How can seed companies step onto the big stage of the entire industry chain?
Aizhong.com + Syngenta:
Building a full-category agricultural e-commerce platform
On July 8, Aizhong.com, a professional third-party agricultural materials e-commerce platform in China, signed an agreement in Beijing with Syngenta, a Swiss giant in the agricultural technology field, becoming Syngenta's sole online e-commerce partner in the mainland. This means that after Aizhong.com officially launches, farmers will be able to buy genuine Syngenta seed treatment agents without leaving home.
Wang Weiwen, CEO of Beijing Aizhong Network Technology Co., Ltd., said that the cooperation between Syngenta and Aizhong.com is a strong alliance, with strong complementarity between the two sides. Syngenta's entry will make Aizhong.com's agricultural materials varieties more abundant, and Aizhong.com will also help Syngenta develop online activities to better provide services to customers.
“Like Syngenta, the number of leading agricultural materials enterprises joining the Aizhong.com platform is gradually increasing.” Wang Weiwen, who has long worked in the e-commerce industry, believes that this marks that “Internet + agricultural materials” has moved from the stage of concept and model discussion into the stage of substantive implementation. He introduced that the circulation methods in China's agricultural materials field have always been relatively backward. With the implementation of the land transfer policy, using Internet big data to transform agricultural materials circulation methods has become a topic seriously considered within the industry. Most agricultural materials enterprises are aware that the Internet is the trend, and in this development trend, whoever takes action first can seize the initiative in talent accumulation, platform application, model innovation, and experience accumulation.
Li Yi, Seed Treatment Director of Syngenta China, said that by expanding online activities, we can better meet customer needs and provide timely and comprehensive services to seed companies and farmers.
What benefits can this strong alliance bring to hundreds of millions of Chinese farmers?
Wang Weiwen believes that the ultimate beneficiaries of the cooperation between the two sides are the vast number of growers. He revealed that Aizhong.com is committed to opening up the information flow of the agricultural materials industry and is currently building a trading, interaction, and service platform that integrates all links of the agricultural materials industry. Its business scope starts from the source of agricultural materials——seeds, and gradually expands to pesticides, fertilizers, agricultural machinery, cultivation services, contract farming, agricultural credit, agricultural insurance, and other fields. Through Aizhong.com, farmers can buy genuine products in manufacturer-direct stores just like shopping on Taobao or Tmall, and obtain professional full-process technical guidance, avoiding losses caused by buying fake seeds, fake pesticides, fake fertilizers, or incorrect usage methods.
It is reported that Aizhong.com is a professional third-party information and e-commerce platform in the agricultural materials field jointly invested and established by 11 domestic backbone seed enterprises such as Longping High-Tech, Beidahuang Kenfeng, and China Seed Group, as well as the Modern Seed Industry Development Fund. At present, crop seed products from 14 seed companies including Anhui Longping, Kenfeng Seed Industry, China Seed, Golden Nonghua, and Fengle Seed Industry have joined; while Syngenta is a global agricultural technology giant headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, with business in 90 countries and regions around the world. Through world-class technology, a global business network, and commitment to customers, it actively promotes improved crop productivity, environmental protection, and better health levels and quality of life.
Shengfeng Seed Industry + Zhongchou Tianxia + Hongbian Agriculture:
One body with two wings connecting upstream and downstream
As the most iconic product of the information age, the Internet is subtly influencing every field, from finance, industry, transportation, and people's livelihood to education, medical care, and government affairs, all included, and agriculture is the same.
“In the second half of 2014, in order to adapt to development trends and user needs, combined with Internet thinking and tools, the company strategically transformed into a customized service provider for the entire seed industry chain, realizing customized seed industry, striving to become the industry's first ‘Internet + seed enterprise’, and building itself into China's most promising seed company.” Gao Xinyong, President of Shandong Shengfeng Seed Technology Co., Ltd., told reporters.
Shandong Shengfeng Seed Industry has gone through thirteen years of ups and downs, developing step by step to today, and has become a seed company with six wholly owned subsidiaries including Shandong Shengfeng Seed Technology Co., Ltd., Shandong Hongbian Agricultural Technology Co., Ltd., and Beijing Shengfeng Biological High-Tech Co., Ltd. From a small company originally unknown even in Shandong Province, it has developed into a leading enterprise in the oilseed seed sector within the industry's segmented field, and in 2013 was rated by the China Seed Association as a credit backbone enterprise of China's seed industry.
“Internet +” is a process in which the Internet integrates traditional business and transforms it into a new business model with Internet attributes. On the basis of the Internet, Shandong Shengfeng Seed Industry has become an Internet comprehensive service platform whose business covers the entire industry chain, including plant seed resource platform trading, crop seed variety customization, integration of breeding, propagation, and promotion, and product customization. “One body with two wings” is the strategic plan of Shandong Shengfeng Seed Industry, with its subsidiary Shandong Shengfeng Seed Technology Co., Ltd. as the main body pursuing the strategy of being a world-class oilseed seed supplier, while paired with Beijing Zhongchou Tianxia Technology Co., Ltd. to build a global plant germplasm resource trading platform and provide variety customization services, and Shandong Hongbian Agricultural Technology Co., Ltd. to build customized agricultural product services as the two wings. With terminal consumption determining upstream research and development, and market demand driving production and planting, variety breeding and crop planting proceed in parallel without conflict, and the organic combination of the two fully opens up the upstream and downstream of the industry chain.
“This business model has formed two levels of core competitiveness with technical barriers.” Gao Xinyong said, “At present, the plant germplasm resource trading platform and variety customization have more than 10,000 registered users, 51 matched transactions, and a transaction volume of 2.37 million yuan. Customized agricultural products have generated order transaction volume of 50 million yuan. Both businesses are developing rapidly.”
Shengfeng's original breeding, propagation, and promotion business already occupies a leading position in the oilseed seed industry. The extension at the two levels has produced organic integration of the overall business of Shandong Shengfeng Seed Industry Group, with an obvious superimposed effect, and its development potential in the industry is increasingly prominent. “The bird that cannot be burned to death is the phoenix.” In a market environment where competition among seed enterprises is becoming increasingly fierce, Shengfeng Seed Industry's one-body-two-wings strategy may become a solid step for the enterprise's nirvana in the Internet era.