Meng Veterinary Hall Xu Chao: Extend the time that pets spend with people

Text/Forbes China

On October 18, meng veterinary hall, a new pet chain medical institution, officially announced the completion of the B2 round of financing of hundreds of millions of yuan, investors including Matrix Partners China, Yijing Capital, 58 Industry Fund, etc. The financing is mainly used to continue to rapidly expand the number of hospitals, improve the digital management system, integrate and establish brand standardization.

Forbes China interviewed Xu Chao, coo of The Meng Veterinary Hall, for the first time, and he told us that the original intention of establishing the Meng Veterinary Hall in 2018 was to gather a group of people to jointly make contributions to China's animal clinical medicine, improve the quality of life of pets, and extend their time with people.

"Second, more and more people now regard pets as companions and emotional sustenance. With the continuous increase in the number of pets in China, in addition to wanting to protect the health of pets, I also feel that the pet medical industry has great business prospects. Xu Chao believes that as the core of pet medical treatment, the market development of pet hospitals has greatly affected the development trend of the entire pet medical industry, and China's pet medical market has great potential.

At present, the size of China's pet medical market is about 40 billion yuan, accounting for about 20% of the entire pet industry, and the expenditure on pet diagnosis and treatment has increased by 6.2% year-on-year, which is the fastest growing category of pet consumption structure.

After three years of development, Meng Veterinary Hall has opened a total of 38 community hospitals, 4 brand flagship hospitals and 4 technical centers across the country. In the past three years, Meng Veterinary Hall has developed rapidly and achieved amazing results: the annual diagnosis and treatment of pets has exceeded 150,000 times, the annual income growth rate has reached 45%, and the annual income of a single hospital is 5 million yuan.

Layout of 100 billion pet health consumer market

In recent years, China's pet market industry chain has become increasingly perfect, and the scale of the pet medical industry has also ushered in rapid growth. In 2020, the size of China's pet medical market will reach 40 billion yuan, and it is expected to be nearly 100 billion yuan in 2025. The needs of pet owners are also evolving. According to statistics, the proportion of new pet owners accounts for more than 75% of the pet group, and the vast majority of them are post-85-95 people with strong spending power and willingness to pay for emotional consumption. With the deepening of pet owners' understanding of "scientific pet raising", the pet medical treatment rate continues to increase, and its demand has also expanded from traditional serious medical treatment to health services, such as physical examinations, prescription foods and other sectors.

In the face of the accelerated expansion of the market and the needs of the constantly updated and segmented pet population, Meng Veterinary Hall has locked in the field of pet health consumption, and its business covers medical services (surgery, etc.), preventive medical services (sterilization, deworming, etc.), health products (prescription food, drugs, etc.), etc., not limited to serious pet medical treatment, but around the pet life cycle to create a more comprehensive health service and commodity system.

On the other hand, the domestic pet medical industry is still immature. The data shows that the chain rate of medical institutions in China is less than 15%, and the market shows a small and scattered pattern. 90% of the pet hospitals have assets of less than 10 million yuan, more than 85% of the pet hospitals have annual revenues of less than 3 million yuan, and small "mom-and-pop" clinics are the mainstream of the industry.

Technology + digitalization

Since its inception, Meng Veterinary Hall has clearly defined its digital strategy, empowered by the middle and back office system, and fully online and visualized all aspects of the business to improve operational efficiency. Different from other chain hospitals using third-party systems, Meng Veterinary Hall independently builds a front-end HIS system, a middle-office BI system, and a back-end UMS system, and the linkage of the three has become an important cornerstone behind the front-end digital service outpatient clinic.

Under the strategy of "small front desk + data middle office + large back office", Meng Veterinary Hall realizes refined operation capabilities, efficient procurement and inventory turnover capabilities through the system, and then iterates the traditional offline single store model.

Different from traditional pet medical institutions, Meng Veterinary Hall has established a digital as the core strategy, independently developed the front, middle and back office system, created a multi-link information setting for the whole process, and combined with the service system of hospital standards, established and improved the effective service mechanism, driven by digitalization, fully online and offline communication and evaluation in the whole stage of the front, middle and back, and implemented unified management and improved efficiency with digitalization as the starting point.

Li Na, partner of 58 Industry Fund, said: "We are optimistic about enterprises that change complex services through digitalization and technological means, and the Meng Veterinary Clinic team is based on the cross-border background of Internet + pet medical + offline retail, driven by data, bringing different solutions to the industry, and believes that pet medical institutions will be its important nodes." ”

"In 2023, Meng Veterinary Medical Center expects to open 300 pet hospitals nationwide." Xu Chao said that it is necessary to achieve full coverage of North China, East China, Southwest China and South China, and steadily expand and expand the industrial chain. ”

It is worth noting that since its establishment, Meng Veterinary Medical Center has initiated and participated in many love public welfare activities. "This year (2021), we have reached a cooperation with the Beijing Small Animal Protection Association to shoulder corresponding social responsibilities in the rescue and adoption of stray animals, and also contribute to the popularization of civilized pet breeding and the construction of pet-friendly communities." Xu Chao said frankly: "At the same time, Meng Veterinary Medical Center has also reached a strategic cooperation with the One Foundation to cooperate and help each other in disaster relief, emergency rescue, and child support in underdeveloped areas, so that public welfare can enter everyone's life."