Technological innovation, new functional products... How to revive the pesticide market?

We firmly believe that the annual strategic development process of agricultural materials enterprises must be serious, high-level, and multi-level, because the first half of 2023 is really not good, so they want to upgrade the corporate strategy in 2024, and take back what was lost this year next year. So how to do a good job of strategic upgrading in 2024?

How tough is the pesticide market this year?

What happened to the pesticide market in the first half of 2023 that led to a dead market?

The market is colder than an iceberg! The price cliff, inventory backlog, the market does not move, the terminal is weak.

Enterprises pay real money to do production, pay sincerely to do products, pay the truth to do channels, in the end, the products produced have become inventory, no one pays for planned new products, and the channels of paying the truth do not recognize in addition to low prices.

Poor performance! Sales may not be reported, profit margins may not be seen, new products may not be pushed, half a year summary review, began not to talk about performance talk about promotion, do not talk about sales talk about service.

But I would like to ask, if next year's performance is good, you still have technology, service content? Technology promotion and service are not the "talisman" when performance declines, but should be the "guard" of performance growth.

The product is like the plateau boiling water, the surface boiling, actually no 100℃! This year's most popular product is chlorobenzamide, in addition to "chlorobenzamide" as a search keyword, which company's product brand was remembered? False prosperity.

Individuals can not find a sense of achievement, everywhere is a sense of frustration. There is no sense of achievement in performance, product promotion and technical services everywhere hit a wall, and users do not need to be given. Whether it is senior leaders, middle-level cadres, product managers, business managers, or even new people who have just entered the industry, they are lost in the chaos of the pesticide industry in 2023. Some people say that because front-line personnel do not understand agriculture, do not love rural areas, do not technology, do not go to public relations, no practical operation, indeed, as agricultural related personnel we are not to go to "ground gas", but should bring their own "land gas", especially senior leaders, middle-level cadres.

Pesticide companies lose their 'fancy' look

The current pesticide enterprises, especially the head "big factories", should recognize the industry, find out the track, determine the strategy, and firmly implement.

This year's pesticide market is a "true mirror", which hides the "gorgeous makeup" of all enterprises during the epidemic and reveals the original shape.

"Beauty filter" is actually more than these three years, starting from the new pesticide policy in 2018, until 2022, superimposing a five-year boom period for the pesticide industry. Pesticide enterprises in the central and eastern parts of the North (Northeast) in the west (northwest) to expand product varieties, production licenses under the disorderly increase of products (commissioned processing into product agent sales), by 2023, there is a certificate more than 20 enterprises distribution, derived from the phenomenon of hundreds of product regulations.

This is the result of "product centralization" of pesticide enterprises. What is product centralization?

The sole purpose of all men in business is to make a profit, and to make a profit for as long as possible. Business is about making money, the more the better. In the past, almost all companies used the same set of overall strategies to achieve this goal, which can be called "product centralization."

Positioning strategy, pricing strategy, differentiation, etc., are launched around the product, because product centralization is simple and easy, production increases, market share increases, and profits naturally grow. But there are cracks in the cornerstone of "product centralization", especially pesticide products in 2023, which are quite obvious:

Due to technological progress and the speed at which new technologies are produced and copied, the product life cycle under traditional marketing is shortened;

The loss of geographical advantages caused by Internet informatization and the end of the era of making money by poor information;

Enhance the power of customers and enhance the right to speak.

Product-centered pesticide companies will become more and more vulnerable, more obvious this year, it is difficult to resist competition, especially the price competition of glyphosate, phosphine glyphosate and other products, into the white heat.

The strategic positioning of pesticide enterprises needs to be rethought

Therefore, the author believes that in the process of strategic positioning, the following changes need to be made:

The service focus of pesticide preparation enterprises has changed from dealers to retail stores and large growers.

The shift of marketing focus from "product is king" to "crop solution";

The focus of publicity has changed from "difference selling points" to "application scenarios".

There is such a phenomenon in China's agricultural plant protection market: there are more short-lived products, and fewer long-lasting products.

A compound has a good effect on the prevention and control of certain diseases and pests, and the company has launched a product, which will be surplus in at most 1 year and fall into the price quagmire.

Patented compounds have just passed the patent period, have not yet shared the dividend on saturation, the price is low enough to make you doubt life.

You plan a product portfolio, or disease prevention, or insecticide, or weed control, market recognition, excellent results. In the second year, there are a variety of similar or even the same combinations on the market, and the promotion is larger than you, the price is lower than you, the packaging design is better than you, and the publicity investment is higher than you. As a result, the market is in turmoil.

Why is this? If we look at other industries, the forest of vitality that has emerged in the FMCG (such as coffee, beverages) industry has not been replicated so quickly. Why is that? To understand this, it is necessary to understand, today, is the pesticide market an incremental market or a stock market? The two types adopt different strategies and have different tactical objectives.

Incremental market, find demand for more products, and develop customers. This seems to have become "a beautiful legend", under the figure of 1.8 billion mu of arable land, there is no net increment, only structural increment.

The stock market, deep cultivation of pain points around users, accurate positioning of product structure, which is the normal of the future pesticide market. Chlorfenamide seems to be incremental, in fact, it is only an incremental product, rather than an incremental market, which is obtained after seizing other competing products (such as methylamectin benzoate). Why is the market of amamectin benzoate easy to be seized, and the market of mancozeb is not easy to be seized by competing products? Aside from the difference of insecticide and sterilization, the performance of category representatives is the biggest cause - amamectin benzoate almost no representative products, and Dashan as the category leader of mancozeb has been deeply cultivated users, is the user in the choice of Dashan. Of course, the growth of the future is also in the choice of users, rather than channel profits.

Therefore, the pesticide industry we are in, in the domestic preparation end, should be the overall "stock market", local, structural "incremental market".

How can pesticide enterprises do scientific marketing?

In August, the seminar of pesticide companies began, and the theme of this year's discussion has two keywords: strategy and growth. This involves how to conduct scientific marketing, execute the strategy at the market end, and achieve growth.

How can pesticide enterprises do scientific marketing? For pesticide enterprises, there is an urgent need to change the one-sided understanding of marketing in the past, arm themselves with scientific marketing concepts and methods, and pay attention to long-term interests, rather than quick success.

First of all, enterprises must establish a customer-centric marketing concept; Second, companies need insight into customer psychology and behavior; Finally, enterprises need to master and apply the system and method of scientific marketing.

The author combs out the following 7 discussion dimensions that bring growth to enterprises for your reference:

Analyze users to find out who your customers are. 1.8 billion mu of arable land is not your target market, 19.5 million mu of strawberries is not your target market, Anhui Changfeng 210 thousand mu of strawberries is your market; The 300 million farmers engaged in farming (900 million rural hukou) are not your customers, and the farmers who need to control resistant rice borer are your customers who accept the cost of 20 yuan (or 15 yuan) per acre. In fact, it is market segmentation, user segmentation, all of which are equal to nothing. Who are your target users, to whom do you plan to sell and use your products? Have a good discussion.

Use policy changes to find opportunities for growth. The planting Management Department of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Areas has asked for opinions on label management, and the new policy of Hainan has been introduced and implemented since October 1, which is bound to have an impact on enterprises, channels and users. How to seize the opportunity? Have a good discussion.

Gain growth in structural change. This aspect mainly includes product structure, crop structure and channel structure. Although the current pesticide market has compound growth, it is generally stable and belongs to the stock market, which needs to find growth opportunities from the adjustment and upgrading of product structure. This year's chlorobenamide and cyclosulfonone need to find opportunities from crop structure adjustment - plateau summer vegetables in Gansu, watermelon transfers from Ningxia to Gansu, and the planting of high-end grapes such as Queen Nina increases. The adjustment of channel structure under the new policy and new trend has begun, and dealers with technical service capabilities that can adapt to future development must be high-quality resources, and the positioning is high-end, mid-end or low-end, which needs to be discussed well.

Find technological innovations for growth. Application technology innovation (special formula for flight prevention), product application expansion (avermectin prevention and treatment of Fushou snails), preparation innovation (microcapsule suspension), looking for growth opportunities in these new areas, but also will erode the original market, to quickly transform. What technological innovations do you have in the future? It needs to be discussed.

Seize the consumption upgrade to achieve growth. Seize the pain points of large growers, the demand for new functional products (biostimulants, plant growth regulators) - large growers do not necessarily care about the price of your products, but about whether you can solve the problem (25 yuan/mu of "autumn harvest" corn solution is still accepted), improving the quality of agricultural products of stimulants and plant conditioning will also become the future growth point. Are you laying out your products, developing customers, and finding users around these needs? It needs to be discussed.

Upgrade pesticide marketing model to gain growth. Establish a digital marketing system and build a technical service marketing team. Do not let large growers fill in the sign-up form, do not manually enter user information, in the digital era, pesticide companies must use digital tools to improve efficiency, accumulate data, to achieve digital publicity, marketing data. Should we invest in digitization, should we empower new marketing, should we improve the technical service capabilities of all staff? It needs to be discussed.

Reform the organizational structure to stimulate vitality and growth. It's an internal factor. How to regain entrepreneurial spirit from "lying to win" to "steady win" from top to bottom? Should we build an organizational structure that responds to the new policy and is suitable for future development, and reform into a marketing system with "user × crop" as the core? We need to discuss it.

At the same time, the marketing strategy model needs to be further discussed to form the following operational plan support:

Product combat plan - to "product centralization" of course does not not pay attention to the product, the product is the foundation, to do on the product on the "user x crop" level of thinking.

The key role of China's pesticide market channels is recognized, but the internal has also changed, the role of retail stores is still obvious, but the direct planting of large dealers has become a rising force that can not be ignored, enterprises need to do a good job of channel layout.

Crop operation plan - although the users of pesticide products are social service organizations, large growers or farmers, the final show is in the crop, more and more enterprises began to pay attention to crops, understand crops, locate crops, service crops, the future "user x crop" is the company's work site.

Talent operation plan - the talent here is not a "product-centered" talent, not a "dealer-driven" talent, nor a business talent that presses goods, stores goods, and collects money, but a compound talent that understands products, solves channels, will technology, and learns crops, which needs to be cultivated within the enterprise.

A tough market in 2023? This is just the beginning! A new round of policy and market adjustment has arrived, and pesticide enterprises need to adjust their strategies before starting!