步步高超市的数字化进程：从“物本”到“人本”

Better Life, a regional supermarket chain headquartered in Hunan province, China, began exploring smart retail in late 2017 to respond to market changes and the challenges of new technologies and new models for the retail industry in the digital age. Peng Xiong, senior vice president of Better Life, was appointed to concurrently serve as general manager of the smart retail division, which was tasked with exploring the future of retail for Better Life. After three years of testing and experimentation, Peng and his team rolled out a suite of digital operations and dynamic staffing management tools at the company, which greatly improved the operational efficiency of pilot stores. Pilot stores also adopted performance-based compensation, which motivated employees and led to a significant increase in sales, profits, and labor productivity. Between 2020 and 2023, China implemented pandemic control measures, resulting in radical changes in consumption habits and in-store demand. As quarantines and lockdowns sprung up across the country, community group-buying and online shopping thrived, posing a serious challenge to traditional retail business models. In 2021, Better Life reported a net loss of RMB 184 million and closed 52 stores. Peng began to reflect on the merits of digitalization for traditional supermarkets. There was no room for further improvement in all business activities of Better Life, based on a product-centric outlook on development, which emphasized cost reductions and efficiency improvements through digitalization. (According to the product-centric outlook on development, an increase in material wealth is the only motivating factor for and goal of development, as well as the single arbiter of what is right or what is wrong. It's believed that everything is done for the sake of development, and that development can solve all problems.) Inspired by the company's original aspiration of "creating a better life for all", Peng shifted to a people-centric outlook on development, and made it a priority to "build community supermarkets most loved by customers and enjoyed by employees" when piloting digitalization initiatives. (The people-centric outlook on development focuses on meeting the variegated needs of people and improving human well-being. It makes it clear that serving people is the ultimate goal, and development is just a means to that end, overcoming limitations posed by the product-centric outlook on development, which pursues profitability while ignoring people's needs.) Under this arrangement, digital tools were used to boost the well-being of customers and employees instead of lowering costs and improving efficiency. Faced with the performance pressure and organizational & philosophical challenges, could Peng use digital tools to convert online traffic into offline footfall?