How to break the predicament of agents under the prosperity of China's construction machinery industry and realize the high-quality development of China's construction machinery marketing and service links. In addition to the industry's upstream and downstream value chains to jointly create a healthy development industry environment, the key proposition is how to Explore a characteristic road of construction machinery agency system that meets China's national conditions and meets the needs of China's market development.
China Construction Machinery Agency System
More and more distinctive Chinese characteristics
China's construction machinery agency system began to develop in the late 1990s, and it has gone through more than 20 years. The Agent Working Committee of China Construction Machinery Industry Association (hereinafter referred to as the "committee") has also gone through 18 years. The committee witnessed the establishment and fruition of the agency system in China's construction machinery industry. Today, nearly 80% of the sales of the construction machinery industry are sold through agency channels; the committee has also witnessed the growth and expansion of the agent group. Thousands of agent companies support the blue sky of China's construction machinery marketing and service.
On the whole, the development of the construction machinery agent group in the first 10 years is basically smooth, and the biggest test it has experienced is to assume the unlimited guarantee liability for debts formed by leveraged credit sales. In recent years, the annual sales volume of excavators, a representative product of construction machinery, has reached 200,000 and 300,000 units. Domestic brands have contributed most of the increase and gradually played the leading role. China's construction machinery agency system has also begun to emerge. Out of Chinese characteristics.
Compared with other markets in the world, the Chinese market will always have its own uniqueness, and construction machinery is of course no exception. China has a vast territory. It is difficult for any host manufacturer to effectively cover the entire market with its sales and service network. Due to the imbalance of economic development and the diversity of regional cultures, China’s user groups have a complex background and most of them are individual users. Rather than being dominated by mature institutional users like the European and American markets; construction machinery agents were basically self-made in the early days. They have intelligence, business talent, and courageous personality, but their capital strength is weak, so unlike Europe, America, Japan, and South Korea, most agents It is not to buy out equipment to operate; from the perspective of business operation, agents mostly start from doing business. Although the business is getting bigger and bigger, the modern enterprise system requires clear assets, standardized decision-making, perfect system, scientific management and even higher requirements. The level of strategic leadership and other aspects is indeed uneven; in addition, the perfection of China's credit system does not match the high-leveraged credit sales, thus forming a large potential operating risk...
All the above-mentioned factors with the characteristics of China's national conditions continue to accumulate and superimpose, so that the current implementation of China's construction machinery agency system has many Chinese characteristics, and many practices have procedural and phased characteristics. For example, if agents are weak in capital, of course, so-called "penetrating" management should be carried out from the perspective of host manufacturers’ asset risks; compared with manufacturers, agents are weak in management, operating companies are still amateur players, and brand manufacturers must of course export strategic requirements and even Tactical action. Although these practices have different focuses, they are not enough to distinguish whether they are foreign-funded, domestically-produced, or which brand is doing this. Because the Chinese national conditions faced by the manufacturers are the same, the practices are similar, and there is no essential difference.
Things that have Chinese characteristics and are in line with China’s national conditions cannot be judged by other rules and regulations. There is only one evaluation standard, that is, whether the practice itself is conducive to the development of the productivity of all parties in the industry and whether it is conducive to the overall development of China's construction machinery. Whether the progress of the industry is conducive to the use of better products and better services for the majority of users, thereby generating better returns.
Among Chinese construction machinery manufacturers
Will eventually evolve into a strategic partnership
What kind of relationship will eventually evolve into the relationship between manufacturers of the construction machinery agency system with Chinese characteristics? This may be a problem of relatively large differences of opinion. The benevolent sees the benevolent and the wise sees the wisdom. The author's point of view is that it will eventually evolve into a strategic partnership, characterized by win-win cooperation, rather than other relationships.
If it evolves into a confrontational relationship, a single agent and manufacturer will be out against the agent, and the confrontation between many agents and manufacturers will hurt both, and the entire brand chain will be out; if it is a game relationship, it will be asymmetric, unbalanced, and unbalanced. A stable state can only be a transitional process relationship form rather than a final form; if it is a father-son relationship, this is an unequal relationship, which has the nature of a dependent relationship, and the maintenance cost of the dependent relationship will be very high, which is not consistent. The efficiency principle of the independent subject of the market economy; if it is a husband and wife relationship, although it is often used by industry insiders to compare the relationship between manufacturers, the boundaries are not clear, and it is difficult for manufacturers with different dreams to form a synergy, and the entire brand value chain does not have a competitive advantage.
From the perspective of the irreplaceable functions performed by agents, win-win cooperation is also a trend. For the vast area of China, agents can provide more comprehensive coverage of users and grasp accurate terminal market information; agents have experts familiar with product technology and services to support users' production efficiency; agents have professional maintenance services Ability to respond to the needs of the equipment operation site in a timely manner; agents can transmit user feedback on products and services, prompting manufacturers to improve products from R&D...
In addition, from the perspective of development, the shortcomings of the agent group's capital and management will be gradually supplemented, and the agent group's own strength will grow to a commercial position equal to that of the manufacturer. However, in this development process, agents will continue to reshuffle. What is even more cruel is that brand manufacturers with excess capital and structural excess capacity will also reshuffle. Whether it is a manufacturer or a merchant, they will become stronger, better, and bigger. Long time is king.
China’s socialist market economy has been developing for more than 30 years. The initial business management theories were borrowed from the West. Concepts such as "shopping malls are like battlefields", "competition is life and death", and "zero-sum game" prevailed for a while. How are these concepts? Is it possible to achieve a win-win situation? When China's socialist market economy has gradually developed into a market economy with Chinese characteristics, its win-win characteristics have gradually emerged. From a cultural perspective, the construction machinery agency system with Chinese characteristics, nourished by oriental cultural wisdom and oriental commercial civilization, will eventually be a win-win cooperation, because oriental culture and oriental commercial civilization advocate harmony and win-win.
From the organization level of the association, the American AEM (American Manufacturers Association) and AED (American Agents Association) are strategic partnerships; in China's automotive and agricultural machinery industries, industry associations and circulation associations are strategic partnerships. This is more convenient for China's construction machinery industry, because the branches of manufacturers and agents operate within the organizational framework of the China Construction Machinery Industry Association, which is a natural strategic partnership.
A large number of construction machinery agents
The group is a community of destiny
Eastern wisdom and win-win concept also apply to agent companies. The agent group is a community of destiny, because it has to face many common problems, two of which are major propositions.
The first is the reconstruction of the profit model of the stock market. More than ten years ago, the Agent Working Committee organized many delegations to go abroad to study and learn the experience of foreign counterparts in the United States, Europe, and Japan. There are two insights that are still impressive after many years. One is that foreign agent practitioners are often long-termists. At the breakfast meeting of hundreds of people at the annual meeting, they have white hair and exchanged findings after the meeting. Many of their companies have stayed with a brand and have gone through several generations of the family; another impressive thing is that the main source of profit for foreign agents is the service and aftermarket, and the profit of new machine sales is not high.
At present, new machine sales are still the main source of profit for most Chinese construction machinery agents, which also means that the proposition of profit model reconstruction is still not out of date and still needs to be further cracked.
The second is the reconstruction of the service market by the intelligent networking of equipment. Agents should embrace the Internet, digitalization and artificial intelligence and other fields, with the help of advanced technical means and tools, extend the downstream chain of the aftermarket, and commit to providing users with products, leasing, construction, labor, on-site management, fleet management and Comprehensive solutions including safety precautions. From a vertical perspective, agents and host manufacturers should jointly adjust their strategies and tactics in the aftermarket field, build a competitive system for the aftermarket, and improve users' satisfaction in the aftermarket business experience. In the horizontal direction, the agent groups have a broad space for cooperation and articles to do, and they can make use of their respective advantages and resources to create a shared value symbiosis platform.
The work of the agent work committee
Keep up with the times
Facing the new historical opportunity, the Agent Working Committee still has to hold high the two banners of the purpose of the meeting when it was founded in 2003, that is, to promote the healthy development of China's construction machinery agency system and build its own homeland for China's construction machinery agents. Do not forget the original intention and keep the mission in mind. The future work of the agent work committee must conform to the trend and keep pace with the times.
The agency work committee should be a leader of advanced ideas, not a refuge for backward ideas; it should be a club for advanced people, not a refuge for conservative lagging behind. If this is not the case, the agent working committee will lose its vitality and vitality, and it will not be able to shoulder the mission entrusted by the times, and it will not be able to complete the tasks assigned by the China Construction Machinery Industry Association. There will be no future and will eventually be abandoned by the majority of members. .
China's construction machinery industry must truly achieve sustainable and high-quality development. In this overall situation, it is inseparable from the high-quality development of marketing service links and agent groups. The core task of the Agent Working Committee is to, under the strong leadership of the Association, work together to form a synergistic competitive advantage in the upstream and downstream value chains of the industry, and jointly seek the initiative and voice of the Chinese construction machinery industry in the world, and jointly create China A better tomorrow for construction machinery!
In this process, let us continue to develop and improve the construction of the agency system of China's construction machinery marketing and service links, promote the steady and far-reaching agency system with Chinese characteristics, and create a better tomorrow for China's construction machinery agents!
