Since February 2, Meituan’s series of adjustments have been labeled “rejuvenating”, but this is just a means, not an end.
sorted out the logic of many adjustments this year, and there are two main lines behind it. One is to merge business lines to stimulate organizational flexibility; the other is to expand power to Wang Puzhong. The specific power depends on the attack scope of Alibaba and Douyin. There is no doubt that Wang Puzhong is already "below one person" and above ten thousand people within Meituan.
As early as February 2, the four modules of the Home Business Group, the Store Business Group, Meituan Platform, and Basic Research and Development had all reported to Wang Puzhong. Zhang Chuan, who was originally responsible for visiting stores, was now responsible for segmented businesses such as Dianping, Saas, cycling, and power banks. On March 18,
html established the platform product department, with Tao Xuexuan as the person in charge, to integrate and integrate product design, user growth and operations, user experience and governance in stores and at home. At the same time, Wei Wei was promoted to be responsible for in-store catering, and Zhang Ruoyu took over as the person in charge of the takeout fulfillment platform. The core purpose of this adjustment is to mobilize elite troops from the home-to-home business to the in-store stores amid fierce battles. On April 11, Meituan’s food delivery business department made refined adjustments.Until April 18, Meituan’s integrated platform, in-store business group, home business group and basic R&D platform were “core local businesses”. Wang It is a natural thing for Puzhong to serve as the local commercial CEO.
After a series of adjustments, in order to resist the invasion from Douyin, Meituan’s organizational structure is becoming more and more like Alibaba’s local life, gathering various lines of business.
In addition, the establishment of the core local business sector means that the organizational structure adjustment that started on February 2 is gradually coming to an end.
The "BD" model is fighting against the pack of wolves
is not like going home. There is no moat for the in-store business. The only means that can be relied on are consumer-oriented subsidies and merchant-oriented BD coordination.
Regardless of hotels or restaurants, merchants care most about customer acquisition, rates, and data. Before Doukuaishu intervened, the core of the game was customer acquisition and rates, and data issues were not externalized.
The data system of Meituan’s in-store merchants is relatively closed, and many key data cannot be exported. Since the accumulated data cannot be taken away, these merchants were once a little wary when faced with Douyin’s solicitation. On the contrary, in order to win over merchants, Douyin’s local life merchant terminal will launch a tool almost every month. For example, in the third quarter of last year, a weekly store customer traffic estimation tool was launched, and merchants can freely export relevant data.
The differences in merchant data between the two parties have led to completely different characteristics of their respective native merchants - Douyin merchants can talk about data and operations in a clear and logical manner, while Meituan merchants rely more on experience and feeling.
An industry insider mentioned that integration into one can help reduce the burden of merchant docking. In the past, merchants had to connect multiple businesses such as home delivery, in-store delivery, and power banks at the same time. Later, power banks switched to an agency model and still had to deal with two groups of people. After a series of adjustments this year, Meituan's organization will become more flexible.
Meituan City BD will contact merchants at a relatively high frequency, not only for daily communication and coordination, but also to help merchants analyze monthly operating data.
A restaurant chain merchant told Photon Planet that the core data will usually be provided when connecting to BD. "They will help you do the analysis, but the purpose is to let you purchase the corresponding services." One merchant said that in order to convince himself, he and he In order to achieve conversion, the Meituan BD who contacted me even reported to the boss face to face with him and persuaded him to purchase paid projects.
's high-density contact and wolfish local promotion ability once made it difficult for Douyin's local life to break through - Douyin's local life relies more on service providers and digital tools.
Hotels may be the merchant group that has the most exposure to BD, including hotel accommodation, group buying, power bank and other business BD. These partners are an important force in the success of Meituan’s hotel business: In the past, Meituan found the trick to build a low-cost, high-execution team of partners.
Meituan entered the hotel accommodation business in 2015. At that time, Ctrip bd had about 1,000 employees and served 100,000 high-star hotels. Amortized evenly, the per capita salary of each bd is 15,000 yuan, serving 100 hotels. Almost all of their labor costs need to be supported by the 500 yuan commission from the ADR (average room rate of rooms sold) of these 100 hotels.
The cost of services has hindered Ctrip from exploring the market, giving Meituan an opportunity to enter the market.
The ADR of this 300,000 low-star hotel is between 150-200 yuan, and the commission is difficult to exceed 20 yuan/order. In order to control costs, Meituan relies on the organizational capabilities and technical middle-end construction of local promotions to expand its service radius, which greatly lowers the threshold for practitioners, thereby expanding bd's service radius to 300-500 hotels. This method of mixing BD with other businesses also plays a role in compressing wages.
may see that Meituan BD is a new force in the store, or the cornerstone of supporting the business. Earlier, it was reported in Maimai that this year, the OKR of Douyin Local Life HR showed the statement of poaching Meituan City BD.
Wang Xing, a 40-year-old general, wrote on Fanfou many years ago, "Strategically, we fight a protracted war, and tactically, we fight a war of annihilation."
Meituan's in-store business is tactically fighting a war of annihilation on the merchant side, for example Single-point blasting through merchant operations, rate adjustments, diversified subsidy means, or counterattacks through live broadcasts. Douyin, on the other hand, is fighting a war of annihilation in terms of human resources, trying to undermine Meituan’s advantage in BD.
In addition to the continued expansion of Douyin’s local life, Kuaishou and Xiaohongshu have entered the game one after another, changing the development logic of the in-store business. Relying on community and content, these latecomers have bypassed the simple and crude competition method in the local life industry that relies solely on subsidies + BD coordination.
The merger of Daojia and Daodian is ostensibly to use the advantages of Daojia and reverse the disadvantages of Daojia. More importantly, it is to cope with external pressure.
Zhang Chuan is stronger than Shoucheng, and may have been misunderstood because of his lack of military exploits. Many people gave him the nickname "Meituan Zhao Kuo". However, many people don’t know that Zhang Chuan’s strengths lie in commercialization and understanding of business.
In 2020, Ruixing’s financial fraud incident came to light, and the management was extremely confused, causing the stock price to fluctuate violently. At an internal Meituan store management meeting, Zhang Chuan analyzed Luckin from multiple angles and suggested that everyone buy Luckin Pink Sheet. This reflects his understanding of the store business beyond ordinary people.
In comparison, Wang Puzhong is more like a warrior. He has experienced many battles in 2015 and 2020, and he was able to escape unscathed.
In April 2015, when Wang Huiwen extended an olive branch for the second time, Wang Puzhong "joined Meituan with mixed emotions." In the early days, Wang Huiwen was mainly responsible for controlling the business direction of group buying, while Wang Puzhong was mainly responsible for productization, and then gradually transferred to the food delivery business department.
"Big King and Little King" have jointly completed two strategic adjustments in the takeout business. One is to break away from the quagmire of the campus market and enter the business district. The other is to change the industry's strategy of mainly subsidy-driven market to Data driven.
Wang Puzhong's personality traits are similar to Wang Xing's. He likes to talk, loves to ponder, and is willing to reproduce classic theories.
For example, when answering "Why do some people think coffee is more stylish than tea?" Wang Puzhong, who was 33 years old at the time, wrote, "The main reason is that you are still young and have a little life experience. The only pretentious people in the circle of friends are tea." ". Wang Xing also asserted that the killer application of AR/VR is first of all AV.
In terms of replicating classic theories, Wang Puzhong once used Rogers' "Innovation Diffusion Theory" to practice. In the early stages of business development, it takes time to popularize it in the market, and the business process is slow. When the market penetration rate reaches 10%-25%, growth will accelerate rapidly, which will lead to the take-off stage of the business. When the market reaches the saturation stage, it will be difficult to increase.
Based on the above logic, Meituan once stopped subsidies and expanded the scale of delivery, thus cultivating the largest moat for home delivery business - contract fulfillment capacity. In 2020, Ali took advantage of the virus to restart local life, but was defeated by Wang Puzhong in just over a year. It was not until last year that Meituan ushered in a new round of challenges after two years.
Douyin Local Life wanted to buy in groups first and then take out food. The two parties initially competed for in-store business. Due to the lack of content infrastructure and limited countermeasures, Meituan’s in-store business has always been passively beaten, and its market share has continued to decline. According to a person familiar with the matter, the market share dropped from a high of more than 60% to 40% last year. An internal review last year characterized it as a defeat.
Douyin’s local life was going smoothly, so he accelerated his involvement in food delivery.
As early as December 2022, Douyin had reached cooperation with third-party delivery companies such as SF Express, Shanshuo, Dada, and uu Errand. Throughout 2023, Douyin tested food delivery in Beijing, Chengdu and other places.
However, Douyin Local Life has not established a complete takeout system and relies only on third parties to fulfill contracts. As a result, many short-distance (1-2 kilometers) orders have no riders to take orders, and merchants have to pay for increased prices out of their own pockets. The person in charge of a Beijing fast food chain brand mentioned that since self-delivery charges are based on distance, an order is calculated based on two or three kilometers, and the cost is close to 10 yuan, which makes it difficult for merchants to afford it.
When Douyin Takeaway was still between success and failure, Meituan Takeaway suddenly opened its doors and announced that it would build a so-called "instant delivery ecosystem" with its peers, almost completely crushing Douyin Takeaway's attempt.
html On August 28, Meituan Waimai reached cooperation with SF Express, Flash Delivery, and uu Errand. Due to the delivery and instant retail orders from Meituan, Douyin’s local life has been completely wiped out, and its expansion has been temporarily blocked.FuDaoDian is fake, FuPuzhong is real
Some people believe that Meituan merged Daojia and DaoDian in the hope of using the advantages of DaoJia to maintain the stickiness of DaoDian. This statement may be difficult to justify, because home delivery and store delivery have completely different business logics.
’s home-delivery business focuses on food delivery, using subsidies and community operations to attract consumers, and using digitalization and fulfillment capabilities to serve merchants. Meituan has been working hard on merchant digitization and contract fulfillment for many years, and has formed an obvious moat. After all, merchants who use Company A’s operating and settlement products often will not use Company B’s solutions.
However, the in-store business lacks the means to control merchants. Since the early days of group buying, it has been in a linear state of "user search - online ordering - offline verification". Doukuaishu has a lot of user time in hand. After e-commerce matures, it will be easy to attract users in the two stages of user search and online ordering.
In addition, compared with takeout, the decision-making process of group buying is longer, and users need more real and rich content to support decision-making. Various factors make users and Doukuaishu go in the same direction.
Meituan seems to have seen the importance of content, but it was impossible to operate on Douyin, so it launched short videos and live broadcasts. However, after a set of operations, the live broadcast room was eventually occupied by the official and large chain brands, and small and medium-sized businesses had almost no chance to show their faces.
Therefore, using home-to-store support is a bit far-fetched in terms of business logic. It is more about closing the business lines and responding to external competition in a joint effort.
Currently, there are many problems facing Wang Puzhong and Meituan’s core local business employees, involving catering, hotels, business digitization, etc. The troubles are also big. The biggest one is Douyin, followed by Kuaishou and Xiaohongshu.
Wang Xing once said that the company's problems are opportunities for employees; social problems are opportunities for enterprises. Therefore, for Wang Puzhong, there are many and great opportunities.
