"It's a war now, a war without gunpowder smoke," said the boss of a grain-producing area of ​​the Tongda Department. Perhaps, this is the personal experience of many couriers this year.

At the beginning of the year, many express delivery outlets asked the author, what is the development trend of the express delivery industry this year? Will the price war be alleviated? Double One judges that the industry growth rate will slow down in 2019, the competition in the stock market will intensify, the head pattern will be unstable, and the price will further increase. Descend.

Up to now, as the policies and measures of various express companies have gradually become clear, the market has given the answer. In Yiwu, the price of small items within one kilogram last year was still around 2.4 yuan. Only Best's low-price strategy was below 2 yuan, but the minimum was not less than 1.9 yuan. There are many low-quality customers. This year, some mainstream express companies have already achieved 1.6 or even 1.5 yuan for express items within one kilogram, and the delivery price is even lower than the delivery fee level in many regions. The degree of competition is astonishing.

This competitive situation not only leaves second- and third-tier express brands with no living space, but even first-tier express companies will face great pressure if they have no cost advantage.

Judging from this signal, 2019 will be an anxious battle for leading express delivery companies. For any express delivery company, this year should not be missed, otherwise it is very likely that the gap will be widened.

Here, Double One provides some suggestions to express companies for reference.

First of all, the most important thing is that the headquarters must clearly recognize the severe situation this year, truly change the concept, fully devote itself to empowering the outlets, strengthen the terminal, focus on the interests of the terminal outlets, and enhance the competitiveness of the outlets. With the continuation of price competition, the profitability of outlets is gradually weakened. The outlets are the foundation of the network. Without the foundation, the delivery service is not guaranteed, and the enterprise cannot last for a long time. Therefore, the headquarters must change its concepts, mechanisms and policies, streamline administration and delegate powers, be fair and transparent, and speed up decision-making efficiency and execution.

For example, in terms of the operation process of the transshipment center, some companies weigh the whole vehicle, and some companies weigh the single package. The weighting of the whole vehicle will greatly improve the unloading efficiency. The process of sacrificing timeliness is adopted for self-interest, which shows that the concept of real service outlets has not yet been implemented.

Secondly, for the headquarters, cost control is still an important task. At present, the competition of express delivery is still the competition of price, and whoever has outstanding cost control ability will become the key advantage.

In terms of cost control, the first is to reduce costs through scale, but as the scale of various express delivery companies reaches the order of 20 million tickets per day, the margin of scale cost reduction gradually emerges; the second is to reduce costs through investment, The main reason here is to reduce costs by investing in automated equipment, telescopic machines, and self-owned vehicles in the transfer center; the third is to increase the performance appraisal of center personnel, improve the efficiency of center operators and improve their treatment levels through performance management, and at the same time Strictly assess the loading rate; the fourth point is to pass the reduced cost to the end, so that the outlets can truly enjoy the advantages brought by the cost reduction.

In addition, the headquarters should focus on the three aspects of the province, the center and the end.

For the provinces and regions, the way the management manages the outlets at a high level is no longer suitable for the current development situation. According to Double One, the provincial headquarters of a certain express company often runs outlets and customers, so as to keep abreast of the front-line situation in order to make better decisions. decision-making, and this express company is developing rapidly;

For the center, it is necessary to strictly control the outlets to improve the timeliness, such as controlling the entry and exit time of vehicles, fines for vehicles arriving a few seconds late at the outlets, opening the doors for vehicles to wait for reversing and unloading, and specifying the unloading time for each vehicle, etc. , the only way to guarantee the express delivery time. Nowadays, there is a big gap in the management of various enterprise centers. The delivery queuing time of some enterprise outlets in the same area is less than ten minutes, and some enterprises are as long as several hours. The gap is obvious;

For terminal outlets, it is necessary to maintain stability and focus on service, not only to serve the outlets fundamentally, but also to strictly control issues such as false receipts, so as to ensure the quality of delivery across the entire network.

In addition to the headquarters, the outlets must continue to upgrade in the face of the current competition, less complaints, more learning and improvement, so that they will not be eliminated by the industry. For outlets, the first step is to upgrade management. When external profits are getting more and more meager, we need to control our own costs and improve our ability to develop markets and service levels. The harder the industry is, the more it can inspire the wisdom of practitioners, so we see new models and management methods emerging at the end.

There are many ways to learn, you can learn from the surrounding outlets, you can learn from the national benchmarks, but the cost of such learning is very high. Then another way is to walk into the classroom of Double One, learn about the most advanced management experience, and gain some advice, which can be used endlessly. No matter what industry we do in the future, the improvement of management concepts and management capabilities will benefit us for a lifetime. The second point is to do a good job in talent upgrading, and each position must have suitable talents, especially those in charge of marketing, customer service, operations, etc., to achieve upgrades and vigorously introduce talents.

Although the competition in express delivery is fierce, there is still an annual increase of 10 billion pieces. There are huge opportunities, and the key is to see ourselves. I hope that in 2019, we can all meet a better version of ourselves.