Three squirrels: Hard work, but no money.

Source/bento finance (ID: daxiong fan)

The three squirrels who worked very hard handed in the worst report card since they went public. On August 20th, the semi-annual report of Three Squirrels showed that the company's net profit decreased by 29.5 1% year-on-year, and the operating cost of its main business increased by 69.73% year-on-year. While achieving a revenue of 5.2 billion yuan, the net profit of this Internet snack company is only 65.438+0.8 billion yuan.

In Wuhu, the three squirrels are one of the most competitive enterprises: after 20 17, the lights of the headquarters building of the three squirrels never went out before 22:00 at night.

"18:00 No one dares to leave on time."

An internal employee carefully told bento finance that after the CEO of three squirrels and their father Zhang Liaoyuan were furious on 20 17, the "little squirrels" quickly learned new survival skills: really working overtime or pretending to work overtime until they got off work.

Within the three squirrels, all employees are collectively referred to as "Little Squirrel", and the boss Zhang Liaoyuan is addressed as "Squirrel Dad", which is the squirrel empire under the "rule" of Dad: Dad is not only a respectful name, but also the only rule of "seeing".

The personal fable, Zhang Liaoyuan, is based on the miracle of three squirrels starting from 20 12. This internet food company, which rose in Wuhu residential building, ranked first in the sales of the Double Eleven e-commerce platform for seven consecutive years. 2065438+July 2009 12, three squirrels were successfully listed, becoming the first snack in e-commerce.

The old squirrels who followed Zhang Liaoyuan in the early days became the main force of the "God-making Movement" in the company. They will tell newcomers about their father's extraordinary things: giving up a million-year salary to start a business, not to make money but to create opportunities for young people, and leading a team to smash shops the day after shaving their heads, from middle school students to the richest man in Anhui. ...

But do these old squirrels really know dad? Perhaps the years have caused them to have memory errors? For example, Zhang Liaoyuan is not a technical secondary school, but a technical secondary school. He shaved his head before smashing the shop.

But this does not prevent the deification of Zhang Liaoyuan. Almost all squirrels can tell the story of their father's entrepreneurship. Newly-hired squirrels must learn "the spirit of their fathers", which is some of Zhang Liaoyuan's "philosophies" summarized by three squirrels, among which there are many shadows of Ali.

"Every little squirrel knows that his father worships Ma Yun." Inside the three squirrels, the flower names of employees are composed of "mouse+nickname". Much like Ali, the three squirrels also adopted the mode of commander+political commissar. A story that is regarded as a "compulsory subject" among the three squirrels is that in 2009, the 33-year-old squirrel father Zhang Liaoyuan went to Hangzhou to attend the celebration of Alibaba 10 anniversary. Ma Yun's speech made Papa Squirrel awake and ambitious.

"But now the three squirrels are nothing like Ali," said Bao Xiao (a pseudonym), a mouse who once worked for the three squirrels and has now left his job. "The will of the old man has not been implemented at the grassroots level."

An old squirrel recalled an old story: On 20 19 Father's Day, the employees of three squirrels once screened "Nickname+Happy Father's Day to Grandpa Squirrel" in the nail group. It was the "political commissar" department within the three squirrels that launched the movement. "Do you think political commissar Ali would do such a thing?"

"Rat Prime Minister" is a joke played by the employees of three squirrels, which is often used to describe the middle and high-level people who pursue "formalism" inside three squirrels. Since Zhang Liaoyuan found that there was no one at the work station around 20 17 18:00, an overtime movement has become a new policy of the prime ministers.

"The outside world doesn't know that some departments of the three squirrels will deliberately arrange the meeting after 18:00 in the evening." However, an employee who asked not to be named revealed that the squirrel's father, Zhang Liaoyuan, was losing his understanding of the company's grassroots. "There are a lot of things that are not what Teacher Zhang meant, but there have been changes in implementation below."

For example, during the epidemic, the product department of three squirrels set up a "volcano commando" to work continuously through online office. What Zhang Liaoyuan didn't even know was that the families of these employees were pulled into several WeChat groups by the "political commissar" of relevant departments. These family members are responsible for sending photos of employees working online to the group to punch in every day.

"Before going public, Dad always had a direct conversation with front-line employees. At an earlier time, every employee could always find Mr. Zhang to express his thoughts and feelings, but today's squirrel father is staying away from the little squirrel. " Since moving into the Three Squirrels Building in Jiang Ge District, Wuhu City, Zhang Liaoyuan has gradually been keen to close it.

The office is the first secluded place in Zhang Liaoyuan. Sometimes he would stare at the calligraphy in the office and meditate: "The long tassel is in hand, the smile is yellow, and the grass is king."

There is a whole row of bookshelves in Zhang Liaoyuan's office. All the new products launched by the three squirrels will be delivered here at the first time. Sometimes this squirrel father will shut himself in the office and stare blankly with a pack of snacks in his hand.

His cell phone will be put into silent mode during meditation. Subordinates who are familiar with Zhang Liaoyuan seldom disturb him suddenly at this time. "Dad is thinking about something big."

When Zhang Liaoyuan thinks he has gained something, he will stand up and walk out of the office quickly. At this time, his eyes are sharp, and any employee is easily infected when he sees him, and he has a premonition of winning. "This means that Dad has come up with a new art of war," an old squirrel recalled.

Home is Zhang Liaoyuan's second "closed door" treasure. Zhang Liaoyuan is so addicted to cigarettes that he can even smoke one by one while meditating, drinking tea and tea. "Heavy smoke, red wine and strong tea" are the three treasures of Zhang Liaoyuan's seclusion. He eats very little and is not a snack lover. Even if it is the hottest snack recommended by employees, he only eats a few bites.

After the listing of 20 19, Zhang Liaoyuan has closed his eyes and pondered many times. He has found three bottlenecks encountered by three squirrels: cost pressure brought by e-commerce platform, poor offline layout and slow product diversification. A person familiar with the three squirrel executives revealed that Zhang Liaoyuan said in a private chat, "I am not willing to cooperate with the e-commerce platform at present."

"The three squirrels are completely tied up by JD.COM and Tmall." A securities analyst in the food industry told Bento Finance that JD.COM and Tmall were the biggest sales channels for the three squirrels. The sales of the two companies together account for more than 80% of the total sales of the three squirrels.

But this is by no means a free lunch. Based on e-commerce, the three squirrels not only have to pay the platform service fee, but also bear some logistics costs. With the increase of e-commerce traffic cost, platform service fee and logistics cost, the cost pressure of the three squirrels has increased sharply.

In the first half of 20 19, the service fee of e-commerce platform for three squirrels accounted for 18.9% of the sales expenses, which became one of the biggest cost items for three squirrels. By the first half of 2020, this proportion has risen to 39.8%.

The high platform service fee directly eroded the profits of the three squirrels. For snack enterprises, the net profit rate of sales is an important financial indicator. Xi Shi Candy Company is an enterprise owned by Buffett for more than 40 years. One of the reasons that attracted the stock god in that year was that Xi Shi Candy could achieve a net interest rate of 6.63% (1972).

Through the study of Xishi Candy Company, Buffett found that controlling expenses is the key for snack enterprises to obtain high net interest rate. However, since 20 17, the sales net profit of three squirrels has been declining continuously: 5.44%(20 17), 4.34%(20 18) and 2.35%(20 19).

In order to reverse this situation, Zhang Liaoyuan came up with two solutions: expanding the number of offline physical stores and building their own logistics. In April 2020, Anhui Hamster Logistics Co., Ltd. was established with a registered capital of 50 million yuan.

But this self-built logistics model is not optimistic. Zhu, a food industry analyst in China, told Bento Finance that this was "losing watermelon and picking up sesame seeds". In Zhu's view, "Although three squirrels have a mass of 654.38+0 billion, such a mass is nothing for the platform."

In terms of expanding offline, squirrel dad also found himself "late". At present, Liangpin Store, the biggest competitor of Three Squirrels, has more than 2 100 offline stores, while the number of 20 18 stores in  has reached 2,500.

But by the first half of 2020, there are 6 17 offline stores owned by three squirrels, of which only 139 are directly operated by three squirrels, and the rest are alliance stores in franchise mode.

Acnielsen's research shows that with the gradual disappearance of e-commerce dividends, the opportunities in China's snack market have shifted from online to offline. With the upgrading of logistics and supply chain system, the food price of stores can be the same as that of online stores, and the experience, cultural added value and diversified services provided by stores are unmatched by online stores.

"Channel is king, this sentence is the truth in the snack industry." A person who has worked in the snack industry for more than 20 years said that entertainment value is the real opportunity for snack shops now. "The living museum model and the experience hall model are opportunities for these stores, and the stores themselves are an important part of online logistics."

Zhang Liaoyuan is not ignorant of the value of offline stores. In the public interviews on 20 19 and 2020, he has put forward the plan of Wanjiamen Store. In the first half of 2020, three squirrels opened 38 new restaurants, an increase of 37.6%; There were 209 new alliance stores, with an increase of 77.6%.

However, trouble followed. Because the scale effect has not yet formed and the supply chain system is still evolving, the sales revenue of all offline stores of the three squirrels currently accounts for only 8.89% of the total revenue.

In fact, as early as 20 16, Zhang Liaoyuan began to try the mode of opening a shop offline. However, unlike the pioneering work in 20 12, the three squirrels facing offline transformation have long been bloated, which eventually led to slow transformation.

Squirrel father is loved by almost all the little squirrels, including the little squirrels who have left.

"Dad will not look down on people with low academic qualifications, and even the most ordinary employees can hear his encouragement." A little squirrel who has left his job thinks Zhang Liaoyuan is full of charm. This is a kind of energy that can even be called magic, especially for those young people aged 18 ~22-this is the average age of three squirrels.

"20 12 Zhang Liaoyuan can make people fight for it." An old squirrel who has left three squirrels thinks that Zhang Liaoyuan has changed. 20 12, 36-year-old Zhang Liaoyuan is more grounded. He will eat at the same table as the founding team members. He will drink big wine and chat in front of children aged 65,438+08, and then plant the seeds of success in everyone's heart with an extraordinary heroism.

At this time, grandpa squirrel even led a team to fight. 20 12 Three Squirrels During the First Double Eleven War, Zhang Liaoyuan and his team took stock, wrote express orders, served as customer service and moved goods.

At this time, the future Three Squirrels Company will not have so many "red slogans full of slogans". "Zhang Liaoyuan's example is the best slogan."

Some people still remember the firecrackers at the inauguration ceremony of the Three Squirrels Building in February 20 14. "That seems to tell everyone that an era is over. It seems that after moving here, some tastes have gradually changed. " An old squirrel who finally chose to leave on 20 16 misses the three squirrels before 20 14, but he still insists that he hates others rather than squirrel father.

After the headquarters building was completed, Zhang Liaoyuan didn't often stay in the headquarters building. He often meets with investors and the media. From March 20 14 to September 20 15, three squirrels completed three rounds of new financing with a valuation of 4 billion yuan. As the squirrel father becomes more and more busy, new employees will no longer "move the express box" with the squirrel father like the early old squirrel.

What followed was the change of organizational operation mode. Squirrel dad began to decentralize, and he focused on the company's marketing, brand and core values. As for the supply chain management that he thinks he is not good at, Zhang Liaoyuan chooses to trust others.

"This is the root of all the problems of the three squirrels in the future." A retired squirrel, who did not want to be named, said that during the period of 20 15~20 17, the "clean" department within the three squirrels company began to become more and more important.

What a three squirrels once announced is very representative: an old squirrel who joined the company on 20 13 was fired on 20 17 because he took a kickback of 45,000 yuan for the renovation of the company's factory building. On 20 17, 12, Zhang Liaoyuan led a team to smash the store with three squirrels. "The decoration in the store is extremely poor, which is completely out of dad's expectation. If someone hadn't tipped him off, dad would have been kept in the dark. "

Prior to this, Zhang Liaoyuan had repeatedly said in the company that it was necessary to unify the decoration style of the store and maintain the high quality of the three squirrel stores. The store that was smashed by the squirrel's father is actually the third offline food store opened by three squirrels.

"In 20 16, the whole company knew dad's expectation and attention to the store, but this happened when he just opened the third store."

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Industry analyst Song Qi (not his real name) has visited the foundries of several snack brands. According to his understanding, foundries that live around e-commerce snack brands often have the behavior of "returning human feelings". "This is not a case of one or two brands, but a general situation. The order volume of e-commerce brands is often half a year or even a year for a small factory. These factories all want to fight for such opportunities. "

"Torre's vision and ability is extremely high, but his energy is limited. If product research and development, stores and diversified businesses are all completed by countless Zhang Liaoyuan members, the three squirrels are not the current pattern. Unfortunately, we only have a squirrel father. " Xiao Ni left her job before the epidemic, and she participated in the product development process.

She remembers an interesting story vividly. When Zhang Liaoyuan began to pay great attention to product research and development, the team brought a new product consisting of "nuts and pumpkin seeds". The reason why pumpkin seeds were added was because of its "health value". At that time, the team members were very proud of this idea and thought it was the main selling point of medical care. But this product was finally "killed" by the squirrel father. The reason given is that "pumpkin seeds will make consumers feel that products are cheap."

But Zhang Liaoyuan could not devote himself to every aspect of the three squirrels. With the expansion of business, Zhang Liaoyuan can't even figure out the "grassroots dynamics" of three squirrels. When he decided to diversify offline, the three squirrels were not as strong as they were in 20 12: the high communication cost, the disunity of ideas in decentralized mode and the complicated supply chain system made him unable to change easily. ...

Various reasons have become the bottleneck of the transformation of the three squirrels. No one even thinks it's time to change. All the little squirrels are immersed in the aura of "the king of Internet sales". "This is an era of victory and victory." An old squirrel said.

Hidden dangers have actually appeared. Taking the communication cost as an example, the intersection between the squirrel father and the grass-roots squirrel is gradually decreasing. There are not many opportunities for the grass-roots employees of the three squirrels to talk directly with Zhang Liaoyuan, and dad's mailbox is one of them.

Zhang Liaoyuan once said at the staff meeting that employees can send their suggestions and ideas to their father's mailbox without scruple. However, a letter from 20 19 changed this tacit understanding: a letter suggesting that weekend breaks should be changed to weekend breaks was labeled as "violating core values". After this incident, many squirrels who originally wanted to write to their father were watching.

Zhang Liaoyuan doesn't want to change. For example, after 20 18 closed-door thinking, he adjusted the core values of three squirrels. The core values are the important "philosophy" inside the three squirrels. Every once in a while, three squirrels will update their core values. The latest version was conceived by Zhang Liaoyuan on 20 18 and implemented on 20 19.

The biggest change is the introduction of a performance model of 36 1: within one year, 30% of people are promoted, 60% of people can get a raise but not be promoted, and 10% of people are eliminated. Zhang Liaoyuan even carried out the biggest division of power since its establishment, and the division of the three squirrels was refined from 20 18 1 1 to more than 20. And the general manager of each business department reports directly to squirrel's father.

"In order to decentralize management, we have divided the business department into smaller parts. We used to put too much responsibility on a person with limited ability. " Zhang Liaoyuan said in an interview on 20 18. After the reform, the three squirrels will be more flat, and there will be no more cases where one person concurrently holds multiple departments. Zhang Liaoyuan tried to strengthen the company's leading position through such changes. "Recreate three squirrels with strong execution and high efficiency."

In fact, this change of squirrel father is inseparable from the change of the big environment. With the rising cost of e-commerce platform, offline stores have become an indispensable new market for three squirrels. In addition to nuts, the three squirrels also seek more diversified development paths.

However, the rapid rise of competitors such as Liangpin Shop, Baicaowei and Laiyifen put the three squirrels under great pressure. In 20 17, the total online sales volume of Baicaowei and Liangpin shops was equivalent to three squirrels, which was unimaginable before 20 15.

Facing the pressure, Zhang Liaoyuan had an idea: he longed for a vigorous expansion and became famous in World War I.

Squirrel father Zhang Liaoyuan is no stranger to Qing Dynasty tycoon Hu Xueyan.

In Jixi, Anhui, their birthplaces are adjacent. On July 20 19, after three squirrels went public on July 2/kloc-0, Zhang Liaoyuan became the richest man in Anhui province, and this throne was held by fellow villager Hu Xueyan 60 years ago.

Both of them graduated from "Social University". After graduating from technical secondary school at the age of 65,438+09, Zhang Liaoyuan moved to the street to drive motorcycles and resell VCD. At the age of 65,438+03, Hu Xueyan left his hometown and began to make a living in Jinhua Ham Store and Miscellaneous Grains Store.

Both Zhang and Hu are fans of Mencius. Zhang Liaoyuan took Mencius' famous saying, "Therefore, the heaven will drop to a great post, and one must first suffer from his ambition ..." as his motto, while Hu Xueyan made a plaque with the word "benevolent government" in Mencius and hung it on Hu Qingyu's gatehouse.

These two Jixi people are also full of gambling and pursuing scale expansion. In the five years from 2020 to 2025, Zhang Liaoyuan plans to add 750 squirrel breeding shops and 9,000 squirrel shops; In Hu Xueyan's most famous gamble, he hoarded more than 5.7 million taels of raw silk in 1 1000 within 6 months, and quickly occupied 17.5% of the raw silk market. ...

In addition to the expansion of the store, the three squirrels also planned a larger territory for themselves, covering pickles, baby food, pet food and gifts of the new three squirrel empires. On April 2, 2020, three squirrels established four wholly-owned subsidiaries in one breath. However, this diversified gameplay is being questioned by the industry.

"Many companies are eager to diversify, but they don't have the ability to diversify. I am not optimistic about the diversity of the three squirrels. " Zhu said to:

Yuri, an analyst specializing in the pet products industry, believes that it is not a good idea for three squirrels to enter the pet products market. "Pet products seem to have a low threshold, but this is only the level of competition for low-priced products. At this level, there are too many competing brands in the market, and it is difficult for three squirrels to win opportunities in this red sea. "

In the high-end market, the OEM+OEM mode of three squirrels is not the mainstream. With the improvement of market consumers' quality requirements, "those pet products companies with years of research and development strength have formed a brand effect."

But father squirrel is confident in diversity. A little squirrel revealed that in the internal meeting, Zhang Liaoyuan was very optimistic about the pet market, and even thought that the pet market and the store business of the three squirrels could be organically connected.

"Pickles, baby food, pet products and gifts are actually part of the store strategy." Liu Bin (pseudonym), an analyst who has been tracking three squirrels for many years, specially visited the shops of good products, Laiyifen and three squirrels after the outbreak.

"Snacks alone cannot support the profitability of the store. Diversification and sceneries are the basic logic of the development of snack shops. Zhang Liaoyuan's thinking is actually very clear. He hopes to activate three squirrels with the strategy of offline expansion. "

In the industry's view, the offline expansion logic of the three squirrels may be based on the scene service: people are attracted to the store by cultural and entertainment projects, and the longer they stay in the store, the greater the chance of buying snacks and supplies. Babies, pets and other industries can increase the cultural connotation of the three squirrels themselves and even provide more scene services on this basis. "But such a project needs more efforts in the early stage."

There won't be much time left for squirrel father Zhang Liaoyuan. With the further increase of the cost of e-commerce platform, if there is no greater business increment, the profits of the three squirrels will be eaten up one day. In the layout of offline stores, good shops and Iraqi shops with first-Mover advantage occupy favorable positions in many cities.

But what worries Grandpa Squirrel most is actually the expansion cost: in the process of expanding the store in the first half of 2020, the company's management expenses increased by 56.05%, and the financial report shows that the accounts payable of the three squirrels still exceeded 600 million yuan in the first half of 2020.

With the expansion, the three squirrels are also expanding their recruitment, and the salary of employees jumped from 38.74 million yuan to 6 1.66 million yuan during the financial reporting period. At present, the problem that squirrel father Zhang Liaoyuan faces is: How can three squirrels find another spring safely?

20 19, 12, the three squirrels have as many as 64 shareholding institutions, and now there are only 8. Shareholders NICE GROWTH LIMITED and LT Growth Investment IX (HK) Limited both reduced their holdings in July this year. ...

This time, what kind of squirrel art of war will grandpa squirrel brew after his retreat?