Ma Yao Ying dreams that he is still beautiful and smart.

Source

Ma Yao Ying dreams that he is still beautiful and smart.

Source | industrial technology

In the chain hotel market, beautiful and intelligent business stories are the most jumping.

With the aura of "King of Small Towns" on its head, Digital Wisdom, under the leadership of founder Ma, has expanded in the sinking market for more than ten years with budget hotels such as Shangkeyou series, and has included small and medium-sized cities in Line 345. From scratch, Shangmei Digital Intelligence has owned 6,000 hotels, and in 20021year, it became the fifth hotel group in China to sink the market.

At present, the low line and low distribution are weak in expansion, and the expansion anxiety is overwhelming. Shangmei Digital Intelligence has begun to shift its strategic vision from low-tier cities to first-and second-tier cities, and its product strategy has tilted from low-end to high-end. In the gap of strategic adjustment, it is always necessary to tell the story of growth for capital.

On storytelling, the horse who often plays tricks with capital is definitely a master. Two years ago, he wrote in "Growth Code or Capital Code"? The article mentioned that "capital is very picky about food and needs to see growth, and it is an extraordinary rapid growth; It needs to see the future, preferably an unimaginable future. "

For the hotel track, there are many participants, and the supply of standardized and non-standardized services is sufficient. It's hard to talk about growth. But this is not a problem at all in the horse's view. He believes that Shangmei has basically found the password of rapid growth and found the methodology of increasing 3,000-5,000 hotels every year while ensuring quality.

The fact is that when the growth password was found, Ma's plan of ten thousand stores shouted five years ago was not realized, and Life Insurance (the predecessor of Digital Intelligence) had to give investors a step down. Subsequently, in order to create momentum for growth, Ma successively made dreams, including intelligent transformation, innovation in joining mode, and mid-to high-end breakthroughs.

Judging from the business changes that value beauty and intelligence, it is more and more like the prototype of a business story with optimistic capital. Horses with big mouths frequently stand in front of the stage to endorse the growth potential of digital intelligence. After Wandian went bankrupt in five years, Ma Yao Ying quickly shouted the slogan of 30,000 stores in 2030. However, at present, the number of digital smart hotels in Shangmei has not exceeded 1 10,000.

Just as the United States is seeking growth, it is difficult to maintain stocks. Both the head hotel brand and OTA platform grab the space of hotel branding and chain in the market, and the industry enters the stock game, and the cost-performance advantage of Shangmei digital intelligence is minimal.

The fierce battle of sinking the market is not over yet. In order to get rid of the shackles of low prices and realize the price-for-volume exchange, Shangmei Digital Wisdom stood on the field in a defensive posture, sprinted to the high end to make a high premium, made many attempts for young people, and cooperated with IP such as Tencent E-sports to build theme hotels and incubate service brands such as coffee, baking and bookstores.

But there are parity genes in the bones, which are labeled as low-end and mid-end in consumers' cognition. Shangmei digital intelligence is not dominant in the high-end market, and it is difficult to convince high-net-worth people to pay the bill. The sense of crisis and uncertainty are getting bigger at the same time, and the story of the big ship turning around needs time to test.

In this regard, the horse does not agree. He compares BYD and Anta to beauty and intelligence, and firmly believes that beauty and intelligence that pay attention to cost performance and low price can also become famous by cost performance like BYD and Anta, and eventually lead the world.

Ma Yao Ying, who is used to making lists and plans, has made two big plans for Shangmei's mathematical intelligence this year. One is global expansion, looking for opportunities in Africa; The other is to seek listing and catch up with other listed top hotel groups. According to reports, when talking about going to sea, Ma said, "Private enterprises like this can only go to Africa to do some hard work and export some China culture to the African people."

Distant worries and near worries are superimposed, and beauty and wisdom are still in the dream.

Sinking crisis

Just as Shangmei Digital Intelligence tried to March from low-tier cities to first-and second-tier cities, major hotel groups also organized groups to infiltrate the sinking market and went straight to the hinterland of Shangmei Digital Intelligence.

Before the outbreak of COVID-19, the domestic tourism and hotel industry developed rapidly, and leading hotel groups such as Jinjiang, Zhu Hua and BTG expanded rapidly through light asset model and brand transformation. During this period, a large number of economical hotel chain groups emerged, among which Shangmei Digital Intelligence, which started from the sinking market, was the best.

In the early days of its establishment, the strategy of "encircling cities from rural areas" achieved remarkable results. In 20 10, its first shangkeyou express hotel was born, focusing on the brand positioning of "third-and fourth-tier cities, 40-60 rooms, small and beautiful". Five years later, the number of stores in Shangkeyou Hotel exceeded 1000, making it one of the few brands in the industry to reach 1000 stores in five years.

After several rounds of horse racing, Shangmei Digital Intelligence has made great achievements in scale. In the ranking of "Top 225 Global Hotel Groups" in 20021,the number of rooms ranked first 12, and the number of stores ranked first 10, second only to local brands such as Jinjiang, Zhu Hua, BTG and Green.

Due to its high share in the sinking market, Shangmei Digital Intelligence also has the title of "King of Sinking". After the development of 10 years, Shangmei Digital Intelligence now has 29 brands, with stores covering more than 324 cities 1686 districts and counties, third-and fourth-tier cities 100% and fifth-tier cities 90%.

Although there are many honors, there are persistent concerns both inside and outside about the beautiful mathematical intelligence. The scale expansion is too fast, and it is difficult to give consideration to service quality and user reputation; In the golden age of budget hotels, the sinking market of the third and fourth lines, which is proud of its beauty and intelligence, has risen, and hotel giants at home and abroad regard it as a battlefield for investing in "real money and silver".

In the third quarter of last year, more than half of the newly signed hotels in China came from the sinking market. Seven-day hotels owned by Jinjiang Hotel (China District) account for more than 50.3% of the stores' sinking market, and more than 64% of newly signed hotels come from sinking market, which makes the company face the attack of giants.

In order to improve profitability, Shangmei Digital Intelligence has gradually upgraded its economic products, trying to raise barriers by intelligently upgrading and increasing consumption scenarios. Last year, Shangmei Digital Intelligence upgraded the economic hotel brand Shangkeyou, launched Shangkeyou U6, changed the main color of the brand to national style vermilion, and built a small town cultural wall, equipped with super bedding and intelligent guest control. It is understood that Shangkeyou U6 can realize a single room investment of 450,000-50,000 yuan, and the house price is 150- 180 yuan.

202 1 12. Shangmei Digital Intelligence has obtained the strategic investment from Hanxing Venture Capital Co., Ltd., an affiliated company of Xiaomi, and will deploy intelligent hardware products in sunken hotels to realize "intelligent and high-end upgrade". For low-end hotel consumers, including smart door locks, intelligent curtain, smart speakers and so on, general intelligent functions are not really needed, but more like a gimmick than reality. They pay more attention to the parity characteristics of economic chain hotels and are more sensitive to the price changes after intelligent transformation.

In addition to intelligent transformation, Shangmei Digital Intelligence has also changed its expansion mode, enhanced brand penetration and influence, and thus achieved a breakthrough in hotel scale. In September, 20021year, Shangmei Digital Intelligence released the plan of "New Interlocking, Brightening the Brand", which provided investors with chain development experience and system capability, and proposed that investors * * * take shares, * * * take risks and * * * enjoy benefits.

Insiders said that the idea of changing the franchise mode is beautiful and realistic. The hotel penetration rate in third-and fourth-tier cities is easy to be saturated, and there are many alternatives for consumers to choose. Newly opened hotels still have a long way to go in terms of revenue. "It's nothing more than using a new model to attract more people into the game and do the amount to gain the recognition of capital."

Regarding the goal of opening a shop, it is still beautiful and smart. Horses can be described as dreaming and hitting their faces frequently.

20 16 12, Shangmei Life Group announced the completion of1400,000 yuan Series B financing. At that time, the strategic plan of "opening a store in five years" was put forward, aiming at anchoring the largest limited service hotel group in China. However, five years later, the Wandian plan fell through.

In June 5438 +2020 10, Ma talked about the future goal of Life Insurance 10 at the "Brand Reconstruction Breaking the Cold Winter | 2020 Sunken Market Vitality Conference" held by Life Insurance Group, and announced the plan of 50,000 stores around the world in a high-profile way.

The confidence of these 50,000 stores comes from the sinking market. Ma Yao Ying envisages opening five stores in a county and 65,438+00 stores in a district. Ten years later, there will be 50,000 stores in the world, making them the top five in the hotel industry.

A year later, I shouted out the new goal of the horse again. He hopes that in the next decade, new chains will be combined with light brands, and together with industry partners, 30,000 stores will be opened, 1 1,000 wealthy families will be realized, 200 profitable start-ups will be cultivated, and 1 1,000 chain brands will be hatched.

Today 10 opened 30,000 stores and hung them in Shangmei digital intelligent office building as advertising language. In Ma's view, although mathematical intelligence shouted out a seemingly earth-shattering goal, he believed that this goal could be achieved.

With what? Ma's answer is new chain and brand creation. Shangmei Digital Intelligence opens its membership, management, technology and supply chain capabilities, empowers the establishment and operation of cooperative brands, and then the cooperative brands pay Shangmei Digital Intelligence. Ma predicts that there will be 50 brands and cooperation in 2023 and more than 65,438+000 brands by 2030. Each brand will open 20 hotels every year, and the goal of 30,000 hotels can be achieved.

I have to say that Ma really understands the logic of capital and the business stories that capital wants to hear.

High end obstruction

Shangmei Digital Intelligence has extended its reach to high-tier cities, and the layout of high-end brands is constantly moving forward. On the one hand, it will distract the attention of Shangmei's digital intelligence and get tired of dealing with the competition in the sinking market. On the other hand, the middle and high end is an area that Shangmei is not good at. For the sake of multi-brand strategy, the growth of store scale and the increase of customer unit price, the risk can not be ignored.

Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic in 2020, the tourism industry chain has been hit, and the hotel industry has been caught in an oversupply situation, and the inventory has been cleared continuously. Chain brands such as Home Inn, Hanting and 7 Days, which occupy the main market share, still have room to move, while other low-end budget hotels have limited room for room rate increase and rapid cost increase, which seriously devours the net profit of chain hotels and squeezes the profit space. This problem is particularly prominent in the large and scattered sinking market, and reducing costs and increasing efficiency has become the main theme.

In order to break the sinking market, Shangmei Digital Intelligence seeks increment from high-end hotel brands. Through de-collectivization, it was divided into seven companies, and the original four business divisions were upgraded to independent companies, creating a brand matrix integrating Accor Ruixiang, Liuxiang Business, Whale Xi Wenlv and Shangkeyou Hotel to provide consumers with low-end hotel brands.

Under the background of consumption upgrading, young people's demand for high-end hotel products' quality, service ability, and personalized and experiential consumption has increased. The traditional economic hotel products that are still beautiful and intelligent can't meet the growing new consumption demand, and they have entered a round of "elimination", and high-end hotels have become another blue ocean market for accommodation.

The seemingly glamorous mid-to high-end hotels have entered the stage of "fairy fighting". In addition to pursuing beauty and intelligence, leading hotel chains such as Home Inns, Zhu Hua and Jinjiang, emerging chain brands such as Atour, and OTA platforms such as Ctrip, Meituan and Tongcheng have already set their sights on mid-to-high-end hotels, adding more urban tourism gathering areas and urban business districts, and trying their best to please the "rich and picky" Z generation.

There are two main high-end routes to promote beauty and intelligence. One is to focus on the sinking market of high-end hotels, and the other is to kill one or two cities directly to seize the high-end market. In 2022, Shangmei Digital Intelligence will promote the development of high-end hotel brands as a strategic deployment. In addition to its own high-end brands such as Lan Ou series and excellent products, it will also explore the high-end market in conjunction with international high-end hotel brands.

Last July, Shangmei became the exclusive strategic partner of Accor Ruixiang, a high-end brand of Accor Group, in China, responsible for the development, preparation, operation and management of Accor Ruixiang brand in China market. Accor Ruixiang's first store in Qingdao plans to open more than 400 Accor Ruixiang Intelligent Technology Hotels in the future, focusing on expanding the tourism market in second-and third-tier cities.

Compared with competitors, it lacks high-end genes, and its product strength, vitality and market competitiveness in the high-end market are in doubt. Jinjiang group is backed by Shanghai state-owned assets and has good financing ability; Vienna International, Jinjiang Star, 7-day series and other brands have rich matrices; China residence has a comprehensive layout from economy to high-end, and its brand is sticky; Junting cultivates high-end hotels in the Yangtze River Delta; Atour has launched a number of cross-border IPS such as Atour Basketball Hotel and Atour Netease Cloud Music Hotel.

In order to cooperate with international mature high-end brands, Ma bluntly helps to strengthen high-end genes. He said that to be a high-end hotel, whether it is from product design, construction or service management, it needs long-term experience accumulation, and Shangmei hopes to use the experience of mature brands.

Although it started as a budget hotel, Ma is full of confidence in being a luxury hotel. His methodology is to provide 300% experience beyond the foundation at three or five points that consumers are more interested in through the empowerment of technology, and accurately control the cost where consumers can't see it, but consumers feel perfect.

However, the external environment is not as ideal as Ma thought. High-end hotel brands are more competitive and tend to be saturated in first-and second-tier cities. According to the statistics of Maidian Research Institute, among the first-tier cities, there are more than 700 high-end hotels in Beijing and Shanghai, and more than 400 hotels in Shenzhen and Guangzhou. The former two mainly rely on stock turnover, while the latter two still have room. Among the tourist hotspots, there are 787 high-end hotels in Chengdu, 684 in Hangzhou, 242 in Sanya and 0/96 in Xiamen. The overall number is still amazing, and some regional holiday products are saturated.

In addition to the fog of the high-end route, the light asset expansion route that is still beautiful and intelligent has also been criticized. Last year, Shangmei Digital Intelligence upgraded its brand from a single hotel brand to a hotel brand+industry intelligent platform company, which means that Shangmei Digital Intelligence took the imagination of model expansion to the extreme and attracted capital through the concept of * * * architecture * *.

Although the story is beautiful, the landing effect is doubtful. The vision of Ma Zunmei and Zunzhi is to help hundreds of thousands and 200,000 small hotels living at the breakeven point in the market sink, make them famous, operate more efficiently, and everyone can stay in a good hotel in any small town.

Judging from the expansion results, there are many obstacles, among which the standardization of the sinking market is the most difficult hurdle to overcome. Shangmei Digital Intelligence hopes to earn service fees by joining the company, and is also regarded by the market as an act suspected of harvesting and sinking the market.

At the same time of the expansion of Shangmei digital intelligence, Shangmei digital intelligence is in court with its partners, and there are frequent cases about franchise contract disputes. Most of Shangmei Digital Intelligence are plaintiffs, and some franchisees start their business without passing the acceptance of Shangmei Digital Intelligence, which constitutes a fundamental breach of contract. In addition to the liability for breach of contract, Shangmei Digital Intelligence also has the right to collect trademark license fees. To sum up, in some cases, the penalty is as high as 300 thousand, and the rules are mainly decided by beauty and wisdom.

By the end of 20021,Shangmei Digital Intelligence had more than 5,800 hotels and 3,979 stores. If we want to achieve the goal of 30,000 hotels, we will add nearly 3,000 stores every year. This year, Ma shouted the slogan "800 new hotels will be opened in 2023".

Judging from the current growth rate, it is obviously far from the target, but Ma explained that the future hotel scale growth must not be linear growth, but exponential growth.

Always shouting too much at the target, are you really not afraid of falling?