2021 seems to be the year when the construction and ceramics industry will receive a lot of unfortunate news.
On the one hand, ceramic construction companies have to face the "intermittent" epidemic, on the other hand, they also have to deal with the "pressure" from policies: the "coal-to-gas" switch has been implemented, the government has strengthened environmental protection control, and the three-year environmental protection inspection campaign Continuing, followed by an explicit ban on "two high" new projects... The recent government power restriction policy due to energy shortages has made manufacturers even worse.
There is also constant bad news in the international industrial chain: the voice of rising raw material prices has never stopped since the beginning of the year, large-scale defaults of real estate companies represented by the Evergrande "thunderstorm" incident, and the second round of centralized land supply "failed to sell" "Seriously, the industry is flooded with price increases...
It seems that the construction and ceramics industry has reached its "darkest moment", and the industry can only comfort itself by saying that "no matter how bad the situation is, it won't get any worse." But Murphy's Law reveals that the real market may be worse...
Grassroots Escape
Compared with exogenous factors such as policies and external economic environment, the endogenous factors in the industry are more worrying. Regardless of the difficulty in factory recruitment, which is a problem faced by the entire manufacturing industry, and let alone the increasingly difficult situation for manufacturers to attract investment, recruitment of employees needed for business operations and development is a long-standing problem. This is just the manufacturer. When we turned our attention from enterprises to dealers, we later discovered that for them, a stable team is enough to defeat more than half of their competitors.
Mr. Dealer A shared with the author the difficulties of building his own team.
Mr. A used to be a "big boss" in a county-level city under the jurisdiction of the provincial capital, and later moved to the provincial capital city for development. After the relocation, a young girl among the original team members chose to leave and switch to the home appliance industry. She said that compared with selling appliances, selling ceramic tiles is too tiring.
Mr. A understood the little girl's choice very well. He said: "The ceramic tiles are not finished products. It does not mean that it is over after you sell them. There are various things that need to be done in the future, such as paving, processing, returns and exchanges. We used to It’s normal to be busy until 10pm, and the latest one in my memory ended at 3am. In contrast, home appliances only need to sell things. There are dedicated people to do the delivery, and there are also dedicated after-sales departments to follow up. It's much easier than selling ceramic tiles. The important thing is that whether she sells ceramic tiles or appliances, the income gap is not big. Since there is no income that can widen the gap, it is still a business, so why choose it.ceramic tile? ”
The little girl Mr. A mentioned is not an exception. Due to its product characteristics, ceramic tiles bring great labor intensity to grassroots practitioners. This is obvious to all, both dealers and grassroots personnel. For this reason, even in such a difficult period, dealers' labor costs are rising at a rate of 10% per year. But even so, it is difficult for dealers to retain people. As the little girl said, although the income from the ceramic tile industry is higher than that from the home appliance industry, the gap is not enough for her to give up her slightly easier life.
In addition to the existing employees "escaping" from the industry, the post-90s and post-00s generations who have become the main force in the job market are more "life-oriented" in their career choices. In their view, there must always be one thing for money or life. Due to the current wages and labor intensity in the construction and ceramics industry, the career choices of this generation are even more worrying.
Middle layer solidification loss
Grassroots practitioners are beginning to flee the industry, but what about the dealers in this industry? Judging from the data from on-site visits, the development trends of dealers and the industry should be synchronized. While industry concentration continues to increase, dealers are also "concentrated" and solidified to a certain extent. For example, in the Fuzhou and Shenzhen markets that the author visited before, dealers who can occupy a certain market share in the local market have industry experience ranging from seven to eight years to nearly 20 years. They are all industry veterans.
That is to say, no matter in the past or now, the same dealers are operating ceramic tiles locally. Mr. A is one of the typical examples. In the early years, Mr. A was one of the top "ceramics people" in the local area. He once monopolized more than half of the local market share. After more than ten years, he accumulated a considerable fortune. In the past two years, Mr. A originally planned to retire, but he was used to being busy and it was hard to adapt to his free time, so he wanted to find something to do for himself, so he returned to his old career.
At first, Mr. A’s family was very opposed to him continuing to make ceramic tiles. Mr. A also understood the hard work of making ceramic tiles, so he hesitated for a long time and considered changing his career, such as catering. There is a catering brand that is developing very well, and he has also been to the headquarters. Everything has been discussed, except for the final contract. In the end, either out of sentiment or caution, Mr. A chose to return to his old profession. It is precisely because of such an experience that Mr. A fully understands the words of the young girl who switched to home appliances.
It’s just that the dealer group is solidified but it is difficult for anyone to inherit it. Regarding whether children should take over the family business, based on limited data, the situation is not optimistic.
Among the more than ten dealers visited by the author, three dealers are special: two of them are the "Second Generation Tao", they are siblings and have been engaged in the ceramic tile industry for more than ten years; the other dealer Shang has opened a store for his son to practice, but the other dealers have expressed their unwillingness openly and secretly. For example, Mr. A told the author very bluntly that he did not want his children to engage in this industry in the future.
Although from a statistical point of view, the sparse sample size is not enough to provide a statistically significant "conclusive conclusion," a glimpse shows that most dealers still hold a neutral attitude towards children inheriting the family business. "Too tired," as Mr. A, an old ceramics man, said, "Isn't it because I am so tired that my children can be less tired?" The Chinese people's love for licking calves is nothing more than this.
In addition to the second generation Tao inheriting the family business, fresh blood is an essential source of talent for the development of the industry, but this channel is also declining. Mr. A’s market used to see new entrants entering the market every year, and overall growth has been constant. But in the past two years, the total number of dealers has been decreasing, and the decrease is getting faster and faster. According to another local dealer, it has been a long time since we saw new people in the low-end wholesale market, and his business has improved a lot as a result.
For the reduction of dealers, manufacturers should feel more intuitively. In order to solve the investment problem, many manufacturers have to lower the requirements for dealers to join the brand. The direct consequence of this approach is that it severely affects the distribution channels of dealers, causing the distribution channels to fall apart to a certain extent. For dealers, this move by the manufacturer not only failed to substantially help them seize the market, but instead made it more difficult to compete in the market and created hidden dangers in the relationship between manufacturers.
To sum up, whether it is the ceramic dealers who are facing the terminal and fighting on the front line, or the grassroots practitioners in the industry, there are already signs of withdrawing from the industry. In the period of generational change in the industry, the number of new blood flowing into the industry continues to decrease. In the next ten years, talent issues will be the main problem plaguing the industry.
The dilemma of energy shortage will eventually be overcome. Environmental protection problems such as "two highs" can also be solved through technical means. Factories that are short of workers can adopt intelligence. These problems represent the current situation of the industry; dealers and grassroots personnel have left the industry. The talent issue represented is the future of the industry. Without the present, there is no future; conversely, without the future, the present is lost.
Just like our country's population problem, how to solve the "talent" problem in the industry and how to balance the present and the future are the next questions that companies need to think about.
(Author: No)
