Baidu takeaway is avoiding the positive competition with the US group and hungry.

At the Baidu takeaway annual meeting on February 25th, CEO Gong Zhenbing did not mention market share, but emphasized the differentiation in the industry. He said that Baidu takeaway is not simply a food and beverage takeaway, and the future focus will be on the same city. on.

At the annual meeting, a middle-level employee did not care about Gong Zhenbing's position. In his view, this is more like a surrender to the competition. “What is Baidu Takeaway doing now? Is shutting down the direct city, Guancheng What does it mean? It means giving up."

2016 is a year of Baidu take-out, even its competitors did not expect that the market share of Baidu take-out will fall in this year.

A takeaway platform executive said that Baidu take-out has a first-mover advantage in the white-collar market. At the highest, the white-collar market share can reach 33%, slightly more than the other two.

“In the third quarter of 2015, we also thought it would probably hit 40%.” But in their monitoring, the figure is now only around 7%.

Along with the market failure is the marginalization of Baidu take-out within the group. At the analyst meeting on February 24, Li Yanhong admitted that the company did reduce the consumption subsidies and marketing expenses for glutinous rice and Baidu takeaway.

When I was interviewed by Caijing a few months ago, his statement was more straightforward: "If you really do (the US group, you are hungry), you will not do it, and the decision to do it will be done." It is quite the opposite of the attitude of holding 20 billion yuan to support O2O in the middle of 2015.

Baidu takeaway is a rare star project in Baidu in recent years. It has a successful start, has the hope of being ranked first in the industry, but it has lost a good game in a short period of time, and ended up with a fall and marginalization.

The reason why he chose to make a three-year development trajectory when Baidu’s takeaway finale was settled by the industry was because he wanted to get the answer to its success. This story is like a prism. Entrepreneurs, especially entrepreneurs inside big companies, can see their own shadows from it more or less.

one

The start of Baidu's take-out has stepped on the key point of the group's transformation.

In 2014, Baidu shouted the strategic slogan of “Connecting People and Services”. The world’s largest Chinese search engine, which started too late in the mobile Internet era, is in the midst of transformational anxiety. O2O seems to be a good medicine to solve the problem.

At that time, the O2O concept was touted by capital and media, and it really fits well with some of Baidu's business. The online payment offline consumption model helps promote Baidu wallet, and merchant information can complement mobile maps. So during that period, Baidu contacted a lot of O2O projects, the most famous is the two-time total of 270 million US dollars to buy the group buying website 糯米网.

The acquisition of an external team and then internal incubation is Baidu's usual way of doing O2O. The original takeaway is also going to follow this idea, but it has created an "accident."

The early members of Baidu’s takeaway told AI Finance that Baidu wanted to buy a takeaway startup, but the due diligence results were not satisfactory. This in turn caused a small team in the LBS business unit to see hope. What the team was doing at the time was to connect the third-party take-out platform to the map, and the group’s attitude made them aware of the possibility of being out for sale.

In order to win resources and voice in the company, the team persuaded Gong Zhenbing, who was the director of Baidu's LBS business unit and former Baidu National Channel Director. An internal entrepreneurship begins here.

In May 2014, Gong Zhenbing led the establishment of the Innovative Business Development Department (Baidu Takeaway Predecessor) in the LBS Business Unit. He selected some of the teams that had previously done Baidu Fengchao and Baidu Demi to enrich the takeaway team, including Baidu’s takeaway channel. Chen Jinhui, direct sales person Chen Qing, product manager Wang Yuzhong (has resigned, is now the general manager of the US group takeaway), also pulled the former vice president of the handle network, Baidu LBS deputy general manager Song Liming (has resigned), etc. .

These people, who have excellent performance, or who have worked hard for Baidu’s long-term battles, have reunited together and have a common goal that has never been announced - to be the industry leader, and the future is as independent as iQiyi. Listing.

This faint expectation provides the team with an initial phase of motivation. In the beginning of the year, the team did two things: one was to capture the white-collar market; the other was to work with a third-party labor company to establish a dedicated distribution team for Baidu take-out. Delivery."

"At that time, when I was hungry, I was not able to play in the colleges and universities. I didn't have the energy to take care of the white-collar market. So we cut in from this gap. But one situation at the time was that the take-out orders were distributed by the merchants themselves, so the restaurants on the platform were mainly There are two types, one is KFC, McDonald's own mature distribution system, and the other is flies, 50% of orders are dependent on the take-out platform. In order to attract high-quality businesses, we do our own distribution, three of us are the first The family did this." The early employees mentioned above explained this.

Compared with students, white-collar workers are characterized by strong spending power and high customer orders. According to data from third-party data organizations such as iResearch and Analysys, the market share of white-collar workers can account for 60% of the total take-away market, which is much higher than 30% of the campus.

Due to the correct entry point, coupled with the support of the group's funds and flow, the order volume of Baidu take-out has increased rapidly: in the third quarter of 2015, the number of orders for Baidu take-out in Beijing was 10 times that of the US group.

Wang Huiwen, the president of the US group, said in an interview with 36 reporters that Baidu’s takeaway would be the biggest competitor of the US group.

Baidu takeaway has no time. At a meeting inside, Li Yanhong directly praised Gong Zhenbing in front of many executives: Baidu is now behind Tencent and Ali because of the lack of cadres like Gong Zhenbing. ”

What is better known to the outside world is that Baidu’s take-out was officially split in the second half of 2015. Li Yanhong said that he would take 200 million yuan to support the development of O2O.

At this time, Baidu takeaway is like a tank full of oil. Everyone believes that takeaway will become Baidu's new growth engine. In the cheers and snoring, Baidu takeaway ushered in the culmination of glory.

two

However, the story of growth has come to an abrupt end. In the face of visible success, Gong Zhenbing made two wrong strategic judgments, which directly disrupted the good start of Baidu's takeaway.

From the end of 2015 to the beginning of 2016, the take-away industry has experienced huge financing.

In August 2015, I was hungry and announced the completion of the F-round series of financing, totaling 630 million US dollars; three months later signed an investment framework agreement with Alibaba Group, Alibaba Group invested Hungry $ 1.25 billion. In January 2016, the combined US Mission-Volkswagen Review announced the completion of over $3.3 billion in financing, behind Tencent's presence, with a valuation of more than $15 billion.

After getting the money, the two launched the winter battle. On the one hand, they intensively recruited and pushed people, robbed the exclusive store, and even did not hesitate to fight; on the other hand, launched a new round of subsidies at the user end. The two expect to rely on the blessing of capital to win quickly. Hungry, CEO Zhang Xuhao even shouted "a month of fixed battle."

Baidu take-out did not follow this battle. Its market share still showed an upward trend due to inertia. Therefore, Gong Zhenbing relaxed his vigilance and put a large part of his human and financial resources on building a take-away ecological chain.

In October 2015, Baidu Takeaway Investment established a food company to be the central kitchen, and registered a number of food and beverage trademarks including Gongda Nightingale, 17 Rice, Home Afternoon Tea, and Top Source. Former Baidu take-out executive Zhang Min (pseudonym) looked at the lunch box marked with "Gongda" in front of him, quite shocked and cried and laughed. "This is a kind of internal name for Gong Zhenbing, but it has been made into a takeaway brand. "He thinks that this is entirely spoofing, and it is not excluded that employees are doing what they want."

In addition to the central kitchen, Baidu take-out has been launched in the fresh, food supply, business super, crowdsourcing, e-commerce platform quality selection and other projects. "At the time, I opened more than N lines, and I can do what I can think of."

When competitors mobilized their troops to focus on the storm, Baidu’s take-outs dispersed their energy. Recalling the situation at the time, Zhang Min believed that Gong Zhenbing's strategic confusion was the main reason for Baidu's take-out defeat. "I don't think he wants to know what to do."

In addition to the expansion of the business line, Gong Zhenbing also made another decision - the Spring Festival gives the rider a holiday and helps them buy tickets to go home.

The Spring Festival period is a huge trough in the take-away industry. Users return home, restaurants are closed, and demand for take-outs is plummeting. Whether or not to keep the rider in the Spring Festival becomes a problem. After all, if you want to maintain the original capacity during the Spring Festival, you must give the rider a high salary subsidy during the holiday season. This is a not-so-good deal.

The US group took the opposite approach. They retained some of the riders to continue to deliver on the platform, and accelerated after the festival and increased the recruitment of the rider: as long as the rider enters the job during this period, there will be some bonuses if they can introduce People who know each other come together and will give another bonus. This allowed the US group to resume capacity before the 15th of the first month, and the Baidu take-out that came back after the end of the year could not attract the rider for a long time.

In March 2016, Gong Zhenbing began to pay for his two strategic mistakes. After the Spring Festival, the Baidu take-out that had been screaming for the first time showed a stagnation of growth for the first time, even a slight decline, stalemate for several months, and did not improve.

three

Trial and error is the normal state of a startup company. Even the Silicon Valley entrepreneurial circle has a golden rule called “quick trial and error.” When a startup finds its own wrong direction, it must immediately give up and adjust its strategy. Unfortunately, the bloated personnel and complex organizational structure make Baidu The takeaway response is exceptionally slow.

By the first half of 2016, the number of Baidu take-outs that had just been established for two years had reached more than 4,000 (including temporary workers), which was doubled from a year ago.

Zhang Min experienced the most insane stage of Baidu take-out recruitment: "The group has control over the number of people, some can't get in, use temporary workers to hang outside, and casually recruit, earning six or seven thousand dollars before, come here One thousand eight. The manpower is still back to 15,000, well, the deal."

More and more people have spawned an increasingly complex management structure. Li Wei (pseudonym) is a middle-level employee who entered Baidu takeaway in 2016 and is responsible for a new business unit. According to the previous work habits, he will spend a week familiar with the organizational structure and personnel relations of the company, but it took him a month to make it clear.

“The reporting level is very confusing and can’t work directly.”

At first Baidu take-out structure is that the CEO Gong Zhenbing has product VP, channel VP, direct VP, logistics VP, each VP has its own department. Later, there were more and more businesses, and there were major customer departments, ecological chain teams, operation teams, open platforms, and functional departments such as GR, PR, and finance.

"The characteristic of the department is that A is always the person who pulls A and the thing of A, and B is the same, so I have to meet the coordination of the two departments and can't move." In this case, Baidu take-out is in A crossover is set up between the two departments.

This arrangement helps the coordination of the two departments, but it also directly leads to "I report to my boss, but he is restricted by other departments, can not do the Lord, I have to report to others, the two Inconsistent opinions, I will be there."

Not only do the inter-departmental constraints affect the efficiency of execution, but frequent changes between executives also make middle-level employees feel overwhelmed.

Chen Jinhui and Chen Qing are both vice presidents. The former manages the agency city and the latter manages the direct cities. In an adjustment in the second half of the year, Baidu’s take-out changed the agency and direct sales two classification models, but divided into one district, two districts and three districts according to the geographical area, all reported to Chen Qing, and Chen Jinhui, who is the vice president, is here. In the second adjustment, he became the third district director, and his power was greatly reduced.

Chen Jinhui is a start-up member of Baidu Takeaway and is an internally recognized cadre. Before going to Baidu for take-out, he did a 7-year assistant to Gong Zhenbing in the Baidu Channel Department. The relationship with Gong Zhenbing was not iron.

Some people close to Chen Jinhui said that the main reason for the relationship between Chen Jinhui and Gong Zhenbing was that Chen Jinhui refused to accept Chen Qing, but Gong Zhenbing used her very much.

By February 2017, Chen Jinhui began to take a vacation and officially announced his departure in May. He wrote in the circle of friends: "2014.4.4-2017.5.4, 1126 days and nights, pains and pains, crying, laughing, excitement, impulsiveness, everything in the body and mind There are deep traces, no regrets and no regrets."

In addition to Chen Jinhui, according to the Beijing Business Daily, Zhu Yong, head of Baidu’s take-out original logistics, also resigned due to internal restructuring before and after the Spring Festival this year. Earlier, Baidu takeaway early product manager (now US group takeaway general manager) Wang Yizhong, vice president Wang Yaohong, vice president Song Liming, former Baidu takeaway product director Liu Can, etc. in the two years of 2015, 2016 Resigned.

four

The group's patience is limited.

In June 2016, Li Yanhong was asked in an interview with Caijing magazine: “Will you consider giving up (takeaway)?” He replied: “If you really do, you will not do it. do."

He bluntly dissatisfied with the current results, because "the current market position is not the first."

The most direct response to this dissatisfaction is that the group has reduced its investment in outsourcing. One background at the time was that the subsidy rate of Baidu’s take-out was high, once close to 20%, that is, 100 pieces of trading volume, and 18 of them were all pockets of Baidu take-out. When the group saw such a high subsidy rate, but did not see market share growth, it asked Baidu to take out subsidies.

In July, Baidu’s take-out for the first time greatly reduced subsidies. User feedback directly, "light in July, the market share of Baidu take-out will have to drop 4 percentage points." The above-mentioned take-away platform executives said so.

Baidu Group's strong intervention has become another reason for Baidu's take-out in the second half of 2016.

Although the Baidu take-out has already been independent from the group and introduced external investment, the group still has strong control over it, and the management of the take-away has no right to speak. The trend of Baidu take-out has to follow the strategic trend of Baidu Group. In 2016, Baidu began to reconsider its position after experiencing the Wei Zexi incident, the accusation of one-sided public opinion, the fall in stock prices, and the shrinking market value.

In October 2016, Li Yanhong first mentioned that Baidu would be transformed into an artificial intelligence company. He publicly stated on many occasions that artificial intelligence will become the new engine for Baidu's future growth, covering all products and services. The media explained that the Baidu take-out with little relationship with artificial intelligence was officially abandoned inside.

The group's reduction in blood supply has caused Baidu's take-out to fall into a capital shortage. At this time, all its actions seem to be centered around "money."

Wei Di's chief strategy officer, Wei Di, spent the second half of the year in Hong Kong and the United States for financing. In November, good news came from investors who expressed their intention to invest. In order to show investors better transcripts, the strategy department led by Weidi has formulated a new style of play during the two months from November 20th to January 21st this year - regardless of the flow of water, Increased profits. Specifically: at the merchant level, an additional 5% commission is charged, and at the user level, the delivery fee is increased.

In a report on May 8, Tencent Technology wrote that this practice did increase profitability in the short term, and revenue in a certain area of ​​Beijing nearly nearly seven times by the end of December. However, the negative effects also appeared very quickly. Due to the increase in commissions, some merchants began to transfer Baidu take-out orders to the US group or hungry. Some merchants even directly marked the "Baidu take-out delivery fee" in the Baidu take-out store description. High, persuaded users to place orders from other platforms such as US group takeaways.

Baidu’s take-out market share has been falling all the way until Beijing’s market share fell by more than 10%, and the internals stopped calling this strategy. In addition, cost-cutting measures such as layoffs, direct sales agents, etc. are implemented internally.

After the New Year, Li Wei, a middle-level employee, chose to leave because the reason was "I don't feel hope."

Conclusion

The situation of Baidu's takeaway today is related to strategic errors, related to team confusion, and related to the Group's strong intervention. But as a resigned executive said: "Business failure is a high probability event, which is too normal."

Now Baidu take-out is doing things in the system and SF, to develop the same city distribution. The distribution of Baidu take-out in the international trade circle has been all packaged to SF. The subsequent linkage between the two capitals is a high probability event. According to previous reports by AI Finance and Economics, the two parties will operate by establishing a joint venture company in accordance with the 5:5 capital contribution ratio.

However, everything has not yet reached the final stage, and there are still variables in the future of Baidu’s takeaway.

(Editor: Li Liang HA011)