Three Meituan Grocery E-Commerce Divisions Establish Unified Platform
Three business divisions of Beijing-based e-commerce firm Meituan – including grocery platforms Youxuan and Maicai, and distribution arm Kuailv – have together set up a unified functional center, according to a report on Thursday by domestic media outlet LatePost. The combined platform, which covers workforce management, finance and public relations, can strengthen communication and coordination among the three divisions, so as to reduce unnecessary waste of resources and costs.
Liu Dongwei, the employee in charge of human resources for Meituan Youxuan, is responsible for the workforce of these three departments. A committee was set up to manage the finance, while Ren Kui, Vice President of Meituan, is in charge of public relations.
Meituan Kuailv and other grocery shopping businesses, which are in the exploratory period, have shrank in 2021 and continued to reduce costs this year. In January, Kuailv shut down services in six cities, including Shijiazhuang, the starting point of the business. At the beginning of this year, Meituan‘s grocery shopping business suspended expansion plans in Suzhou and reduced the scale of the front warehouse. Meituan Youxuan is still a business that the company firmly invests in. The company required the division to reach “high-quality growth” in 2022.
In February, Meituan tried to integrate warehouses of these three divisions and has already carried out some tests. A source from Meituan explained that the internal infrastructure will be integrated while the operations remain independent, which is “similar to a different airline in an airport.” The benefit of this integration is that the three divisions can share some functions of the warehouse, thus improving efficiency and reducing costs.
On January 29, 2022, Meituan announced that Chen Liang, Senior Vice President, would gradually retreat from the business line and assist CEO Wang Xing in strategic and organizational management research. The above three divisions, which were originally managed by Chen Liang, fell under the guise of Guo Wanhuai, Vice President of Meituan.
Since then, rumors about the follow-up adjustments of these three divisions have circulated internally. A source from Meituan said that the three divisions will be integrated at the business level.
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LatePost learned that in late February, after internal discussions, Meituan planned that the business scope of these three divisions would not overlap in the short term. All of them were to receive long-term investment from the firm, while maintaining independent development. Some businesses with common features, such as human resources, finance and public affairs, could adapt similar management mechanisms. However, full business integration reportedly seems impractical.
