Han Depeng, CEO of Gome Online, resigned after three years of hard work supporting Gome's e-commerce, marking the departure of another core executive of Gome Online, following the founder of Coolpad Network, Wang Yequan. As the founder of Gome's e-commerce business, Han Depeng's departure may have a significant impact on Gome's e-commerce, which has been hovering in the second and third tier. In addition, the frequent turnover of senior management personnel has added more variables to the breakthrough of Gome's e-commerce business

Post resignation signal

On May 6th, Gome Online confirmed to the public that CEO Han Depeng has resigned. At this time, the integration of Gome Online has been completed for less than half a year.

The official explanation from Gome Online stated that the fast-paced work seriously consumed their health, so they voluntarily resigned. His job is temporarily taken over by Mou Guixian, Senior Vice President of Gome Group and Chairman of Gome Online.

Han Depeng confirmed to reporters over the phone that he had indeed submitted his resignation and stated that he had not officially left Gome, but was on vacation. I want to take a break from the holidays I've saved over the past few years

An industry insider familiar with Gome Electric told reporters that Han Depeng is considered to be the core backbone of Gome Electric's earliest foray into e-commerce business. In 2010, he was responsible for building Gome's e-commerce platform and later led the integration of two websites under Gome's e-commerce umbrella.

The industry insiders mentioned above told reporters that Gome Online has grown from just a dozen people to renting several floors in Zhongguancun, and Han Depeng's contribution is indispensable. Running continuously for more than ten hours every day has become the norm.

Han Depeng himself admitted to reporters that his three years in Gome e-commerce may have been the most stressful and exhausting period of his 16 year career.

According to reports, Han Depeng resigned a month ago. Although Han Depeng himself did not actively respond to this news, it is worth noting that this time roughly coincides with the day when Mou Guixian stepped from behind the scenes to the front.

According to a former manager who resigned from Gome, Mou Guixian is mainly responsible for the overall guidance of Gome's e-commerce at the group level, with specific operations handled by Han Depeng. However, public information shows that Mou Guixian has been personally involved in major events at Gome Online since April.

The "E-commerce Lament" released by Mou Guixian around the Qingming Festival is more like his official announcement from behind the scenes to on stage. On April 11th, after opening a Sina Weibo account, Mou Guixian held a special event for Lao Mou during the 4.18 event, further demonstrating his deep involvement in e-commerce business. Peng Liang, spokesperson for Gome Online, revealed that since April this year, Mou Guixian has devoted all his energy to Gome Online and works every day in the Gome Online office located in Zhongguancun.

In response to Mou Guixian's high-profile e-commerce statement, Han Depeng, former head of Gome's e-commerce division, remained silent earlier.

After the integration of Gome Online and Coolpad, Han Depeng's Sina Weibo stopped updating on December 28, 2012, and no longer spoke on behalf of Gome e-commerce in the industry. As the head of Gome's e-commerce, his silence on Weibo and in the industry seems to be a signal that he is about to resign.

Behind Han Depeng's Resignation

Although Han Depeng repeatedly emphasized to reporters that his resignation was not that complicated, it is clear that things are not that simple.

Han Depeng is not the only executive to leave Gome Online. Zhang Bing, Vice President of Gome Online, also resigned along with Han Depeng. An industry insider familiar with Gome told reporters that Zhang Bing is also an important figure in Gome Online, having previously served as the purchasing and sales director of Gome's e-commerce.

Although Han Depeng emphasized to reporters that his main source of pressure comes from himself, the management team who left Gome revealed to reporters that this big boss is not satisfied with Gome Online's performance in the past three years. During Han Depeng's three years in power, the significant losses of Gome's e-commerce became an unbearable burden for Gome Electric and its major shareholders, and their performance declined. In addition, the huge losses have not brought any growth in scale, and Gome Online's market share still hovers around the second and third tier.

On March 25th, Gome Electric released its 2012 financial report. In this financial report, although Gome's e-commerce sales increased by 119.1% year-on-year, reaching 4.41 billion yuan (including tax), the loss rate was as high as 15% -20%, and the loss attributable to the listed company alone was nearly 500 million yuan. In 2011, Gome's e-commerce business incurred a net loss of 390 million yuan.

Besides poor performance, Gome is unwilling to invest in e-commerce, which obviously makes it difficult for executives such as Han Depeng to achieve. The former management of Gome told reporters that investing in e-commerce business is a "big talk, small profit" strategy. In 2011, Gome's e-commerce business only received an annual promotion fee of 5 million yuan, and Han Depeng once lamented that e-commerce business could not be developed

In sharp contrast, Suning, the old rival of Gome Electric Appliances, spares no effort in investing in and fully supporting Suning.com. Suning Vice Chairman Sun Weimin once told reporters that Suning will invest 22 billion yuan in developing logistics projects in the next three years to support the development of e-commerce business.

If performance and investment alone are not enough to make executives such as Han Depeng leave their personally established platforms, then Gome's unclear e-commerce strategy leaves executors feeling at a loss.

The former management of Gome told reporters that regardless of Gome's current situation, it must "send" Huang Guangyu to seek approval every week. It's too difficult to do something at Gome. Usually, after reporting layer by layer, the instructions given by the leader are completely different. For the executor, the most confusing thing is that I don't know what I want to do

The person further stated that there are not many executives at Gome who are familiar with e-commerce. After acquiring Kuba, they were criticized as inexperienced leaders. Now Kuba has merged with Gome Online, and this situation has not changed much. The senior management of Gome still hopes to use the same strategy as offline sweeping to lead online, which has led to an awkward situation where Gome Online cannot do what they want to do and want to do

After the adjustment of Gome's e-commerce in December last year, it was also believed that appointing Mou Guixian as chairman was one of the reasons for Han Depeng's resignation. It is understood that the original Kuba website and Gome online store have already undergone backend data integration and integration, but after integration, many Gome online store director level management directly report their work to Mou Guixian.

Breaking through the pressure of Gome's e-commerce

In fact, Gome has already planned to arrange for Mou Guixian to take over Gome's online business.

After Gome acquired Coolpad in 2011, Mou Guixian became the chairman of Coolpad Shopping Network. With the integration of Gome Online Mall and Coolpad Network, Mou Guixian has been appointed as the Chairman of Gome Online. As a senior vice president of Gome Group, Mou Guixian was once personally responsible for e-commerce business by Huang Guangyu while in prison. Undoubtedly, Mou Guixian can more faithfully implement Huang Guangyu's layout ideas in e-commerce business.

Gome Online stated that Mou Guixian is the first person to formulate and make decisions on Gome's overall e-commerce strategy. In the future, when cooperating with Gome Group, Mou Guixian can strive for more resources for e-commerce business. But it is currently unknown whether Mou Guixian, who was not specifically responsible for e-commerce business before, can lead Gome's e-commerce to achieve breakthroughs.

According to the previous management mentioned above, Mou Guixian has had no less than 10 job experiences in the fields of supply chain, logistics, information technology, etc. since joining Gome Electric in 2001. The senior management of Gome is transferred too frequently, which may seem familiar to the company but is not conducive to accumulating professional experience

In addition to the uncertainty of Mou Guixian, Huang Guangyu, who is separated by a wall, also lacks a primitive sensitivity to e-commerce that he has never experienced before. The former management stated that Huang lacks market awareness towards e-commerce and finds it difficult to make the right decisions. If the executor cannot make the boss's decision, then they will not do so. This also makes Mr. Huang very angry about the current management team, but he is powerless to do anything about it. This is true for anyone

At the same time as the internal competition in Gome's e-commerce, the gap between Gome and its former competitors is also widening. Gome claims that its e-commerce losses led to a loss of 597 million yuan in 2012, marking its first annual loss in nearly a decade since going public. At the same time, Suning was also influenced by e-commerce and invested more generously than Gome, earning 2.682 billion yuan in 2012.

With the basic formation of the e-commerce industry pattern, the cost of breakthrough for Gome's e-commerce is becoming increasingly high. According to industry insiders familiar with Gome, the company is currently in a recession cycle and cannot reverse it in the short term. Unstable management, chaotic management, and complex and lengthy business processes will undoubtedly accelerate this decline, and even Huang Guangyu cannot reverse it.

Mou Guixian previously stated that "Gome Online's goal this year is to minimize losses and strive for profits this year," while Han Depeng, who left Gome, expressed caution about this slogan, "From an industry perspective, it is more appropriate to discuss this issue within two or three years.