震坤行陈龙：今年目标是销售额翻番

This article is an internal open letter published in 2021 by Chen Long, head of the industrial product e-commerce platform ZKH. It discloses ZKH’s development goals and core operating principles for that year, with key takeaways as follows:

1. Core goal: On the basis of improving cash flow and other financial indicators, achieve more than doubling annual sales, with the core focus on long-term, sustainable high-speed growth.

2. Three core operating principles: The company explicitly commits to three core guidelines: creating value for customers, sticking to long-term correct decisions, and building a self-driven, agile organization.

3. Concrete implementation measures: Maintain a daily morning meeting system focused on customer experience, and leverage a work order system to organize all employees to resolve customer issues quickly; increase investment in digitalization, advance warehouse automation, raise the in-stock inventory ratio, and consolidate cost advantages; attract top talent with competitive compensation packages and stock options, and streamline management with sufficient delegation to maintain organizational agility.

This article discloses the core strategy of ZKH, a leading brand in the industrial product e-commerce sector, and provides multiple references for brand operation in the industrial goods industry. Key insights are as follows:

1. Reference for growth target setting: While targeting a doubling of annual sales, ZKH also prioritizes cash flow improvement, balancing short-term growth with long-term sustainable development and avoiding blind pursuit of scale at the cost of corporate health. This offers valuable reference for brands setting their own growth goals.

2. Core direction for brand building: ZKH always puts the core value of "transparency, efficiency and cost reduction" for customers first, delivers optimal customer experience through cross-position collaboration, and treats customer reputation as its most valuable brand asset, clarifying the core anchor for brand building.

3. Investment direction for long-term development: ZKH explicitly calls for increased investment in core infrastructure such as digitalization and warehouse automation, integrates the industrial chain to improve product competitiveness, and optimizes organizational and talent systems to support long-term growth, which provides reference for brands’ long-term strategic layout.

This article discloses the latest development strategy of ZKH, a leading player in industrial product e-commerce, and offers abundant references and opportunity alerts for sellers in the industrial goods space. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. Industry growth outlook: ZKH sets a goal of doubling annual sales and plans to increase investment in core infrastructure, which indicates that industrial product e-commerce is still in a high-growth bonus period with large market space and abundant expansion opportunities.

2. Operational insights to learn from: ZKH has built a rapid response system combining daily customer experience morning meetings and a work order system, which mobilizes the entire company to collaborate on resolving customer issues and keeps customer experience as the top priority. This customer management mechanism is worth learning for all sellers.

3. Opportunity and risk alerts: ZKH plans to deepen industrial chain integration across different product lines and improve its national delivery network, which creates potential cooperation opportunities for sellers with high-quality product supply capabilities. At the same time, ZKH adheres to compliance and transparency and rejects non-compliant quick gains, reminding sellers to stick to compliance bottom lines and avoid regulatory risks.

The development strategy of ZKH disclosed in this article brings clear business opportunities and transformation insights for industrial product manufacturers. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. Market growth opportunities: China’s industrial product e-commerce is currently in a stage of rapid growth, and the leading platform ZKH targets a doubling of annual sales, which indicates that demand for industrial products through online channels is expanding rapidly. Manufacturers can seize this industry dividend, expand online sales channels, and unlock new growth space.

2. Product-side cooperation opportunities: ZKH explicitly aims to raise in-stock inventory ratios and deepen industrial chain integration across different product lines. Manufacturers can align with this demand by optimizing capacity planning and inventory management, improving supply capabilities, securing cooperation opportunities with the leading platform, and expanding stable sales channels.

3. Insights for digital transformation: ZKH plans to increase investment in digital capabilities and advance warehouse automation to improve operational efficiency and control costs. This points a clear direction for manufacturers’ own digital transformation: by rolling out digital upgrades, manufacturers can improve their operational efficiency and cost advantages, and enhance market competitiveness.

This article discloses the strategic needs of a leading industrial product e-commerce company, and clarifies industry trends and business directions for service providers serving the industrial e-commerce sector. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. Industry development trends: China’s industrial product e-commerce is currently in a stage of rapid growth. Leading players set the goal of doubling annual sales and are willing to increase investment in core infrastructure, which indicates the overall industry is in an upward period with sufficient market space, bringing a large number of business opportunities for all types of service providers.

2. Core customer pain points sorted out: The core demands of leading industrial product e-commerce platforms currently focus on improving digital technical capabilities, realizing warehouse automation, improving national delivery networks, and industrial chain integration. These are exactly the core pain points that service providers targeting platform clients need to address.

3. Reference for business direction: There is clear market demand in fields including digital technology R&D services, warehouse automation solution services, organizational management consulting, and supply chain delivery services. Leading platforms are willing to invest heavily in core infrastructure construction, so service providers can develop demand-matching solutions to tap into industry demand.

As an internal strategy disclosure from ZKH, an industrial product e-commerce platform, this article offers high reference value for the operation and development of similar industrial e-commerce platforms. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. Reference for development strategy: While pursuing high-speed sales growth, ZKH always pays close attention to improving cash flow and other financial indicators, and prioritizes long-term sustainable growth, avoiding the mistake many early-stage internet platforms made of burning cash only for scale while ignoring corporate health. This provides valuable reference for platforms setting their development strategies.

2. Operational management insights: ZKH has established a regular daily morning meeting mechanism focused on customer experience, leverages a work order system to organize cross-position collaboration, and resolves customer experience issues quickly, embedding customer experience into every link of daily operation. This mechanism is well worth learning for peer platforms.

3. Direction for core capability and organizational building: To build long-term competitive advantages, platforms need to invest generously in core infrastructure such as digitalization and warehouse logistics, while building a self-driven agile organization. They can attract top talent with high salaries and stock options, streamline management with full delegation, and support future scale expansion of the platform.

This article discloses the latest strategy of ZKH, China’s leading industrial product e-commerce platform, and brings many noteworthy new industry trends for researchers studying the development of industrial internet. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. New trend in industry growth stage: China’s leading industrial product e-commerce companies have left behind the early stage of blind scale expansion via burning cash, and entered a new stage that balances scale growth and financial health. Companies pursue high growth while continuously improving cash flow and focusing on long-term sustainable development, which is a landmark change indicating that industrial e-commerce is moving toward maturity.

2. New characteristics of business model: ZKH adheres to the core customer value of "transparency, efficiency and cost reduction", improves customer experience through full-chain collaboration, increases investment in digitalization and warehouse logistics, integrates the entire industrial chain, and builds a new industrial e-commerce business model different from traditional industrial product distribution. This carries high research value.

3. New exploration in organizational innovation: To adapt to the future development need of an industrial platform with tens of thousands of employees, ZKH has proactively built a self-driven agile organization, attracts top talent through optimized incentive mechanisms, and streamlines management with full delegation to support the scale expansion of industrial internet platforms. This represents a new exploration of organizational innovation in the industrial internet sector.