text | The editorial department of this magazine
has been on the market for two years. The "Seven Listed Companies of the Warring States Period" (i.e., SF Express , Zhongtong , YTO, Shentong , Yunda , Debang , and Best) have all achieved impressive results, and the industry has also achieved a 50 billion package volume that exceeds the expectations. At the same time, intensified competition has prompted enterprises to enter transformation, and technologies such as smart equipment and big data have become the first choice.
With more than 50 billion parcels, the development of China's home delivery industry can be said to be step by step, which has dispelled most people's doubts, including whether the industry has entered the ceiling, whether the growth rate of China's express delivery industry can still maintain high growth, etc. According to statistics, although China's express delivery business volume and revenue growth rate in 2017 was 23.4% and 20.4% lower than that in 2016, and lower than the official forecast in early 2017, judging from the performance in the first four months of 2018, the growth of business revenue of 28.4% and the growth of business volume of 29.3% not only represents the overall recovery of the industry, but also lays a good foundation for annual growth. Taking SF Holdings in the first three quarters of 2018 as an example, SF Holdings achieved total operating revenue of 65.368 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 31.19%.
has increased attention to the industry, and the increase in attention has brought multiple impacts to the industry,
In the past two years, due to the topicality brought by home delivery industries and the promotion of e-commerce companies, it has received unprecedented attention. In particular, the express delivery industry, as the attribute of directly serving the C-end in the logistics industry, has attracted more attention.
external pressure highlights
The increase in industry attention has brought multiple impacts to the home delivery industry. On the one hand, the company has basically ended the stage of barbaric growth after its listing, and the increase in user attention has also put a "tight curse" on it. "customer experience" has become a key factor in evaluating the quality of the company, including the speed of delivery, the integrity of the package, etc.; the government has also frequently issued policies, hoping to establish and improve the industry standardized operating mechanism and service standards as soon as possible. In addition, the concentration of the express delivery industry has been further improved, and the living space of small and medium-sized express delivery companies has been further compressed. According to statistics, the market concentration index of China's express delivery and parcel service brand in the first three quarters of 2018 was 81.5, an increase of 3.7 year-on-year.
In addition to external pressure from the industry, the company itself has also encountered considerable bottlenecks. On the one hand, the harm caused by low-price competition is becoming increasingly prominent, forcing companies to get out of the vicious circle of "death by price increases, wait for death if they do not raise prices"; on the other hand, the rise in various costs has led companies to pursue more reliable and efficient operation methods.
technology helps the express delivery industry to transform and upgrade
Therefore, the home delivery industry has begun to get rid of the image of traditional "cool labor", and through the application of various black technology, automation, and smart device , it has begun to transform to "technology-intensive" , in order to cope with the challenges and pressures faced in its own development, and at the same time help its own transformation.
Robots everywhere and unmanned
The most eye-catching black technology is intelligent robot . This is also the most discussed and popular part of the outside world. It has also been interpreted and analyzed in a very detailed manner by major media and experts. This magazine will not go into details. In contrast, although automatic sorter has not received a lot of attention, the application of automatic sorter is becoming more and more frequent. According to well-known Chinese sorting and conveying equipment manufacturers such as Jinfeng, Fengfu and other companies, the number of automatic sorting machine projects in 2019 has seen a considerable increase compared with 2018. Some companies have completed the introduction of more than 40 sets of automatic sorting systems throughout the year. Other automation equipment such as telescopic conveyor belts used for loading and unloading trucks is also being introduced in large quantities. Another major eye-catching device for
hardware is "unmanned", especially drones used for terminal delivery have always been a hot topic inside and outside the industry. Although so far, only JD Logistics has truly realized large-scale, commercialized (only for China's home delivery industry), I believe that in the near future, we will also see drones of other companies flying busy in the sky.
system improves collaboration capabilities and helps services upgrade
system, enterprises continue to pay attention to the collaboration capabilities of all links and begin to pay attention to the capabilities of data accumulation, analysis and application. The most typical example is the "China Intelligent Logistics Backbone Network (CSN)" , initiated by Cainiao in 2013 and participated by many express delivery companies. Although the establishment of CSN is more to support the development of China's online retail, it does play a key role in the growth of China's home delivery industry's business. CSN links each logistics center, every vehicle and every courier of the cooperative enterprise, greatly improving the efficiency of parcel transportation. It can be said that CSN has played an irreplaceable role in the distribution and delivery of 50 billion parcels, and has also laid a solid foundation for the future realization of "one billion parcels a day". In terms of big data, the fast delivery of "Double Eleven" is the best proof of data application. Through the analysis of historical data, merchants can help deploy goods to places closer to consumers in advance, and then deliver them to consumers through rapid express delivery services.
hardware technology cooperates with business development
When home delivery companies change in order to cope with industry competition, technology also provides strong support for their reforms. For example, the "big parcel" strategy launched by home delivery companies and the increase in the proportion of business parcels, the original sorting system cannot meet their sorting needs (very high non-standard). Sorting equipment manufacturers have developed a deflector wheel/deflector ball sorting system in response to this situation, where the smallest sorting size is only the size of a business card. For example, the friction deflector wheel sorting system developed by Jinfeng has a sorting size of L100×W100×H10~L1,200×W800×H700, a maximum sorting weight of 50kg, and a sorting efficiency of up to 4,000~5,000 pieces/hour. Moreover, the sorting system realizes sorting on both sides, and can be adapted by manual and automatic input.
On the other hand, international business has also become a key area for the industry to explore, and technology also plays an important role in this field. For example, the global intelligent supply chain basic network that JD Logistics is building includes logistics. It is reported that through the global intelligent supply chain basic network, JD Logistics hopes to optimize the entire chain of procurement, production, design, logistics, etc. that are introduced worldwide. SF Express also did not lose the upper hand. In May 2018, SF Express led the investment in the US logistics service platform Flexport, aiming to strengthen the infrastructure of international business.
In addition, the application of technology also helps Chinese home delivery companies accelerate the implementation of " green logistics " . For example, the use of electronic page sheets. It is understood that in addition to SF , Zhongtong , YTO, Shentong , Tiantian , etc. all use electronic face sheets. At present, the popularity of electronic face sheets has increased to 92%, and at least 31.4 billion traditional paper face sheets can be saved every year. For the rest, express delivery companies have also invested considerable efforts in reducing packaging materials and developing new packaging materials, including the use of recyclable express boxes.
Technical transformation is the future of home delivery development. Further unmanned
First of all, the industry will further pursue automation and intelligence . The trend of rapid growth of the demographic dividend to enterprises is declining, and the improvement of the quality of the working population is destined to bring about a high labor cost. Moreover, the packages with more than 50 billion pieces are difficult to complete the "good and fast" distribution work with the human sea tactics. In this regard, on the one hand, the "postman problem" can be solved through route optimization software, and on the other hand, it is necessary to develop related equipment suitable for future delivery vehicles, especially for the delivery of packages such as home appliances and furniture. In addition, for on-site operations, many companies have also enabled route optimization systems to improve the efficiency of robots or labor. For example, JD Logistics R&D personnel have improved the efficiency of front-line employees by more than 10% through intelligent path optimization in distribution and in-warehouse picking.Therefore, for related logistics equipment suppliers, on the one hand, the expansion of home delivery business can allow these companies to gain a larger market and put forward higher and more refined requirements. Logistics equipment service providers not only need to innovate in hardware, but also need to work hard from the system.
Development from logistics to supply chain
Secondly, for home delivery companies' own transformation, such as extending to the supply chain, they all need technology support . Taking SF Express’s acquisition of DPDHL as an example, SF Express’s move is obviously to expand its supply chain business, and it is also very likely to obtain DPDHL’s technical capabilities in supply chain informationization, because the informationization at the supply chain level is far from the informationization established by the home delivery industry itself. Take cold chain as an example. Although companies such as SF Express, , Zhongtong, and other companies have announced their high-profile launch of cold chain businesses, due to the current cold chain technology, home delivery companies can only balance the loss of fresh goods with a shorter delivery time. In addition, the requirements of "green logistics" and other requirements also put forward higher requirements for related technologies, and the use of electronic page sheets is only the "first step in the Long March".
In terms of parcel volume, China's home delivery industry has become the world's largest market, and competition will become increasingly fierce. In this situation, whether it is business transformation or pursuing higher profits, it is inseparable from the dual improvement of technology and services, which will be a great blessing for logistics equipment service providers in the Chinese market.
