Generally speaking, Zhang Yuangang sells software. In 20 10, the company earned tens of millions of yuan in sales and nearly 4 million yuan in profits (40% of which were restaurant material management software). In 2007, the developed new products were rejected and the company was on the verge of bankruptcy. But in 2009, his business suddenly improved, and more and more customers signed contracts.
After the Spring Festival in 2009, Bird began to calm down and analyze the reasons for the improvement of business. He found that a sophisticated material management system can help catering enterprises save materials, and the rewards from enterprises are excellent reputation and increasing orders. "Before using the software, where did the 100 kg beef bought by the restaurant go? How much weight did you use? It's really hard to measure. The boss can only make a rough estimate and tell the buyer to buy more tomorrow or buy less the day after tomorrow, which is very extensive management. Even if a chef brings the materials home every day, the boss can't figure it out at all. " Zhang Yuangang found that there is actually a lot of knowledge in material management.
The fine material management system developed by the team led by Zhang Yuangang can help restaurants standardize materials. "Open source can't do it, but it can save money. The software will tell you where beef and shark's fin abalone are used and how much is used. "
Now, in addition to the sophisticated material management system, the procurement and distribution system and kitchen management system developed by the team led by Zhang Yuangang are also very distinctive, and have been applied to 576 restaurants such as Busan Cuisine and Rain Beating Banana. Although their software is now the most expensive in the same industry, and a set of software sells for millions of yuan, they have squeezed out a large number of competitors. In addition, the wireless city project based on catering management software can realize the intelligentization of food, clothing, housing and transportation of residents in Shanghai Jinqiao Biyun Community through the Internet of Things technology, including intelligent ordering service, automatic submission of water and electricity meters and other life projects. This project alone brought Zhang Yuangang an order of 20 million yuan.
"It's easy to say now, but the transition process is very painful." Zhang Yuangang's Shanghai Zeyang Information Technology Co., Ltd. was founded in 2004 when he was 22 years old. The starting capital of 265,438+0,000 yuan was earned by his own work.
In 2003, after working as an ERP for one year, he began to consider starting a business. Zhang Yuangang found that the enterprise management software on the market is for large companies, and the price is expensive, mostly between 6.5438+million yuan and 20 million yuan/set. "99% of the companies in the market are small businesses and need management, but a set of 6.5438+10,000 pieces of software may be too expensive for them." The huge market capacity made Zhang Yuangang full of confidence, led seven people to complete market research, wrote a business plan and then started to act. At that time, the company's positioning was to do ERP, which was different from competitors such as Kingdee and Butler: small enterprises serving 2 ~ 100 people; The price is 20,000 ~ 6,543.8+10,000 yuan, which is cheap.
But when we actually do it, we find that the concept of ERP is very big, and the things we need to do are very specific, including warehousing, logistics, personnel, attendance, wages, orders, warehousing, ordering, purchasing, finance ... everything must be managed. "Only a small company with seven or eight people dares to challenge ERP and can't survive for a year. Although the product has been formed, the money has been spent. " Zhang Yuangang concluded that the main reason is that powerful competitors such as Kingdee have accumulated for more than 20 years, but their products are not rich in functions and lack competitiveness.
"Entrepreneurship is not simply doing market research, writing business plans, and calculating breakeven points. If you start a company, you have to make products that someone wants! " Only after experiencing setbacks did Bird understand the true meaning of starting a business.
"Since ERP can't be made, can you make something that can be connected to the ERP system?" In 2006, Zhang Yuangang led the team to develop an influential SIP information platform in the industry. The advantage is the integration of internal financial, personnel, sales and other independent management software. "SIP has good compatibility, and there is no need to change the attendance system and business system, and there is no need for repeated investment, which not only protects the existing investment, but also excavates historical value."
"Now the connection of many devices in the company industry benefits from SIP." But when it was first promoted, the first feedback from customers was: "It must be fake! Why doesn't Microsoft do such a good thing? Oracle Bone Inscriptions won't do it? " On this issue, Zhang Yuangang was asked speechless. What has been worked so hard to develop is described as "fake" by customers, and Zhang Yuangang's heart is cold. Of course, today he can give a very professional answer: "It's not that the big companies with this technology are unwilling to do it, but they are disdainful to do it. Large companies talk about monopoly and small companies talk about compatibility, which is determined by the nature of business. "
After the Spring Festival in 2007, Zhang Yuangang, who was miserable for the company, decided to go deep into an industry and do something concrete. In the first step, he considered making a catering management system, based on the following considerations: the catering industry can get money quickly; Food and beverage outlets are small bosses with short decision-making cycle.
It is not easy for a layman to become a catering management system. Just like ERP, the catering management software industry is already a red sea. Without any advantages, Zhang Yuangang can only lead the company to fight for the price. "People sell 10000, and I sell 6000; People sell 6000, I sell 3800 ... "The end of Zhang Yuangang's price war is to be retaliated by competitors at a lower price. "They have accumulated for a long time, there is no profit to do, we can't. We must make money to survive. " During that time, Zhang Yuangang was miserable, and once fell into a situation of internal and external troubles: he was scolded by customers for poor products internally and squeezed out by competitors externally.
"Brothers don't lack diligence and work overtime every day: they run customers during the day and write programs at night, both as salesmen and programmers. Running to debug, being scolded by customers ... "Zhang Yuangang was oppressed and there was nowhere to vent his grievances. "Not without technology, but because we don't understand the catering industry. Now I know: just adding vegetables, returning vegetables, washing vegetables, urging vegetables, stopping vegetables ... I don't know how to write these programs. Zhang Yuangang realized that he should find his own characteristics in the catering industry. At last, he figured out that he could focus on three parts: excellent material management system, intelligent kitchen management system and chain membership management system.
Really understanding the catering management process will not happen overnight. In order to understand the situation of goods in and out of the warehouse, Zhang Yuangang once took an all-night train with his colleagues to Tongchuan Road Aquatic Products Market every morning to help truck drivers carry fresh food. They observed how raw fish were weighed, loaded, sorted, processed, stored, and delivered to various stores. At first, the fishmonger reluctantly threw cold water on them: "We made many sets of software before, and we had to fill in many forms every time. The workload has not decreased, but it has become more troublesome. Can your software make us do less work? " Selling fish deliberately stimulated this group of young people, but Zhang Yuangang suddenly opened his eyes: "Yes, they should be allowed to do less work!"
You must be a dedicated observer. In the process of moving and unloading goods, careful Zhang Yuangang found a problem. In the aquatic products market, fishmongers can give small orders from various stores to fishmongers: store A orders 100 kg of fish, store B orders 200 kg, and store C orders 500 kg ... The fishmongers who supply them will pack them in units of stores, then collectively weigh the total weight to the fishmongers and load them. The advantage of one more packing step is that it saves the step of weighing and sorting in the vegetable market. This discovery saved the fish seller at least two hours at once. What Zhang Yuan has just done is to lead the team to record the whole process of warehousing with software, including distinguishing the containers in each store with red headband and blue headband, and writing this link into the system.
The first product I personally made was approved by the fishmonger after market investigation.
"What we do is not an invention that changes the world. We only do the details. If we do well, we can still make life better. " The direction of Zhang Yuangang's efforts is to dig out more convenience of food, clothing, housing and transportation, and then realize it through software.