businesses and products have accurately grasped the needs of customers and made full use of the advantages of modern information technology. After a period of market cultivation, corporate online banking has been widely recognized by customers and developed rapidly. Since 2000, ICBC's e-banking business has grown exponentially.However, with the rapid development of e-banking, ICBC has also noticed that as a marketing channel of the bank, e-banking itself does not have personalized competitiveness, which is why the pure online banking model fails. The world's first online bank, SFNB, was sold at a loss after only two years of operation.But from the perspective of competitive development strategy, electronic banking, as a multi-channel integration tool, has extraordinary meaning and connotation.ICBC's unique approach is not to launch a complete set of e-banking services such as online banking, telephone banking, and mobile banking, but to reintegrate them with the advantages of its existing physical outlets, and rely on the reputation, credit and fundamentals of the physical bank. The function is a platform to extend the virtual outlets, and the two complement each other, so as to achieve the effect of "1+1>2". Banks should provide customers with the most convenient deposit and withdrawal methods, hospitals must be located in areas where people in need of adequate medical services are located, schools must be located close to school-age children... The service industry also faces the problem of channel selection.ICBC has opened up a new way for the bank's service channels by launching online banking. Marketing experts pointed out that the most important problem in the selection of service channels in my country is the selection of service locations.No matter what channel form is used to acquire customers, the location of the intermediary agency, that is, where the service company should be located, is very important.Services companies such as banks, accounting firms, legal advisors, restaurants, dry cleaners, etc. face location decisions just like companies that sell physical products.When we are selecting locations and warehousing, we can also learn from the channel management methods of physical products to establish more scientific and reasonable channels for ourselves.