There are several things that have touched me deeply recently. It seems that the development of logistics has reached the time when methodology is needed to support it. First, I recently participated in some government projects, plans and meetings, but many officials admitted that they didn't understand what logistics was. What is the problem to be solved? I'm afraid we can't expect officials to show us a development path. As a logistics person, you should know how the industry develops. What are the rules? I hope the government can solve some problems for you. Second, I have been exposed to many academic researches, including doctoral thesis defense. Students are also learning methodology, but many of them are flashy, seriously divorced from reality and entertaining themselves, which has no effect on the development of logistics. So far, we haven't established the methodology of logistics itself. Thirdly, I have contacted many entrepreneurs and found that many cases are wonderful, and there are many methods and theories worth summarizing, but it is a pity that they have not been summarized into methodology, because others are still doing similar explorations. Fourth, the media has been reporting many logistics abuses recently, which is of course a good thing. Exposing such a very behind-the-scenes and professional field of logistics to ordinary people will definitely solve some problems, but we will also see that the problems are extremely complicated and cannot be solved by a temporary passion. I think there should be an in-depth study of logistics, which can not be solved by making a phone call, putting some pressure on it and exposing some black holes. What is logistics, how to develop it and what is its goal? This is worth pondering. So I think it's time for logistics to call for methodology, especially for entrepreneurs here. Everyone has a responsibility. Why is it that logistics has developed into a period that needs to be considered? It is because what we lack now is not professional knowledge or innovative practice, but methodological tools, which makes it impossible for us to effectively accumulate and form a clear and simple theoretical system to reduce the blindness of practice. What is the basic methodology of logistics? There are three words that can best reflect the basic requirements-"less", "clear" and "wide". The concept of "less" quantity is beautiful in theory, while the theory and method are not mature enough in many concepts. The law of "clarity" makes the problem clear, the logical relationship clear and the causal relationship clear. "Wide" application, the theory extracted should be widely used, and the embodiment of these theories can be seen everywhere, thus extracting the basic methodology. What is this concept? What kind of relationship can be widely used? There is a very simple sentence in "Planning for the Adjustment and Revitalization of Logistics Industry"-"Building a modern logistics service system and promoting the development of other industries with logistics services", which captures two basic points of logistics: system and service. So in short, logistics development is to establish a system and do a good job of service. The logistics system is embodied in the network, so how to build the network is the core of the system construction. Service appears in the form of process, and how to design and control the process has become the core of service. So the two core concepts of logistics are network and process. If for any enterprise, how to spend money? How to make money? Are two basic tasks, so for logistics enterprises, how to spend money is how to invest in building a network, and how to make money is to design a process, which can not only meet the requirements of customers, but also realize their own profits. Logistics problems are all around the development and changes of networks and processes. What should the logistics network theory include? Still have to observe and refine from practice. The first is investment. Investment requires a balance between market demand and network functions in terms of total amount and layout. Secondly, the problem of network asset management. Asset management is the basic element of any enterprise, but the network is structural, so the value of network assets depends on its internal balance, and there can be no shortcomings. If there is a short board, it means that there is a problem with the network and the value is not high. Therefore, the process of managing the network and enhancing the value of network assets is actually a process of constantly discovering shortcomings or bottlenecks, so that the network is always in the best balance state. So how can we achieve this balance? First of all, we should establish a clear factor relationship model to show the relationship between various factors. Second, there must be a very good performance appraisal system to solve the measurement problem. If we don't solve this problem, we can't know exactly whether it is balanced or not. In practice, we also found that there are two very special problems in the logistics network. One is the form of resource integration in networking, that is, whether the enterprise's network is self-built or outsourced. Generally speaking, only businesses that meet the requirements of standardization, quantifiable assessment and clear legal relationship are suitable for outsourcing. It has been demonstrated in economic research that from the perspective of the whole society, the degree of specialization, that is, the depth of outsourcing, depends on the average transaction cost of the whole society, which seems to be a balanced relationship. Another big problem is that the resource management of large-scale networks will definitely encounter the relationship between centralization and decentralization. After continuous integration, acquisition and merger, there will be more and more network systems, and the management system will definitely face the choice of decentralization and centralization. This is also a balanced analysis. Generally speaking, centralized management of the system will help to improve the overall efficiency, but it will certainly sacrifice vitality and creativity; However, if the management power is decentralized and the management system is relatively decentralized, it will enhance the vitality and creativity of the system, but it will form internal competition and even destroy each other, and the overall efficiency will decrease. Therefore, the centralization and decentralization of management are to balance the relationship between efficiency and vitality, and there is no unified standard, which should be considered according to their respective conditions. However, practice shows that the degree of informatization concentration is slightly higher than that of decision management. In this case, the decision-making power is relatively transparent, controllable and adjustable even if it is decentralized. These can combine efficiency and vitality well. Therefore, the trend of information centralization is more and more obvious, but management is not necessarily highly centralized. Network theory supports a kind of logistics service, which usually covers logistics enterprises with simple and standard processes, such as transportation, express delivery, freight forwarding and so on, which mainly rely on the network to compete. Generally speaking, supply exceeds demand in this kind of logistics market. The problem is that resources are scattered, resulting in small, scattered, chaotic and poor phenomena. It is necessary to realize networking under the guidance of intensification and promote informationization and standardization at the same time. This is the goal and direction of "making the logistics industry bigger" Process is another very important basic concept of logistics. In practice, this process must first solve two contradictions. First, the balance between the customer's service demand and the required cost. Secondly, how to form as many standard operating modules as possible through process splitting due to the particularity of customer requirements, that is, to turn particularity into standards as much as possible. These two contradictions are actually linked and are the main contradictions in the process. The solution is to summarize the standard modules of enterprise supply capacity according to the diversified needs of customers, so that the non-standard special needs can be decomposed into more invariable and suitable standard service modules. The key is how to grasp the granularity of standard modules. Of course, there will be measurement or measurement problems in the process, which are manifested in the design of KPI performance indicators and interfaces, so we must grasp the KPI and KPI transmission. In the specific process analysis, it is often a process analysis with warehousing as the node. You may encounter three processes: the process of purchasing goods, the process of shipping goods, and the process of working in a warehouse. Purchasing should take care of the interests of the owner and try to meet the requirements of the owner in terms of quantity, rhythm and error rate. Shipping is terminal-driven, and it should meet the needs of terminal sales and demand as much as possible. Usually, these two processes will inevitably conflict, which will lead to inventory management problems. Therefore, warehouse operation is not only an internal operation, but also a balance between upstream and downstream processes. From the whole process, warehouse operation is not a problem of reducing the cost of warehouse operation, but a smooth coordination between the upper and lower processes, otherwise it is either out of stock or out of stock. Therefore, the warehouse is not only a reflection of the contradiction between the two processes, but also a tool to solve this contradiction. The workflow of the library should be designed according to this orientation. In the process, we should also pay attention to the transfer of responsibility, because the service product itself is a process, which is gradually realized in all links, and the legal attributes of general commodity transactions should also be included in the service process, so we should also transfer the responsibility well, and the interface of the process link is the focus. Now there is an obvious responsibility gap in logistics, that is, inspection. The debate over whether to sign before or after the prior in express delivery reflects that the responsibility transfer in logistics process is not strict. There are two solutions. First, when the owner delivers the goods to the courier company, the courier company will inspect the goods. After the inspection, the responsibility of the goods shifted. When handing it over to the customer, if there is any problem, it will actively investigate. This is called seamless delivery. Another solution is that the shipper requires the courier company to be only responsible for the outer packaging, and the courier company only earns money that the outer packaging is not damaged. As long as the other party proves that the packaging is intact when receiving the goods, the courier company has no responsibility, for example, the return is handled by the shipper. This is also a seamless transfer process. As a service product, this process conforms to the legal definition and has a clear relationship, so it is qualified. So in this process, we must pay attention to its trading attributes and responsibilities. Process theory mainly supports professional logistics, such as automobile logistics, food cold chain, clothing logistics and so on. Because these logistics services are non-standard, the core competitiveness of enterprises lies in being familiar with specialties, being able to quickly decompose various processes, and then outsourcing standard services. Its core competitiveness is to grasp and control the process, so they will take the warehouse as the core to solve the problem of this process. With the specialization subdivision, the logistics market will show the development direction of "specialization", and the achievements of logistics will be implemented in the transformation and upgrading of manufacturing, commerce and agriculture. So far, we have established a methodological framework: the basic concepts are networks and processes, and the corresponding markets are basic services and professional services. The characteristics of basic services are based on scale and network, pursuing economies of scale, and its service process is simple. The process of professional logistics is nonstandard in principle, which needs continuous communication and improvement with customers. The control and design of the process is its core competitiveness. In addition, the business models of the two companies are completely different. The basic service is to make money through scale and have a clear price tag with customers. The right to speak of such enterprises is scale. Professional service really makes money by reducing the logistics cost of customers, and it is also a control means in the process of industrial chain formation. In practice, any enterprise will encounter network and process problems. These two basic concepts are interdependent and should not be separated and opposed. Simply put, the development direction of logistics is to be bigger and more specialized. "Big" means to integrate resources and build a network system in the direction of intensification and scale, while "Specialized" means to deepen services to specialties and constantly innovate service processes. The above is the development law of logistics itself. Macro management depends on two basic problems. First, whether there is a balance between logistics development and national economy, if not, it needs to be promoted; If it is idle, it needs to be adjusted. There is no clear judgment on this issue now. Generally speaking, logistics in China is twice as backward as that in developed countries. This is not an accurate concept. From the principle of balance, China's logistics, compared with the current industrial and agricultural production and market demand, is generally satisfied, but the supply of basic services exceeds demand, and the supply of professional services exceeds demand, which has structural problems. Secondly, whether the internal logistics is balanced, various modes of transportation, infrastructure layout, the proportion of large, medium and small enterprises, etc. Whether there is irregular competition, monopoly and excess profits, and whether it can develop according to market rules, macro management should actually pay attention to these issues. Of course, there is nothing wrong with calling for preferential policies, but the most important thing is to give logistics the necessary environment and policies according to the law of its own development, so that the market can play a greater role. Looking at the macro-management of logistics from this perspective, we may find some problems: Is the purpose of developing logistics to expand the scale of logistics? Does the construction of logistics network rely on increasing investment or integration and intensification? Does the development of logistics depend on the overall preferential treatment of the government or the market mechanism? Why does the market mechanism fail? Finally, let me talk about the responsibility of entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs may have all kinds of professional knowledge, but from the perspective of methodology, we entrepreneurs are required to become network experts or process experts first, so as to quickly diagnose the crux of the network or process, and it is certainly better to be two experts at the same time. These are the basic responsibilities of entrepreneurs. So I think entrepreneurs should raise some awareness of methodology. In fact, entrepreneurs have many innovations in their daily practice, even unconscious ideas, which may be a principle and a method. Only by accumulating them can they form a methodology, which can be more universal and applicable. Entrepreneurs can have a try. Specifically, they can start with cases or their own development history, make horizontal and vertical classification analysis, and find out more general laws. This is an entry point of entrepreneur's refining methodology.