Positioning confusion: do everything and do nothing well.
Logistics fever is a prominent feature of the current domestic economy, with "logistics park" in front and "logistics cost" behind. In fact, since logistics was given the "third profit source", it has become the focus of many eyes, attracting countless funds, and various logistics enterprises have sprung up like mushrooms after rain. It is said that there are about 15000 logistics enterprises now. Take a closer look. None of the 60 billion domestic logistics outsourcing markets has a market share of more than 2%. Some people compare today's logistics industry to the Warring States period, that is, although the logistics industry has risen side by side, it still lacks real leaders and has not yet formed a separatist situation. The result of excessive dispersion will inevitably lead to chaos, but it is this kind of chaos that makes a lot of capital ready to move. On the one hand, many small and medium-sized logistics enterprises are still being established, trying to get a slice of the logistics industry; On the other hand, the existing large-scale logistics enterprises continue to invest a lot of money to occupy the logistics market all over the country, trying to dominate one side. However, whether it is a piece of cake or a map, enterprises must first understand their position in the logistics industry after investing money.
The logistics industry is like an expanding cake. This temptation makes some employees at a loss, lacking market positioning and strategic planning. The reason why this problem is raised is mainly because the contradiction between supply and demand in the logistics market is becoming more and more obvious, which leads many experts and media to say that the domestic logistics situation will become an obstacle to the domestic economic development. On the one hand, the logistics market is hot, but many logistics enterprises complain that the market competition is too fierce, and it is difficult for enterprises to seize customers and not make money. On the other hand, enterprises that need logistics services complain that they can't find qualified logistics suppliers, and think that the existing logistics cost is too high, which has become a stumbling block to the development of enterprises, and even some foreign-funded enterprises have changed their original investment direction because of the high logistics cost. Originally doing container transportation, now it has opened up the supply chain; The former supply chain is now separated from trunk transportation; In the past, everyone who made small pieces went to engage in third-party logistics, and the third-party logistics opened the fourth-party logistics to understand. In the logistics industry, it is quite common for people to rush to do what they want to do when they can get money quickly and save trouble.
What would happen if a restaurant stewed shark fin and vermicelli in a pot? People who can afford shark's fin are reluctant to eat shark's fin with fans, and people who can't afford shark's fin are even more reluctant to pay high prices to eat fans. Neither high-end customers nor low-end customers can make money. Can this restaurant be bigger and stronger? Only by doing fine work can we become bigger and stronger. In the industry, many companies have suffered a lot and want to make any money. Often bending down to pick up money will inevitably affect the time and speed of reaching the destination. We must learn to give up. First, do a solid job in all areas of the logistics industry, and strengthen warehousing, supply chain, processing and distribution, and express delivery. From the national point of view, everyone is a powerful consortium, which can build an iron wall to compete with foreign investment. On this basis, enterprises with strong professional ability will penetrate into other fields and gradually form a comprehensive logistics company. A few years later, we can completely give birth to UPS in China.
Positioning reference: customer needs and organizational advantages
One possible result of implementing scientific positioning and choosing differentiation strategy for logistics enterprises is the shrinking of customer base and the rising of unit cost. As a result, service prices rose. Therefore, we should pay great attention to reducing the price sensitivity of customers with high-quality and unique services, blocking the threat of substitutes and maintaining customer loyalty with the deepening of differentiation and uniqueness, concentrating and expanding the customer base through the creation of differentiated brands, realizing the decline of unit service cost and unit service price, and constantly improving the efficiency of enterprises. Therefore, in the scientific positioning of logistics enterprises, we must focus on the needs of market customers and the independent advantages of enterprises themselves.
If you can't meet the needs of customers, positioning is meaningless. The most important assets of a logistics enterprise are not its trucks, warehouses and houses, but its customer resources. Customer resources are becoming more and more valuable in the fierce market competition, and customer resources have become the most valuable wealth of enterprises. Obtaining customer resources depends on customer satisfaction, improving customer satisfaction and turning satisfied customers into loyal customers. Finally, only by retaining customers can we get the lifelong value of customers. Because the customers of an enterprise are different, different customers have different needs, preferences and financial conditions, and different customers have different expectations for the satisfaction of logistics services, even the same customer may be different at different times or under different environmental conditions. However, it is impossible for any logistics enterprise to provide a variety of services at the same time to meet customers with different needs. The differentiation strategy of logistics enterprises is manifested here. Through the differentiation of services provided by logistics enterprises, customers with different requirements can be satisfied. For example, some logistics enterprises specialize in providing fast transportation services (such as airplanes) and fast transportation in small batches for many times to meet customers who are particularly concerned about the timeliness of goods. Some logistics enterprises specialize in providing low-cost transportation services to meet some customers who are more concerned about transportation costs with low-cost transportation in large quantities and less frequency. Similarly, some logistics enterprises can provide refrigerated transportation services or similar transportation services with special requirements. Others provide services through specialized regional logistics networks, such as providing logistics services in Africa. Customer demand is the service direction of logistics enterprises. Differentiated customers have differentiated needs, and differentiated needs will provide differentiated services. Therefore, the objective existence of differentiated customers has become the external basis for logistics enterprises to choose differentiated strategies.
External cause is the condition of change, and internal cause is the basis of change. Scientific positioning should not only refer to the needs of customers, but also examine the service ability of enterprises. Every logistics enterprise will have its unique competitive advantages and competitive resources, and it will inevitably have its shortcomings and limitations, which constitutes organizational differentiation. For example, some logistics companies have advantages in hardware, such as having their own planes or boats. Some have advantages in "software", such as freight forwarding companies. Although these companies do not have the hardware equipment needed by the third-party logistics, they have a large number of customer resources. There is also a "network advantage" type. For example, the traditional postal service industry has a perfect network, which can be used smoothly regardless of roads, railways, water transport and aviation. In order to give full play to their own advantages, logistics enterprises must comprehensively consider their advantages, core competitiveness, life cycle of their industries, competitors' situation, technical strength, financial ability, management ability and external environment. Only in this way can we foster strengths and avoid weaknesses. If everyone caters to the needs of customers regardless of their own advantages and limitations, the result will inevitably be scattered strength, declining service quality, and the advantages of enterprises will be difficult to show, which will inevitably be eliminated in the competition. The differentiation of logistics enterprise's ability is the internal basis of implementing differentiation strategy, which determines the direction, scope and degree of enterprise differentiation.
Scientific orientation: organic combination of supply and demand >
Generally speaking, the key to establishing the brand of logistics enterprises lies in the success of enterprise positioning. The most important thing is that enterprises should have an accurate positioning of the present and future markets. According to the quantitative data, only 18% of industrial enterprises in China outsource raw material logistics to 3PL, and only 16% outsource sales logistics to 3PL. Only by grasping the development artery of the market can we create development space. This is a dynamic and complicated process, and its core is STP, that is, market segmentation, target market selection and specific positioning. The application of positioning strategy is to create and render the personalized characteristics of enterprises and products.
The step difference between demand and supply in logistics market has indeed brought great challenges to the development of domestic material economy, and has also become an obstacle to the development of the whole economy. But for the logistics industry, there are huge opportunities behind this challenge. At present, enterprises that are ready to enter the domestic logistics industry, or those that have already established themselves in the logistics industry, should seriously analyze the challenges faced by the logistics industry while seeing the opportunities provided by the fiery logistics industry. Opportunity brings longing, and challenge brings a step towards longing. Crossing a step means a step closer to the desire.
Of course, in the face of opportunities, success only belongs to people with brains. No matter how fierce the market competition is, the market will always reserve living space for those enterprises with accurate positioning.
Now many logistics companies define themselves as solution providers for the whole supply chain. Some of these enterprises have set up branches in several big cities in China, and their business is mainly concentrated in these big cities, and they only provide transportation and warehousing services, not to mention integrated supply chain services. Even some enterprises just bought dozens of cars and built several warehouses, and their services are far from providing the whole supply chain integration service. No wonder some foreign-funded enterprises complain that domestic logistics suppliers have a big tone and little skill.
In fact, at present, supply chain integrated service providers are high-end logistics services, including not only the integrated circulation services of raw materials and products, but also the services of designing and optimizing logistics solutions for customers. Looking at domestic logistics enterprises, only a handful can really provide such high-end services, and most logistics enterprises can only provide local or regional warehousing and distribution services at present.
In fact, it is not that enterprises that claim to provide integrated supply chain services can live well, but there are a number of enterprises based on chain store commodity distribution or long-distance transportation of bulk goods, but they live well. The internal cause is that they can define their own position and be very professional in a certain field, thus becoming an irreplaceable part of the logistics value chain. The regional competitiveness cannot be underestimated and the profits are naturally quite rich. From the nature of enterprises, logistics enterprises should position their own companies as specialized and international logistics enterprises. While Haier meets its own logistics needs, the future development direction of logistics is the third-party logistics enterprises. Its third-party logistics enterprise orientation is to serve large-scale production enterprises, commercial enterprises and e-commerce companies, provide logistics support for supply chain processes including raw material logistics, production logistics, finished product logistics and sales logistics, and provide logistics capability evaluation, system design and consultation, and whole-process logistics agent.