Understand how the three critical aspects of operations in the internet B2B industry come together in a digital transformation process. Today, the main battlefield of the internet has shifted focus from B2C to B2B. Unlike B2C products, which can attract consumers through various ways, B2B products require a digital transformation in marketing. Find out what are the different forms of product operations (ops) in the internet B2B industry.
The internet B2B industry The internet B2B industry moves traditional business processes online through digital tools. It forms an online closed-loop ecosystem and a unified, organized data space for all stakeholders. The key feature of the industrial internet is supply chain optimization, in which resources are allocated to reduce asymmetric information, improve data efficiency, and create incremental value to accelerate business growth.
Internet B2B products B2B products meet the "business needs" of enterprises by improving their operations. Therefore, B2B products should come from a standpoint that is designed to solve business pain points. There are three types of values created by the internet: the value realized by the product itself (the value obtained by the customer from using the product), the value delivered by marketing, and the value received directly by the customer.
The value realized by the product focuses on product design and its functionality, which is the product manager (PM)’s primary responsibility. The value delivered by marketing and the value received by customers relies more on product ops instead.
Internet B2B product operations The goal of B2B product ops is to increase sales by improving the customer value proposition. Channel development, customer maintenance (service), brand building, word-of-mouth marketing and content delivery are operational processes that can improve customer satisfaction.
B2B operations are user-centric, which means operators need to be familiar with the targeted users and the stakeholders around them (other colleagues and business contacts). It is impossible to optimize the traditional chain if product ops lack the relevant industry expertise and depth.
1. The operations of internet B2B products consist of three main roles:
Marketing operation:the intervening strategies related to areas of publicity and exposure of a product through marketing.
Platform operation(including user operation, content operation and community operation): the main job of this process consists of communicating with users, maintaining their preferences, and obtaining feedback. According to user needs, the firm needs to produce high-quality content to stimulate interested users to interact in the platform. During this process, it is essential to turn such communication into collectable behavioural data. Business operation (or BD-business development, sales):this is about negotiating with potential customers and selling the respective products.
2. In a transformation process, the priorities differ in different operational stages When the product starts from scratch, operations should focus on experimenting with a specific business scenario. This is a low cost and holistic method that allows for feedback and further understanding of the market.
In the midterm, the business gradually develops. Product ops should try to obtain more data and follow up the transformation process. If any problems exist in the product, the product ops team should forward it to the relevant department for iterative optimization.
When the number of users proliferates in the business development period, the enterprise will begin to make profits. During this stage, the product operations team should assist the product department to continuously perfect the product details as new product functions will be needed. The team can consider external cooperation if necessary.
When the business is relatively stable, the bulk of sales come from a steady stream of customers with sustainable demands. In this case, product operations serve to maintain the current service and customer relationships.
3. The purpose of product operations First, product ops help a B2Bproduct deliver its core value. As mentioned, B2B products meet the business needs of enterprise users. This is the reason why operation systems revolve around user demand and user behaviour.
Therefore, the product department needs to teach the product ops team how to operate the product system and tell users where problems lie. The team should understand the basic logic of the product design to communicate smoothly with the users.
Second, product ops also assist in industry implementations. Before teaching the marketing department how to promote a product, the product ops team should first understand the target users. Operation strategy will differ based on different groups of users. Upon understanding the target users, the marketing department can forward the user feedback to the product ops team and identify the customer pain points.
The process of B2B internet product operations B2B products need to establish an online user operating system that includes user activation, user transformation, and user value maximization. Product ops need to integrate "online" with "offline" processes perfectly. They should run through the whole business process, understand how to design the system, and add relevant digital tools to improve the product. There are two ways how B2B internet product ops work:
1. Offline to online: this process includes research and feedback on customer service and operations.
Research: research of B2B products should focus on market research instead of simple user research. The product manager needs to go through the industry analysis, product evaluation, data mining and other analytical processes. Through research, we can figure out the business status and identify the bottleneck, the product positioning, and the expected gains. Feedback on customer service: This is about collecting user feedback and collating all input to the product manager. The product manager will filter accordingly and extract crucial information during this process. Excellent B2B product managers must have a rich, practical experience that allows them to identify the real pain points of users accurately. Feedback on operations: the development of front-end sales and e-sales personnel should focus on identifying real users and promoting sales. 2. Online to offline: this process includes customer pain points analysis, product manual, and online training.
Customer pain points: the ultimate value of B2B products is to increase the enterprise’s profit, which can be done by improving efficiency and reducing costs. Enterprises realize value through sales, and sales volume is directly related to making profits. After the product (system) is launched, there may exist customer pain points that hinder sales. Provide user-friendly instructions and solutions from a product design standpoint. Product manual: Before releasing a new product manual, the product manager, the customer success department, and the marketing department should discuss the implementation scenarios and the product value description. The marketing department helps upgrade the sales tools, while the customer success department improves the implementation scenarios and the customer use cases. When training the sales team on the new product manual, the marketing department should focus on the product value and implementation scenarios. A complete product demonstration is unnecessary (the more complex the product, the less necessary the demonstration. Online training: Apart from value delivery, the internal training of the customer success department should focus on functional and operating components as they will need to help customers solve operating problems.
Get to know Viya, the Livestream Queen in China and the four reasons that contributed to her success.
On 13 May 2021, New Fortune released its China 500 rich list. Viya, a 36-year-old Taobao host, together with her husband, ranked 490th with a net worth of RMB 9 billion (US$1.4 billion). Different from others on the list, Viya came from a humble background. She is a representative of grassroots wealth creation and entrepreneurship.
Viya's live broadcast achievements If Jack Ma has shown everyone how big the Internet industry in China is – especially the e-commerce sector, Viya has demonstrated how live stream e-commerce can achieve breakthrough records unseen elsewhere. This beautiful Anhui native previously debuted as a singer, and she even had collaborations with celebrities such as Jackie Chan and JJ Lin. Upon leaving the entertainment industry, she started selling clothes both offline and online. In 2016, she became the official video anchor of Taobao and continued her career till now. In a 2017 live broadcast, she guided the sales of a fur fashion shop that started with no followers and achieved a sales volume of RMB 70 million (US$10.9 million) in five hours. In 2018, Viya topped Taobao’s highest-earning list with an annual income of RMB 30 million (US$4.7 million). On the Singles Day Shopping Festival, her sales reached RMB 267 million (US$41.7 million). In March 2019, Viya's live broadcast in South Korea had 4.6 million audiences, selling 850,000 items worth over RMB 100 million (US$15.6 million). Later, she did a five-hour live broadcast in Thailand, which had 5.4 million audiences and a sales volume of RMB 114 million (US$17.8 million). Afterwards, she was invited by New Zealand to live stream for two days, where she sold over 1.4 million items worth RMB 134 million (US$20.9 million) in total. On Taobao’s Singles Day, Viya held three live broadcasts, reaching a sales volume of RMB 2.7 billion (US$421.9 million). In 2020, her total turnover reached RMB 30 billion (US$4.7 billion), ranking first on Taobao Live. Source: Zhaihehe.com Viya’s keys to success For many years, Viya has consistently ranked as the top anchor of China's live streaming platforms. She won numerous awards such as the "Global Quality Product Recommender" and "Chief Recommender". Her outstanding performance made her a national idol after Jack Ma. There are over 130 million anchors in the Chinese live-streaming industry. Still, most of them only earn RMB 3,000 to 5,000 (US $468.8 to US$781.2) a month, according to the Development Report of China's internet performance (live streaming) industry in 2020. Why is Viya so successful in the live stream e-commerce sector? 1. Persistence At Taobao's infancy phase, many merchants distrust Taobao's ability to generate sales. There was a lack of business cooperation with local merchants, which limited the profitability of e-commerce anchors. Many anchors turned to the entertainment industry for fast cash, but Viya persisted in the field of live stream e-commerce. 2. User trust In an e-commerce live broadcast, customers will repurchase a good product at a competitive price with a pleasant shopping experience. Once the video anchor achieves the three conditions above, he or she will establish trust with the customers, and this relationship will continue to grow. Viya's studio always emphasizes that Viya has tested all the products. Customers believe in Viya because of the trusting relationship that is built between Viya and her followers. 3. Dare to try Viya's studio sells products from many categories, such as household products, real estate, Starbucks and McDonald's coupons, movie tickets, and even rockets. As Viya said, "I am trying to make the impossible possible." This quote succinctly summarized her secret to success. 4. Originality With the continuous development of Taobao Live and the influx of merchants, it is now easier for live stream anchors to make money. While some anchors started selling fake or flawed products for quick cash, Viya only recommends products after strict selection. She knows the importance of maintaining user trust. One disappointment can cause a follower never to trust the host again. Viya’s originality also comes from her efforts to alleviate poverty through e-commerce. She devoted herself to the social welfare sector since 2018, and these initiatives have received strong support from Alibaba and the government. Now, her studio frequently engages with stars, celebrities, socialites, and government officials. Her charity live broadcast promoting good products from rural areas won praise from the public.
The booming Chinese live broadcast market According to the China Association of Performing Arts, the number of Chinese live broadcast users reached 617 million, and the market size of this industry is about RMB 193 billion (US$30.2 billion) in 2020. Various live streaming platforms have also created many other popular anchors, such as Li Jiaqi, the number one lipstick seller in Taobao, with over 44.2 million followers and an average of ten million viewers per broadcast. Luo Yonghao, the former CEO of Smartisan, nearly paid off his RMB 600 million (US$93.8 million) debt by live-streaming on Tik Tok. Li Ziqi, a world-famous creator of short videos, earns dozens of millions a year through video streaming and user rewards.
Can we copy the route to success? With solid support from the government, the e-commerce industry has been doing well in China. Local governments use live streams to promote tourism and local specialities. They also run various training courses to teach farmers how to sell goods online and how to earn traffic income from their videos. Video platforms offer tutorials to develop beginner level anchors. The successes of leading anchors inspired many to follow suit. Chinese youths no longer aspire to become star celebrity. They want to enjoy both fame and money by becoming a live stream anchor instead. While there are many ways to become a video anchor, here are some basic principles observed among successful anchors: 1.Have the courage to try 2.Be original 3.Show a good attitude 4.Keep learning 5.Have a bottom line 6.Never give up While the core principles remain the same, individual anchors have different personalities and face different contexts. Aspiring anchors should not blindly copy after successful anchors but experiment and figure out their way instead.
Find out how China’s new digital currency works and how it differs from other third-party e-payment apps.
China’s Digital Yuan, otherwise known as electronic Chinese Yuan (e-CNY) or Digital Currency Electronic Payment (DC/EP), is a blockchain-based digital currency launched by the People’s Bank of China. Its value is equivalent to RMB bills and coins.Source: Blockchain.newsSince the end of 2019, e-CNY has been piloting across cities like Beijing, Shanghai, and the 2022 Winter Olympics. Interested users of the e-CNY can register, and through a lottery, free online wallets containing 200 digital yuan (US$31.3) will be distributed to the winners. The winners will then be eligible to download and use the “e-CNY” mobile application (app) and join as a participant of the trial programme.Source: Suzhou BendibaoAs the first digital currency launched by the Chinese government, e-CNY has attracted widespread attention both at home and abroad. While the government focuses more on the macroeconomic impact of the digital currency, ordinary citizens care more about its practicality. Today we will explore the e-CNY app to see how it works and consider how it might affect our daily lives.
Special note: as only the selected personnel can download and use this app, the following pictures are all taken from the internet.
How to use the e-CNY
1. Registration
Winners can download the e-CNY app through the official links, and iPhone users can use the given exchange code and download it through App Store. Upon successful installation, enter your phone number and name to complete the registration.
2. Deposit
Select a bank to create a sub-wallet. The available choices include China’s six major state-owned banks and Ali’s MYbank. Access to Tencent’s Webank is in progress. User can create multiple sub-wallets and top up e-CNY through the corresponding bank account.
3. E-CNY for physical payments
E-CNY is accepted as a payment method in most shopping malls, supermarkets, convenience stores, restaurants, and food markets in pilot cities. Merchants that accept this form of payment will have a label to show that e-CNY payments are available at the checkout counter.
Source: ReutersThere are three ways to make payments physically. Users can either: 1) Scan the merchant’s QR code 2) Show the user’s payment code, and the merchant can scan the QR code on the screen, or
3) Through the app’s “touch” feature, which allows two phones with the e-CNY app to transfer money by making physical contact or by touching the sensor provided by the merchant.Source: Baidu.com4. E-CNY for online payments
At present, e-CNY is integrated into Alipay and Jingdong, two of China’s most popular mobile apps. The six major banks also have their affiliated mobile apps such as Meituan, Bilibili and SF Express. Users can click “More” in the upper right corner and then select a sub-wallet to see other mobile applications that support the use of e-CNY. Upon turning on the access to an app, the payment option of “e-CNY” will be displayed in the chosen app.
Image by Suzhou BendibaoFor example, if a user turns on access to the Jingdong app, he or she can choose to pay in “e-CNY” when purchasing goods on Jingdong.Source: Suzhou BendibaoHow is e-CNY different from third-party payment apps?
People who are used to e-payment tools may find this just like any other typical third-party payment. Is it just a government initiative to monitor the capital flow of ordinary citizens? Or is it an attempt to grab a share in the online payment market? These are some questions raised by the Chinese citizens. However, the e-CNY remains quite different from third-party payment apps. Simply put, third-party e-payment apps such as Alipay, WeChat, and PayPal, are e-wallets, while e-CNY is a currency. We shall dive into the five characteristics of e-CNY in detail.
1.National legal tender
E-CNY is China’s legal currency issued by the People’s Bank of China. Therefore, if e-CNY is implemented on a national scale, Chinese citizens have no rights to object. In contrast, third-party e-payment software does not have similar legal authority.
2.Increased anonymity
Due to strict control, Alipay and WeChat both require real-name authentication, with some functions that even require users to bind a bank account. For example, the “red packet” function in the WeChat group can only be accessed after binding the account to a bank card, regardless of the payment amount. On the other hand, e-CNY only requires the user’s mobile phone number and name for registration. Real-name authentication is not required for amounts under RMB 2,000 (US$312.5). Of course, as the amount increases, more personal information is necessary as this linked to the country’s crackdown on money laundering and tax evasion.3.Available in Wi-Fi dead zones
Two mobile phones equipped with the e-CNY app can transfer money through the phones’ physical contact without needing any Wi-Fi signal. In addition, for merchants that have opened the “touch” function, users can make payments by touching the relevant sensors with their smartphones.
4.No need for a binding bank account
Although e-CNY currently requires users to deposit through a bank account, its existence and functionality should be independent of any bank. Third-party e-payment apps such as Alipay are different because they must access a bank card to function.
5.No fees and interest
A handling fee of about 0.1% is charged for cash withdrawal from third-party apps to bank accounts. Although some users enjoy no handling fee up to a fixed amount, this does not apply to everyone, and it makes third-party payment less attractive. To attract users, third-party apps usually will launch many financial products. Users can also get some interests if they deposit their money in those apps. E-CNY is different because it has no interest and no handling fee. It is purely a form of digital currency.Effects of e-CNY in daily life
In short, e-CNY is the digitization of paper money, and its current focus is on facilitating day-to-day payments in the retail sector.
As the digital currency is still in its infancy phase, e-CNY and paper money are expected to coexist for a long time. For ordinary citizens, e-CNY adds to the plethora of payment options in China. Once implemented on a national scale, users no longer have to worry that merchants do not accept such a payment method or that digital payment does not go through due to Wi-Fi signal issues.
Short-term visitors to China will no longer need to exchange currency. E-payments can be made through e-CNY without real-name authentication, unlike other local payment apps that require a mainland ID card and bank account to use the app.
Chinese citizens are generally used to the convenience of e-payments. Common services such as bike-sharing and unmanned stores only accept digital payment methods. As e-payments are relatively common in China, the integration of e-CNY should not be difficult.
