Wang Shoucheng, CEO of Yonghui: Even if it's slower, it's more important to be on the right track | WISE 2025 King of Business

In 2025, the business world stands at a crossroads of transformation. Amid the reconstruction of business narratives and the sweeping technological tides, the WISE2025 Business King Conference, themed "The Scenery Here is Uniquely Charming," aims to anchor the certain future of Chinese business amidst uncertainties. Here, we record the opening chapter of this intellectual feast and capture the voices of those who remain steadfast in the face of change.

From November 27th to 28th, the 36Kr WISE2025 Business King Conference, hailed as the "annual barometer of technology and business," was held at the Conduction Space in the 798 Art Zone, Beijing.

This year, WISE is no longer a traditional industry summit but an immersive experience in the form of "tech-infused short dramas." From AI reshaping the boundaries of hardware to embodied intelligence opening the door to the real world; from brand globalization in the wave of going overseas to traditional industries equipping with "cyber prosthetics" - what we present is not just trends but also the insights honed through numerous business practices.

In the following content, we will dissect the real logic behind these "exciting dramas" frame by frame and witness the "uniquely charming scenery" of the 2025 business world.

Wang Shoucheng, the CEO of Yonghui Superstores, shared the transformation path of traditional retail enterprises. "As a company established 25 years ago, Yonghui has gone through a transformation stage during its rapid development," he admitted. Inspired by the Fat Donglai model, Yonghui is firmly committed to the path of quality retail, promoting the construction of "National Supermarket, Quality Yonghui" by improving product quality, optimizing the core supply chain, and reshaping brand values.

In his speech, he specifically pointed out that "Yonghui does not charge membership fees. It focuses on a product strategy of high - quality, affordable, and small - packaged goods to create a national supermarket more suitable for mainstream Chinese families."

Wang Shoucheng, CEO of Yonghui Superstores

The following is the edited transcript of the speech by Wang Shoucheng, CEO of Yonghui Superstores:

Good morning, everyone! I'm Wang Shoucheng from Yonghui Superstores, a 90s - born who looks a bit older than my age.

Mr. Wang from Peking University (Note: Mr. Wang He, an assistant professor at Peking University, the founder, and chief technology officer of Galaxy Universal Robotics), who just gave a speech, is researching robots. After graduating from Peking University, I've been selling groceries at Yonghui for about 8 years. As Mr. Yin (Note: Yin Ye, CEO of BGI) said just now, I've tried my best and also explored beyond my capabilities, learning a lot about technology and AI. There are also many opportunities for Yonghui to make attempts in the future application scenarios.

Moreover, Mr. Feng just raised a question: Will the future be better or worse? I think if there is only technology, it may not necessarily get better. With both humanity and technology, it should get better and better. So in this round of transformation, Yonghui is promoting the transformation of traditional physical retail from a more human - centered perspective.

Yonghui was established in 2000 and is now 25 years old. It really grew too fast in the past. In the past 20 - 30 years, under the market dividends of China's 40 - year reform and opening - up, many enterprises developed rapidly. We sometimes joke that Yonghui was like driving a car with a C1 license into space. Now, how to come back down? So in this round, we are learning from Fat Donglai on how to do retail steadily and build a happy business.

There is also a man who has a great influence on us, Mr. Ye Guofu, the founder of MINISO. He has been studying this industry. He often goes to the United States to learn from the experience of Costco and also studies Fat Donglai. He has such a passion. Fortunately, with the help of Brother Donglai and the support of Mr. Ye, Yonghui has embarked on a wonderful and miraculous transformation path of traditional Chinese physical commercial retail, and of course, we are still on the way.

Next, I'll share with you how Yonghui, whether in the pursuit of quality retail or a happy business, is advancing step by step in the transformation process, including dealing with the common problems faced by many physical enterprises.

We say that the industry has both challenges and opportunities. Consumption segmentation, channel diversion, homogeneous competition, and trust crisis. Among these four points, I think the most important one is the trust crisis. The trust crisis not only means the loss of trust between us and customers but also the loss of trust with internal employees. Just now, I heard some colleagues sharing about how to make employees happier. For example, the in - house love award. In fact, for an enterprise, the state and atmosphere of the team determine whether it can achieve continuous breakthroughs and development in the future.

In the past, Yonghui developed rapidly and reached a peak of having a thousand stores and achieving a turnover of 100 billion yuan by the end of 2019. But why did it decline so quickly? Because the scale of our operation had exceeded our capabilities. We didn't realize that we had done many things beyond our abilities. When things were going well, it was easy to over - estimate our capabilities without consolidating them. When employees lose their love and passion, the enterprise basically comes to a standstill.

Why did this happen? In order to pursue performance and scale, we ignored the initiative of people, the state, income, and growth of employees. First, we lost the trust of employees in the enterprise. In the past, we adopted the so - called "channel - centric KA model." We were over - confident and arrogant. We exploited channels and brand owners from a self - serving perspective, and thus lost the trust of our partners. After losing these two types of trust, the ultimate result was the loss of customer trust because we could no longer deliver safe, stable, and valuable products to customers.

So the biggest challenge is actually the trust crisis. This round of adjustment at Yonghui also aims to rebuild trust. In the business field, once trust is established, as Brother Donglai of Fat Donglai said, even if he doesn't open Fat Donglai anymore and goes to sell cold noodles, it will still be the number - one brand of cold noodles in the country because he has established the most basic brand reputation and trust. You can see that Fat Donglai does well in supermarkets, jewelry, and tea sales. In China, trust is the most lacking, but building trust is indeed difficult and requires long - term commitment.

Of course, we also see many opportunities. For example, there is an unprecedented demand for quality now. After the 3.15 Gala every year, it is basically a publicity for enterprises like Sam's Club and Fat Donglai because China lacks food supplies that truly guarantee food safety and quality.

Moreover, the value of physical retail is returning. In the past, our KA model was more like selling shelves and collecting back - end fees. The real value of physical retail lies in the value brought by meeting consumers' needs, product strength, on - site atmosphere, and customer experience.

Fat Donglai has set a model in Xuchang. What kind of model is it? First, it respects employees and provides them with good incomes. In a fourth - or fifth - tier city like Xuchang, the lowest - paid employees can earn 8,000 - 9,000 yuan, and they are very happy. It also gives employees good vacations. Second, it allows suppliers to have a reasonable profit margin. It has done many scarce things and is doing well. In the past, our employees' salaries were low, and they had few vacations. We also didn't treat suppliers sincerely and altruistically, and we didn't do well either.

Technology is developing rapidly. People are now researching robots, unmanned operations, and intelligence, but they haven't explored how to continuously develop human intelligence, especially in our labor - intensive service industry. The initiative of people has a very significant impact on us. However, many enterprises, including Yonghui in the past, were not willing to spend time on people. In the past, Yonghui also dabbled in unmanned retail, intelligence, and digitalization, but if people are not well - developed, your data won't be accurate and precise either.

So we have determined the strategic direction for the new Yonghui. We are firmly committed to learning from the Fat Donglai model and taking the path of happy quality retail. Some may think it sounds too abstract. But I think business should be happy, and everyone should live a fulfilling life.

I was deeply touched by what Mr. Yin said just now. Many of our colleagues and all the partners here are very positive, but the living conditions of each person and the values conveyed by our social environment may not be sufficient. So we hope to take the path of happy quality retail.

Many people will say that Fat Donglai is a regional supermarket. Although Yonghui has closed many stores, it still has more than 400 stores in 300 cities across 24 provinces in China. People think that replicating this model faces great challenges. At the beginning, when we first started learning from Fat Donglai, we asked them for operation manuals, processing procedures, and management mechanisms, hoping to copy them directly. Brother Donglai said, "No." Without the foundation of the "principle," simply copying the "techniques" is far from enough.

There is one thing I mentioned when communicating with the team last year. Around this year's Spring Festival, I don't know if you noticed the news: A Vietnam War veteran went shopping at Fat Donglai. Since there was a queue in the store and he had a leg injury from the Vietnam War and had difficulty moving, he asked the security guards if he could enter the store without queuing. Then the security guards immediately took him into the store through the staff passage. When the veteran was checking out, the cashier told him that the goods were free as a token of gratitude for his contribution to the country. This incident deeply touched the veteran and also caused a great stir online.

We discussed with the customer service and sales teams across the country: If a Vietnam War veteran comes to the door of a Yonghui supermarket, what will we do? After a long discussion, we said that we would let him in but not for free. Why? Because there is no clause in the company's management regulations stating that Vietnam War veterans can shop for free in the store.

Later, we asked Brother Donglai, and it turns out that Fat Donglai also doesn't have such a management mechanism. This is why it's difficult for many enterprises to learn from Fat Donglai. Most enterprises' actions are based on established management standards, while Fat Donglai, due to its strong culture and beliefs, takes many actions based on humanity. It believes that if something is right, kind, and valuable to society, it will spontaneously do things that go beyond business standards. So to truly learn from Fat Donglai, we need to learn its "essence."

In the past year or so of learning, our renovation team and operation team have been learning from Teacher Donglai, aligning all the operation standards in detail to respect and empower employees. In terms of products, we not only learn from Donglai's concept but also invite professional partners from Sam's Club to jointly develop better products. In terms of customer experience, we invited two flight attendants from Xiamen Airlines to work at Yonghui for more than a year because they have a good understanding of service. On the basis of Donglai's concept, both the operation team and the service standard team have more room for improvement. These teams have good skills, but we lack solid and valuable concepts.

I'll first talk about quality retail. The quality of people is a very important aspect. In the past year or so of renovation, we have done an important thing, which is to increase employees' incomes. You know, the incomes of many supermarket employees, even in Beijing, are less than 3,000 yuan after tax. How can they live in Beijing? Everyone says that to learn from Fat Donglai, we need to increase employees' salaries. In fact, Fat Donglai's logic is to first ensure their basic living. Most of us here may be in the upper part of the social income pyramid, but in China, there are still a large number of people at the bottom of the pyramid, working in many basic positions. We used to require cashiers to wear light makeup to work like in Fat Donglai. One of our cashiers said, "My salary is not even enough to buy cosmetics. How can I wear light makeup?" So in this round of renovation, we increased employees' incomes. For example, in Beijing, it was raised from 3,000 to 6,000 yuan, and in Fuzhou, it was raised from less than 3,000 to about 4,500 yuan, at least ensuring employees' basic living.

Moreover, although Yonghui was still in the red overall last year, we still gave dividends to profitable stores, with more than 40 million yuan in dividends covering many employees.

We emphasize the "532" work logic in the enterprise, which means spending 50% of our energy on people, empowering employees and improving their skills, 30% on scientific process management, and the last 20% on results. But in the past, we spent 80% of our energy on results. In fact, if people are not well - developed, many results will be counterproductive.

So in the past year, we have spent a lot of time on improving the quality of our human resources, and it has also brought great rewards.

Actually, quality retail requires a transformation to creative retail. You need craftsmen, not tools. In the past, many of us treated employees like tools.

Another thing that really touched me is that Yonghui closed more than 300 stores this year, and nearly 20,000 employees left. We gave them corresponding compensation according to national standards. But once when I went to a store, an employee said that he actually didn't want the few thousand yuan in compensation. He came to Beijing hoping for a stable job. In the past, many employees, even after working for 5 or 10 years in the enterprise, wasted their best years. They didn't learn any skills in the enterprise and had no competitiveness when they left. So this year, we said that employees must have skills. If one day Yonghui doesn't do well and they have to leave, they should be able to earn a better income than at Yonghui. This year, we have connected with the national level certification system. Skilled employees certified by Yonghui are recognized by national qualifications. In the future, with this certificate, when they look for jobs in other enterprises, their income should not be lower than what they earn at Yonghui now.

Second, doing retail should return to the essence of quality. Quality is fundamental. The logic is very simple: From the original KA model to now truly focusing on product value. In the past, although Yonghui seemed to have 1,000 stores and a scale of 100 billion yuan across the country, our channels and retailers were very scattered, and we didn't form a scale effect. In this round of transformation, we hope to integrate the commonalities and unify the operations across the country. So far, the commonality across the country has reached more than 60%, compared with less than 10% in the past. In this way, we will help excellent suppliers with a scale of tens of billions, and bring better prices and cost - effectiveness to customers.

Moreover, I hope that we can truly customize products in a reverse way. In the past, our buyers mostly sat in the office, calling to urge for back - end income, which had nothing to do with sales and was just the income from selling shelves by channel providers. Now, there are hardly any people in Yonghui's procurement offices. Everyone goes out to find good products and customize and develop popular products that customers like more.

We use the logo of "Quality Yonghui" to mark each single product developed through procurement, hoping to build trust with customers through quality.

First, break and then build. Yonghui has three profound transformations centered around "products." In the past, performance was the top priority. Now, we need to put customers first. The Net Promoter Score (NPS) has a very high weight in Yonghui's assessment. If customers don't like you, your performance is just a false number.

As mentioned before, "breaking and building." In the past, Yonghui was just a shelf and a channel to help suppliers sell products. Before the transformation, Yonghui had all - store discounts or special offers. The aisles were full of instant noodles and paper because we promoted the products of suppliers who paid more aisle fees. Now, we have truly changed from a product transporter to a buyer on behalf of customers, selecting the best products in the market and presenting them in the store.

In the past, it was really a zero - sum game with suppliers, starting from self - interest. Now, it's a win - win situation for all three parties. I remember the first time I met Brother Donglai. He told a story. Fat Donglai has a self - owned brand of beer with annual sales of hundreds of millions of yuan, far exceeding expectations. At that time, he went to the factory and said that he would give them an additional 1% rebate so that they could meet or exceed international standards. In the past, as a retail channel, if a product sold very well, we would ask for an additional 1