So, what does Zhang Ying mean by "optical company"?
The concept of "light company" did not actually appear in recent years. As early as the 1980s in the United States, Nike initiated the "virtual operation" strategy, outsourcing "heavy industry" such as production and processing outsourcing to the foundry, making itself "lighter". In China, local clothing enterprises such as Metersbonwe, Bang Wei and Bang Wei are also early imitators and followers of this model.
However, before the reporter published the article "Light Company" (later published), there was no word "light company" in the Chinese context, so the light company model was not used to define the above-mentioned enterprises.
In the book "Light Company", the reporter defines IT as an enterprise that is infinitely close to the market, has strong customer organization ability, reversely matches the upstream industrial chain resources through the Internet and IT technology, and rapidly grows in a non-asset way while promoting efficient intermodal transportation of the industrial chain.
The background of the light company model is the highly developed manufacturing industry and the rapidly developing Internet industry. The former enables enterprises to separate the production and operation activities of heavy assets from their main business, while the latter facilitates the sharing of data and information, enabling enterprises to respond quickly accordingly, and at the same time, e-commerce can replace traditional heavy channels.
It seems that the mode of light company is perfect, so why does Zhang Ying think that "becoming heavier" is the necessity of light company? Let's look at a classic case of a light company-Vanke Eslite. I believe that through this case, you must have a specific understanding of the operation mode of light companies, and you can also get a glimpse of the advantages and problems of this mode.
Vanke Eslite was founded by the founder of Joyo.com Chennian, and was officially put into operation in June 2007. After the establishment of Ke Fan, the business developed rapidly, and the variety of products also increased rapidly. Its business reached its peak on 20 10, and it was the representative of China Garment Light Company at that time.
However, after 20 10, Vanke suffered a long-term recession. Until 20 14 and 20 15, Vanke was burdened with more than one billion debts and nearly two billion inventories. The founder Chennian wrote a confession. The reason is that success also shines on the company, and failure also shines on the company.
When Ke Fan Company was founded, there was no factory building, no equipment or even a sales store, only a marketing department, a design department and a warehouse. But without the cumbersome manufacturing business, Vanke can focus on sales and brand building, and promote the company's development by stimulating back-end business.
Ke Fan Company develops various clothing products according to customers' future or potential market demand. Customers can place orders through the call center or network, and finally deliver the products to customers through the logistics company to collect the payment. Therefore, Vanke innovatively combines the modern e-commerce model with the traditional retail industry.
At the beginning of its establishment, this model allowed Vanke to expand rapidly, but the potential danger of this model is that it is difficult for Vanke to form its own brand effect because of quality inspection and processing outsourcing of products, and it is difficult to control product quality by relying on a large number of advertisements to obtain traffic.
After four to five years of rapid expansion, Vanke gradually declined. It can be seen that the light company model itself can get rid of the huge burden of manufacturing, but it is difficult to achieve long-term development without transformation.
Finally, let's take a look at Zhang Ying's complete proposal for the future development of light industry companies.
Zhang Ying suggested:
All light companies will be heavy in the future and must be heavy. Only by doing heavy work can we effectively resist the invasion of giants, and only in this way can we become bigger. Companies have accelerated the expansion of their business scope. Traffic is getting more and more expensive today. From the incremental market to the stock market, it is necessary to extend the life cycle of users, fully tap the value of individual users, participate in the whole link of the industry and create a closed loop. Not only ToC companies, but also other industries. Investors now realize this. In that case, let's start now, starting today.