The “Great Migration” of the Household Appliance Industry in the Internet Age

Looking back at the past 2013, in the context of reduced domestic and foreign demand, Chinese home appliance companies resisted the pressure and went against the trend. In the first half of the year, black-and-white household appliance enterprises showed different growth rates due to the continuation of the driving effect of national support policies. However, with the delisting of supportive policies, the overall home appliance industry entered a consolidation phase in the second half of the year. In particular, in the color TV industry, according to data from the Consumer Electronics Survey Office of the China Electronic Chamber of Commerce, the market size of LCD TV retail volume in the second half of 2013 was 21 million units, which was somewhat narrower than in the first half of the year. The status quo of white goods products such as refrigerators, air conditioners, and washing machines is relatively slow, and the trend of color TVs experiencing a ten-year high-speed development trend has made traditional appliance manufacturers realize that it is urgent to accelerate the pace of “contradicting changes”. Therefore, innovation and change have become the main tone of the industry in the second half of 2013, and the most obvious feature in innovation and change is the injection of the "Internet factor."

In particular, the "Nugger Tide" set off by the IT and Internet companies in the field of cross-border television in 2013 has further expanded the impact and influence of "Internet thinking" on the home appliance industry. From the Chinese home appliance manufacturing and channel sector, the big brothers not only used practical actions to practice the "embracing the Internet" strategic plan, but at the same time invariably put the concept of "Internet thinking" in the industry as an unclear but not clearly defined concept as their 2014. Seeking the core "methodology" of enterprise transformation. Lu Jiebo, a deputy secretary-general of the China Electronic Chamber of Commerce and a well-known household electrical appliance expert, pointed out that Internet thinking is a complex system project, and it even brings about a change in social form. Therefore, the current breakthrough in the intelligentization, networking, and customized customization of e-commerce platforms for a series of home appliances such as TVs is actually just the tip of the iceberg for the home appliance industry to seek “subversion”. In order to extract the fruits of Internet thinking, it also requires enterprises. Supported by long-term innovation and change.

Internet brings the best era of manufacturing

In 2013, Dreamcatcher Zhang Jindong led his employees in Suning to work hard to depict the "One Body and Two Wings of the Internet Roadmap." At the CCTV Annual Economic Figures Awards Ceremony, focusing on the enterprise development model in the context of the Internet, Gree Chairman of the Board of Directors Dong Mingzhu and Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun set off a billion yuan stake; when TCL Group Chairman Li Dongsheng led hundreds of executives to listen to lectures on "Internet business model innovation", they pointed out clearly that traditional electronics manufacturers must build new competitiveness to integrate into " "The Internet Gene"; Changhong Group Chairman Zhao Yong has proposed a new "Three-Coordinate" system that will lead Changhong's transition to the Internet age after nine years of reluctance. In the outside world's misunderstanding of the public opinion of Alibaba Group's investment in Haier Electronics, Zhang Ruimin is firm. The belief that the Internet brings the best time for home appliance manufacturers.

Indeed, the concept of “Internet thinking” that has swept across the rivers and north and north and transformed many traditional industries has quickly spread to the home appliance industry in the past year. What causes the home appliance giants to embrace this "new term"? Perhaps the most important driving force is that the important factors affecting the survival and development of enterprises are quietly changing in the Internet era. Consumers have become more erratic, corporate production forms have changed, media has fragmented, and advertising companies have With the transition, marketing theory has developed at a faster pace, and the speed of development has been accelerated... The cross-border betting of Internet companies represented by Le Vision and Xiaomi is the most typical manifestation of the collision between the Internet and traditional manufacturing thinking.

When all resources are digitized, the Internet becomes the mainstream media. It transmits information to each terminal at the instantaneous speed of light. When resources are shared and penetrated in this process, the distance between people is “eliminated”, between the screen and the screen. The boundaries are "broken." At this time, for traditional manufacturing companies, they are about to face a market environment with “customization needs, production personalization, sales personalization, service personalization, and communication personalization”. If they do not, they will look like The overlords of Nokia and Motorola's two feature phone eras were ruined by smart phones, and eventually they were left out of the game.

Lu Jiebo, deputy secretary-general of the China Electronic Chamber of Commerce and a well-known household electrical appliance expert, said that although there is no clear explanation for the “Internet thinking” at present, it is clear that people in the industry have reached a consensus that the business model of the traditional industry can no longer be simply to carry out commodities. Sales, but should strive to provide a service based on the characteristics of the Internet.

Appliance manufacturers have come up against "Internet thinking"

Although "Internet thinking" is still a "new proposition" for the home appliance industry, in the context of the Internet, as Zhang Ruimin described Haier's transformation as "a major migration in the Internet age," including manufacturers and channel distributors. The Chinese home appliance companies have already embarked on the road to promote industrial transformation. At present, the transformation of the household appliance industry is mainly reflected in three aspects: product intelligence, marketing diversification, and channel networking.

When it comes to product intelligence, the development of color TV companies in recent years can be described as "speed and passion." Especially under the influence of the collective cross-border of color TV's upstarts last year, smart TV is accelerating into a new stage of development. Recently, Konka launched a 10-core 4K smart TV and Skyworth launched the first domestic 4k home Internet TV. At the 2014 CES in the United States, Korean brand Samsung launched a finger gesture control TV and smart home control software, and LG released WebOS mobile operating system LCD TV products. It is not difficult to see that based on the development of software applications in 2013, color TV manufacturers will focus more on the changes in the interactive mode of smart TVs this year, the customization of personalized products, and the further development of solutions for home connected systems based on smart TVs. Landing.

At the same time as product intelligence, the marketing methods of home appliance companies have become more diverse. With the advent of the marketing communication 3.0 era, the digitalization of marketing channels, the dissemination of full media, the precision of the dissemination of content, and the interactive participation of users have brought new opportunities and challenges to brand promotion. However, compared with Xiaomi and Huang Taiji's successful case of using the Internet to start branding, home appliance companies have not made substantial breakthroughs in social marketing. From the perspective of home appliance companies still heavily bidding for 2014 CCTV advertising bids, the future of home appliance marketing changes may take the "traditional + new media" path.

Of course, like home appliance manufacturing companies, there are channel providers in the Internet tide. In 2013, there was a contending home network procurement platform. At present, home appliance e-commerce has formed the online e-commerce Jingdong led, Tmall, e-Ten followed, the traditional 3C channel Suning and the country's strategic transformation, rapid follow-up pattern. According to authoritative research data, from 2009 to 2012, the proportion of electricity business has increased from 0.47% to 3.92%, an increase of more than 700%. In addition, based on the multiple advantages of e-commerce, the cooperative development of home appliance manufacturers and channel providers will enter a new strategic height. Mr. Lu Jiebo, deputy secretary-general of the China Electronic Chamber of Commerce and a well-known home appliance expert, also pointed out that with the increase in the proportion of sales of home appliances in home appliance sales, O2O or O2M, mobile Internet, big data, and C2B reverse customization models will be in the future. During the period gradually matured.

The "Great Migration" in the Internet Age is essentially a fusion

However, it is not enough for the home appliance companies to embrace the Internet only to stay in the product, marketing, and channel changes. Manufacturing companies are still on the road to the "Great migration in the Internet era." According to Lu Jiebo, deputy secretary-general of the China Electronic Chamber of Commerce and a well-known home appliance expert, manufacturing with "Internet thinking" is actually "taking its essence to its dross." The essence of the transformation of home appliance manufacturing enterprises is not to completely deny the tradition, but to seek a kind. The "fusion" process.

First, product technology needs to be integrated. As we all know, the highest standard of Internet thinking is user experience as the core. Apple Jobs's insight into human nature, Tencent Zhang Xiaolong's "Product Managers should understand human nature like God" and other concepts, but also prove that the amount of users and Internet thinking are inextricably linked. Manufacturers want to retain users, to meet their diversified needs is the key. The "marriage" between TCL and iQIYI, Skyworth and Ali is the beginning of the integration of TV and soft hardware technology. In the future, with the innovation of product technology and the improvement of user experience, TV product demand may tend to be intelligently controlled, high-end display, environmental protection, energy conservation, etc. Overlay of product technology.

Second, marketing needs to be integrated. The "marketing" here includes both channels and communication. In the future, under the background of the development of “all-channel” sales of home appliances, manufacturers and distributors will need to purchase the home network for their advantages in terms of “price, cost, product display, and innovative marketing capabilities”, and prepare offline channels for high-end products. Combining the advantages of consumer experience and after-sales service, and appropriately streamlining the number of product models, integrating channel resources.

At the same time, based on the age of the Internet, the emergence of multiple communication channels, the coexistence of various means of communication, media and audience segmentation, etc., also makes it imperative to integrate marketing communications. As Drucker, the father of modern management, puts it, the greatest impact of the Internet is the elimination of distance, while traditional media cannot achieve "zero distance."

Third, the roles of consumers, communicators and developers need to be integrated. In the Internet age, consumers will have the opportunity to become new product developers in the interactive communication with manufacturing companies, as well as a source of inspiration for companies to achieve product innovation and customization. In this way, they can also greatly enhance the user experience and form a reputation. The basis of marketing. When consumers pass on the experience of product experience, they actually merge with the role of the communicator. In this process, companies can also create a win-win situation for new business opportunities while creating value for their customers.

Finally, the Internet and traditional manufacturing enterprise culture need to be integrated. “There is no determination of subversion and self-subversion” is an important criterion to measure whether a company has Internet thinking. Because the company's past successful experience will form part of the corporate culture, it is now necessary to establish a new business model. Only when the old and new corporate cultures are blended and upgraded will the genes be completely changed. In the future, under the impact of the Internet, companies will become self-organizing with “no border management, no corporate leadership”. Based on this atmosphere, employee-centric brand competitiveness and the attraction of talents will be enhanced. It will facilitate the transformation of corporate ecological construction including product technology, service capabilities, and business models.