Each crisis is a new opportunity. Under the new crown epidemic this year, one of the priorities and directions of government investment is "new infrastructure". New infrastructure refers to the construction of new infrastructures based on 5G digital networks and smart data centers. As an upstream equipment provider, construction machinery manufacturers should consider how to build digital capabilities, seize new opportunities under the crisis, create unique competitive advantages, separate from the fierce market competition, and truly become the world's leading industry leader enterprise.
1. In the era of inventory, the construction machinery industry urgently needs
Seek new value growth points through digital transformation
As my country's construction machinery industry gradually enters the era of stock, market sales growth is weak, and trends such as the intensification of downstream demand will trigger changes on the demand side. As a supply-side manufacturer, it should actively seek transformation, seek share growth through value growth, and establish a sustainable development model. Among them, digital transformation for downstream users is the only way for the construction machinery industry to achieve value growth. Elephant Walk experts believe that four major factors have become the driving force for the digital transformation of my country's construction machinery industry:
Digital technology: Digital technology has grown exponentially, and it has now reached the point where it can transform business models and improve operational efficiency. Digital technology has been applied on a large scale in many industries. For example, remote monitoring, tracking, and early prediction of equipment failures can be achieved through equipment connections.
Customer needs: Despite the rapid development of science and technology, consumers have more experience with technology in their lives than in workplaces. For example, the widely used technologies such as facial recognition payment come from digital artificial intelligence technology. The implementation of these digital applications in enterprise scenarios is relatively lagging. . However, increasingly mature consumers have also promoted corporate customers' understanding of digital technology, and corporate customers have demanded convenience and customization. Customers are no longer satisfied with just offline, and hope that they can understand and buy the products and services they need through multiple channels online and offline. In addition, customers want to be able to participate in the product design process and establish close relationships based on relevant content (predictable data). Finally, customers are paying more and more attention to sustainable development, high efficiency and energy saving, and zero emissions.
Competitive environment: Construction machinery manufacturers will use more software and develop digital ecology, breaking the inherent business model of the traditional construction machinery industry that only sells products, and realizing the transformation of new business models. Construction machinery manufacturers will bypass distributors and directly face customers through their own customer relationships. The in-depth development of the sharing economy will reduce equipment demand, and stricter national or industry standards will reshape the market competition environment.
Business model: Digital technology empowers connected products and services, which will give birth to new business models. For example, from selling hardware products to selling smart construction solutions; users charge according to the output of the equipment; use lease instead of purchase. Forward integration will accelerate, for example, construction machinery manufacturers will take over equipment operation management. In addition, the market will produce more managed service solutions to meet end-to-end product lifecycle management (installation, maintenance, remote monitoring, replacement and recycling of parts, etc.).
2. Developing a digital customer journey can help
Traditional construction machinery manufacturers change their thinking
Develop new business models to achieve value growth
Throughout various industries, the digitalization process of the construction machinery industry is relatively backward. Therefore, the development of digitalization, especially the digital transformation for downstream customers, has become the top priority for the value growth of construction machinery manufacturers in the next stage. Specifically, digital transformation should start from the customer journey. On the one hand, keep pace with the times, embrace the current major technological development trends, adapt to the new competitive environment and business model development trends, and solve the pain points caused by changes in downstream customer needs. On the other hand, when entering the stock market, the outstanding problem of my country's construction machinery manufacturing industry is no longer the simple process of incomplete process, insufficient technical input and other traditional corporate management thinking, but how to jump out of daily management and corporate development, and use digital methods to find customers around the entire journey New breakthrough point.
The digital customer journey refers to all the physical and virtual operation steps completed by downstream customers in the construction machinery industry during the transaction, involving the contact process between the three major links of purchase, use and service.
buy
Online sales of products, spare parts and accessories
The new crown epidemic has accelerated the shift from offline to online. Various industries have begun to embrace online opportunities. The biggest benefit is the accelerated penetration of live e-commerce. From live-streaming cosmetics to live-streaming car sales, everyone thought that e-commerce was not Categories suitable for entry become possible in a crisis. At present, my country's construction machinery customers purchase mainly through offline dealer channels, while the exploration of e-commerce sales channels in the construction machinery industry has just begun. Construction machinery manufacturers should seize the opportunity to create online and offline multi-channel contacts and improve customer omni-channel transaction scenarios.
Internet banking
Construction machinery equipment has high value and long service life. Financing customers through financial means is a natural choice to solve the funding gap and cash flow pressure. Through the development of finance, such as financial leasing business to acquire users, increase the frequency of interaction with users, increase user stickiness, and create opportunities for subsequent service business expansion. However, the financial services provided by construction machinery manufacturers often only start after product production is completed, and customers lack a sense of participation in product design and production. Fortunately, the development of science and technology has given new ideas for the development of financial services. Internet finance will further expand the boundaries of products and services, enabling customers to participate in the design and production of products and equipment in advance, solving the pain points of new customer needs.
use
From pay-per-use model to pay-for-result model
Some products of construction machinery in my country still rely on imitating and copying to realize product development, leading to serious homogeneity competition in low-end products. In order to cope with the increasingly tight market environment and to respond to the upgrading and changes of user-side demand, the construction machinery industry is showing a trend of manufacturing service. However, the servitization of most companies is still mainly based on the extension of service links based on traditional business models. If companies want to create excess value higher than their competitors, they should seek a fundamental change in thinking. The rapid development of digital technologies such as the Internet of Things provides unprecedented opportunities for the development of new business models in the construction machinery industry. Through the interconnection of products, manufacturers can understand the operating status of equipment in real time and introduce new payment methods based on equipment usage. Customers establish reliable long-term partnerships.
Data empowerment boosts fuel efficiency
In the traditional mode, construction machinery and equipment manufacturers have almost no contact with end customers during the use of products after sales. In the use of equipment, due to insufficient knowledge of the equipment status, end customers often do not have a good solution for how to reduce the pain points of high energy consumption of the equipment. In the digital age, construction machinery and equipment manufacturers have the opportunity to improve equipment connectivity, build back-end data analysis capabilities, conduct real-time network collection and advanced intelligent analysis of massive amounts of data in customer equipment use, and actively provide customers with valuable insights. Increase the contacts in use with customers to achieve a win-win situation.
Intelligent construction solutions
The use scenarios of construction machinery are often in harsh environments and rely heavily on labor. With the continuous increase of labor costs in my country, it can be expected that the shortage of labor in the future will bring cost and output challenges to customers. If upstream construction machinery and equipment manufacturers can develop a labor-saving, safe and efficient operating environment based on customer usage scenarios, they will win the favor of the market. In the digital age, we have observed that industry-leading companies have begun to provide intelligent construction solutions, creating unprecedented value for customers by creating an environment for unmanned construction operations.
Optimize the life cycle value of equipment
my country's construction machinery second-hand equipment market has always been worrying about disorder, chaos, and lack of standards. Under such a market, it is difficult to stimulate the recovery of the entire construction machinery industry. Construction machinery manufacturers have the opportunity to participate in the formulation of industry standards, by investing or actively building a second-hand trading platform to maximize the value of their own equipment throughout the life cycle.
service
Predictive maintenance
The competition in the construction machinery market has begun to shift from the new machine sales market to aftermarket services. The amount of equipment on the market is already huge. It is no longer realistic to expect new equipment sales to continue to grow. To maintain sustainable development, companies must pay attention to the aftermarket. Among them, the maintenance and service market derived from equipment sales has huge potential. Traditional preventive-based regular maintenance can no longer effectively deal with potential or sudden abnormal failures. It will also cause many unnecessary disassembly, installation and purchase of spare parts, resulting in excessive equipment maintenance and repair costs and additional running-in losses, and even lead to New fault. At present, the more mature application of digital technology in the construction machinery industry is the predictive maintenance of equipment, that is, through the data collection, analysis and early warning of the Internet of Things equipment, intervening and taking actions before equipment failures, reducing equipment downtime and maintenance cost.
3. Construction machinery companies need to build digital capabilities
Create an end-to-end digital customer journey
We are in a period of rapid development of digital technology, new technologies are constantly emerging, and the maturity of the technology itself is different. Not only that, the breadth and depth of application of technology in different industries are different. Stones from other mountains can be used for jade. On the one hand, we have seen practical cases of leading companies in the construction machinery industry; on the other hand, we also need to learn from the best practices of digital customer journeys in other industries. Facing the future and creating an end-to-end digital customer journey, my country's construction machinery manufacturers should start with the end and work in six major directions:
1. Release connected products
2. Provide a digital experience
3. Establish digital infrastructure and digital analysis capabilities
4. Build a digital ecosystem
5. Provide digital services and solutions
6. Drive organizational change
