This is the best team: from Ctrip to Home Inns, Hanting I

Chapter 13 Transformation Acquisition (4)
To sum up, it is precisely because of the wise self-awareness and perfect cooperation of the members of the Ctrip team that the Ctrip team has overcome one difficulty after another and marched towards success step by step.

Figure 3-1 Identity-based trust Value-based trust because of prominent status Knowledge-based trust based on competence Trust based on competence Psychology-based trust based on deterrence Trust potential level of trust because of fear of punishment Team trust Two, the importance of market research Market research is divided into two types: direct research and indirect research.There are three methods of direct research: interview method, observation method, and experimental method; there are four forms of interview method: interview, mail, telephone and retention.

Why do we have to talk about the issue of market research at length here?Because market research is too important for entrepreneurs.If an entrepreneur only hears others say that a certain project is very easy to do, or sees that others have successfully operated a certain project, but he rushes into a certain market on impulse without doing specific market research work, the result is It may still lose more and win less.Unless the IQ is quite high, luck is very good.

In ancient my country, there was a typical case about Jiang Ziya's four business experiences before he became an official.

It is said that Jiang Ziya studied art from Yuanshi Tianzun for 40 years in Wangxu Palace of Kunlun Mountain. When he was 72 years old, after he came down from the mountain, he had no choice but to rely on his sworn brother Song Yiren in Chaoge City because he had no relatives or reasons.But living in Song Yiren's home and relying on others for support for a long time, he felt embarrassed, so Jiang Ziya decided to start a business to make money.

What are you selling?Jiang Ziya remembered that he knew how to weave fences when he was young.Thinking of this, he went to cut bamboo to weave a load of fences, and picked them up to sell in Chaoge City.But unfortunately, at the end of the day, none were sold.

After failing to sell the strainer, Jiang Ziya decided to sell flour. He thought to himself, flour is no better than the strainer, and someone will definitely want it.After Jiang Ziya finished grinding a load of flour, he picked it up again in Chaoge City to sell it.But he went all over the four city gates, but he didn't sell a catty.Finally, a man came who wanted to sell flour, but he only wanted a penny.Jiang Ziya was funny and angry, so he had to put down his burden and make some noodles for him.Unexpectedly, at this time, a frightened horse came, kicked his basket over, scattered the flour all over the ground, and then a gust of wind happened to blow the flour away.

After two business failures, Jiang Ziya decided to open a restaurant near the south gate of Chaoge City near the military field.There should be business in this place, so on the opening day, Jiang Ziya ordered the staff to slaughter more pigs and sheep early in the morning, waiting for customers to come to the door.Unexpectedly, after waiting for a long time, there were no ghosts, the meat was smelly, and the wine was sour.It turned out that there was no training of soldiers and horses in the teaching field that day, and the weather was hot, so no one came into the restaurant to eat.

The business suffered setbacks three times, but Jiang Ziya was still not reconciled. He bought a group of cows and horses again and rushed to the city to sell them.Ziya thought this time, these living things will not smell anymore.Unexpectedly, when he drove the livestock to the city gate, he was ordered to confiscate it by the gatekeeper.It turned out that Chaoge City had not rained for half a year, and the weather was dry. The emperor ordered the prohibition of buying and selling livestock, in order to pray for rain from the sky. Anyone who violated the law would be considered a crime.

In this way, Jiang Ziya's four business ventures all ended in failure.However, the smart Jiang Ziya never understood that his failures were all related to his failure to do a good job in market research.

The first failure was due to product issues.Although Jiang Ziya's woven fence is of good quality, its style is outdated. Since he has not done market research, he has no idea what style the fence will evolve into after decades.

The second failure was due to Jiang Ziya's lack of research on sales channels.In fact, selling flour is based on store marketing, and the direct sales model is simply not feasible.

The third failure was because Jiang Ziya did not investigate the market demand information clearly.For entering the FMCG market for the first time, we pay more attention to the research work of market information.

The fourth failure was because Jiang Ziya forgot to do market research on the political environment. As a result, he sold blindly and violated the national law. Not only did he lose his money, but he was almost thrown into jail.

What happens if you do enough market research?Let's take a look at another case that everyone is very familiar with, which is the legendary story about Shi Yuzhu, chairman of Giant Group Corporation.When he started his business for the second time, he launched a health product "Melatonin", which has been selling well for many years.

In 1997, because the giant building was not built as scheduled, and at the same time, the giant's "three major battles" ended in defeat, so Shi Yuzhu, who was in debt of 2.5 million yuan, "evaporated" from the world after leaving Guangdong.

After hiding his identity, Shi Yuzhu kept thinking about a question: Where did I go wrong?Why did I fail so miserably?One day, Shi Yuzhu finally figured it out. The reason is: who wants to consume his products?He hasn't researched this issue yet.

In January 1998, Shi Yuzhu borrowed 1 yuan from a friend to start operating Melatonin.This time, he decided to start from Jiangyin.Because Jiangyin is a county-level city in Jiangsu Province with strong purchasing power and is very close to Shanghai and Nanjing, once the model market is successful, it is easy to replicate to surrounding areas.

Before launching the Jiangyin market, Shi Yuzhu first made a detailed market research.Wearing a pair of sunglasses, he went to various villages to investigate door to door.In broad daylight, all the young people went out, and the only ones left in the village were old men and women, and there was no one in sight for a long time.When Shi Yuzhu left, they were all very happy. Shi Yuzhu moved a small bench and sat in the yard chatting with them.

"Auntie, have you ever taken health care products? If there is a product that can improve sleep and regulate the stomach, would you like to sell it?"

Usually, these uncles and aunts answer like this: "If the product is really as good as you say, I will definitely want to eat it, but it is too expensive, and I am reluctant to buy it. I will wait for my son to buy it for me." !"

Shi Yuzhu continued to ask: "If you feel that the effect is quite good after taking this health care product, and you still want to take it, what should you do?"

"Then I'll put the empty box in a conspicuous place and hint to my son to buy it for me again!"

When Shi Yuzhu heard this, he immediately realized that there must be something interesting in positioning health products in the gift-giving market.

Therefore, he set the melatonin advertising slogan as: no gifts will be accepted during the holidays this year, and only melatonin will be accepted as gifts.

After this advertisement was published, many people thought it was very vulgar. It was rated as "Ten Bad Ads" by CCTV for 8 consecutive years.However, the judges never dreamed that this disgusting advertisement brought Shi Yuzhu a blowout sales volume and made Shi Yuzhu a billionaire in just a few years.

Marketing is a kind of practice, and its essence is not "taking it for granted", but "should be researched".Its verification lies not in logic, but in results.

In the same way, in this chapter, the discovery of the hotel reservation market is also discovered through specific market research.The difference is: Wang Shengli obtained it through the suggestions of employees plus 6000 market survey questionnaires; Wu Hai discovered it by accident while investigating the market of air ticket booking platform; noticed.

In short, regardless of the method, for entrepreneurs, market research is an indispensable link before launching the market.

4. The benefits of market positioning In modern marketing, target marketing is divided into [-] steps, which are: market segmentation, market selection, market positioning, and market competition.That is to say, before entering a certain market, first divide the market into several small pieces, and choose a small piece that is beneficial to your own operation, so that you can have the confidence to compete with others.

So how to subdivide it?According to the size of the market, there are 5 types of conventional models (see Figure 3-2). Now take tourism products as an example to explain one by one:

1. Market concentration.For example: only make budget hotel reservations, not other tourism products.

2. Product specialization.For example: specializing in hotel reservations, including "no star" and five-star ratings.

3. Market specialization.For example: specialize in high-end tourism series, including five-star hotels and first-class air tickets.

4. Choose a specialization.For example: also do five-star hotel reservations, and also do economy class air ticket reservations, etc.

5. Comprehensive market.This is to do everything, from the "decathlon".

Why come up with such a complicated theory?If in the above-mentioned tourism product market, we have a comprehensive coverage and do everything, can't we do it?
To illustrate this point, let's look at a story of "The Leader".

A photographer once traveled to the prairie of Inner Mongolia. One day, he saw a group of very cute sheep.So, he picked up the camera in his hand and took a picture of this scene.When the photographer developed the photo, he found it very interesting.

The entire photo is crowded with densely packed sheep. These hundreds of sheep are very similar, only one sheep is different.While the other sheep are grazing, it looks up and looks at the camera lens curiously with big eyes. It looks very cute.Everyone who saw this photo was immediately attracted by this sheep and left an indelible impression on it, but had little memory of the other sheep.

The photographer named the photo "Leader" and sent it to a photo contest.As a result, this photo actually won the first prize.The award-winning comments are written like this: only things that are different and different can stand out and attract the attention of others.

Think of this case from the above story.It is not difficult to find that the positioning of Ctrip and other travel websites in the early days is the same, with comprehensive coverage and all-encompassing.It turned out to be a "panacea", wanting to do everything, but not being able to do anything well.Later, they repositioned themselves and focused all their energies on the business of hotel reservations. They first established this market and then explored other markets.Therefore, the correct positioning allowed Ctrip to survive the "winter" of the Internet smoothly.

图3-2市场市场市场市场市场产品产品产品产品产品市场集中化选择专业化产品专业化市场全面化市场专业化目标市场的5种常规模式98 这才是最牛团队四、并购可让企业快速成长企业的重组一共有四大类15种，并购是第一大类（扩张）中的一种。按照出资方式的不同，可将并购分为3种形式：现金支付、股票支付和混合支付（股票加现金）。

Among these three forms, if you use cash to acquire others, you must spend a lot of cash; if you use stocks to acquire others, it is easy to weaken your own control over the company.So which way is better?

Ctrip has already told us the answer!
Whether it is a purchaser's trip or the acquisition of Modern Express, the method used by Ctrip is stock plus cash.The reason was that Ctrip didn’t have a lot of cash at that time. In addition, after the other party owned part of Ctrip’s stock, the interests of both parties could be tied together.Therefore, Ji Qi tried to persuade the other party from another angle. He told Wu Hai and Wang Shengli that the bottleneck of Shangzhixing and Modern Express was not in the market and products, but in technology and service capabilities.Ctrip is particularly good at these two, Ctrip is a promising company, and its stock is very valuable.

When Wu Hai and Wang Shengli were persuaded by Ji Qi, they sat down and began to discuss how much Ctrip's stock was worth.Ji Qi said that Ctrip's stock is worth 4 million US dollars.In fact, this price is very outrageous. At that time, Ctrip was not yet profitable and had only a few million dollars in cash.However, Wu Hai and Wang Shengli were finally persuaded by Ji Qi.The acquisition method is: options plus stock plus cash.In this way, Ctrip just spent several million dollars plus part of Ctrip's stock to acquire these two companies.

From the acquisition case of Ctrip, it is not difficult to find out, in the company's merger and acquisition, which method should we choose?Also consider the following factors:

1. How much cash does the acquirer have?
2. Does the acquirer want to take a controlling stake?

(End of this chapter)