ZhuGe Xiuche Wang (abbreviations as ZhuGe), headquartered in Beijing, China, is the most successful automotive aftermarket e-commerce marketplace in China. The ZhuGe name originates from a famous historical figure, ZhuGe Liang, who was a great Chinese military leader and strategist in 3 kingdoms period.
ZhuGe has been involved in the Chinese auto industry for 30 years, resulting in an extensive range of trade and customer relationships throughout the country. As the Chinese automotive market undergoes exponential growth and the market's average vehicle age rises, the auto parts and servicing business has created huge opportunities.
However, huge national growth in the car sector has placed pressure on the existing supply and distribution infrastructure of auto parts and services in recent years. Intensifying consumer demand, expanded supply of car brands and accelerated release of new car models has required the auto parts sector to rethink its business. Problems included lack of inventory from auto parts providers, delays for customers, false parts, inefficient management, and demand for large scale storage and logistics systems.
Given ZhuGe's track record in the industry, the firm was well placed to design a new business model and migrate to a technology-enabled supply platform and trading partner ecosystem.
ACTTAO has provided business strategy, IT consulting, software design, development, deployment and testing, maintenance and operation management services to ZhuGe since the end of 2013.
The ACTTAO solution includes a series of service types, including: industry analysis and strategy consulting, the operation of the ZhuGe cloud portal website for technician training, the ZhuGe auto services online e-commerce platform, the ZhuGe ERP management system, and the ZhuGe mobile apps.
In a very short project delivery time line of only three months, using agile development and its closely held vision of "Embracing Changes", ACTTAO turned an idea into an extensive market leading e-commerce platform containing 3 million (SKU) products.
"We have been deeply impressed by the strong sense of duty and dedication of the ACTTAO team. By means of Agile Development, the client-consultancy partnership was able to achieve a platform build and migration faster than any traditional IT development model could have attempted.
The professionalism and vision embodied by ACTTAO's principle of "Embracing Changes" continues to deliver a significant contribution and partner experience for both organizations."
--Quote from Zhang Zhen Gang, Director of Operations of ZhuGe Group.
ACTTAO has established its own proven business innovation
methodology.
The Doodoll Way is ACTTAO's proven, in-house entrepreneurial
approach to O2O business commercialization. Doodoll is a method of
applying expert management practice in a hybrid process of business
consulting and IT consulting. The Doodoll Way is built around
established global practices in business innovation including, for
example, the Lean StartUp.
ACTTAO has worked as an integral part of ZhuGe's management team, using The Doodoll Way to help prioritize, plan and execute IT projects based on the firm's business strategy.
ACTTAO planned all ZhuGe IT projects based on the approved corporate business strategy. The firm provided its expertise in IT architecture prior to the development of all products and services, built up dedicated expert teams, and evaluated business and revenue model viability periodically.
When ZhuGe retained ACTTAO in 2013, Chinese on-demand startups in the auto aftermarket business were in the middle of a funding frenzy. The majority of startups at that time favored the O2O/B2C [Online2Offline / Business2Consumer] model and have since burned huge cash reserves in an attempt to gain new users. While the B2B [Business2Business] business model in the auto aftermarket has gained relatively less attention from the investment sector.
ACTTAO evaluated and prioritized the strategic value of both the auto parts B2B and B2C businesses. The firm conducted in-depth analysis of the automotive aftermarket, as well as detailed evaluation of competitors and business practices. An extensive program of business interviews and customer panels with senior management, industry experts, and professionals across all areas within companies was conducted.
This research revealed the complexity of the auto parts business and the unique attributes of auto parts supply chain management that make it more commercially intricate than that of finished products. ACTTAO concluded that innovating in the O2O B2B value chain instead of that of B2C was a strategic opportunity for ZhuGe.
The ACTTAO strategy succeeded with ZhuGe focusing its resources to strengthen its position in B2B, building its core competency relative to the emerging competition in this sector by 2015.
After its extensive 'deep dive' analysis, ACTTAO and ZhuGe collaborated to design a new operational model to resolve the pain points of inventory deficiencies and stock-outs, order delays, abandoned checkout carts, non-original parts, offline warehousing errors, and inefficient logistic chains.
The underlying change management goal for ZhuGe, made viable through the ACTTAO collaboration, was to transition from a traditional auto parts brokerage company to an online-enabled marketplace intermediary.
The overall solution deployed for ZhuGe is based on ACTTAO+, the project system of ACTTAO Group. It is summarized as "ACTTAO+ Traditional industry" and is the marrying of innovative online business practices with those of a successful firm's already proven, competitive offline approach.
For technical support, training, self-paced learning, problem identification, social business sharing, case study references, technician recruitment and job search.
It has helped change the work processes and habits of employees throughout the Chinese auto industry and introduced a new online business ecosystem for the auto aftermarket sector. Employee job satisfaction and productivity has been greatly improved by the efficiency and interaction underpinning these new online ZhuGe services.
A B2B2C auto parts marketplace trading system which connects Autoparts Manufacturers and Providers, Garages and Service Stations, and Individual Customers via new offline channel providers. All entities in the aftermarket auto industry can trade openly, manage transactions and services with ease, and achieve greater business efficiencies with lower costs on the ZhuGe e-commerce marketplace.
ACTTAO implemented ZhuGe's strategy to build two individual e-commerce platforms for auto parts that operate as individual channels for original factories and other general manufacturers, in order to meet different categories of customers' requirements.
The ZhuGe e-commerce platforms are built around technology that matches trading supply and demand data and information. A powerful system of secured payment, vital for processing high volumes of online B2B transactions, along with a real time logistics management system, are key competitive advantages of the ZhuGe e-commerce marketplace.
A specialist Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) management system designed specifically to support ZhuGe's business goals in the auto aftermarket vertical sector. A generalist ERP system might be powerful but would not fit the ZhuGe business model well. So ACTTAO collaborated with ZhuGe to develop a customized ERP leveraging the key functions of inventory analysis, management and distribution in the ZhuGe trading and supply chain.
ACTTAO's strong history in the development and management of e-commerce platforms enabled it to deliver a vertical ERP system with business benefits for ZhuGe.
A native mobile app for auto industry news feeds, real time and streaming video, online learning and tutoring, social media sharing, messaging and community interaction. The ZhuGe mobile app can provide online services without any geographic restriction. The functionality of the mobile app is built to expand with the ZhuGe platform. For example, repair and servicing by auto engineers can now be improved through the use of mobile based on line video streaming and real-time interactive customer support, disseminating remote training and installation procedures from manufacturers.
When ZhuGe retained ACTTAO in 2013, Chinese on-demand startups in the auto aftermarket business were in the middle of a funding frenzy. The majority of startups at that time favored the O2O/B2C [Online2Offline / Business2Consumer] model and have since burned huge cash reserves in an attempt to gain new users. While the B2B [Business2Business] business model in the auto aftermarket has gained relatively less attention from the investment sector.
ACTTAO evaluated and prioritized the strategic value of both the auto parts B2B and B2C businesses. The firm conducted in-depth analysis of the automotive aftermarket, as well as detailed evaluation of competitors and business practices. An extensive program of business interviews and customer panels with senior management, industry experts, and professionals across all areas within companies was conducted.
This research revealed the complexity of the auto parts business and the unique attributes of auto parts supply chain management that make it more commercially intricate than that of finished products. ACTTAO concluded that innovating in the O2O B2B value chain instead of that of B2C was a strategic opportunity for ZhuGe.
The ACTTAO strategy succeeded with ZhuGe focusing its resources to strengthen its position in B2B, building its core competency relative to the emerging competition in this sector by 2015.
In Doodoll-based product management, ACTTAO can ensure customer benefit by keeping the rules of project management strictly focused on the key aspects of cost, risk, quality, HR, time and scope. In addition, its PM process makes use of ACTTAO's "Hiveall" collaborative platform and the Configuration and Change Management (CCM) tools to make work quicker and more efficient.
Hiveall is collaborative software for project management developed by ACTTAO. As a management tool, Hiveall manages all tasks for companies like ZhuGe through 3 dimensions: person-level work management, team management, and project management. It can ensure that all the projects and tasks are executed in optimum order.
CCM is an integral part of any software development process in the Capability Maturity Model (CMM), which is a proven approach used by ACTTAO to improve software quality for companies like ZhuGe. It controls the software development process, improving programmers' focus and organization. With the aid of CCM, ACTTAO can adhere to strict monitoring and research processes in the development and maintenance of software products, making the products more scientific and standardized.
With ACTTAO's efficient IT processes, structures and practices, Zhuge has achieved exponential growth since the rollout of the new platform in 2014:
