Are Manufacturers And Agents Partners Or Stumbling Blocks?

Typical case: a liquor manufacturer has worked with a regional agent for many years and has been friendly with each other.

With the support of the company, the performance of the regional agent is also flourishing. There has been no ambidextrous in the process of cooperation, neither has it found any other manufacturers nor has it expanded to the outside world.

Up to now, in the regional general business structure, the liquor maker's agency business accounts for most of its share; the famous liquor maker also supports the most part of the regional market by the region's general generation.

But now, there is a situation in which the general generation is rather annoyed: because of years of accumulation, the region's general generation has had the strength to expand to other regions and would like to seek greater development through this expansion; but because the vendor's access system is a regional general agent system and other general agents are doing the same, the manufacturer insists that it does not allow, nor causes it to expand to other regions in its own interest, so as not to disrupt the distribution of the access.

If the two sides continue to work together, the region can always listen to the arrangement of the manufacturers, and the profit gained by them can only keep the existing momentum of development, and it will not seem clear enough to continue to do so. But considering the tremendous influence of the brand, it can not bear to terminate cooperation and find another way. Moreover, the new development is not an overnight success.

For many years, partners seem to have stumbled.

Red side diagnosis: the rule is ruthless "unwinding", the road is sick, China is vast, the level of development is uneven, and more than 90% of the wine is passed to consumers through the channel.

Whether they are general agents or regional distributors, they are long-term and bulk purchasers of liquor manufacturers, and are also low cost and widely sold salesmen.

However, due to changes in the market, channel sales mode, management mode, business philosophy and other aspects have undergone great changes.

In the whole supply chain of wine industry, liquor manufacturers are constantly adjusting their channels to meet the needs of consumers, because they want to maximize market share, while distributors in the channel should also pursue investment returns.

In this process, despite the common interests of both sides, contradictions can never be avoided, and even the two sides are originally an unequal paction.

It can be said that the root cause of the above cases is due to this contradiction.

Flat access is the inevitable trend of the future development of the liquor industry, and no value channel links will be mercilessly removed by the manufacturers.

In this process, the combination of channels will become the main trend of the new market.

But in any case, the capital flow, logistics and information flow and market services provided by distributors are still important support for manufacturers.

However, if the access is too strong, it will pose a threat to "home".

Manufacturers naturally do not want to see this situation.

The prescription path must have the function of "upload and release", and it is one of the three fulcrum of establishing new cooperative relationship with consumers and manufacturers.

How to build and enhance their core competitiveness is a problem that must be squarely and seriously considered by today's wine merchants.

From the two levels of open source and throttling, agents or dealers should not only learn to make money, but also learn to save money.

The purpose of outward expansion is to better develop and create more wealth, but if the internal management is not effective and the preparation for increasing revenue and expenditure is not well prepared, such expansion may end up in a crushing defeat.

Therefore, for the whole generation of the region, the first thing to consider is whether the capability is enough to support the further expansion of the company.

Concerned about the needs of market consumers is one of the important choices of wine dealers in the future.

For the regional general agent seeking expansion, the cost of acquiring a new market in other areas is 5 times the cost of maintaining an old market, and the key to stabilizing and maintaining the old regional market is whether the market is satisfied. Therefore, it is better to focus on improving the operational capabilities of internal management, optimizing the management process and establishing a reasonable sales system, so as to increase the market capacity of the region.

At the same time, once an agent has launched a nationwide mass distribution, it will inevitably increase the overall operation cost, and because of the increasingly small profit distribution of the wine industry, whether it can support the huge scale operation will become one of the important difficulties.

This must also be considered in advance.

For manufacturers, we should fully understand the desire of distributors to expand. If we do not allow them to expand outwards, we can consider helping wine dealers from product provision, regional division, value-added services and so on. They can even provide more products for them to achieve their own resources integration, thereby enhancing the value added space. For distributors, we should also fully understand the reasons for their expansion and are able to persuade manufacturers.

For example, do you have any other advantages besides expanding scale?

Is it stronger than the original agent's other regional agents?

If the advantages are not obvious, it is better to create new wealth with existing value.

Green side diagnosis: balancing the advantages and disadvantages of smart expansion from the case, because the regional agent system of the manufacturer has been relatively shaped. If a regional agent asks the manufacturer to abandon the original layout, unless the sales volume promised to the manufacturer is far greater than the previous sales volume, such as the original sales volume is 10 million, but if the expansion to other regions, it can achieve 100 million, greater than the sales volume of the region and other regions.

This will have some attraction for manufacturers, because the expansion of a region to the other regions will reduce the cost of management if sales can be increased.

However, the control power of manufacturers may weaken, so it will weigh the relationship between performance growth and channel control.

Because of this, only if the performance growth is enough, can the manufacturers be willing to try, and regional agents will have the chance to negotiate with manufacturers. Otherwise, manufacturers are generally unwilling to break the existing pattern.

Even if the region always wants to do that, the manufacturer will try to kill it.

Because this attempt may have some risk to the manufacturer, it will not be long for the regional agent. If the sales volume is not greatly improved in the short term, the manufacturers will be under great pressure.

At the same time, for this regional agent, the key is to look at its influence on the manufacturer.

Therefore, before the negotiations between the agent and the manufacturer in the region must weigh the interests of each other seriously: if the regional agent accounts for the large market share of the manufacturer, the manufacturer will not easily let him die or find another agent instead, because it will take a certain time for other agents to do it. For regional agents, it is necessary to consider whether their profits are mainly from the manufacturer. If so, the manufacturers may reduce their shipments or reduce channel profits. Regional agents will be very uncomfortable and they will not be able to go to the two or three tier cities.

These problems can be easily suppressed by manufacturers if they do not think clearly.

If the core purpose of the regional agency is to establish a "marketing channel" instead of acting on a certain kind of wine, it can be done in a different way.

For example, you can sell other brands in other places, so that you can establish your sales channels.

Wait until one day "points" into "film", you can bargain with manufacturers.

Black side diagnosis: the root of the problem lies in the disadvantage of the agency system in the agent system, which restricts the development space of agents to a certain extent.

For example, the agents in the northern area do well, and he wants to expand to the southern area. But if the manufacturer does not give him the stage and the strategy will not change easily, he will choose other products to do so. At that time, he may have two choices: if the relationship with the manufacturers is relatively good, the regional agent may consider for the manufacturers, do some products that he does not overlap, such as the original liquor making, may now do the red wine; but if he does not consider for the manufacturer, he may make the competitive brand of the manufacturer, such as making the high-end gift wine of other manufacturers, because he is familiar with the high-end liquor market, so doing this is good for the company's own development.

But for the original manufacturers, this could be a fatal blow.

But this is precisely the result of the strategy of the manufacturers themselves, because in a region, the market share of liquor is so large that the agent must develop, and his way out is to find other products to achieve the expansion to other regions.

But if the manufacturer makes it a national agent, it may avoid this problem.

In this way, if the agency in the region still feels that business is not enough, it can only be its capability, not the manufacturer's lack of space.

People often do this, you do not give him space, he has some abilities not to play, he will blame you and want to develop in other ways; but if you give him space, do not do it, he will be speechless.

Blue side diagnosis: tree forking is inevitable, which is related to the policies of manufacturers.

For manufacturers, the more control they have on agents, the higher profit margins will be. Therefore, liquor manufacturers are generally willing to do so.

From my point of view, manufacturers are right to do so.

With the driving force of commercial profits, the overall situation of manufacturers has been decided. Why should we change it?

There is no need to change.

It is impossible for a manufacturer to change the whole access system because of the problem of a certain access link.

Of course, agents are hard to understand.

Because the rules of the game are agreed by the factory, not the agents can decide, just like we want to make Wuliangye products, then we must listen to Wuliangye's arrangement; if we want to make Moutai's products, we must listen to the arrangement of Moutai; if we are not willing to obey the rules of a certain game, we can change a manufacturer to make a game rule that can be agreed with each other.

For the total generation of the region, if it is located in a large scope of general agent, then we can find another small manufacturer.

The original business continues to play according to the original game rules of the manufacturer, and on the basis of this, another booth is made to do something else.

Just like a tree, there was only one main stem, but when it was big, it had to fork and fork, otherwise it might not be enough.

Of course, the original manufacturer may think that regional agents occupy their resources, so regional agents can not compete with the brand, do not choose products that conflict with the original manufacturers, or they may be destroyed by the manufacturers.

Commentary: cruel and fair dialectics, market competition is cruel and fair, and there can be no justice without cruelty, and justice is also built on cruel rules.

This case illustrates this truth.

The fairness of market competition is due to the common pursuit of interests by competing businesses.

Under this premise, different enterprises and different interest groups come together and cooperate with each other under the common rules of the game.

However, in the supply chain of the jungle, the rules of the game are obviously the strong ones. For the weak, it is fair and cruel to accept such rules.

In this case, the development and expansion of the weak will damage the interests of the strong, or it may damage the interests of the strong.

The cruelty of competition rules is revealed.

However, this cruelty is also a kind of equity, otherwise the general agents in other regions may face a cruel situation.

We often hear such a word: coopetition.

It not only represents the delicate relationship between competition and cooperation in all aspects of interests, but also reflects the unity of opposites between cruelty and fairness.