Meituan has another new action.
A few days ago, media reported that Meituan has designated the "community group buying" business as a first-level strategic project, and intends to develop it into another main business following the two main businesses of food and beverage delivery, in-store and liquor travel.
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Behind the adjustment of Meituan Optimum’s personnel structure, community group buying competition is becoming increasingly fierce
It is understood that the Meituan Optimal Business Unit has developed rapidly after its establishment. It has only been established for 3 months. It has launched community group buying business in 20 provinces and cities including Jinan, Wuhan, Guangzhou, Foshan, Chengdu, Zibo, and Tai'an. Many key county-level cities in the province have penetrated. In terms of team, Meituan Optimum has expanded to more than 3,000 people within 3 months.
This optimization structure adjustment is a new round of adjustments made by the rapid development of Meituan's optimization business and team. According to reports, Meituan Optimal has made great efforts to adjust its personnel structure. Almost all the first core members of the Optimal Division have been replaced. The new management team members are composed of elite personnel from multiple divisions of Meituan. For example, Chen Wei, the head of sales of the Optimal Business Unit, was originally the head of the related business of Meituan Kuailu Stocking, and is a sales cadre with "extremely strong sales capabilities".
One point of this personnel adjustment is particularly worthy of attention, that is, the new position of regional head of the optimized division. It is understood that the regional leaders report to the business line leader. They are the key figures in charge of the five regions of East China, West China, South China, North China and Central China, and can manage the city leaders of each business line in the region. Meituan did not have the position of regional leader before, and the leaders of each business line city directly reported to the leader of the business line.
Behind the structural adjustment of Meituan Optimal Recognition is the increasingly fierce competition for the track of community group buying. The current club group buying track includes players who have been on the track for many years, such as Prosperity Optimum, Shihui Group, City Life, and Food Sharing Club, as well as Pinduoduo, Meituan, Ali, JD, Suning, Didi, etc. The large number of players who have entered the arena, there are also ByteDance, Kaisa, Baoneng, RT-Mart and other players gearing up to wait and see.
In a word, the competition of the current group buying circuit of the community is very fierce.
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Views on Meituan’s upgrade of community group buying to a first-level strategy
Although the current community group buying competition is very fierce, as a market that is still in the early stages of development, the community has huge imagination.
According to the "Special Research Report on China's Community Group Buying Industry in the First Half of 2020" released by iiMedia Consulting, under the stimulus of the epidemic, the community group buying market will develop rapidly in 2020, and the market size is expected to reach 72 billion yuan. IiMedia Consulting estimates that the size of China's community group buying market is expected to reach 100 billion in 2022. More investors predict that the future community group buying market will reach trillions.
Xi Ge believes that Meituan prefers to adjust the personnel structure this time for the following two reasons. One is to cope with the rapid development of the team, and the other is to enhance organizational flexibility, strengthen the team's combat effectiveness, and prepare for territory grabbing.
Therefore, this round of personnel adjustment can be regarded as a major move by the Optimal Business Department to strengthen team management. As mentioned above, although Meituan Optimal has not been established for a long time, it has developed rapidly. So far, it has nearly 3,000 people. A large number of people is a good thing, but when there are too many people, management has to keep up. If management fails to keep up, it is easy to fall into problems such as superfluous people and weakened team combat effectiveness. Therefore, we have seen that the Optimal Division has introduced many elites from the original Meituan divisions. Most of these old people have led a group to fight tough battles, whether in team management or fighting on the battlefield, they are all quite experienced. It can be seen that with the addition of this group of elderly people, the combat effectiveness of the Optimal Business Unit will be further improved.
Why does Meituan prefer to set up the position of regional leader in this round of personnel adjustments? Xi Ge believes that this should be a personnel arrangement based on the characteristics of the current community group buying in the preferred aspect, in order to enhance the flexibility of the organization. In the current community group buying business, the "group leader" is a very important role, and even the core factor for the platform's early market start and expansion. It is understood that some powerful team leaders can achieve millions of sales in a single month, which is a typical person leading a large film. Obviously, the team leader is a key role. If more powerful team leaders are found, the expansion speed of the platform will be greatly increased. The question is how to find more powerful group leaders? Higher commission, more income guarantee, and more room for growth? All of these require a person who can make quick decisions and make flexible decisions. The establishment of regional leaders will make this decision more flexible and faster.
Another point is that after upgrading the community group buying strategy, the authority of the optimal business department to call resources has also expanded a lot. Regardless of whether it is human, physical, various resources will be more guaranteed. These are all conducive to enhancing the "combat power" of frontline personnel.
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Meituan community group buying is more than just "selling vegetables"
Is Meituan strongly supporting community group buying just for selling vegetables? Obviously not.
We know that the core of Wang Xing's Food+Platform strategy is high frequency and low frequency. In the past few years, Meituan has been expanding its boundaries, integrating Dianping, acquiring Mobike, entering the shared charging market, and launching an offensive against Didi Dache. All of these are actually aimed at capturing users’ high-frequency consumption behavior. .
The same is true of the effort to enter the grocery market today. At present, with the popularization of mobile Internet, people's consumption habits have greatly changed. After the young “Internet aborigines” generation in their early 20s started to get married, more and more user groups have put forward new demands for Internet fresh food consumption—requiring the platform to be able to cook and stir-fry at home. Provide support. Under this trend, the grocery shopping business has gradually become a high-frequency consumer demand for urban users. In particular, the outbreak of the black swan this year has changed the consumption habits of many people. Online grocery shopping has expanded from the behavior of some groups to a consumption habit of most people.
For Meituan, which uses high-frequency and low-frequency, the high-frequency consumer market such as grocery shopping must be seized. Seizing the high-frequency consumer market of buying food will seize the next wave of consumer trends for users. Therefore, grocery shopping is the key to enhancing the future competitiveness of Meituan Food+Platform strategy. Conversely, once Meituan misses the high-frequency consumer market of grocery shopping, it may have a huge impact on its future development. The same instant delivery, the same food as the core, the same high-frequency consumption, users can buy food and order takeaway. If there really is a big grocery shopping giant, it would be a disaster for Meituan.
Moreover, as a nationwide consumer behavior, buying vegetables is a powerful tool to help Meituan sink into the county market. As mentioned earlier, Meituan Optimal focuses its business on expanding into the county market in many cities in Jiangxi, Hubei and other provinces. Why do you want to make a county market? Because many county markets are places that Meituan has not yet touched. These places are virgin land for Meituan, and are good places to pull new ones. Therefore, community group buying is a powerful tool for Meituan to pull new products.
In addition to laying out the future and pulling new ones into the sinking market, community group buying is also an important depression for the development of e-commerce, which can bring new imagination to Meituan. The scale of consumer groups in the county market in my country is huge. Due to economic development, most county online shopping habits are still in their infancy, and the future consumption frequency and total amount of consumption have considerable growth potential. If Meituan can occupy this market through its grocery shopping business at a lower cost, the next step can be to train users into e-commerce users through community group buying, thereby filling the gap in the e-commerce industry in the vast county areas.
Therefore, grocery shopping is a multi-tasking thing for Meituan, and it is also a market that must be won.