HOMEGROWN
Retail has an
e-Future
e-Future Information Technology, Inc. is a Chinese upstart you probably
haven’t heard of. Founded in 1997 by Adam Yan and listed on NASDAQ
in 2006, the company now competes with the likes of SAP and Ora-
cle and boasts an impressive list of big name clients in China. CHaINA
spoke with founder Adam Yan about the company’s prospects and the
Adam Yan, Co-founder and future of the industry.
CEO, e-Future Technology Inc.
: What is e-Future? Now you have clients such as the Parkson Group
Adam Yan (AY): Four of us co-founded e-Future in Haikou, (China) and Beijing Wangfujing Department Store
Hainan in 1997. We develop and sell Enterprise Resource Group. Is the plan to serve more Chinese domestic
Planning (ERP) software to manufacturers, distributors, companies?
wholesalers, logistics companies and retailers in China’s AY: We are trying to find a balance. We’ve put great em-
supply chain front market. phasis on penetrating the high-end market in the last ten
years; our clients mainly included some large international
What does it mean to be at the front-end of the sup- customers such as B&Q, Parkson, and top-100 retailers in
ply chain? China such as L’Oreal. We drafted a “Spring Plan” in 2008
AY: A critical problem in the retail business is that there are to promote our presence in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities in
tens and thousands of customers. Being at the front-end China in the next 3 years. We believe that Tier 2 and Tier 3
of the supply chain, we help retailers understand custom- cities are the future of the Chinese retail industry.
ers better. For example, if we liken the whole customer
demography to an ECG (electrocardiogram), we can use Could you tell us more about the “Software-as-a-
the ECG to assess problems in the whole supply chain. We Service application” on which you collaborated with
often compare a store to a person and commodities to IBM?
cells, so the ECG of Mrs. Wang as a customer is her shop- AY: In March 2008, eFuture and IBM entered into a
ping frequency. If Mrs. Wang’s frequency changes from strategic partnership to launch a Software-as-a-Service
once every day to once every 3 days, then we need to find platform (http://www.bfuture.com.cn) for the retail
out why. The reason could distribution industry in China. So far, this initiative has
be the price, the freshness brought 2,000 of Wangfujing Group’s suppliers onto the
of the food, the way goods platform, allowing them to exchange business informa-
are displayed or some oth- tion, arrange payments online and access purchase
er supply chain factor. orders, returns, payment status, inventory levels and
analysis of sales data. These services were dealt by fax
In light of the current and email in the past, but now suppliers and retailers
business environment, directly can utilize this e-platform at a reasonable cost.
how well is your com-
pany positioned to be Have you had any infringement on your company’s
competitive? intellectual property rights?
AY: Our clients are mainly AY: We have had some minor violations in the market,
in the retail industry, so the but we don’t worry about this since the software requires
impact of the economic real-time compliance and it must respond to the custom-
slowdown is relatively mi- ers instantly. Often times our clients and retailers request
nor; also the Chinese Government understands the impor- amendments. So we don’t worry about piracy, because
tance of the retail business. Last year, retail revenue grew our software can’t be copied and sold on the market in the
by 21.6 percent, which was 36 percent of GDP. Based on way application software such as Microsoft Office can.
this, I think our business will get better and better.
44 MAY/JUNE 2009
www.chainaonline.com
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