What happened to those pharmacies that entered the Gaoji bowl?

For friends in the pharmaceutical retail industry, Gaoji Medical is like the most familiar stranger
.
This large chain pharmacy with the blessing of top capital and full of high-tech halo can be said to be the invisible king of the entire pharmaceutical retail industry
.
Although it has more than 12,000 stores and its revenue exceeded 30 billion yuan in 2018, it is a veritable leader in the pharmaceutical retail market in terms of size, but from the outside, it is still full of fog, and there are few external reports.
It does not appear on the platform where the traditional pharmacy bosses are active
.
At the same time, it has been more than 3 years since Gaoji acquired stores last time.
Why has there been no unified brand so far, and all stores still retain their original names? Why is Gao Ji, who is not short of money, no longer restarting the acquisition of chariots? Why is Gaoji Medical named "Medical" instead of "Big Pharmacy"? Many questions raised his brows but raised his mind
.
Acquired Wanmen Store Beginning in 2017, Hillhouse established Gaoji Medical, and based on this, began a major acquisition in the pharmaceutical retail industry
.
Gaoji Medical basically competes with the existing leading chains in dislocation, and mainly acquires second-, third-, and fourth-tier cities, and even regional leading chains in more sinking markets
.
Taking Henan, where Gao Ji is heavily armed, as an example, in just one year, Gao Ji has completed the controlling acquisition of leading pharmaceutical chain companies in major cities in Henan Province, such as Baijia Haosheng in Luoyang, Henan Tonghetang Medicine in Zhoukou, and Jiaozuo's.
Blue Cross Pharmaceutical Chain, Kaifeng Baishikang Pharmaceutical, Henan Longtai Pharmacy in Zhengzhou,
etc.
As of the end of 2018, Gaoji has basically completed the phased acquisition of the pharmaceutical retail industry, with a total of more than 12,000 stores, which are deployed in all provinces except Yunnan, Tibet and Qinghai
.
Public reports of the year showed that there were nearly 500 in Xinjiang, more than 1,000 in Shaanxi, more than 300 in Chongqing, more than 1,200 in Sichuan, nearly 300 in Guangxi, more than 1,100 in Guangdong, nearly 200 in Jiangxi, 350 in Fujian, and more than 900 in Hunan.
More than 800 in Hubei, more than 750 in Anhui, 30 in Shanghai, more than 200 in Jiangsu, more than 250 in Shandong, more than 2,100 in North China, and more than 300 in Northeast China
.
In fact, just by the name "Gaoji Medical", you can feel that it is different from general chain pharmacies
.
What Gaoji wants to do is medical care, not just pharmaceutical retailing.
The partner of Gaoji Capital and the chairman of Gaoji Medical once said: "Gaoji Medical is not a simple drug sales platform, Gaoji's vision is to become a grassroots in China.
The largest portal and platform in the field of medical services, serving and empowering pharmaceutical and medical enterprises through scientific and technological means, so that they can serve customers and consumers more efficiently and professionally
.
" Hillhouse Capital's positioning of Gaoji is to be the portal of primary medical services.
From the perspective of strategic positioning, Gaoji Medical is more advanced than traditional pharmaceutical retail enterprises
.
However, the main carrier of primary medical services, community hospitals, is not an entity that can be acquired.
Gaoji Medical mainly relies on digital medical services to empower its retail sector and provides basic medical services based on the pharmaceutical retail sector
.
Gaoji Health Pro, Huimei Doctor, Gaoji Internet Hospital, Gaoji Zhijiantong and other small program matrices under Gaoji are all part of its digital layout, building medical consultation, medicine purchase, health management, etc.
The main medical ecology
.
As the capital boss behind Gaoji Medical, Hillhouse Capital’s perspective on the industry is completely different from that of traditional industries
.
Traditional industries often have a stable structure, and entrepreneurs are more willing and often only able to make incremental reforms
.
Hillhouse Capital, which has abundant capital, often relied on potential advantages such as capital, technology, and management in many fields to comprehensively transform the industry
.
A typical example is Hillhouse Capital's transformation of the pet hospital industry.
Through continuous acquisitions, the number of pet hospitals under its umbrella has exceeded 600 by 2017, which is twice as many as the second place in the industry.
The subsequent integration of Ruipeng Pet Hospital Group established New Ruipeng.
The group has become an aircraft carrier-level presence in the industry, gathering about 60% of pet experts and professors in the industry.
It can be said, "What will Xinruipeng do, what will the pet hospital industry look like in the future
.
" Gao Leng has such strength and willingness
.
Today, Gaoji has acquired 68 companies in the pharmaceutical retail industry, with more than 45,000 employees
.
The backgrounds, organizational structures and cultures of these companies vary
.
As Gaoji promotes digital transformation, new retail and other formats, it recruits many talents with FMCG industry and Internet background, and the integration of talents from different backgrounds is a huge challenge
.
In addition, Gaoji restructured the business model of traditional retail pharmacies, strengthened the membership operation strategy, required online and offline connections, clerks instruct consumers to scan codes, and regional managers learn data analysis.
These skills requirements bring challenges to the ability of the entire organization
.
Three Levels of Integration To meet challenges, Gaoji mainly focuses on three aspects: business integration, organizational integration and cultural upgrading
.
In terms of business integration, Gaoji did not allow the existing business to expand and close, but focused on stabilizing the existing business, and did not change the existing promotion model and original structure casually
.
At the same time, Gaoji started from the integration of procurement.
With the huge purchase volume and the dealers and pharmaceutical factories talking about better prices, the original company can truly feel the benefits after the acquisition
.
In addition, Gao Ji has two deputy general managers in the five regional platforms of North China, Central China, South China, East China and Southwest China.
The deputy general manager manages the business.
After several years of running-in, the company has gradually gained the trust of the acquired company, and the cooperation required by the grassroots executive headquarters has been much better
.
In terms of organizational integration, Gaoji has also adopted prudent measures, first easy and then difficult, to integrate the organizational structure of procurement, and temporarily postpone the financial integration that is more challenging
.
The standardized management of the organization is not standardized at the beginning, and the requirements for the acquired companies are set, but it is reversed, let everyone discuss the specific problems first, and then solve the problems
.
The personnel of the acquired company are also gradually digested according to the scale
.
For example, the relatives and friends of some company bosses hold purchasing positions, but Gaoji has implemented centralized purchasing, and subordinate companies do not need to set up a separate purchasing position, but if the original boss objects, Gaoji will retain this position instead of forcing optimization.

.
In terms of cultural integration, Gao Ji first made top-level planning, and the core management team discussed and decided the company culture, and then instructed it through the establishment of corporate culture walls and "national tour speeches on corporate culture" by its subsidiaries
.
During the indoctrination process, Gaoji CEO, president and vice president of human resources were invited to speak, and then regional managers were invited to speak
.
Regional managers understand the front-line employees and are relatively down-to-earth, which will have a better impact on employees, and the regional managers' lectures are also education and precipitation for this level of personnel
.
Improve logistics efficiency Gaoji Medical divides the operation team of the enterprise into leaders, generals, strong generals and brave generals (regional managers), and regularly organizes subject discussions and analysis of realistic scenarios for talents of different levels
.
Gaoji has more than 500 regional managers distributed all over the country.
These regional managers all have traditional pharmaceutical retail backgrounds and need to systematically improve their management capabilities and business methods to achieve scientific management
.
To this end, Gao Ji organized these regional managers to conduct 3-month training through cloud training and other methods, and selected outstanding talents to be reserved in the "strong generals" team
.
In addition, it is worth mentioning that Gaoji integrates and manages the supply chain
.
Since 2019, Gaoji has successively invested in the construction of multi-functional, efficient and modern pharmaceutical logistics centers integrating warehousing and distribution in Hebei, Sichuan, Henan, Guangdong and other places
.
These logistics centers all adopt the automatic handling robot picking mode, which is a representative of the large-scale application of this type of technology in the domestic pharmaceutical industry
.
Taking Gaoji Medical Zhoukou Logistics Center as an example, the project has a total construction area of ​​22,000 square meters and can support a sales scale of 2.
5 billion yuan
.
The logistics center adopts a 4-storey design, one of which is equipped with a warehouse receiving area, a whole pallet storage area, a sorting and collecting area, a delivery area and a cold storage; the third and fourth floors have the same layout, with "goods on arrival "man" picking operations, review operations, and storage areas for replenishment
.
Among them, nearly 100 third-generation intelligent handling robots are used in the "goods-to-person" picking area, which is responsible for transporting shelves for multiple picking workstations
.
Each workstation can achieve a picking efficiency of 200+ orders/hour, which is 2 to 3 times that of traditional manual operations, and there is still more room for improvement in the future
.
Pharmaceutical retail is actually a weak brand industry.
Typical century-old brand chains such as Tong Hanchun and Yu Qingtang have not won because of their brands.
A wider layout, distance from consumers, sufficient drug supply and professional services are more critical.

.
For Gaoji, instead of persuading the original owner to give up his feelings for the self-created brand and unify it into the Gaoji brand after acquiring the store, and risk the risk of losing old customers, it is better to focus on other aspects, wait for the time to come, and unify the brand.
Naturally
.
The acquisition still takes time, when will Gaoji start the acquisition chariot again? This is a topic of concern to many practitioners.
Although there has been a big case (acquisition case) such as the acquisition of Huairen by ordinary people recently, it seems that Gaoji has not started a large-scale acquisition again
.
From the perspective of the internal environment, Gaoji's internal integration is still on the way.
Although procurement integration has achieved certain results, financial and personnel integration has also achieved staged results, but it has not been integrated in place.
At the same time, Gaoji's new retail and health management formats It is still being explored, and a complete integrated platform has not been formed, which can better carry the newly acquired pharmacies
.
On the Internet, many negative comments about Gaoji stem from this.
Under this state, the acquisition of new pharmacies will only increase the difficulty of integration
.
From the perspective of the external environment, the entire retail industry has undergone major acquisitions initiated by Neptune Star and Guoda Pharmacy from 2004 to 2014, and since 2014, the four major listed chains of Yifeng, Yixintang, Common People, and Dashenlin have initiated acquisitions.
After this wave of acquisitions initiated by Gaoji Medical, Huatai Securities, and Cornerstone Capital in 2016, high-quality small and medium-sized chain targets available for acquisition are even scarcer
.
The acquisition of a single pharmacy or a small chain is of little value, and a large-scale acquisition is likely to be a large-scale merger of a listed chain.
In this regard, it is difficult for Gao Ji to say "I am ready"
.
As a super chain born out of nowhere, Gaoji Medical represents a new trend in the development of the traditional medical industry.
Through the comprehensive advantages of capital, technology, advanced concepts, talents, management and other comprehensive advantages, it has carried out systematic and large-scale transformation of traditional industries, breaking the traditional Industrial boundaries, reshaping the industrial pattern
.
Although Gaoji Medical is still on the road, if it succeeds, it is expected to have an epic impact on the pharmaceutical retail industry
.