After struggling to support Gome's e-commerce for three years, Han Depeng, CEO of Gome Online, has resigned, marking the departure of another core executive from Gome Online, following the founder of Kuba 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. Moreover, the frequent turnover of senior management has added more variables to Gome's e-commerce business breakthrough

Release resignation signal

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

The official explanation given by Gome Online stated that the fast-paced work severely exhausted their health, so they voluntarily resigned. His job has been 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 has indeed submitted his resignation and stated that he has not officially left Gome yet, but is on vacation. "I want to take a break from all the vacation time I have saved over the past few years

An industry insider familiar with Gome told reporters that Han Depeng is considered the core backbone of Gome Electric's earliest exposure to e-commerce business. He was tasked with building Gome's e-commerce platform in 2010 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 a dozen people at the beginning to a scale of renting several floors in Zhongguancun, and Han Depeng's contribution is indispensable. Running continuously for more than ten hours a day has become the norm.

Han Depeng himself admitted to reporters that his three years at Gome E-commerce were probably the most stressful and tiring period of his 16 year career.

It is reported that Han Depeng resigned a month ago. Although Han Depeng himself did not respond positively to this news, it is worth noting that this time roughly coincides with the day when Mou Guixian came from behind the scenes to the front stage.

According to a former management personnel who resigned from Gome, Mou Guixian mainly supervised the overall direction of Gome's e-commerce at the group level, and specific operations were handled by Han Depeng. However, public information shows that Mou Guixian has been personally involved in major events of Gome Online since April.

The "E-commerce Lament" delivered by Mou Guixian before and after 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 opened a special session for Lao Mou during the 4.18 event, which further demonstrated 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 Gome Online's office located in Zhongguancun.

Corresponding to Mou Guixian's high-profile statement on e-commerce, Han Depeng, the former head of Gome e-commerce, remained silent earlier.

After the integration of Gome Online and Kuba Net was completed, Han Depeng's Sina Weibo stopped updating on December 28, 2012, and he no longer spoke on behalf of Gome E-commerce in the industry. As the head of Gome e-commerce, his silence on Weibo and within the industry seems like a signal that he is about to leave.

Behind Han Depeng's departure

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

Han Depeng is not the only senior executive who left Gome Online. Zhang Bing, Vice President of Gome Online, also resigned along with Han Depeng. The industry insiders familiar with Gome mentioned above told reporters that Zhang Bing is also an important figure in Gome Online, previously serving as the Director of Procurement and Sales for Gome 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 the big boss is not satisfied with Gome Online's performance over the past three years. During Han Depeng's three years in power, the significant losses of Gome E-commerce became an unbearable burden for Gome Electric Appliances and its major shareholders, whose performance declined. Moreover, the huge losses did not lead to any growth in scale, and Gome Online's market share still hovered in the second and third tier tiers.

On March 25th, Gome Electric released its 2012 financial report. In this financial report, although Gome's e-commerce sales achieved a year-on-year growth of 119.1% to 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, the net loss of Gome's e-commerce business was 390 million yuan.

In addition to poor performance, Gome's reluctance to invest in e-commerce has clearly made it difficult for executives such as Han Depeng to do so. The former management of Gome stated to reporters that Gome's investment in e-commerce business is "talking big and making small money". In 2011, Gome's e-commerce business received only 5 million yuan in annual promotion expenses, and Han Depeng once lamented that the e-commerce business could not be carried out

In sharp contrast, Suning, the old rival of Gome Electric Appliances, has spared no effort in investing 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 the platform they personally built, Gome's unclear e-commerce strategy makes executors feel at a loss.

The former management of Gome told reporters that regardless of the size of Gome's current situation, it has to be "sent in" every week for Huang Guangyu's instructions. It's too difficult to do something at Gome. Often, after reporting it layer by layer, the instructions given by the leaders are completely different. The most confusing thing for the executors is that I don't know what I want to do

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

After the adjustment of Gome E-commerce in December last year, the appointment of Mou Guixian as chairman was also considered by the outside world as one of the reasons for Han Depeng's departure. It is understood that the original Kuba website and Gome online store have carried out backend data docking and integration, but after integration, many Gome online director level management directly report their work to Mou Guixian.

The Breakthrough Pressure of Gome E-commerce

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

After Gome acquired Kuba in 2011, Mou Guixian became the chairman of Kuba Shopping Network. With the integration of Gome Online Mall and Kuba Network, Mou Guixian became the chairman of Gome Online. As the senior vice president of Gome Group, who was personally in charge of e-commerce business by Huang Guangyu in prison, Mou Guixian is undoubtedly better able to faithfully implement Huang Guangyu's layout ideas in e-commerce business.

Gome Online has stated that Mou Guixian is the first to formulate and make decisions for Gome's overall e-commerce strategy. In the future, when connecting with Gome Group, Mou Guixian can strive for more resources for the e-commerce business. But it is still unknown whether Mou Guixian, who has not been specifically responsible for e-commerce business before, can lead Gome e-commerce to break through.

According to the former management mentioned above, Mou Guixian had experience in no less than 10 positions such as supply chain, logistics, and information technology after joining Gome in 2001. "Gome's senior management has been transferred too frequently, which may seem familiar with the company, but it is not conducive to accumulating professional experience

Apart from the uncertainty of Mou Guixian, Huang Guangyu, who is separated by a wall, also lacks his original sensitivity to e-commerce that he has never experienced before. The former management stated that Mr. Huang has no market sense for e-commerce and finds it difficult to make the right decisions. And if the executor cannot make the boss's decision, then they will not do it. This also makes Mr. Huang very angry with the current management team, but there's nothing he can do about it. It's the same for anyone

At the same time as the internal competition of Gome e-commerce, the gap between Gome and its former competitors is widening. Gome claimed that its e-commerce losses led to a loss of 597 million yuan in 2012, marking the first annual loss in nearly a decade since its listing. Meanwhile, Suning, which also suffered from the impact of e-commerce and invested more generously than Gome, made a profit of 2.682 billion yuan in 2012.

With the basic formation of the e-commerce industry pattern, the cost of Gome's e-commerce breakthrough is becoming increasingly high. According to industry insiders familiar with Gome, Gome is currently in a declining 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 the perspective of the industry, it is more appropriate to discuss this issue in two or three years.