Author | Pastoral
Editor | Nuts
Cover source | unsplash
After bidding farewell to her father, Zong Fuli will begin to officially play the role of the successor to the beverage empire.
On March 6, Zong Fuli attended the annual meeting of the China Beverage Industry Association as the general manager of Wahaha Group and delivered a speech at the scene. This was also her first public appearance after her father Zong Qinghou died of illness on February 25.
Zong Fuli said in her speech that is not only a "veteran" who has been in the industry for 20 years, but also a "new general" who has taken over the "baton" of corporate management.
html He went abroad to study at the age of 14. He returned to China after completing his studies in 2004 and started in production management in Wahaha's workshop. Later, he served as the head of the public relations department of Wahaha Group and the vice chairman of the group, and led Wahaha's brand upgrade strategy.In the past twenty years, all the work Zong Fuli has done seems to be in preparation for taking over, but when this day really comes, this second-generation female from a wealthy family still needs to come up with something that can truly prove herself.
In the Wahaha business empire established by Zong Qinghou, dealer channels were once regarded as the most important sales weapon. Even old rival Zhong Suisui admitted that Wahaha’s advantage lies in channels, while Nongfu Spring’s strength lies in strategy.
Zong Qinghou’s last public appearance before his death was at Wahaha’s 2024 National Sales Work Conference. At the meeting, Zong Qinghou and Zong Fuli personally commended outstanding dealers and salespeople across the country and gave won a cash prize of more than 3 million yuan.
In addition, Zong Qinghou also announced on the spot that will further increase incentives for outstanding dealers in 2024 and plans to spend 100 million to reward outstanding dealers.
Now with the sudden death of Mr. Zong, how Zong Fuli, who takes over, can maintain the common interests with these "local princes" may be an important external condition for whether Wahaha can successfully complete the power transition in the next few years.
1
"Joint Marketing Organization" Achievements Wahaha
Starting from a school-run factory in 1987, it has gradually become China's largest food and beverage company. Wahaha's achievements are inseparable from channel reform. Especially in 1994, Wahaha pioneered the "joint sales body" channel model, which not only established Wahaha's market position as "those who win the channels win the world" in one fell swoop, it was also regarded as a model for learning in channel marketing by countless companies.
The biggest feature of Lianshui is "pay first and then deliver goods".
In the 1990s, it was normal for dealers to obtain goods from manufacturers and pay later. However, for manufacturers, although they are highly dependent on dealers for shipments, this model is also prone to the risk of breaking the capital chain. Therefore, under the personal supervision of Zong Qinghou, Wahaha took the lead in launching the first shot of channel reform.
However, from the perspective of dealers, "pay first, then deliver goods" undoubtedly affects their own interests. Therefore, Wahaha's channel reform was also extremely difficult to advance, and it took more than a year to achieve initial results.
The main reason why dealers are willing to accept Wahaha's "joint sales" model is because the products Wahaha provides to dealers are selling well enough, and at the same time, it leaves enough profit margins for dealers to ensure that they continue to distribute downwards.
In addition, Wahaha’s heavy investment in advertising has also accumulated strong market influence for the brand, which also allows dealers to not worry about hoarding large quantities of goods but not being able to sell them. Although the
channel reform also experienced pains, it laid a solid foundation for Wahaha's subsequent development. According to Wahaha's official website, today, Wahaha has more than 180 branches, more than 7,000 dealers, more than 100,000 wholesalers and more than 3 million sales terminals.
Such a strong sales network also enables the new products launched by Wahaha to be quickly spread across the country. After AD Calcium Milk, the success of Wahaha Pure Water, Nutrition Express, Wahaha Babao Porridge and other products is inseparable from the sales network. support.
Even after entering the e-commerce era, the strong offline shipping capabilities of dealers have not been wiped out. Even some "Internet celebrity brands" that have emerged online have to go back to building dealer networks.
For example, Yuanqi Forest, which was once a hit, has been reforming its dealer system in the past two years, turning its head towards the "traditional FMCG industry".
2
Be wary of big dealers defecting
Once the power of ancient princes and kings increased, they always wanted to support their own troops, and for contemporary offline leading dealers, there are also situations where they want to seek more benefits after becoming bigger. .
China is an emotional society. If a dealer can dominate the business in a certain area, in addition to having strong personal abilities and business skills, he must also have stable political and business relationships in the local area.
In addition, because they have been agents of a single brand of products for a long time and are highly familiar with all aspects from production to sales, these people have considerable resource advantages whether they start their own business or switch to other brands.
For Wahaha, Zhong Suisui and Nongfu Spring are the best examples.
Zhong Suisui used to be the general agent of Wahaha in Hainan and Guangxi provinces. Later, after leaving the Wahaha system, he founded Nongfu Spring in Hangzhou. Relying on differentiated product positioning, it became popular in one fell swoop and gradually developed to this day, becoming a brand that rivals Wahaha. Beverage giant.
Although in today's market environment, it is not easy for another Nongfu Spring to appear in the beverage industry, but if a large distributor suddenly switches to a competitor, Wahaha may also be caught off guard.
At this point, another well-known female entrepreneur Dong Mingzhu realized it earlier than Zong Fuli.
In the dealer network, Gree's "joint-stock regional sales company" has many similarities with Wahaha's "joint sales body" model. It not only requires "payment first, but goods are delivered later", and also allows large regional dealers Downward distribution.
In the past two years, Dong Mingzhu has advocated the reform of channel sales and the shift of sales methods from offline to online, which has directly caused dissatisfaction among some large dealers. Dealers in Henan, Shandong and other places have given up cooperation with Gree and switched to home appliance brands such as Midea and Oaks.
In August 2022, Xu Zifa, the general distributor of Hebei Gree, held a banquet for the province's mainstream dealers at a local five-star hotel. Not only did he entertain Moutai, but he also distributed 10,000 yuan in cash to each of the guests. At the event, Xu He spontaneously announced that he was "quitting the Gree business" and turned to work at Philips. The defection of a large dealer like
will not only severely damage the brand's local marketing network, but also because the large dealer itself is also connected to many small dealers and terminal outlets, once it switches to a competitor, there will be even a decline. It is possible to change the market structure of a region.
3
Next, let’s look at Zong Fuli’s
How to maintain the relationship with the dealer group. This is a very management art and very humane issue in the business society. Dealers are not employees of the company, and it is impossible to have a superior-subordinate relationship. Strict management, but too extensive can easily lead to corruption.
In February of this year, Yuanqi Forest reported internally that the former head of the key account department of the marketing center was suspected of setting up affiliated dealers through relatives and friends during his tenure, seriously damaging the interests of dealers. His behavior was suspected of major corruption and other economic crimes, and he has been arrested. The judicial authority criminally detains and approves the arrest. Dong Mingzhu, the head of
Gree, is a typical example of running the army with an iron fist. After the dealers in Hebei suddenly defected, Gree did not choose to retain or negotiate with them, but immediately planned to establish a new sales company locally and rebuild the dealer network.
Dong Mingzhu later talked about this matter and said: Reform is often accompanied by pain and challenges. In the process, someone's interests are bound to be affected, so it is normal for some people who are not so like-minded to leave.
Frankly speaking, Gree's strong attitude towards dealers has a distinct personal flavor of Dong Mingzhu. During her time in charge of Gree, Dong Mingzhu was known as the "Iron Lady".
As for Zong Fuli, who studied abroad as a teenager and was deeply influenced by Western business thoughts, what kind of image and skills will she use to establish common interests with dealers?
Judging from Wahaha’s dealer management ideas in the past few decades, Zong Qinghou has always been the soul of this huge ecosystem. His legendary personal entrepreneurial experience and responsible attitude towards dealers have made dealers willing to work with Wahaha Deep binding.
A Wahaha dealer revealed that after the annual dealer conference speech, Wahaha dealers across the country would hold separate small meetings with Zong Qinghou on a provincial basis. No matter what questions the dealers raised, Zong Qinghou would often give them ideas on the spot. If he couldn't answer them on the spot, he would ask the secretary on the side to write them down and ask the regional manager to find a solution later.
With the departure of Zong Qinghou, Zong Fuli also needs to continue to tighten the bond between dealers and Wahaha, which will also become the key to whether she can lead Wahaha to achieve greater glory.
From the current point of view, after Mr. Zong’s death, the overwhelming attention from online media has also successfully driven the sales growth of various Wahaha products. Some dealers even go to the Wahaha factory at two o’clock in the night to “grab water”. Wahaha’s online sales The channels are also in a state of overwhelming sales.
Consumer support is also the biggest support for Zong Fuli. If she can take advantage of the trend to establish her own image in the minds of dealers, it may also be of great help to her future work.
And this wave of overwhelming traffic may be the last boost that Mr. Zong can leave to his daughter.
