An 87-year-old time-honored tea company uses "Meituan for Business" to ensure its employees "eat better".
An established brand aims to ensure employees "eat well"
From the Republic of China to New China, Yunnan Zhongcha, an established tea enterprise rooted in Yunnan for 87 years, has witnessed the changes and development of Chinese tea. The "Zhongcha" brand has become a synonym for aged Pu-erh tea.
Driven by the digital wave, this established enterprise has fully entered the deep - water zone of transformation. It not only continuously promotes digital management in core businesses such as tea - making but also includes many aspects, including enterprise consumption management, in the key areas of in - depth digital transformation, achieving all - around digital innovation from the front - end to the back - end and from business to management.
Among them, "employee meal management" is a key target for digital empowerment.
For a long time, employees of Yunnan Zhongcha relied on group meals. However, the group meals had a single taste, making it difficult to satisfy employees from all over the country. The company also tried to cooperate with nearby restaurants, but the options were still limited, and it was time - consuming and labor - intensive to travel back and forth during the lunch break.
Financial management was also labor - and time - consuming. The traditional process of "eating first, getting invoices later, and then reimbursing" often made the finance department frown at piles of invoices. The reconciliation work of the company's financial staff was also very cumbersome. Coupled with problems such as possible false transactions and illegal invoices, various pre - and post - control measures required the investment of human resources and costs.
Meal benefits are an important factor affecting employee satisfaction. A "good company" usually needs to provide as diverse catering options as possible according to employees' taste preferences and health needs, while also simplifying the meal subsidy distribution process and consumption process. Richness, convenience, cost, and cost - effectiveness are all factors to be considered, while the traditional group meals and manual reimbursement methods after meals obviously go against these requirements.
"We were thinking about how to let technology help and solve employees' dining problems more considerately and efficiently," said Tao Hao, the brand marketing manager of Yunnan Zhongcha. Improving employee satisfaction and work efficiency is their most direct hope and demand.
In March 2022, Yunnan Zhongcha found a "new way" - cooperating with Meituan Enterprise Edition. Relying on Meituan's rich C - end supply resources, Meituan Enterprise Edition provided it with a more flexible dining solution: employees can either choose takeaways independently or accumulate meal subsidies for in - store consumption, injecting digital vitality into traditional enterprise management and making employee care more heart - warming.
Employees' dining experience has been completely renewed. The most obvious change is that the pain points of temporary dining needs such as overtime meals, which once troubled employees, can now be solved in a timely and efficient manner.
Mi Rui, the person - in - charge of the Menghai office of Yunnan Zhongcha, works in a place quite far from the county seat. It takes half an hour to ride an electric bike. In addition, overtime has become "routine" when orders come in, making dining extremely inconvenient. In the past, the problem of overtime meals could only be solved with cash meal subsidies, and there were very few restaurants to choose from nearby. After Meituan Enterprise Edition became a new ordering channel, there are now Yunnan rice noodles, Sichuan stir - fries, milk tea drinks, etc. among her available options. "With the same budget, we can buy more delicious food."
Not only has employees' daily dining improved, but also they can freely allocate the use of meal subsidies according to Yunnan Zhongcha's flexible meal subsidy policy. Liu Fangying, the operation manager of Yunnan Zhongcha, mentioned that since cooperating with Meituan Enterprise Edition, she can easily select business tea snacks that match the tea products to create a richer tea - tasting experience for customers, conveying the company's care in details. What surprised her more is the platform's intelligent recommendation function: "It understands me very well." Frequently ordered categories will be pushed first during peak ordering times and at specific locations. "It saves the trouble of selection and is much more efficient." This "fast" and "good" service truly empowers her work.
This high - quality experience across all scenarios has also united the employees. Employees' sense of identity and belonging to the company have been significantly enhanced, which has also become an important plus for Yunnan Zhongcha to expand its business and build its brand.
With a wider range of dining options and more flexible forms for front - end employees, the back - end financial reconciliation and management have also become clearer and more efficient.
From the daily dining at remote office locations to the preparation of tea snacks for business receptions, Meituan Enterprise Edition, with its extensive supply network and cost - effective consumption advantages, and its comprehensive capabilities of "abundant options, fast delivery, excellent service, and cost savings", has deeply integrated into Yunnan Zhongcha's management scenarios. It not only meets the actual needs of employees and business but also becomes an important driving force for the enterprise to improve human efficiency and brand power during digital transformation.
The front - end employees have more diverse dining options and more flexible forms, while the back - end financial reconciliation and management have become clearer and more efficient.
Kong Weifeng, the assistant manager of the finance department, said: "Now, we only need to export a single table to quickly complete the reconciliation and unified invoicing, saving a lot of manpower and time."
More diverse food options and more efficient financial management have made "eating well and calculating clearly" a part of the company's daily life. The improvement in efficiency is also visually reflected in the data - since cooperating with Meituan Enterprise Edition, the finance department of Yunnan Zhongcha has saved nearly 300 hours in the reimbursement process, and employees have saved about 4000 hours in total for reimbursement.
How does Meituan Enterprise Edition "simplify enterprise consumption"?
The practice of Yunnan Zhongcha is a vivid microcosm of Meituan Enterprise Edition's assistance in enterprise consumption management. Its core mission of "simplifying enterprise consumption" is not just a slogan but is implemented in all scenarios such as enterprise dining, entertainment, business trips, welfare, and car - using, and provides a one - stop consumption and management solution with "full - process onlineization".
To achieve this goal, it relies on the clear and perceptible multi - dimensional capabilities of Meituan Enterprise Edition:
1. Underlying support: Massive supply + efficient fulfillment to meet the diverse scenarios and timeliness requirements of enterprises
Supply side: As of December 2024, there were more than 14.5 million active merchants on the Meituan platform, covering nearly 3000 cities, counties, and banners across the country. It can comprehensively undertake various consumption scenarios of enterprises, from daily takeaways, team - building dinners, to fresh food ingredients (Xiangxiang Supermarket), emergency medicine purchases, and business - trip air tickets, hotel bookings, and car rentals, fully guaranteeing the selection needs of enterprises in different scenarios.
Fulfillment side: Relying on a delivery network of more than 7 million registered riders and more than 3.36 million monthly active riders, it can achieve an "average delivery time of 28 minutes", precisely matching the enterprises' requirements for fulfillment timeliness. At the same time, it provides 7×24 - hour all - weather service support, and can respond in real - time to requests such as order modification and service complaints and provide solutions to ensure the stability and reliability of the entire service process.
Currently, this capability has served tens of thousands of enterprises across various industries.
2. Core control: Full - process online closed - loop to improve management smoothness and cost - efficiency
Taking the overtime meal scenario as an example, Meituan Enterprise Edition can connect with the enterprise's internal attendance system and automatically distribute meal subsidies based on clock - in data. It also supports employees to consume first and then verify and report, with supervisors approving according to the actual situation. This not only ensures management compliance but also retains flexibility in use, making the consumption process smoother.
This logic can be applied to all types of consumption scenarios, achieving a full - process online closed - loop of "pre - approval - in - process verification - post - analysis". At the same time, the reimbursement process is greatly simplified: employees do not need to advance funds and paste invoices, and consumption data can be synchronized to the enterprise's financial end in real - time. This not only reduces the employees' workload but also facilitates the financial department's quick reconciliation and cost optimization, effectively reducing the enterprise's management costs.
In addition to simplifying the process, Meituan Enterprise Edition also helps enterprises "optimize future consumption decisions":
For example, in the sales scenario, it can evaluate customer relationships through the frequency and amount of entertainment expenses, assist in formulating sales strategies, and identify ineffective expenditures, ensuring that every consumption is meaningful.
From the basic guarantee of "sufficient supply and fast fulfillment" to the efficiency improvement of "strong control and cost，reduction", and then to the value - added empowerment of "data - driven and intelligent decision - making", Meituan Enterprise Edition truly implements the mission of "simplifying enterprise consumption" in every aspect.
Conclusion
On July 18, 2025, at the 19th CFO Conference, Kang Kai, the general manager of Meituan Enterprise Edition, said, "A tracking survey of 5219 A - share listed companies shows that the efficiency of enterprise consumption management in China is constantly improving, undergoing a fundamental transformation from 'quantitative change' to 'qualitative change'."
Kang Kai, the general manager of Meituan Enterprise Edition, delivering a speech at the China CFO Conference
In the rapidly changing business environment, the concept of enterprise consumption management is shifting from the past simple "cost control management" to a more in - depth and comprehensive "consumption management", and management actions are also extending from invoice reimbursement from a financial perspective to front - end consumption scenarios.
However, compared with the digitization of core businesses, the digitization of enterprise consumption management is still far from mature. Meituan's research data shows that as many as 97.2% of domestic enterprises have not achieved digital consumption management.
In this context, many actions of Meituan Enterprise Edition are quite exemplary as a "game - changer". In addition to enhancing its capabilities in its own business scenarios, it also plays the role of a "market cultivator". At the end of 2024, Meituan Enterprise Edition proposed the "SIMPLE model" for enterprise consumption management, turning "enterprise consumption management" into a systematic management guide.
The SIMPLE model for enterprise consumption management
For many companies, the greatest value of the "SIMPLE model" lies in providing a set of measurement dimensions, changing the previous way of making judgments based on personal preferences or experience, and integrating fragmented services and content related to enterprise consumption to find the optimal solution for comprehensive investment.
In the past, "efficiency" and "happiness" in enterprise management were often regarded as an inherent contradiction. On the one hand, enterprises pursue cost - reduction and efficiency - improvement, and the traditional view holds that it must be achieved through strict control. On the other hand, employees increasingly value emotional value and yearn to display their talents and realize their values in an inclusive environment. In reality, it is often difficult to balance the two.
The cooperation between Yunnan Zhongcha and Meituan Enterprise Edition provides a new way to resolve such contradictions. As Liu Fangying, the operation manager of Yunnan Zhongcha, said, both parties have the "same intention": "Zhongcha conveys the beauty of nature and the calmness of life, while Meituan Enterprise Edition relieves our work burden, jointly creating a better workplace experience." This intention to improve employees' experience and achieve both efficiency and warmth is also expected to extend to more enterprises pursuing better development in the future.