For enterprises, is the concept of Internet marketing important, or is it important to improve manufacturing strength?

Editor's Note: At the time of writing this article, advertisements of "Huang X Partner", "Harbin Pharmaceutical X Factory" or public welfare or non-public welfare were being broadcast on TV, and suddenly I thought of a friend's question, "Can health care products enterprises in China only advertise and market?" Perhaps the rapid rise of health care products brands such as Giant, Zhu San and Melatonin has made "grandstanding = profiteering" a common sense. However, in today's increasingly developed information, more and more journalists, and more and more popular Internet, the result of not strengthening our product quality and research and development has been proved, that is, getting up faster and falling down faster. Therefore, almost all private health care products enterprises (including pharmaceutical industry) are looking for a way out, and direct selling has naturally become a "bright light" in front of them ... On May 28th, 2005, the second floor of Dalian Xinghai Convention and Exhibition Center was very lively, not because a Japanese furniture enterprise held a trade fair here, but because a private direct selling enterprise just established at the beginning of this year held a dealer commendation and award meeting here. This enterprise is Milla International. In fact, the direct selling history of Luomei International can be traced back to the era of "Luomei Tianyuan" and then evolved into "Huili Bio". It was not until 65438+ 10/8 this year that it was formally merged into Dalian luomei pharmaceutical co., ltd. and became one of its more than 30 subsidiaries. This incident has caused great repercussions in the domestic traditional medicine industry, health care industry and direct selling industry, because when Health Yuan Group (formerly Mrs. Pharmaceutical), Harbin Pharmaceutical Group and Far East Pharmaceutical are all conducting industry research, resource integration, departmental preparation and strategic planning around the development secret of direct selling business, Luomei International seems to have found a more suitable road for itself. More importantly, if this road is proved to be successful, it will realize two industries in China market at the same time! Li Xia, chairman of Luomei International, told the business people why he wanted to marry Luomei. "I have been thinking about how far I can lead you according to our previous practice. According to the requirements of applying for direct selling license stipulated by the state, we can't meet the original conditions, and I can't lead you further. The cooperation with Luo Mei will undoubtedly solve these problems. " Although the Direct Selling Law has not yet been promulgated, according to the pilot version and popular version of Avon, "registered capital of 80 million yuan", "deposit of 20 million yuan", "500 million yuan in a fiscal year" and "having corporate social reputation for five years" are not the conditions that ordinary enterprises can meet, let alone in 1998. Therefore, cooperation with mature enterprises is undoubtedly a shortcut to easily cross the threshold. Such examples abound in traditional industries: among oil enterprises, there are two large state-owned enterprises "Lanlian" and "Lanhua" in Gansu, which turned losses into profits through mergers and acquisitions; There is an example of the equal merger of Beijing Hengyou Decoration Co., Ltd. and Green Valley Yinzhou Architectural Decoration Company in the home improvement industry, hoping to build a "home improvement aircraft carrier"; In April 2003, Hitachi and Mitsubishi integrated their semiconductor departments and established a brand-new semiconductor manufacturer, Renesas Technology Company, hoping to become the largest chip manufacturer in the world through merger, which is also a classic case of enterprises achieving the same goal through strong alliance. Moreover, the reason for these mergers is: the industry is complex. After analyzing the advantages and disadvantages of our company, we found that they are well combined with each other, so we thought of merging, which reflected the advantages of the two companies. For private direct selling enterprises that are actively looking for a way out, if they can "link" with powerful traditional companies and apply for direct selling licenses in the name of the company, the high threshold conditions stipulated in the Direct Selling Law will be solved. At the same time, the good social image of the "parent company" will also enhance people's goodwill towards direct selling companies. For example, the advertisement of "Luo Mei Wei Tong Ling" endorsed by Jiang Wen has been deeply rooted in people's hearts. Even if the public doesn't know much about Luomei International's direct selling business, I believe that when the dealer exhibition industry mentions Luomei Pharmaceutical, it will soon be accepted by the public. In an interview with reporters, Li Xia said, "I have been engaged in the pharmaceutical industry for more than 20 years and deeply understand the bitterness inside. The combination with direct selling will undoubtedly bring about great changes in marketing channels. At the same time, Zhang Chenghai and I have been friends for many years, and we have never argued about the company's business strategy. Therefore, when I proposed the merger, everyone quickly reached an agreement. " As a background information, it needs to be added that in June of last year, with the approval of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission and the Ministry of Commerce, Dalian Luomei Group was reorganized, and the state-owned shares were transferred to four companies, including foreign investors and management companies, and the nature of the company was changed from a wholly state-owned company to a Sino-foreign joint venture company. The general view of the media on this incident is that the main income of Luomei Group comes from the pharmaceutical business. At present, the gross profit margin of the pharmaceutical business continues to fall due to factors such as bidding, price reduction and vicious competition, which leads to the unsatisfactory overall performance of the company and the continuous downturn. Therefore, this reorganization similar to MBO has been made. In this context, it may be easier for us to understand the hand-in-hand relationship between Luomei Pharmaceutical and Huili Bio. Direct selling and biotechnology are both promising industries in China market in the future. Huili Bio's impressive performance last year proved its strength. In addition, the product it sells is the research achievement of Professor Ni Zongyao for 30 years-using submerged fermentation biotechnology to produce fungal mycelium, completely replacing fungal fruiting body, making Merlot International the first pioneer in producing health food by using fungal mycelium in China, and the only enterprise in China approved by the Ministry of Health as a "new resource food" for Ganoderma lucidum mycelium. Therefore, the merger is undoubtedly a win-win situation for both parties: on the one hand, Luomei International can acquire the rich product line of Luomei Group and relieve the pressure of developing new products. At the same time, after the merger, Merlot International's health products were transferred to Merlot Pharmaceutical Factory which met the national GMP food standards and GMP drug standards, which greatly improved the reputation and competitiveness of Merlot International's mycelium products in the market. On the other hand, direct selling is generally favored by enterprises that need to break through the marketing bottleneck at present. Because of the poor sales strategies of many health care products manufacturers, it is almost suffocating. The sales performance of Amway Nutrilite last year100 ~1200 million yuan successfully proved the charm of the direct sales model, so that many famous domestic pharmaceutical and health care products companies are planning to intervene in the direct sales market, such as Harbin Pharmaceutical Group, Zhongmai Justin and Shanghai Unique No.1. It is obviously difficult for these enterprises to compete for market share with these very mature overseas direct selling enterprises, so marriage with local direct selling enterprises is naturally the fastest and most convenient way. At this point, Luomei Group undoubtedly took the lead. At present, Luomei Group has injected its health care products into Luomei International to ease the sales pressure, and Luomei International is expected to launch cosmetics and washing products in the second half of this year and next year, which is undoubtedly a good start of "win-win". Idea, Unity in Change "Now I don't talk about dreams with dealers, we are talking about' making human beings live healthier'! Because the dream is shattered, the pursuit of health is the eternal cause of mankind. " As we all know, the cultural difference between the partnership companies in the merger is one of the most common reasons for the failure of the merger. The cultural differences between traditional companies and direct selling companies are mainly manifested in "cognitive differences" and "disputes over cultural dominance". The cultural differences between traditional companies and direct selling companies are mainly reflected in "identity". For example, traditional enterprises will worry about brand risks and management difficulties brought by direct selling enterprises because of the prejudice of the general public against the direct selling industry; The illegal behavior of the business team of the direct selling company in the market will bring operational risks. However, direct selling companies will think that the traditional enterprise system is aging and inefficient, which leads to contradictions between the two sides. Therefore, the transformation of Luomei International "Mission" mentioned by Li Xia is particularly important at this time. Because "dreaming" is one of the characteristics of the direct selling industry and one of the reasons for a series of management problems. After changing to "pursuing health", it conforms to the pharmaceutical culture of the parent company Luomei Group. The second is to make dealers more rational, regard product quality as the primary competitiveness in the market, and avoid some social problems. Another person in the industry believes that the severity of the upcoming Direct Selling Law has been heard by various enterprises. Since Merro International chose to "borrow a boat to go to sea" during this period, it must also meet the national standards, indicating that it has the determination to continue to operate. At the same time, among Chairman Xia Likou, "Tiens" and "New Era", both of which are national direct selling brands, are not mentioned much. On the contrary, Amway, the industry leader, is used as a comparative teaching material everywhere, which fully illustrates the "ambition" of Luomei International in the direct selling industry. However, if you can't get a direct sales license, all long-term planning will be empty talk, which has also contributed to the transformation of Merro International's corporate philosophy into "just for health". In addition, in the marketing channel, Luomei International abandoned the simple direct sales of personnel and adopted the model of "healthy house sales+business representative retail" to build a good dealer team. Li Xia said, "Before direct selling, Luomei Yangshengtang went deep into various social services. Now we are expanding on this basis, which is basically twice the result with half the effort. " On the one hand, this change conforms to the national form, on the other hand, it also reduces the conflict with traditional medical channels. Therefore, some insiders said that although the Merro international merger case has its characteristics of "the right time, the right place and the right people", it also shows that its leadership has long planned and made full preparations in advance. Management, Service Orientation At the end of the dealer commendation meeting on May 29th, 2005, all senior executives of Meiluo International collectively took to the stage and bowed deeply for the dealers under the stage for many times. Li Xia said, "This is to let dealers know that the' waiter' of Meiluo International is like this." It is worth mentioning that Zhang Chenghai, chairman of Luomei Pharmaceutical, attended the two-day dealer commendation meeting and made a short speech at the end, which was not easy for the leader of a large enterprise and fully reflected the confidence of Luomei Group in this merger. However, relevant sources said that how far Merro International can go depends on some management policies of itself and its parent company. For example, Luomei Group should establish a risk early warning mechanism and strengthen the supervision of direct selling enterprises; Merro International itself should also improve the management ability. Li Xia also deeply agrees with this. Therefore, at the beginning of the international establishment, Tian, president and executive vice president, went to Malaysia to study business management and obtained an EMBA master's degree at the same time. Most of the other recruited executives have worked in foreign companies. Li Xia said that to improve the quality of enterprise executives, on the one hand, it is to strengthen enterprise management and reduce risks; On the other hand, it can also lay a solid foundation for Luo Mei's future overseas development. However, Li Xia still regards the top management of Luomei as a service, and this policy has penetrated into the corporate culture of Luomei International. When the reporter left the world, he witnessed the practical difficulties of Tian, its executive vice president, in dealing with dealers, while in other companies, it is usually salesmen who deal with related problems. Under the guidance of this policy, Luomei dealers also showed great trust and support for their own companies. An Inner Mongolia dealer who won the gold medal at this conference said that now they only trust Luomei's health care products, and it is difficult for other health care products to enter the market. At the same time, "promoting Luomei's career to the whole world" has also become the most proud mantra of Luomei dealers. Today, it is generally believed in the industry that national direct selling enterprises are prone to short-term speculation and only seek immediate benefits. Merro International is obviously trying to embark on a road of "sustainable management", and various measures have made it another "dark horse" after Tiens and New Era. We expect that Luo Mei's practice will inspire private enterprises in China and find new ways to solve the problems of operation, logistics and management. However, the first premise is that it really has strong strength, products worthy of consumers' trust and can compete with foreign-funded enterprises. Our reporter Luo Ting.