"Duck King" Zhou Heiya was anxious

The new product is slightly financial

2024-06-27 11:24Creators in the field of finance and economics

Source: New Products & Finance

Author: Wu Wenwu

Zhou Heiya, the "duck king" under multi-faceted pressure, after the founder "came out of the mountain", there were rumors of layoffs, and Zhou Heiya was angry and anxious.

01 Zhou Black Duck made rumors of layoffs

The melee of the lo-mei rivers and lakes, the "duck king" Zhou Heiya made a layoff rumor, and Zhou Heiya was angry!

"New Product Strategy Finance" paid attention to the fact that on June 26, the topic of "Zhou Heiya began to lay off employees" rushed to the hot search, causing market attention and heated discussions. You must know that Zhou Heiya is the head player of the braised duck goods track, is it possible that Zhou Heiya's duck goods can't be sold, and he is going to lay off employees?

According to the "Consumer Daily", on June 12, Zhou Heiya issued a series of personnel change announcements, Zhang Yuchen resigned as executive director, chief executive officer of the company and member of the strategic development committee of the board of directors, which was concurrently held by Zhou Fufu, the founder and chairman of the board of directors of Zhou Heiya.

After more than 7 years, the founder of Zhou Heiya, who has been living behind the scenes for many years, has "come out of the mountain", which has attracted market attention.

According to common sense, if a professional manager of a company is well managed, the founder will stand behind the scenes, and only when the company encounters a crisis, the founder will "come out of the mountain" again.

Recently, some media reported that the first thing Zhou Fufu, the founder of Zhou Heiya, who "came out of the mountain" again, was to make a major adjustment to Zhou Heiya's organizational structure.

It is reported that Zhou Heiya has basically determined the layoff plan, which covers a wide range of departments, covering almost all departments of the group, and the proportion of personnel is about 20% to 30%.

After the news of Zhou Heiya's layoffs flowed out of the market, on June 26, the topic of "Zhou Heiya began to lay off employees" was on the hot search, which pushed Zhou Heiya to the focus of financial news for a while.

In response to the market rumors of Zhou Heiya's layoffs, which caused a stir, Zhou Heiya said in response to the Beijing News that the news of the layoffs was a rumor, and the company would take legal measures to deal with the rumors. Obviously, Zhou Heiya was furious!

In response to the founder's return, Zhou Heiya once told the media that the company is in a critical period of strategic change, and the founder is the chairman and chief executive officer, which can effectively promote the implementation of key strategies.

Zhou Heiya once said that this year's strategy is to "return to the classics", and Zhou Fufu will sink directly into the business line at this time, and the efficiency will be higher.

In the current environment, any large company that exposes layoffs will immediately arouse market attention and heated discussions. In difficult times, companies will find ways to tide over the difficulties and will not carry out large-scale layoffs until the last resort.

Zhou Heiya, who is the head enterprise of the lo-mei track, the founder returned, the corporate strategy was adjusted, and now it has been exposed to rumors of large layoffs, although Zhou Heiya's official response is a rumor, but based on the information of all parties in the market: Zhou Heiya is not only angry, but also anxious!

02 Anxious Zhou Black Duck

"New Product Strategy Finance" is a lo-mei foodie, and he has always liked to eat Zhou Black Duck, and occasionally he will buy a little when he goes shopping or passes by Zhou Black Duck's store.

It seems that Zhou Heiya's business is doing very well, but in fact, he has already fallen into anxiety, the duck goods are not easy to sell, and Zhou Heiya is no longer making money!

According to Zhou Heiya's financial report, in 2023, Zhou Heiya's total revenue will be 2.74 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 17.1%; The net profit was 116 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 357.1%.

Although from the perspective of net profit indicators, Zhou Heiya's data can be said to have skyrocketed, but if you look closely, this increase is achieved on the basis of a low net profit of only 25 million in 2022.

Looking further back in 2022, Zhou Heiya's total revenue fell by 18.3% that year, reaching only 2.34 billion yuan, and the net profit fell by 92% to 25 million yuan.

Back in 2016, Zhou Black Duck was listed that year, and the scenery was infinite at that time, and it was called the "Duck King" by the outside world. In 2017, Zhou Heiya's annual revenue reached 3.249 billion yuan, and the net profit was as high as 760 million yuan, which was the peak moment of Zhou Heiya.

However, Zhou Heiya didn't expect that the good days would pass for two years, and since 2019, Zhou Heiya's performance has taken a sharp turn, and Zhou Heiya's net profit has changed from 5 to 1 in the past two years.

In the case of a decline in total revenue and net profit, Zhou Heiya let go of the franchise, but the effect of Zhou Heiya's franchise strategy did not meet expectations, originally Zhou Heiya hoped that the total number of stores would reach about 4,500 by 2023, but in fact only 3,816 were opened.

Judging from the total number of stores, Zhou Heiya obviously cannot be compared with its peers. According to the data, by the end of 2023, the number of stores of Juewei Duck Neck has reached 15,950, and the number of Ziyan Baiwei Chicken has also exceeded 6,200.

What's even more embarrassing is that Zhou Heiya fell into the embarrassing situation that the more stores he opened, the more difficult it was to make a profit.

According to the data, taking 2021 as an example, the total number of Zhou Black Duck stores will reach 2,781, including 1,246 self-operated stores and 1,535 franchised stores. However, in the first half of 2023, although the number of stores may increase further, the total revenue is not much different from 2021, and more worryingly, the net profit is only half of that of 2021.

Many of Zhou Heiya's stores are opened in shopping malls, even subway station exits and other business districts, and the cost of direct stores is high.

Zhou Heiya's poor performance made Zhou Heiya's stock price "fall endlessly". In the secondary market, as of June 24, Zhou Heiya's total market value was HK$4.003 billion, and the stock price was HK$1.72 per share, which was only a fraction of the previous peak of HK$11.62 per share.

Zhou Heiya not only has to face the competition of old opponents such as Juewei Duck Neck and Huang Shanghuang, but also has to deal with the pursuit of emerging brands such as Jiujiuya, Jingwu Duck Neck, and Lu Sanguo.

In the past two years, the lo-mei brand Ma Paw Paw, which is soaring rapidly, has sold well, and it has a certain degree of substitution for Zhou Heiya's products. These new lo-mei brands continue to rise, taking the route of differentiated local flavors, and stealing many consumer groups.

What's more noteworthy is that it seems that now Zhou Heiya's high-end duck story has failed. In the past few years, under the wave of consumption upgrading, many consumers are willing to pay for Zhou Heiya's high-end brand image and relatively high selling price, but now the consumption environment has changed.

In the past one or two years, many consumers have thought and complained that Zhou Black Duck is getting more and more expensive, abandoned Zhou Black Duck, and reduced the frequency of purchases.

03 Zhou Black Duck urgently needs to tell a new story

Zhou Heiya, who is suffering from internal and external troubles, now that the founder is "out of the mountain", the intention of "firefighting" is very obvious, and he will definitely make a strategic adjustment to Zhou Heiya, and it can be seen that Zhou Heiya is actively changing himself.

In the view of "New Product Strategy Finance", Zhou Heiya will not only have to put down his body and return to the "classics" in the future, but also keep the "base", develop more new products, and urgently need to tell new stories.

First, Zhou Heiya should be able to put down his body and get close to the consumer market.

Zhou Heiya took a relatively high-end route in the past, and in the current consumer market environment, many consumers want to be cost-effective.

According to the changes in the consumption environment, under the premise of stabilizing the brand image, Zhou Heiya needs to further lower its profile, put down its figure, get close to the market, and launch products with more cost-effective and quality-price ratios, and even reasonable price reductions.

As mentioned above, Zhou Heiya's strategy this year is to return to the "classics", which is more like Zhou Heiya's "second venture", in a word: Zhou Heiya should be closer to the people.

Second, Zhou Heiya not only has to hold the "base", but also to launch more new products.

The traditional classic taste of duck products is the fist product of Zhou Heiya, and it is the "base" of Zhou Heiya.

More importantly, Zhou Heiya needs to come up with more new products, Zhou Heiya has mainly promoted crayfish products in the past one or two years and has made some achievements, but now crayfish is falling out of favor, and it remains to be seen whether it can become the second growth curve of Zhou Heiya in the future.

Zhou Heiya needs to develop more new products, produce explosive products, retain consumers, and continue to attract more consumers.

Third, Zhou Heiya urgently needs to tell a new story.

In the past, Zhou Heiya has told a successful story of Zhou Heiya to the market, but time has passed, market competition is fierce, product homogenization is serious, new and old competitors are like forests, and Zhou Heiya urgently needs to tell a new story.

Before the founder Zhou Fufu returned, he opened a Douyin account and video account, created a personal IP, shared life insights, business thinking, and did Zhou Black Duck product marketing.

It can be seen that Zhou Heiya wants to send a positive signal to the outside world in this way: Zhou Heiya is still the same Zhou Heiya, and Zhou Heiya wants to be closer to consumers.

At the same time, Zhou Heiya also needs to reduce costs and increase efficiency, and may as well boldly close some high-cost and unprofitable directly-operated stores.

For example, "New Product Strategy Finance" paid attention to the fact that Zhou Heiya's store in the exit hall of a station in Shenzhen Metro was closed long after it was opened, although there were people in the subway station, but there were few people staying, Zhou Heiya's business was obviously not as good as the business of the cake shop next to it, after all, the cake was just needed.

In view of the current reality of Zhou Heiya, the founder has re-"gone out of the mountain" and adjusted the organizational structure, and it is expected that there will be more actions in the future.

Objectively speaking, Zhou Heiya is still the head player of the lo-mei track and still has a strong market influence, but in the face of fierce competition and a rapidly changing market, Zhou Heiya can only actively respond and accelerate self-change in order to return to the top of the past.

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