震坤行：2023年GMV近111亿元 第四季度实现盈利

This article analyzes Zhenkunhang, an industrial MRO procurement platform, based on its first annual report since its NYSE IPO, which discloses its 2023 core operating data and future strategies. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. Core operating data: In 2023, Zhenkunhang posted a gross merchandise value (GMV) of 11.083 billion yuan, up 18.2% year-over-year. Its gross margin climbed to 16.7% for the third consecutive year, and the company achieved its first quarterly profit in Q4 2023, with an adjusted net profit of 27.54 million yuan. Total customers exceeded 66,000 for the full year, with a 97% retention rate for its top 500 clients. Online self-service transactions accounted for 70% of total GMV, and end-to-end digital transformation lifted labor productivity by approximately 39%.

2. Future strategic layout: Zhenkunhang currently offers 17 million SKUs, with private label products accounting for 5% of its assortment. It plans to expand its private label portfolio and develop hit products for production lines. The company also intends to launch overseas operations in the U.S. in the second half of 2024, while exploring cross-border acquisition opportunities to accelerate its global expansion.

3. Referenceable growth insights: Zhenkunhang's path to profitability through cost reduction and efficiency gains enabled by digital technology offers valuable lessons for peer internet companies.

This article presents the latest developments in the MRO industrial supplies sector, providing industry trend and operational insights for MRO brands. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. Current industry landscape: The MRO sector demonstrates strong resilient growth. Leading players have now validated profitable business models: in 2023, top players recorded over 18% GMV growth, enjoy high customer stickiness with a 97% retention rate for major clients, and operate in a steadily demanded market that still offers room for further expansion.

2. Shifting customer demands: Enterprise clients have broadly adopted online and intelligent procurement. For leading platforms, online self-service transactions already account for 70% of total volume, and clients prioritize procurement efficiency, extensive SKU assortment and service reliability. Brands need to adjust their operations to meet the requirements of online procurement.

3. Upcoming business opportunities: The private label segment still holds substantial growth potential in the MRO space, while overseas markets are emerging as a new growth driver. Leading players have already started expanding into private label R&D and global market entry. Brands can prepare early by focusing on these two areas to capture incremental market share.

This article shares the latest industry developments in the MRO industrial procurement sector, offering opportunity alerts and actionable lessons for MRO sellers. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. Industry growth opportunities: The MRO sector continues to expand steadily. In 2023, the leading player Zhenkunhang added 8,558 new customers, pushing its total customer base over 66,000, proving that market demand is still growing and new sellers still have room to enter the market.

2. Replicable cost-saving and efficiency-boosting practices: Sellers can adopt Zhenkunhang's digital transformation approach, integrating RPA and large AI models into end-to-end workflows including inquiry processing, order management and supply-demand matching to achieve intelligent operations. Zhenkunhang's 39% labor productivity gain and steadily rising gross margin have validated the effectiveness of this method.

3. Guidance on future growth directions: Private labels currently account for only 5% of the assortment on leading platforms, leaving large room for growth. The sector will also enter the U.S. market starting in 2024. Sellers can leverage their own resources to develop private labels or expand overseas to unlock new growth curves.

This article shares the latest MRO industry updates, providing demand references and business opportunities for industrial goods manufacturers. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. Guidance for product design and production: MRO procurement is now highly digitalized, and platforms are placing increasingly higher demands on SKU variety, supply response speed and matching efficiency. Factories need to adapt their product design and development to align with online procurement rules, optimize product information standardization and supply efficiency to meet platform requirements.

2. New business collaboration opportunities: Leading MRO platforms are expanding their private label布局, and will deepen involvement in product definition, selection, R&D and even intelligent manufacturing to develop hit production line products. Factories can partner with these platforms leveraging their production capabilities, access targeted demand and secure stable order flow.

3. Insights for digital transformation: Factories can draw on Zhenkunhang's digital transformation experience to integrate RPA, AI and other technologies into their own business processes, and connect their systems with procurement platforms to close transaction loops. This will not only improve internal operational efficiency, but also help factories better meet platform requirements to win more orders.

This article shares the latest MRO industry developments, providing demand references and strategic guidance for service providers serving the MRO sector. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. Current industry trends: The MRO sector has transitioned from the early stage of unprofitable expansion to a phase focused on improving profitability. Leading players have already achieved quarterly profitability, and the industry is gradually maturing. As a result, client demand for service providers has shifted from supporting customer acquisition to improving profit efficiency.

2. Core client pain points: The top priority for MRO platforms is to further improve operational efficiency, cut costs and lift gross margins. While leading players have already addressed this through end-to-end digital transformation, a large number of mid-sized and smaller platforms still have unmet demand for digital transformation services.

3. Recommended solution directions: Service providers can develop industry-specific digital products tailored to MRO use cases, such as end-to-end RPA, AI chat assistants trained on MRO industry knowledge bases, and intelligent supply-demand matching systems. These products help MRO companies improve labor productivity and gross margins, directly addressing the core current demand of the industry.

Zhenkunhang's first post-IPO annual report offers operational and strategic insights for peer industrial internet platforms. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. Operational insights: Industrial internet platforms can achieve cost reduction and efficiency gains by doubling down on digital transformation. After integrating RPA and large AI models across all business processes, Zhenkunhang reached 70% online transaction penetration, lifted labor productivity by 39%, grew gross margin from 13.6% to 16.7% over three consecutive years, and ultimately narrowed losses to achieve quarterly profitability, validating the feasibility of a digital-first strategy.

2. Strategic guidance for future growth: After domestic MRO leaders have validated profitable business models, they can pursue new growth in two directions: first, expand private labels and deepen involvement in product R&D to develop hit products, lifting gross margin for proprietary businesses; second, enter overseas markets. Zhenkunhang's plan to launch U.S. operations in H2 2024 and explore cross-border acquisitions offers a clear strategic reference for peer platforms.

3. Risk mitigation advice: Platforms need to balance scale expansion and profitability throughout their development, continuously optimize expense ratios, gradually improve profitability, avoid reckless unprofitable expansion, achieve positive profitability early, and reduce operational risk.

Zhenkunhang's latest annual report provides an updated industry case study for researchers focused on the industrial internet and the MRO industrial procurement sector. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. New industry development trends: After years of development and expansion, China's MRO industrial internet platforms have now validated a replicable profitable business model. Leading player Zhenkunhang achieved quarterly profitability in its first post-IPO annual report, with seven consecutive years of improving gross margin, confirming that the scale effect and digital-driven cost reduction logic for industrial internet platforms work in practice, and the sector is entering a mature growth stage.

2. New trends in business model innovation: The business model of leading MRO platforms has evolved from early-stage transaction matchmaking to end-to-end digital operations and private label R&D. A dual-driver strategy combining digitalization and private labels now lifts gross margin and enables profitability, renewing the prevailing business model for the MRO sector.

3. Future research directions: The core development directions for China's MRO sector going forward are product deepening, digital advancement and global expansion. Overseas expansion will become a core strategy for leading players, and the experience and models of cross-border expansion will emerge as a new key research area.