China's catering industry has a long history, but it failed to produce world-class giants like KFC and McDonald's.
Although many enterprises have made grandiloquence to build "McDonald's and KFC in China", more lofty aspirations have already vanished with the closure of enterprises: red sorghum was planted, Ade duck was shut down, Ronghua chicken was withdrawn, and Chinese fast food staged a series of "one after another" tragedies.
Now, another enterprise has raised the banner of challenge.
In June 2007, 5438+065438+1 October1,Yue Ji, vice president of Sequoia Capital China, and Gong Ting, head of Heiner Asia Venture Capital, signed a contract with Chongqing Rural Base, with a capital injection of 20 million US dollars (about 65438+500 million yuan), aiming to make the rural base the first brand of Chinese fast food in China, and plans to package and list it overseas.
The two venture capitalists do not participate in the daily operation of rural infrastructure, and their main job is to make the management of rural infrastructure more international, standardized, refined and large-scale, with the aim of becoming "McDonald's of China".
The miracle of the village base does not stop there.
The rural base is also the fast food brand with the highest market share in Chongqing, creating a record of the highest turnover rate of single-store customers, and receiving more than 2,800 customers during peak hours. "Where KFC and McDonald's drive, we will drive there." Only rural bases have such confidence. During peak hours, the flow of people far exceeds that of the two major foreign brands.
At the moment when the concept of joining a chain in Chongqing is in full swing and hot pots are spread all over the country, rural bases have never joined to collect money, never borrowed money from banks, and never advertised, becoming famous in one fell swoop. Opened 46 restaurants in obscurity in 1 1, and successfully entered Chengdu, Xi, Changsha, Guiyang, Kunming and other cities, Wal-Mart, Beijing Hualian, Carrefour and Chongqing.
Management "locking" in the process
In the restaurants of rural bases, every dish has a clear ingredient list, and the weight of materials is all accurate to grams, with only a 2% error range allowed. What operators do is strictly follow the standards, and even use special graduated measuring cups and spoons to measure condiments.
Because the number of dishes that each vegetable and condiment can produce according to the standard has a preset theoretical value, we only need to compare the actual value with the theoretical value every day to know the degree of standardized operation.
In order to ensure the standards of raw materials, rural bases also pay special attention to the selection of supplier networks. Generally, they publish their own requirements and standards online in the form of bidding, and then select qualified suppliers. They have established a strong distribution network with the new century and Chongqing.
At the same time, rural bases have also introduced a unified IT platform. Under the support of IT system and the "standard" of information system, every raw material must be entered into the system at the same time when it is put into storage, and every sale is also carried out through the system, which ensures the accuracy, makes management and standardization easier to reach a higher level, effectively eliminates the phenomenon of "missing orders" that catering enterprises are most worried about, and reduces the risk of opening stores.
In order to keep abreast of consumers' feedback, Xiangcun Ji has also set up a forum on the Internet for comments, and there are also awards specially set up for comments. In this way, all consumers will be mobilized to become supervisors and reformers of enterprise products and services, and such opinions will be fed back to product research and development departments and management departments to form a benign interaction.
Enterprises are actually doing culture.
Even with the injection of venture capital, Li Hong is cautiously optimistic about the development of rural bases.
After introducing foreign capital, Li Hong's first action was to buy back the shares of the joint venture restaurant, and decided to only do direct sales in the future to further strengthen control. In Li Hong's own words, this is: "We must ensure that the foundation of the countryside will never taste bad!"
For speed, Li Hong's first consideration is quality and control. Although capital has certain requirements for enterprises, she still puts stability first. In the future rural base planning, going out of Chongqing is only the first step, and the national layout will become the focus in the future-"It is planned to open 15 in 2008, 20 in 2009 and 20 10.
In fact, she deeply understands the essence of fast food. Products are only the basis of competition, but they are definitely not the commanding heights of competition, because fast food is not a meal that simply satisfies people's appetite, but also a carrier that condenses corporate culture. Just like clothing, the cultural connotation carried by different brands leads to the level of market competition.
The slogans of McDonald's "I like it" and KFC "Life is better with KFC" sound mysterious, but what is projected in consumers' hearts is a pleasant and real feeling. When people are tired of shopping, they go to McDonald's and KFC for a few minutes, because they are good places to enjoy leisure.
Competition on a solid foundation is the pace of rural bases. For the definition of industry, Li Hong also had a new thought: "The catering industry I understand should belong to the fashion industry! The newly developed rural foundation has little accumulation in this respect. "
This is Li Hong's thinking and her exploration. In fact, in recent years, rural bases have been constantly making up for this deficiency.
The village foundation will decorate the atmosphere of the restaurant according to different festivals, the staff's dress will also change, and the contents of paper mats on the plates will be changed regularly to continuously strengthen communication with consumers.
There used to be a father on the Internet who recorded Murakami's experience like this: "My 12-year-old daughter used to like foreign fast food such as McDonald's and KFC, but after I tasted CSC, I was tempted by a good dish and a paragraph and anecdote on the plate. On holidays, the greatest happiness is going to CSC's toothache. 1 1 birthday party was held in CSC. With the children's laughter, the culture of CSC went deep into the hearts of children. "
People have feelings and become friends, so they care about each other; Similarly, when the service industry has established feelings with customers, there will be "loyalty". Wal-Mart will set aside an open space for children to play, KFC will make great efforts to build a children's paradise, all in order to enhance emotional communication with consumers, while rural bases are trying to catch up.
If the brand is a corporate culture projected to the outside, then the organizational atmosphere of the enterprise is the light of the internal brand. "If a team's atmosphere is unhealthy and an employee's heart is unhappy, how can he pass on happiness to consumers?" This is Li Hong's understanding of the projection relationship of culture.
In fact, after the accumulation of 1 1 year, the rural foundation has been advancing along this road.
In the interview, we saw that Xiangcun Ji expressed the purpose of the company like this: "Xiangcun Ji aims to provide the best experience of fast service restaurants, and at the same time give employees a caring sense of family belonging, so that all employees can grow and develop." "People", "customers" and "organizational growth" are the three strategies for China Village Foundation to realize its vision. People are the most important assets of Village Foundation, and the products of Village Foundation are delivered to customers through people, so Village Foundation is determined to become a people-oriented enterprise.
In rural bases, you can always appreciate the charm of this human culture:
Rural bases are catering enterprises that use the most migrant workers, 90% of whom are migrant workers, providing satisfactory treatment for employees. As far as dishwashers are concerned, their monthly income will not be lower than 1.200 yuan, which is an enterprise with no employees asking to take the initiative to apply for endowment insurance. All employees are required to pay endowment insurance every month, and the entry cost. What does this mean for 90% migrant workers who have never enjoyed public ownership?
Even in the decision to introduce venture capital, Li Hong deeply considered the interests of employees: "We didn't take the initiative to find venture capital, but they persuaded me. The most important reason is that we can solve the worries of the management team through listing. " It is precisely because of this kind of mind of the leading figures that rural bases have gone through one dangerous beach after another, and Li Hong also saw the hope of the future from the enthusiasm of employees.
"On the anniversary of 10, I watched a dragon dance performance jointly performed by four stores. They just used the rest time to rehearse on the construction site and used waste rice bags as props. After I learned all this, my heart was filled with emotion. " And this heartfelt enthusiasm and loyalty is the core of the sustainable development of an enterprise.
"A good enterprise can be seen at a glance." So is Murakami.
Here, you can feel the power of this culture from each of their employees. Their light not only infects consumers, but also infects venture capitalists.
The heads of Sequoia and Haina Capital went to the rural base in Chongqing for dinner and were moved by the scene of their customers queuing for dinner. At that time, they tried to find the person in charge of the rural base, but they didn't find it. A few months later, the two sides came into contact by chance. Unexpectedly, the heads of the two major investors happened to be in Chongqing, so it was "love at first sight" for both parties in just half a year.
"Step on it and run" is the motto of Liu Chuanzhi, chairman of Lenovo's board of directors. This law applies not only to established enterprises like Lenovo, but also to sharp and dynamic emerging enterprises like rural bases.
In the rural base, we not only hope to have the brilliance of Mengniu's speed, but also hope to see the accumulation of a century-old shop.
Muraki, bon voyage!