Editor Yu Le

"Quanjude needs surgery." On the morning of March 17, Zhou Yanlong, Party Secretary and General Manager of China Quanjude Group, said at the 6th China Catering Innovation Conference: "On our track, I am the only one running, and I will be exhausted in the end. We have to return to the track of other players. "

The theme of Zhou Yanlong's speech is "activating the old brand, while the operating room revolution is going on". He bluntly said that the old brand is not a crime, no matter whether it is a new brand or an old brand, no enterprise does not want its own brand name, that is, its own brand; However, time-honored brands can't rely on the old to sell the old.

Quanjude has begun to face up to its own problems. Zhou Yanlong used the words "live and get better" to describe the future direction of Quanjude, which actually explained the grim situation at present.

Zhou Yanlong (right), General Manager of Quanjude, attended the 6th China Catering Innovation Conference. Photography/Yang Liyun

In 2020, Quanjude is expected to realize an operating income of 760-800 million yuan, nearly half that of the previous year, and a net profit loss of 240-264 million yuan. It is understandable to say that the epidemic in 2020 will make all catering enterprises live hard, but the performance of Quanjude in 20 19 is not satisfactory: the annual revenue1566 million yuan, down1/0.87% year-on-year; The net profit of returning to the mother was 44.628 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 38.9%. In fact, since the annual revenue of Quanjude reached11800 million yuan in 201,and reached the historical peak, it fell into the downward channel, getting farther and farther away from the dream of "revenue of 2 billion yuan".

Quanjude has made some changes after the epidemic. On July 24th, 2020, on the occasion of Quanjude156th birthday, Zhou Yanlong announced three major business adjustment measures, including lowering the price of roast duck, adjusting the menu in Beijing and completely canceling the service fee. Previously, Quanjude's private room service charge was 15% of the total consumption, while the lobby charged 10%, which was criticized by consumers.

Zhou Yanlong said frankly that during the busiest time of the Golden Week holiday in the past, "we have no service", so we should not charge service fees. "I have read the book" Haidilao You Can't Learn "several times, but I still can't learn. Haidilao's service is implanted into companies and employees like genes, which we can't do. Haidilao doesn't charge service fees, so we can't charge. "

Regarding the reduction of food prices, Zhou Yanlong said: "From the perspective of Quanjude alone, there is no problem, but when compared with competitors, we find that the cost performance of competitors is better than ours. We reduce the price in order to make friends with consumers. This is the measure we took after we found the problem. "

Quanjude realized that its old friends had abandoned it, but at the same time they didn't make new friends. In the past, Quanjude was indeed a brand of roast duck that represented Beijing and even China. When foreign tourists came to Beijing, it was almost as important to eat Quanjude and climb the Great Wall once. But now, the younger generation of tourists, more and more "will eat", will never be limited to "old brands." Dadong, Four Seasons People's Happiness, Yihe Restaurant and so on are all their options. The understanding of roast duck restaurant has also evolved from interpersonal communication of local friends in Beijing to social media such as public comments and little red books.

"Quanjude has three major stores in Beijing, such as Heping Store, with an area of several thousand and tens of thousands of square meters. A considerable customer base is foreign tourists.

We are thinking about whether we can serve people around us well except tourists. "Zhou Yanlong said:" We should first do a good job in catering for Beijingers, and take care of the names of the bosses around us. When they come to their home, they will bring them to Quanjude.

Zhou Yanlong also shared two "dangerous data" of Quanjude. "We have two dangerous data. One is that the age of our main consumers is 8- 10 years older than the age of our main competitors; The second is that our operation team is also older than our competitors 10 years old. " Both of these data show that Quanjude is trapped by an "old" word.

"We are' old-fashioned gossiping teenagers'. When it's really time to take a chance, you should put down your posture. The rejuvenation of consumers is a trend, and there is only one dead end against the trend. " Zhou Yanlong said that Quanjude needs public comments on such channels and contacts with young people.

He believes that catering is similar to retail, and the concept of "people, goods and fields" can also be applied. Quanjude needs to know how the post-90s and even younger groups view "people, goods and fields" and re-understand the expectations of young people for time-honored brands.

Regarding the route that the Forbidden City has been reborn from an "old brand" and transformed into a national trend in recent years, Zhou Yanlong said that this is also the way for Quanjude. "This is not a problem to be studied, but it is determined to be done." This year, Quanjude will conduct nationwide experiments on the business models of three types of storefronts, uniformly upgrade the promotion, decoration and dishes, and reposition the brand.

Zhou Yanlong's statement shows that Quanjude has deeply reflected on his own situation in recent years. Zhou Yanlong was "ordered at a critical moment". In 20 191February, Zhang Li, the former general manager of Quanjude, resigned and Zhou Yanlong, then the general manager of Donglaishun, took over.

Previously, in 20 18, the leading group at that time was Zhang Li as the general manager of Quanjude Group and Xing Ying as the chairman. At that time, Xing Ying admitted in an exclusive interview with Caijing reporter: "2 billion (revenue) is a dream of the board of directors and management in recent years." However, this dream has never been realized. "Great efforts have been made just to bite the previous year and reach the current level."

For the termination and failure of several attempts, Xing Ying believes that the outside world is still "a hero with results." However, he believes that for an old state-owned enterprise like Quanjude, it is far more important to sum up lessons from experience than to draw a conclusion.

At the same time, he also proposed, "How can a duck 154 adapt to the post-80 s, post-90 s and post-95 s? Is it necessary to keep our 100-year-old duck unchanged to adapt to new consumers? " It can be seen that Quanjude has been thinking about these problems in recent years, but it seems that it only stays in the thinking stage and there is no obvious progress in action.

Xing Ying insisted at that time that in the fierce and changeable situation of the catering industry, walking slowly can avoid going wrong. However, fierce and cruel market competition will not give extra care to a century-old brand, and Quanjude has no time to take it slow.