2 the meaning of supply chain and the role of core enterprises in the supply chain
2. 1 Similarities and differences between industrial chain and supply chain
Industrial chain refers to the network structure composed of all related links and organizational carriers involved in the whole process of "production-circulation-consumption" of a product. It is an inevitable product of the growth and development of an industry, which naturally forms with the formation of the industry and will automatically disappear with the demise of the industry. Take the industrial chain of agricultural products as an example, its main chain consists of pre-production, mid-production and post-production processing, circulation and consumption, and each link involves its own related sub-links and different organizational carriers. For example, the prenatal link includes the supply of production materials such as seeds and feed (involving seed and feed suppliers); Production links include field management and agricultural materials supply (involving farmers or production enterprises and agricultural materials suppliers); Postpartum processing includes product grading, packaging, processing and storage (involving processing enterprises); Circulation links include storage and transportation, product wholesale and retail (involving storage and transportation merchants, wholesalers and retailers).
In foreign countries, this industrial chain is figuratively compared to "feed-food", and it is usually called "field head-dining table" in China. It can be seen that the industrial chain of agricultural products exists objectively, no matter how different the production and marketing systems are at home or abroad.
Supply chain is the product of the development of modern logistics management theory and practice, a brand-new modern management concept developed with the advent of economic globalization and knowledge economy era, and has been widely used in manufacturing industry. The American Supply Chain Association has this explanation for the concept of supply chain: "Supply chain-a term widely used in the world at present, including all efforts related to the production and delivery of final products and services from suppliers to customers." In other words, the business process from the procurement, transportation, processing, manufacturing and distribution of raw materials to the final delivery to consumers is regarded as an interlocking "chain". Due to the relationship between demand and supply between adjacent node enterprises, when all adjacent enterprises are connected in turn, a supply chain is formed. In this chain, logistics, information flow and capital flow in two directions between different links, so the supply chain is dynamic. A typical supply chain includes many links, including suppliers of raw materials/parts, manufacturers, wholesalers/distributors, retailers and final consumers. Each link in the supply chain performs different responsibilities and interacts with other links. In fact, a manufacturer may buy raw materials from several suppliers and then supply them to several distributors. Therefore, most supply chains are actually a network structure, or more accurately, a supply network or network chain. Supply chain is not only a logistics chain, an information chain and a capital chain connecting suppliers and consumers, but also a value-added chain. Materials in the supply chain increase in value due to processing, packaging and transportation, which brings benefits to related enterprises. However, the node enterprises in the supply chain must operate synchronously and harmoniously, so that all enterprises in the chain can benefit.
On the surface, supply chain and industrial chain are very similar. The concept of supply chain has gradually developed from attaching great importance to the holistic view of supply chain in the early days to emphasizing the strategic partnership in all aspects of supply chain. It should be said that industrial chain is a material basis of supply chain, that is, supply chain is aimed at a certain industrial chain. Whether the supply chain can be formed or operated effectively depends on whether each participant in the supply chain can establish a stable strategic partnership. If a stable strategic alliance is not established, the industrial chain will still exist, the supply chain will be in a broken state, and all enterprises in the chain will not cooperate with each other and go their own way. At this time, even if an enterprise operates efficiently, the efficiency of the whole supply chain is low from a systematic point of view.
It can be seen that the purpose of supply chain is to maximize the overall benefit of supply chain. For any supply chain, there is only one source of income, that is, the cost paid by the final consumer for the final product, but all logistics, information flow and capital flow in the chain will generate costs, and their management is the key to the success of the supply chain. Supply chain management (SCM) is to plan, coordinate and control the logistics, information flow and capital flow among the participants in the whole supply chain. Through close cooperation between trading partners, we can provide customers with the greatest value and the best service at the lowest cost, thus improving the operational efficiency and economic benefits of the whole supply chain, and improving the economic benefits of all trading partners in the supply chain through a certain benefit distribution mechanism. The core of supply chain management is "order management", that is, the operation of the whole supply chain is guided by consumer demand. Therefore, smooth information flow is the basis of supply chain management.
2.2 the role of core enterprises in the supply chain
The node enterprises in the supply chain all have independent legal person status, and there is no administrative affiliation between them. They all have different interests and ideas, so there must be conflicts of interest between them. The essence of supply chain management is to bridge the contradictions and conflicts between enterprises, coordinate the relationship between the individual interests of participants and the collective interests of the supply chain, and make the trading partners in the chain develop from the simple competitive relationship to the "competition-cooperation-coordination" relationship. In this relationship, coordination and cooperation are dominant and competition is secondary. In other words, the interests of all parties are coordinated, followed by competition, and long-term interests are paramount. This kind of coordination and cooperation is difficult because it is necessary to realize benefits and bear risks. In other words, this kind of coordination requires cost, and the supply chain management model is feasible only if the cost of coordination is less than the benefits brought by coordination. When many enterprises participate in the supply chain, a completely equal coordination mechanism may be the most equal, but it may not be the most effective or even feasible, because it may cause high transaction costs and make the supply chain impossible to realize.
Practice shows that in the process of building a supply chain, there is always an enterprise (which can be a manufacturer, supplier or retailer) as the initiator and becomes the core of the supply chain. Therefore, it can be said that the supply chain is built around the core enterprises, and it is a network chain structure formed by the positive relationship between the core enterprises and suppliers, suppliers of suppliers and even everything, and the reverse relationship between the core enterprises and distributors, distributors of distributors and everything. If the supply chain is regarded as an enterprise alliance, the core enterprise is the leader of the whole supply chain. This structure is conducive to reaching cooperation agreements between enterprises, reducing transaction costs and improving the operation efficiency of supply chain. Of course, this leading position of core enterprises may also harm the interests of other members and produce unequal cooperation agreements. However, it should be noted that there are generally multiple supply chains in competitive industries, and there is a pure competitive relationship between the supply chains. The overall inefficient supply chain will face the danger of being eliminated by the market. Therefore, the core enterprises in any supply chain must seriously consider the interests of other members in the chain and join hands with them to defeat the real competitors-other supply chains. Therefore, coordination and cooperation are the key to supply chain.
The quality of supply chain operation and the competitiveness of the whole supply chain depend on the coordination ability of core enterprises in the supply chain to a great extent. The role of core enterprises is highlighted in the following two aspects: first, core enterprises are the information exchange center of supply chain. In Figure 2, both the demand information from downstream (distributor) and the supply information from upstream (supplier) will be summarized to the core enterprise. After processing, the core enterprise generates all kinds of information, and then transmits it to the relevant nodes of the supply chain, so the core enterprise becomes the information exchange center in the supply chain. Because the operation effect of supply chain depends largely on the quality of information exchange on the network chain, in order to achieve the purpose of smooth logistics and product appreciation through information sharing, the quality of information transmission in supply chain must be improved. In this regard, core enterprises are very important. Second, the core enterprise is the "dispatching center" of logistics distribution in the supply chain. As can be seen from Figure 2, the supply logistics flows from each supplier to the core enterprise, and the sales logistics flows from the core enterprise to each user, forming a logistics with the core enterprise as the distribution center. Here, the core enterprises play the role of "scheduling" logistics distribution, ensuring that each node can get the right variety and quantity of products at the right time, which will neither cause shortage nor backlog, and minimize the total cost of the supply chain.
If the core enterprises in the supply chain cannot play a leading role in information flow and logistics, not only enterprises, but also the whole supply chain will be affected. To be competent in the coordination of the above two aspects, the core enterprises must have certain qualities. First of all, core enterprises should have a certain scale and have a certain influence in this industry. Let other enterprises think that it is profitable to join this supply chain, so that the supply chain can continue to extend and develop. Secondly, core enterprises should have strong product development capabilities. Being able to continuously introduce new varieties and guide customers to generate new consumption hotspots, that is, always having the ability to continue to develop in the market, so as not to lead to the collapse of the whole line because a product is eliminated by the market. Third, core enterprises should have high commercial reputation. This is a necessary condition for establishing a long-term stable cooperative relationship.
3 the status quo of agricultural supply chain in China
3. 1 Status of Agricultural Products Supply Chain in China
At present, the biggest difference between China's agricultural product supply chain and industrial product supply chain lies in the circulation link. Due to the variety of agricultural products, the quality characteristics of each variety are quite different, and their circulation forms are also different. Figure 3 shows the main circulation links of fresh agricultural products such as vegetables, fruits, eggs, aquatic products and meat that directly meet the needs of consumers.
Wholesale market is a key link in the main channel of agricultural products circulation, which brings together the products of many producers through various supply channels and then sends them to consumers through various sales channels. Only a small amount of agricultural products bypass the wholesale market and reach consumers by direct sales. However, at present, the sales mode of agricultural products wholesale market is mainly the spot transaction of "immediate delivery of goods and money", which is the most primitive circulation form regardless of business flow or logistics.
From the perspective of supply chain management, the industrial chain of agricultural products can be divided into two parts, one is the "production-circulation" link, that is, from farmers to wholesale markets; The second is the "circulation-consumption" link, that is, from the wholesale market to consumers. In these two independent short chains, there may be a relationship of "competition-cooperation-coordination", but at the intersection of the two short chains, that is, the wholesale market, this spot trading mechanism at that time decided that there could only be pure competition, without cooperation and coordination, and only immediate interests could be pursued, but long-term interests could not be considered. Therefore, under the circulation system with the wholesale market as the core, the supply chain of agricultural products is bound to be broken, or only some local short chains can be formed, and the management of agricultural products supply chain is out of the question.
A broken supply chain is bound to be an inefficient supply chain, which leads to the circulation of agricultural products in China being basically at a low level of long time, high consumption, low efficiency and poor efficiency, and it is difficult to meet the needs of rapid social and economic development. The fundamental reason is that the wholesale market blocks the information flow in the supply chain of agricultural products, including both the demand information flow from consumers to suppliers and the supply information flow from suppliers to consumers. Judging from the operation mechanism of most domestic wholesale markets, these two information chains are blocked, and the upstream and downstream information can not reach each other smoothly, or even seriously distorted.
Due to the high cost of information collection in the wholesale market, the information chain is blocked, resulting in information asymmetry. The influence of this information asymmetry is also manifested in two aspects. On the one hand, for farmers, due to the uncertainty of demand information, the wholesale market price fluctuates greatly, which is not conducive to the balance between supply and demand of agricultural products and increases the market risk of farmers. On the other hand, for consumers, due to the uncertainty of supply information, consumers lose trust in product quality. Spot trading makes buyers lack sufficient information about product quality, which will lead to "market failure" and "adverse selection" caused by George Acklau's information asymmetry, that is, low-quality products will drive high-quality products out of the market. At present, high-quality agricultural and sideline products such as branded agricultural and sideline products and green organic foods appearing in supermarkets in large and medium-sized cities are hard to see in wholesale markets. The economic reason for the unstable quality and lack of reliable security of some agricultural products (food) in China is the poor supply chain information. The decentralized state of agricultural production has brought great difficulties to the government's food safety supervision, and the supervision cost is too high.
It can be seen that the blockage of the information chain in the wholesale market not only makes the circulation of agricultural products in China in a disorderly state, the market mechanism can not fully play its role, and it is difficult for the government to guide and supervise them completely, but also directly leads to the poor connection of the logistics chain of agricultural products. As a result, the logistics of agricultural products from the place of supply to the place of consumption is opaque, the circulation channels are not smooth and the logistics is slow. The high cost of agricultural products in storage, transportation, processing and sales makes China's agricultural products in a weak position in the international market price competition.
3.2 The difference between agricultural industrialization, integration and agricultural product supply chain
Agricultural industrialization is produced in the process of contradiction between scattered farmers' small production and big market. Its purpose is to realize the connection between farmers and the market through industrialized operation, and the main means of realization is the integration of trade, industry and agriculture. The so-called integration of trade, industry and agriculture means integrating agricultural production, product processing and product sales according to the technical links of their production and operation, implementing a management system of one-stop production, processing and sales, and implementing a distribution mechanism of "sharing interests and risks" on this basis. On the surface, this mechanism is very similar to the idea of supply chain management, but there are essential differences between them. They have different starting points and different goals. The starting point of agricultural industrialization and integrated management is agricultural production, in order to solve the contradiction between scattered small production and large market of farmers, and to improve agricultural efficiency and increase farmers' income. The means adopted are diversified, which can not only achieve close "vertical integration" through property rights control, but also form a semi-close integrated organization through contracts and contract forms, and even form a loose integrated structure through market purchase and sale. The idea of supply chain management is to look at the problem from the demand, solve the contradiction between changing demand and increasingly fierce market competition, and improve the overall efficiency of the whole supply chain. The means adopted is to establish a long-term and stable cooperative relationship through long-term contracts and long-term contracts. We can also call it "virtual integration". Its advantage is that it can not only get the benefits of reducing transaction costs brought by integration, but also avoid the disadvantages of high management costs brought by vertical integration.
From these differences, we can easily see that there are still some limitations in agricultural industrialization at present. First of all, due to the limitation of the goal of agricultural integration, the end point of integration can be the wholesale market. Under the current circumstances, the actual effect of this integration is limited, because it is a short chain and does not reach the final consumers. If we can further extend downstream and form a complete supply chain of agricultural products, consumers, farmers and other members of the industrial chain will further benefit. Secondly, at present, the idea of supply chain management has not been actively applied in integrated operation, which exposes many problems, the most prominent of which is that the supply chain is broken and disconnected because of the pursuit of maximizing their own interests and the lack of appropriate interest connection methods in the production, processing and sales of agricultural products. Of course, the process of integration of workers and peasants in international trade has effectively organized farmers' scattered agricultural production and laid a good material foundation for further implementation of agricultural product supply chain management.
4. Cultivate core enterprises and promote the development of China's agricultural product supply chain.
At present, the circulation system of agricultural products with the wholesale market as the core occupies a dominant position in China. It should be said that the emergence of agricultural products wholesale market is a great achievement of China's circulation system reform. Its rise and development not only accelerated the process of agricultural marketization in China, but also played an important role in promoting the reform of the whole economic system. However, this system also has some inherent shortcomings, because the wholesale market blocks the information chain. There may be many ways to solve this problem, and the key to system selection is transaction cost, including information collection cost. For different kinds of agricultural products, transaction cost is not exactly the same. A more effective way is to establish the management system of agricultural product supply chain by actively cultivating core enterprises, and replace the core position of wholesale market in agricultural product circulation with core enterprises in agricultural product supply chain.
The core enterprises in the agricultural product supply chain can be agricultural product processing enterprises, purchase and sale enterprises or retail enterprises. No matter what type of core enterprise, its main functions are as follows: (1) By coordinating the information flow in the supply chain, the transaction cost in the circulation of agricultural products can be reduced. (2) Through the coordinated management of logistics, the losses in the circulation of agricultural products can be reduced. (3) Agricultural products are always in a transparent and controllable state from the field to the dining table, and the product quality is effectively guaranteed. (4) Through brand management of agricultural products, core enterprises can establish product quality reputation among consumers and further expand the consumer market. (5) Make the market demand information of agricultural products reach the relevant nodes in the supply chain accurately and timely, and make agricultural production more planned, thus reducing farmers' market risks and increasing farmers' income. (6) It provides a material basis for the development of "order agriculture".
In the United States, the characteristics of the agricultural product market system are: the grain futures market is developed, and the direct sales of fruits and vegetables account for more than 80%. Direct selling of agricultural products means that producers or producers' groups classify and package products at the place of origin, and then send them directly to large supermarkets, retail chain stores or distribution centers. This agricultural product circulation mode with direct sales as the main channel is closely related to the background of American economic and technological development. In East Asia, such as Japan, South Korea and Taiwan Province Province of China, agricultural products market system with wholesale market as the main channel and auction system as the feature has been established. These countries and regions are characterized by a large population, small agricultural production scale and family as the unit. The main grain circulation is controlled and managed by the government, and fresh products such as vegetables, fruits, livestock products and aquatic products are freely circulated. Wholesale market is the main channel for the circulation of fresh products. In Japan, 60% of fruits and vegetables are sold in the wholesale market, and the circulation of livestock products, poultry, eggs and milk is controlled by the monopoly capital of agricultural products processing industry, with a high degree of processing.
China's agricultural production structure is far from that of the United States, and it is close to Japan, South Korea and other countries, all of which belong to scattered small-scale agricultural production. So some experience can be used for reference. Used for the circulation of livestock products, poultry, eggs, milk, etc. By cultivating core enterprises, the corresponding supply chain of agricultural products can be established, thus improving the circulation efficiency of agricultural products. In fact, some large domestic agricultural and sideline products processing enterprises have begun to establish their own supply chain systems, such as the rise of Yili, Shuanghui and other enterprises, marking the formation of the corresponding agricultural product supply chain. However, these enterprises should further strengthen the awareness of supply chain management and improve the operational efficiency of supply chain. For fruits and vegetables, auction wholesale is an effective way. An auctioneer can assume the responsibility of connecting the information chain, be responsible for the quality inspection and grading of goods, and be responsible for finding the price. Of course, there is also the issue of transaction costs. Auction can reduce transaction costs, but it is impossible to make transaction costs zero. When the management cost and transaction cost of supply chain management mode are less than those of auction mode, supply chain management is still a better choice.