Zhu Ran, Vice President of Fenbeitong: Global Spend Management Solutions Empowering Enterprises to Go Global | The 2025 Going Global Conference
On July 25th, guided by the Department of Commerce of Zhejiang Province, the Secretariat of the China Cooperation Center for Special Economic Zones of BRICS Countries, the Hangzhou Bureau of Commerce, and the Qiantang District Bureau of Commerce, and jointly hosted by 36Kr and Qiantang Construction Group, the 2025 "From 'Ingenuity' to the 'World'" Overseas Expansion Conference will grandly kick off at the Junlan Grand Hotel in Qiantang, Hangzhou. As a brand - new IP event created by 36Kr focusing on the fields of globalization and overseas expansion, the conference will set up a main venue and a sub - venue, the "Investing in BRICS" - Country - to - Country Cooperation Matching Meeting. The main venue of the conference will be divided into two major chapters: "Certainty in Uncertainty" and "Doing Business Globally", focusing on popular overseas expansion fields such as consumption, technology, e - commerce, finance, and new energy. It will cover more than 10 keynote speeches, 5 round - table discussions, and the release of the East Forward 2025 Overseas Globalization Innovation List, decoding the certain logic of the coordinated growth of "product - technology - ecosystem" and providing a referenceable global development path for enterprises to navigate through the fog of globalization and build sustainable overseas expansion capabilities.
On that day, Zhu Ran, the vice - president of Fenbeitong, will bring a keynote sharing titled "From 'Going Global' to 'Effective Management' - Refined Management of Enterprises' Global Expenditure".
The following is the content of Zhu Ran's speech, sorted out and edited by 36Kr:
Distinguished leaders, guests, and entrepreneur friends:
Good morning, everyone! I'm Zhu Ran from Fenbeitong. Compared with well - known brands like Maluji and Yuanqi Forest, Fenbeitong may not be familiar to you. Next, I'll give you a brief introduction.
Fenbeitong is an integrated enterprise expenditure management platform that combines business travel and expense control, covering both domestic and overseas businesses. Simply put, we have both transaction - based business travel services and software - based expense control services. We have well integrated business travel and expense control services, enabling our employees to have a smooth experience from online business travel expenditure to offline reimbursement after the trip. Our business travel services cover the entire market with the most comprehensive range of categories, from traditional business travel such as booking flights, hotels, and trains, to overtime taxi rides, business vehicle use, business meals, business - related procurement, and mall services. We also cover the entire overseas business travel market and are the provider with the most comprehensive range of categories in the industry. Our expense control services include employee reimbursement, enterprise operation expenditure, and overseas reimbursement.
Looking back at Fenbeitong's development history, since its establishment in 2016, it has roughly gone through a development stage every three years in the past nine years. It initially started with business travel services. After selling the first flight ticket, it gradually expanded its service categories to cover vehicle use, dining, and overseas business, aiming to create the concept of an "enterprise wallet". In 2019, we were the first in the industry to propose the concept of "eliminating reimbursement", hoping to simplify the reimbursement process for enterprise employees after business trips. However, after three years of practice, we found that this vision was a bit idealistic, as there were still some consumption expenditures that could not be covered by online enterprise consumption. Therefore, in 2022, we began to expand online reimbursement and business - related expenditure services and proposed the concept of an integrated enterprise platform. This year, with the wide application of AI in various fields, we proposed the digital concept of "data + intelligence" and are committed to launching the next - generation enterprise payment management platform.
In terms of financing, Fenbeitong has raised more than 2 billion RMB in total in the past nine years, leading the entire industry. The financing scale of the past two rounds from Series C to Series C+ was nearly 100 million US dollars, and it has now entered the unicorn stage.
Returning to the theme of this overseas expansion conference, Fenbeitong started to layout its overseas business more than three years ago and has served thousands of customers so far, among which more than a thousand customers have launched or are promoting overseas business. These customers can be roughly divided into three stages: exploring overseas markets, overseas layout, and becoming global enterprises. As Professor Huang said, enterprises at each stage will face many problems such as finance, taxation, law, local human resources, and cost management. Today, I mainly focus on the challenges faced by enterprises at different stages in financial and expenditure management:
In the 1.0 stage, most enterprises (except those with native overseas business) have previously developed in the domestic market and expanded their overseas business by leveraging their technological and supply - chain advantages. Their markets range from Southeast Asia to the Middle East, Africa, and Europe and the United States. After business personnel return from overseas, they bring a large number of overseas consumption receipts to financial personnel, including both international standard receipts and many non - standard local paper receipts. This poses challenges to financial processing. Without experience, enterprises may face the risks of opaque funds and non - compliance.
In the 2.0 stage, the enterprise's business is relatively stable, and it starts to develop overseas business, setting up branches, building factories, or even acquiring enterprises. At this time, the complexity of financial and enterprise expenditure management increases. It is necessary to handle the overseas financial expenditures of Chinese employees and the local financial expenditures of foreign employees, and also to think about how to improve management efficiency by using the same set of digital software for foreign and Chinese employees. In addition, as overseas expenditures increase and the proportion of overseas revenue rises, cost control becomes an important issue.
In the 3.0 stage, the enterprise becomes a global enterprise, setting up its headquarters and R & D centers overseas, and the proportion of overseas revenue is close to or even exceeds that of domestic revenue. At this stage, finance faces major problems and challenges such as capital utilization, local revenue distribution, and tax compliance.
There are mainly three solutions for the enterprises we serve to deal with these expenditure management problems:
The first is traditional ticket agents, which can only book flights, hotels, and basic local consumption. It is difficult to conduct consumption control, and the data is offline and cannot be integrated with domestic enterprise data.
The second is traditional domestic TMCs, which can cover some overseas business travel consumption but cannot solve the problems of other overseas expenditures and small - ticket reimbursement.
The third is the overseas expenditure management solution developed by Fenbeitong. In addition to serving enterprises' overseas expenditures such as flight tickets, hotels, and local vehicle use, it also has the capabilities of overseas reimbursement and overseas card expenditure management, covering all expenditures beyond business travel.
Next, I'll share several practical stories of Fenbeitong in overseas expenditure management, which have driven us to continuously optimize our products:
Three years ago, after Fenbeitong launched its overseas business, the number of customers increased, and so did the challenges. A corporate customer had a factory on the border between Germany and Austria, and Chinese employees needed to go there for guidance and inspection. The hotel booked through Fenbeitong was more than 20 kilometers away from the factory, resulting in a long round - trip time. The customer hoped to find a closer, more convenient, and cheaper accommodation. Our supply - chain team found that there was a closer hotel in Austria near the factory, but the enterprise had geographical restrictions on employees' overseas expenditures. Therefore, we listed this Austrian hotel on the platform and optimized the control rules to facilitate customers' search and booking.
This story made us realize that when enterprises book flights and hotels overseas, abundant resources are a prerequisite, but more importantly, they need accurate, low - cost, and convenient resources. Therefore, we launched a targeted optimization service. Enterprises can enter their overseas regular locations, factories, and frequently visited countries and cities on the platform, and our team will optimize resources in advance, looking for suitable flight routes, surrounding homestays, and hotels to facilitate employees' booking. For example, we found low - cost and conveniently located small hotels or inns for customers near a factory in Binh Duong Province, Vietnam.
Based on the concept of "comprehensiveness is the prerequisite", Fenbeitong's international flight ticket resources cover 1000 airlines, covering all countries and regions in the world. It has self - operated flight ticket agency qualifications and also cooperates with other OTA and B2B platforms. It supports the custody of international agreements for large domestic airline customers and has resources from 150 low - cost airlines, including round - trip and multi - stop flights, and there are no additional booking fees. Its hotel resources cover more than 1.5 million hotels worldwide, distributed in all countries and regions. Hundreds of thousands of homestays and short - term rental apartments are very popular among employees on long - term overseas business trips.
Another story is that a corporate customer went on a business trip to the United States and arrived at the hotel at noon (corresponding to midnight Beijing time). They found that the double - bed room they had booked was actually a single - bed room, and two people couldn't stay. They contacted us at midnight to solve the problem. This made us realize that in addition to online services, 24/7 offline services are crucial for Chinese enterprise employees going overseas. Therefore, we established an overseas customer service team of more than 20 people, providing all - weather services covering 50 service items, from online booking to offline safety guarantee. We can also find the best prices on the whole network for enterprises, customize itineraries, handle visas, arrange chartered cars, and provide vouchers. For example, when China Construction Bank went public on the New York Stock Exchange at the end of the previous year, we were responsible for the itinerary of its senior management and investment research team in New York. When Maoyan promoted a movie at the Cannes Film Festival in May last year, we arranged the itinerary of its creative team and provided a VIP channel to avoid exposure.
There is also a case where a customer has a branch in the UK with a large number of British employees. The customer hopes that domestic and foreign employees can use the same set of enterprise expenditure management software to improve efficiency. Therefore, we developed an English - version product. One APP supports the login of overseas mobile phone numbers from more than 100 countries and can be seamlessly switched. Through AI - assisted automatic translation of information resources, we have connected the processes of domestic and foreign employees. We have also deployed dedicated lines in different overseas countries to ensure smooth use for global users.
Currently, Fenbeitong's overseas expenditure management solution covers online booking of international flights and overseas hotels, an overseas customer service team, overseas cards, overseas reimbursement, and an English - version product, forming a comprehensive system.
Many enterprise friends may ask, with so many solutions on the market, what is Fenbeitong's core value? I summarize it as "low price + service":
Firstly, low price. We promise to "compensate for overpricing". If an enterprise customer finds that the price of a flight ticket or hotel booked through Fenbeitong is higher than that on mainstream C - end platforms, we will compensate for the price difference. Previously, the process was a bit cumbersome, requiring customers to upload screenshots after booking. Next, we will upgrade it to uploading the prices of other platforms at the time of booking, and AI will automatically verify and adjust the price to ensure that the enterprise's cost does not increase.
Secondly, service. While providing low prices, we offer comprehensive services. More than 50 overseas customer service items from online booking to offline safety guarantee provide support for enterprises going overseas.
Finally, I'll share some of the enterprise customers currently cooperating with Fenbeitong. In addition to the well - known Hangzhou - based Unitree Robotics, there is also Yuanqi Forest, which I mentioned earlier, as well as the Xilinmen mattress brand and a large number of advanced Chinese manufacturing enterprises.
There are many friends here today who have already gone overseas or are planning to do so. If you have any problems or challenges in enterprise "going global" and expenditure management, please feel free to contact and communicate with us later.
Thank you all!