FanRuan is a representative of the previous generation of 2B manufacturers in China, and an innovative company that has survived in the new round of big data and cloud computing technology boom.
FanRuan was established in 2006. At that time, the enterprise service market basically did not receive the attention of the capital market, and FanRuan did not receive capital support in the early stage. As a non-financing start-up company, survival is the first priority. FanRuan has survived the cold winter of start-up with its keenness to market demand, innovation in product ease of use, and innovation in team management. In 2010, it started to get on the right track.
In 2011, after the rise of the concept of big data, more and more enterprise customers realized the importance of data analysis and presentation. Fanruan entered the fast lane of development, and its business showed explosive growth. At the same time, FanRuan, which started as a reporting tool, has added a new product line business intelligence product - FineBI , breaking through the ceiling of the original business.
More than just reporting tools, focus on data analysis and presentation
FanRuan initially started as a reporting tool. After six years of development, it has established a firm foothold in the reporting tool market by 2012 and has gradually become a leading manufacturer in this field.
Managers of Chinese enterprise customers are used to reading reports to understand business development. Because of the different business, management methods and management preferences of different companies, the reports vary widely. They need to rely on the internal IT personnel or IT outsourcing companies to develop corresponding reports.
FanRuan's report product, FineReport, is to help IT personnel quickly develop corresponding reports, reduce development difficulty and improve efficiency. The ease of use and flexibility of FineReport products quickly reduce the custom reports of enterprises from weeks or even months to days or hours.
At that time, foreign manufacturers such as SAP, IBM, and Oracle also provided similar analysis tools, but because of the heavy products, high threshold for use, and high price, only large enterprise customers such as central enterprises and state-owned enterprises would use them. The product is easy to use and has won a large number of small and medium-sized enterprises.
In recent years, data plays an increasingly important role in the business and decision-making of enterprises. Business departments increasingly want to have data analysis capabilities, self-service analysis has become a trend, and a new type of agile BI has emerged. FanRuan started to study BI business in 2011, and released FineBI, an agile BI product, in 2013.
Unlike other BI manufacturers, FanRuan did not choose to build a one-stop data analysis platform by itself, but focused on two data analysis products, FineReport and FineBI, and other businesses were more cooperative. For example, FanRuan integrates its reporting products with OA manufacturers such as Fanwei and Zhiyuan, and ERP manufacturers such as Kingdee and UFIDA. The underlying database and data warehouse business of BI products cooperates with manufacturers such as Teredata and H3C DataEngine.
Customers covering multiple industries, many partners
FanRuan's customer groups mainly include two categories, one is various software companies represented by system integrators, and the other is enterprise customers from all walks of life. Various software companies mainly use FanRuan's FineReport products, while the IT department of enterprise customers uses FineReport, and the business department purchases FineBI.
In the enterprise service market, the longer it is done, the closer the relationship with customers and partners will be established. FanRuan has been working in the field of reporting and BI for 11 years, and has established very close cooperative relations with various software companies. Among the top 100 software companies in China, 69 are partners of FanRuan, and among the 244 first-level system integrators, 142 are cooperate with it.
Due to the versatility of reporting tools, FanRuan has no obvious industry trends in customer selection and market strategy during the rapid expansion period. Its customers cover many industries such as finance, real estate, retail e-commerce, medicine and health, and the cumulative number of customers has exceeded 6,000. Family.
Since 2014, FanRuan has also realized the importance of deep cultivation in the industry. Based on the existing huge customer base, FanRuan has quickly gathered many industry customers, built an industry exchange platform, and provided supporting industrialized product solutions. Carry out in-depth cooperation and application in the above-mentioned industries such as banking, real estate, medicine, retail, fashion shoes and apparel, securities and gold futures, and electronic appliances.
It is worth noting that FanRuan's charging model still takes the form of traditional software, which is a one-time buyout, rather than the most popular SaaS model, which is charged annually. However, relying on constantly updated product functions, personalized plug-in application ecology, and high-quality service model, after purchasing FanRuan products, customers will still consider pushing more projects, or adding product functions and services, and continuing to contribute cash flow, not just a one-time transaction.
Facing end customers directly, strong service ability
Due to its product characteristics, reporting tools often do not face end customers. FanRuan does not completely hand over customer service work to integrators and other partners, but instead deploys a large number of personnel to provide services to customers, collect customer feedback, and increase general demand. into the product.
除此之外，帆软每年会在全国几十个城市举办行业会议，每一场巡展都邀请该城市区域或者行业龙头的标杆客户分享行业典型案例，提升其品牌价值，同时起到教育市场、服务客户的作用。
除了依靠自身人员做好客户服务，帆软还建立了“帆软论坛”，将部分需求与问题放在社区中，由社区用户提供解决方案，并以插件形式嵌入到产品中。截至2016年底，帆软论坛注册用户超过6万人，月活用户超过1万人。这就是帆软自建生态中非常重要的一环——开发者生态。
团队快速扩张，业绩有望继续保持高速增长
2017年，帆软大幅扩张团队规模，由2016年初的180多人迅速扩张到现在的550多人，招募了大量应届毕业和实习生，主要增加了产品研发人员、客户服务人员与销售人员。目前核心产品研发人员超过150名，销售人员近80人，交付人员也超过100人。
与市面其他公司不同的是，帆软更倾向于招募应届毕业生和工作年限较短的人，整个团队平均年龄很小，是一支非常年轻的团队，整体架构非常扁平，团队运转效率高，产品迭代更新速度快。
帆软的团队大幅增长主要是考虑到最近两年客户量增长很快，客户反馈大量需求，产品需要快速迭代以满足客户需要，同时需要大量交付人员满足客户现场部署的要求。
另外一个考虑在于，帆软最近两年业绩增速很快，并且早已实现盈利，商业模式得到市场验证与认可，伴随大数据以及企业级服务市场的双风口，帆软进入业务扩张阶段，预计今年帆软的业绩仍然可以保持高速增长。
运营能力强，拥有大量软件厂商资源，但对新技术、产品的布局谨慎
帆软原本所处的报表市场规模较小，大型企业主要采用国外厂商的传统BI产品，如SAP的BO、Oralce的BIEE等，报表产品主要针对中小企业，但这些企业付费能力较差。同时，大量开源技术及免费工具的出现，使得企业IT人员可以利用这些技术与产品开发相应的报表。因此，报表市场这几年增速放缓，像润乾这类厂商正逐步退出这一市场。
近几年，帆软在敏捷型BI市场布局，拓宽其潜在市场规模，突破原本报表市场的天花板。从全球技术演进来看，传统BI工具正在走下坡路，新型敏捷BI正在成为主流，这个市场的规模正逐步扩大。根据Gartner的报告，到2020年BI市场规模将突破228亿，敏捷型BI占比正逐年扩大。
在BI市场，帆软主要面对两类竞争，国内的永洪科技、海致BDP等厂商，国外的Tableau、QilkView，帆软的优势在于具备多年服务客户的经验，客户场景理解深，在这个市场具备一定先发优势。
技术产品方面，帆软专注于BI与数据分析市场，产品积累很深，优势明显。通过会议、社区等形式对自身服务进行补充，加上最近团队规模扩张很快，无论是销售与服务能力都有很大提升。
团队方面，管理团队均为技术出身，创始团队多数没有在大型企业工作的履历，会有一定商务资源的欠缺。但也正是如此帆软形成了独特的团队文化，帆软团队成员90%以上毕业于985,211等名校，使得内部组织具有很大的张力，由此锻炼出来的单兵作战能力强。
创新能力方面，帆软在产品阵线上一直采取稳扎稳打的策略，依然着力于产品高度可用性与易用性的创新，技术资源着力于用户需求集中的地方。在对待诸如SAAS，AI等新技术领域，帆软持续关注趋势，尚未进行大规模投入市场。
资源层面，帆软深耕报表与BI产品十余年，与很多软件厂商建立合作关系，建立良好的客户关系，借助这些渠道资源很容易推广产品，这是比较大的优势。
