Small and micro security companies have been forced into a corner of life

Recently, according to the “Notice on Temporary Exemption of Value-added Tax and Sales Tax for Some Small and Micro Enterprises” issued by the Ministry of Finance and the State Administration of Taxation, in order to further support the development of small and micro enterprises, with the approval of the State Council, since August 1, 2013, the value-added tax will be small. A company or non-corporate unit with a monthly sales amount of no more than 20,000 yuan shall be exempted from VAT temporarily; enterprises or non-corporate units with a turnover of no more than 20,000 yuan for a business taxpayer shall be temporarily exempted. Business tax. All these reflect the state's concern and help for the survival of this huge group of small and micro enterprises. Then, how do you invest in small and micro security companies?

Status: Small and micro security companies have been forced to live in a corner

Since the Spring Festival in 2013, many security companies have experienced gradual changes in the market after the Spring Festival. In the overall environment has not significantly improved, the industry has mastered a considerable amount of discourse power of large companies to initiate the price reshuffle of dual pressure, more and more small and medium-sized security companies have been forced into the corner of survival.

In the face of further shrinking market pressure and living space, different small and micro security companies have different pressures to resist risks. As a small micro-security enterprise, a small scale does not mean that these companies are involved in a single field. If they are divided according to business models, we can roughly classify these enterprises into three categories: manufacturers, system integrators, and engineering companies. However, regardless of the method used to divide, the commonness embodied by small and micro security companies is that they are small in scale, serious in shortage of funds, prominent in the triangular debt, and difficult to brand. At the same time, we also observed that for the survival conditions of these three types of small and micro security enterprises, due to different business models, combined with the special domestic market environment, the ability of enterprises to resist risks will be very different. In terms of industry characteristics, the security industry is still a complete service chain composed of "standardized product + field service".

For security production enterprises, as in most domestic industries, there is an overcapacity environment, especially in the corporate and civil security markets, video surveillance, building intercom, parking management, smart home, and other areas, excess capacity, products The phenomenon of homogenization is even more pronounced. For system integrators and contractors in small and micro security enterprises, the days of the two types of enterprises are not much better than in the traditional real estate, corporate services, and civilian security markets. The core resources of system integrators and contractors are customer relations and technical routes with their own characteristics or a subdivided industry service market. It is the so-called “homogeneous products, without homogenized services”. Since the industry's customer resources and industry segmentation markets are the core profit sources that support them, they must firmly grasp their own customer resources, and conscientiously do a good job of their own services to relieve market competition pressure to a certain extent. On this point, it is much better than the ability of small and micro security manufacturing companies to take the initiative to defend themselves. However, these companies will also face waves of erosion from their own customers in the coming days.

Reason: Customer loss and capital chain breakage are the main reasons

If there is a final straw for the integrators and contractors of small- and micro-security systems, it must be due to the loss of related customers or the shrinking of the customer's spending power (this is determined by the customer's growth status and will also be affected by the overall The impact of the big environment, leaving aside the customer relationship as another source of development resources is the fracture of the capital chain.

The reporter consulted Huaxia Bank, China Construction Bank, Baoshang Bank and other financial institutions on the loan policies of small and micro enterprises, and learned from the exchanges with their peers that the bank’s own pressure on storage and storage is also growing, for small and micro enterprises. Loans are generally very cautious. The possibility of obtaining bank support through credit guarantees and unsecured loans is very small. This is the need for banks to prevent their own risks. On the other hand, there is no effective trust between such small companies and banks. Mechanisms, false reporting of business performance, physical assets, and other old methods have failed to pass increasingly stringent loan audits.

There is an opposite situation here. With the development of e-commerce, the information on the status of corporate transactions acquired by the e-commerce platform is more accurate in the aspect of bank-enterprise trust. Take Alibaba's micro-finance as an example. As of September 2012, the loan scale has exceeded 26 billion yuan. Because the e-commerce platform has complete corporate transaction data, the release of small short-term loans to such small and micro enterprises has turned into a lucrative business. However, such financing channels are only effective for companies engaged in trading of security products. For the production companies, engineering companies, and system integrators that we have focused on above, such financing channels are still closed.

There is a very important factor in the analysis of system integrators and engineering companies, namely customer relations and industry market segments. Even if the environment is worse, as long as the customer relationship is not lost, there is always room for survival. However, in this situation, the risks faced by manufacturing companies in small and micro security companies will be even greater. First, in the face of overcapacity and homogenization of products, it is difficult for small and micro security manufacturing companies to change due to restrictions on funds, design, and development capabilities. At the same time, the increase in manpower costs faced by small and micro security manufacturing companies, the suppression of brand names by big-name companies, the increasing accreditation of product certifications and industry access, and the impact on the traditional sales model after the rise of e-commerce platforms, each link is It is possible to become the last straw to crush yourself. The reason why this is said is that because every link mentioned above cannot be resolved by the company's own efforts, because the current environment for the entire market operation is changing, and this type of small and micro-manufactured enterprises can only use their own initiative. There are only two points that have been actively improved: continuously reducing production costs and improving manufacturing standards, and standardizing their own product certification systems in order to obtain increasingly stringent product project entry qualifications.

It is worth noting that most of the production of core chips is not controlled by domestic security manufacturing companies. It is easier to reduce the manufacturing cost. This can not help but think of compatible machines and brand machines coexist the era of compatible machines, small and micro security manufacturing companies are now facing the market environment is very similar to that year's compatible machine assembly companies. The magic weapon for the survival of compatible assembly companies is the price advantage, but facing the rise of e-commerce and the breakdown of the industry market in the entire security industry chain, the future of small and micro-manufacturers depends only on continuous internal efficiency and their own characteristics. There is room for survival, and the era of simple assembly will eventually be the same as that of compatible machines. There is no possibility of development. Brand building, differentiated products, and scale increase require continuous and substantial investment. If small and micro security manufacturing enterprises cannot effectively solve the problem of the capital chain, the capital chain fracture will first be the pressure on small and micro security manufacturing companies. The last straw.

Respond: Pay attention to operation mode and risk prevention

To solve the problem of the capital chain, as a small- and micro-security enterprise, it is necessary to do something and do something wrong, which results in the fracture of the capital chain is related to many factors, and the company should stick to it in this piece. It is not. In the operation mode and risk prevention, the following points need to be especially noted.

Change the traditional development mode of obtaining procurement price advantage through stock purchase

As we all know, the cost advantage of production companies comes from the large-scale procurement of raw materials, this way is suitable for large-scale manufacturing enterprises, for the security industry, the technology upgrade is faster and faster, is not suitable for small and micro security manufacturing companies. If small and micro security manufacturing enterprises have always adopted the cost advantage of large-scale procurement, the entire management system has been established according to this model. Under the current market environment, large companies in the industry continue to intervene in the price and the market is not clear. It should be used with caution. With SONY CCD's price cuts and the 139-chip price increase resulting in the rapid launch of new solutions and the impact on traditional solutions, for example, they have already brought huge risks to manufacturing companies.

The ideal situation for the circulation of funds in production and sales is the on-demand production and the realization of zero inventory. If the company fails to do this, it should invest more effort to unite multiple companies to jointly integrate the upstream procurement links so that the risk can be dispersed. However, in the real environment, for small and micro security companies whose cash is more important than gold, it is expected that the book wealth obtained through mass-pressing goods will not be purchased on-demand or even purchased in accordance with the order. Because, the first priority for small and micro security companies is survival, not rapid expansion.

Small and micro security companies should attach great importance to the development of sales channels

For the early security market, when it is in the seller's market, a good price of the enterprise will often make the scale of the company expand rapidly, users are also very easy to accept your product, but the current situation is changing, homogenized products, intense In the competitive environment, a little bit of the price advantage of enterprises has become less important. If we continue to focus on the reduction of manufacturing costs and lower prices, we will make business operations fall into over-reliance on prices, neglect of user services, network construction and resource integration. Ultimately, prices will be weak at the lower and lower levels of the industry. If small and micro security companies want to survive the harsh environment, they should invest considerable energy in the establishment of product sales channels.

Timely return of funds

The fracture consequences of the capital chain are serious. Small and micro enterprises must ensure the safety of transactions and it is very important to return funds in time. Many people in the industry said that the scale of the company is more important. Often with the scale of the first to do so in order to get through the brand's success in the future to get the idea. However, it should be noted that is the brand that we are trying to create really have influence?

As the security industry is unique, the implementation of a security project, the product is only one of the links, also involves customer relations, construction and after-sales service. For product providers, there is a layer between them and real users: that is, the service provider of the project. For the user, the brand experienced by the user includes two layers of meaning “product + service”. In most cases, the construction service is not performed by the product provider, and the brand influence is not actually visible to the user ( In the supply and demand relationship of the product homogeneity is very serious). If it is not a particularly strong brand, the user’s brand loyalty to your product is almost zero, and a considerable part of the brand service users experience is shaped by the project's executors. Manufacturers should abandon the idea of ​​widening the repayment period in exchange for scale expansion. The first thing that small and micro security companies must always remember is to survive. Many small and micro security companies have put too little money on so-called important customers or channels. They have not fully taken into account the risk of payment, and once a major customer's payment has returned to serious problems, they immediately hindered the development of the future. A good pace of development is immediately disrupted and may even lead to the closure of the company.

Take the path of differentiation

Seriously observe the domestic product design, packaging, management and sales model, and the proportion of small and micro security companies in these areas is quite high. This aspect is related to the insufficiency of domestic intellectual property protection; on the other hand, it is also related to the fuzzy positioning of the company itself. If the products of small and micro security companies do not have differentiated design and positioning, they will always be an OEM. Taking the apparel industry as an example, the apparel industry is an industry that just needs to flourish and has an active market. However, because it does not have its own differentiated services and technical capabilities, it eventually becomes the foundry of others, and a large number of apparel manufacturing enterprises collectively in the 1990s. collapse. Small and small security companies are not terribly small. As long as they are small and beautiful, they may be small and large in the future. No matter how you make your own service characteristics at any time and attach great importance to the security of the capital chain is the way to grow in the future.