Other supplies and 200,000 RMB worth of masks in an hour

In-depth Report: Five Years of JD Pharmacy: A Business Roadmap

Posted on May 17, 2021Aug 17, 2021 by Hui Zhang

by Hui Zhang

This year marks the fifth anniversary of JD Pharmacy, the first-party pharmaceutical business model of JD Health, which has embraced fruitful results since its establishment in January 2016. So far, JD Pharmacy has managed more than 20 million SKUs of pharmaceutical and healthcare products on its platform. In 2020, JD Pharmacy generated revenue of RMB 16.8 billion, representing an increase of 77.8% year-on-year. These business results are a testament to the logic behind JD Health’s pharmaceutical business.

A wide range of pharmaceutical and healthcare products, covering specialty drugs and convenient omni-channel services to send medicine to those in urgent need in as fast as 30 minutes; together with medical consultation services provided by a team of professional physicians, are only part of what JD Health’s online pharmaceutical business offers Chinese consumers.

Enlin Jin, vice president of JD Health and general manager of the company’s medicine business, sharing JD Pharmacy’s business highlights over the past 5 years

The key strengths of JD Health’s retail pharmacy business include allowing users to purchase pharmaceutical and healthcare products anytime and anywhere, and providing them with an integrated one-stop shopping experience. With a mission to become the go-to health management platform for China, JD Health is committed to offering its users easily accessible and high-quality pharmaceutical and healthcare products at affordable prices.

“As a pioneer in transforming the supply chain of pharmaceutical and healthcare products in China, JD Health has achieved immense scale with a wide product selection while maintaining stringent quality control and competitive pricing, thus gaining users’ trust,” said Lijun Xin, CEO of JD Health.

Business Expansion

JD Health started its pharmaceutical e-commerce business by setting up a platform for third-party pharmaceutical retail businesses, and opened JD Pharmacy the same year to run its first-party business. JD Health’s retail pharmacy offers high-quality pharmaceutical and healthcare products including OTC drugs, prescription drugs, and medical devices, as well as health and wellness products.

As for direct sales business, JD Pharmacy has established a supply chain network with leading pharmaceutical companies and healthcare product suppliers and maintained robust growth.

JD Health has cooperated with a number of leading global pharmaceutical companies, including Eisai China, AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Novartis, Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS), Sanofi and Abbott Laboratories, to upgrade medication and health management services in order to fulfill users’ needs. So far, it has established cooperation with 92% of the top 50 global pharmaceutical companies, and 97 of the top 100 Chinese pharmaceutical companies. In partnership with the companies, JD Health launched the first “new and specialty drugs platform” for acute and serious diseases in China, providing patients with cutting-edge treatment solutions.

Leveraging JD Logistics’ cold chain capabilities and extended logistics network, JD Health is able to provide superior delivery services to customers covering a broad range of pharmaceutical and healthcare products. As of Dec. 31, 2020, JD Health utilized JD.com’s 14 drug warehouses and over 300 other warehouses nationwide.

“Since March this year, we have accelerated the development of our ‘self-operated cold chain’ business. In less than two months, JD Health’s ‘self-operated cold chain’ has now covered 58 cities in 9 provinces nationwide,” said Enlin Jin, vice president of JD Health and general manager of the company’s medicine business.

Enlin Jin

In September, 2020, Novartis was one of the first batch of pharmaceutical companies to give JD Health’s cold chain network a shot, by launching its MS (Multiple Sclerosis) drug Siponimod on JD Pharmacy, which was also the first platform in China to sell the drug. JD relied on its dedicated pharmaceutical warehouses, nationwide supply chain network and information systems including an intelligent temperature monitoring platform to ensure the most suitable environment for the drug’s delivery, with easy tracking of the delivery process.

List of brand partners

JD Health established the Rate Disease Care Center in February this year with the goal to become an efficient platform with integrated treatment, medication, insurance and charity support for patients of rare diseases. JD Health provides the most comprehensive choices of oral medications for rare diseases available in China and ensures delivery of authentic drugs via its proprietary logistics network, in many cases the cold chain network, to patients’ doorsteps in a secure and timely manner.

With regard to the third-party pharmaceutical business, JD Health allows both chain and independent pharmacies and suppliers to sell pharmaceutical and healthcare products through the platform, which supplements the business of JD Pharmacy. As of Dec. 31, 2020, there were more than 12,000 third-party merchants on our online marketplace platform.

In addition to pharmaceutical business, JD Health has also entered into cooperation with major Chinese cities on healthcare insurance payments.

Since January 2019, JD has partnered with Suqian No.1 People’s Hospital in eastern China’s Jiangsu province to move most of its services online, allowing patients to seek the advice of the hospital’s doctors from the comfort of their home. Meanwhile, the online hospital can also facilitate insurance payments for medication. Tianjin municipality also adapted a preferential policy toward JD to support online healthcare insurance reimbursement. Thanks to governmental support, Tianjin Nankai Hospital and JD Health jointly launched the “Nankai-JD Internet Hospital” during the pandemic to offer real-time medical help to patients quarantined at home. The internet hospital also supports local patients to use their healthcare insurance to buy medicine online.

Healthcare Services

While continuously expanding the variety of drugs, JD Heath has also been committed to setting up one-stop medication services so as to fulfill users’ rising medicine demands over the past 5 years.

JD Health offers online healthcare services connecting hospitals, doctors and other healthcare professionals such as pharmacists, nutritionists and psychological counselors with JD Health’s own users to provide them with comprehensive services.

Many of the patients purchasing medication only need advice on drug usage, and would prefer not to cue up in the hospital for consultations. However, due to a shortage of medical resources, there are not enough pharmacists in China according to official data, which showed that there were only over 300,000 licensed pharmacists in about 454,000 pharmacies across the country.

With JD Health, customers can bypass the hassle, thanks to the company’s cooperation with a group of pharmacists that can provide users with medication consultation, usage guidance, safety and rational usage—all from the comfort of customers’ homes.

Offering medication related services is only part of JD Health’s innovation to complement its pharmaceutical business. Having a team of doctors, most of who come from AAA hospitals, is another way JD Health aims to bring peace of mind to users when they purchase drugs online. In order to provide users with holistic healthcare services covering testing, diagnosis, treatment, medication and recovery, it has integrated its online hospital with offline ones. It empowers offline public hospitals by providing patients with online follow-up visits, prescription renewal and other services through its online healthcare service platform. So far, JD Health has collaborated with over 10,000 hospitals and built a medical team consisting of over 110,000 in-house and external doctors and medical experts. In 2020, the company had an average of over 100,000 daily online consultations, which is more than 5 times of that in 2019.

JD Health’s doctors

COVID-19 has changed the living and working habits of many people, including their interaction with pharmacies. As people increasingly seek medical advice and products online, the surge of telemedicine on JD Health also means significant growth for drug delivery services.

Through cooperation with more than 200,000 offline pharmacies, JD Health developed an omni-channel medicine delivery service to help pharmacies benefit more financially while providing rapid drug delivery services to patients. The service now covers over 200 cities, and medicine can be delivered in as fast as 30 minutes to JD Health’s online users, in an expansion of JD’s Omni-channel Fulfillment supply chain innovation program.

Launched in 2019, the program integrates multiple types of offline channels, including supermarkets, convenience stores and brands’ offline stores, enabling them to deliver orders that originate from JD directly. Hundreds of chain supermarket and store brands, including Walmart, Yonghui Superstores, Better Life and BHG have joined the program. Even during the pandemic, JD Health continued to delivering medical drugs to patients in need and connected at least 13 million patients, who were lack of medication, with chronic diseases in Hubei province with pharmaceutical companies and pharmacies and provides timely information on where they can get the drugs they need, online or offline.

Digital Marketing Acceleration

Through its technology and big data strength, JD Health is working with pharmaceutical companies to explore innovative marketing solutions to enhance sales. JD Health mainly focuses on three aspects to facilitate brand partners’ e-commerce marketing. Firstly, it improves drug accessibility and patient compliance by constantly improving services. Meanwhile, JD Health offers specialized professional operation and integrated product-effect marketing solutions, throughout the whole process of user purchase, drug use and repurchase. And last, JD Health also leverages its platform advantages and traffic resources to help brands in new drugs marketing online.

For example, JD Health partnered with a number of upstream pharmaceutical companies to debut their medicine through JD Pharmacy including Eisai’s LENVIMA treatment for patients with hepatocellular carcinoma, Novartis’ Mayzent to treat relapsing multiple sclerosis, Pfizer’s Vyndamax and Vyndaqel for treatment of transthyretin amyloid. In addition, it closely cooperated with AstraZeneca to facilitate popularizing and streamlining access to original drugs, bringing oncology patients more convenience.

Business Vision

“Over the past five years, JD Health has continuously accelerated the expansion of the full range of medical products, and strengthened the capacity of professional services,” said Jin. “Additionally, its business scope has expanded from simple pharmaceutical retail to pharmaceutical services, Internet medical services and other in-depth fields.”

JD Health is also accelerating the construction of its self-run pharmacies across China right now so as to further improve the efficiency of its omni-channel services. Meanwhile, JD Health is also ready to open its technology and supply chain, among other strengths, to industrial partners so as to boost the digital transformation of the whole industry.

“As the core platform of the pharmaceutical supply chain segment of JD Health, JD Pharmacy has leveraged its strong pharmaceutical supply chain and one-stop professional service capability in medicine and health over the past 5 years,” said Xin. “It always remains open-minded, explores new retail channels and service scenarios together with pharmaceutical partners, and continuously offers digital marketing solutions to promote the digital transformation of the pharmaceutical industry.”

(zhanghui36@jd.com)

JD Health Launches Collaboration with Doctors, Brands and Researchers on World Hypertension Day

Posted on May 17, 2021Nov 22, 2022 by Vivian Yang

by Vivian Yang

JD Health and Beijing Lisheng Cardiovascular Health Foundation, an NGO co-founded by China’s leading medical experts in the cardiovascular field, will collaborate on developing innovative health management solutions for patients with cardiovascular diseases in China, according to their announcement on World Hypertension Day on May 17.

Based on this collaboration, JD Health aims to further engage cardiovascular experts online to provide guidance for patients and doctors in primary healthcare institutions across the country. At the same time, foundation members can utilize the big data and digital platform provided by JD Health to create more convenient and comprehensive health management solutions that can benefit more patients via the Internet.

“Currently in China, the rates of people’s awareness, treatment and control efforts in cardiovascular diseases remain at relatively low levels, at 51.6%, 45.8% and 16.8% respectively,” said professor Tingrui Guan, chairman of the foundation. “Early disease screening, diagnosis and prevention are effective methods for disease control. We hope the collaboration with JD Health will generate concrete results in promoting people’s awareness of cardiovascular diseases, grassroots level disease control work, and the capabilities of online medical consultation.”

In the meantime, JD Health and China’s leading healthcare industry-focused media platform VCBeat.top jointly launched a report on the same day, titled “2021 Insights on the Management of Cardiovascular Diseases on the Internet.” The report noted that limited access to timely healthcare support and medical resources, and disconnection of health-related data existed as critical hurdles in the prevention, treatment and rehabilitation services for patients with cardiovascular diseases in China.

According to the report, in 2020, over 104.2 million users have purchased cardiovascular disease-related medicines and medical services on JD Health, whereas the penetration rate of online medical consultation services remains relatively low at 28%, which is about 2.88 million people. Users from lower-tier cities showed higher willingness in utilizing telemedicine services for relevant medical advice.

Data from China’s center for cardiovascular diseases showed that for every 100 million people in China, there are only 13.2 top-tier public hospitals available to provide inpatient heart disease rehabilitation services. This means that the majority of patients are seeking medical products and support outside hospitals. According to JD Health’s sales data of cardiovascular disease-related products, customers are buying 57% medicines, 29% pharmaceutical devices and 14% wellness products.

On the aspect of medical device offerings, JD Health is working closely with over 60 wearable devices in efforts to design advanced products that embed IoT functions. For example, JD Health and China’s leading medical equipment maker YUYUE jointly introduced a new type of blood pressure monitor. Users can choose to connect their health data information with JD’s health monitoring platform via Bluetooth and share with their family members and doctors both online and offline, to ensure timely and long-term risk control and facilitate self-managed body checkups at any time.

On World Hypertension Day, JD Health also invited top cardiovascular experts to meet patients online through one-on-one consultations and public livestreaming sessions. A number of relevant brands and products also joined the promotional activities on the platform.

Established in December 2019, JD Health’s specialized heart center has set up four departments: cardiology, cardiac surgery, prevention and rehabilitation, and psycho-cardiology. Led by Dr. Hu Dayi, one of China’s top cardiologists, the center offers access to more than 700 cardiovascular experts in China via telemedicine services.

China’s official data showed that the number of patients with cardiovascular diseases in China has reached 330 million. These diseases continue to be the leading causes of death for Chinese people.

(vivian.yang@jd.com)

Photo Gallery: This Week at JD (May 9 – May 14)

Posted on May 17, 2021Nov 4, 2022 by Yuchuan Wang

JD Logistics opened a warehouse for small home appliances on May 11 in Cixi, Zhejiang province, which is known as the home appliances capital of China. The new warehouse, and JD’s existing large home appliances warehouse established in the city in 2019, will facilitate the growth of manufacturers in Cixi. Photo shows the opening ceremony attended by representatives from JD, manufacturers and merchants.

JD participated in the fifth China Brand Exposition in Shanghai from May 10-12, featuring JD Life and Service businesses. JD Life and Service business division focuses on providing O2O local life services within a 3-kilometer radius of people’s work and life, including car maintenance, real estate, travel, auction, fresh flowers delivery and other convenience services, with the goal to provide a “product + service” consumption model for more consumers. Photo shows JD’s booth on the exposition.

JD Health held a brand partner conference in Beijing gathering more than 170 pharmaceutical brands from around the world on May 11 to mark the 5th anniversary of JD Pharmacy, the first-party pharmaceutical business model of JD Health. The company announced the launching of Single Disease Patient Care Centers under JD Pharmacy at the conference. Photo shows Enli Jin, vice president of JD Health and general manager of the company’s medicine business speaking on the conference.

JD.com won both individual and group awards in a short video competition, “100 Reasons to Love Beijing”, hosted by the Beijing municipal government, at an award ceremony held in Beijing’s Forbidden City Museum on May 14. JDer Ella Kidron’s video “Discovering Beijing’s Limitless Possibilities” and colleague Kelly Dawson’s video “Unexpected Beijing” won the Grand Prize and Third Prize at the competition, respectively. Photo shows Ella on the right.

JDT Representative on National TV: Integrate AI to Develop Smart Chatbot for Datong

Posted on May 17, 2021Aug 26, 2021 by Ling Cao

by Ling Cao

“We need to consider how to combine different AI technologies, such as speech and emotion recognition, as well as semantic understanding together (into the smart customer service chatbot), as to understand residents’ needs and help us better analyze and assign demands of different departments,” said Dr. Xiaodong He, vice president of JD.com and the deputy managing director of JD AI Research with Chinese National TV, in an interview broadcasted on May 16^th.

The program also reported that since 2020, Datong, Shanxi province has upgraded its municipal service hotline with JD’s smart chatbot and related solutions, which largely improved satisfaction and experience among local residents.

The hotline now handles an average of over 5,200 calls a day and over 7,000 at peak time, compared with fewer than 4,000 calls previously, meaning residents basically don’t need to wait for their calls to be answered.

With the ability to detect the subtlest human emotions and respond appropriately, JD’s chatbot lifesaving program was also selected an AI Application Example by the Office of the Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission (CCAC) of China, for its role in creating value for society.

(ling.cao@jd.com)

JD.com Announced Merchant Support Measures for 618 Grand Promotion

Posted on May 17, 2021Aug 26, 2021 by Vivian Yang

by Vivian Yang

Ahead of the mid-year 618 Grand Promotion, JD.com vows to help more than 230 brands on its platform to achieve over RMB 100 million yuan in sales and more than 120,000 small and middle-sized brands to double their transactions.

“We aim to create the most transparent and friendly business operating environment to make JD.com the largest incremental platform for brands and merchants to achieve high-quality growth,” said Xiangying Kong, head of the platform ecosystem of JD Retail. The announcement was made on JD.com to brands and merchants on May 13 to gear them up for the upcoming shopping festival.

Specific supporting measures include a simplified onboarding process that can be shortened to 30 minutes, opening greater access to dedicated customer service solutions and back-end management tools that meet merchants’ customized need and improve their operational efficiency, offering one-click advertising placement solutions, livestreaming resources support, and rewarding merchants’ referral traffic to JD’s platform.

At the same time, JD will step up efforts on using its anti-counterfeit system and operation risk prevention system to safeguard merchants’ interests. Through JD’s anti-counterfeit system, brands can directly report infringement behavior to the platform for timely responses and removal of infringing goods. JD’s operation risk prevention system works in real-time to fend off malicious attacks on merchant’s online operations. From January to April 2021, the system has helped businesses avoid more than RMB 1.2 billion yuan of losses.

Moreover, through working with near 2,000 brands and third-party quality inspection institutions, since the beginning of 2021, JD has helped more than 40,000 merchants to improve their operational efficiency and product quality. The company also dispatched staff to enter industrial belts to inspect production on-site so as to ensure the quality of the products before they leave the factories.

Additionally, JD Technology will offer its fintech loan products to merchants in order to help them ease cash flow pressure during the shopping festival. Merchants can receive lines of credit of up to RMB 100 million yuan through these financial services.

Newcomers to JD’s platform in the first four months of 2021 include BALLY, John Lobb, Starbucks, AGV helmets, Decathlon and other well-known brands.

(vivian.yang@jd.com)

JD News Roundup 2021 – Vol. 8 (Apr. 24-May 14)

Posted on May 17, 2021Dec 1, 2022 by Ella Kidron

If you have any questions or topics you are hoping we will explore, please email press@jd.com.

BUSINESS HIGHLIGHTS

JD joins Int’l Consumer Products Expo in Hainan

JD participated in the first major event held in Hainan since the Hainan Free Trade Port was announced, the inaugural China International Consumer Products Expo from May 7-10. JD cooperated with top international brands to host an exhibition booth highlighting JD Retail Cloud, C2M products and more, as well as a range of events and initiatives. In recent months JD has opened two duty-free stores in Hainan, and plans to open a self-operated shopping mall in the region in coming years.

Technology

Speaking of JD’s restructuring in which JD Digits was merged with JD’s Cloud and Artificial businesses, Chairman of JD’s Technology Committee Bowen Zhou said recently that JD will remain absolutely committed to its focus on technology. “On both strategic and tactical levels, we will continue to invest in the R&D, productization and commercialization of technologies.” Since 2017, the company has invested more than RMB 60 billion yuan in technological research and development.

One area in which JD is forging forward is in JD Cloud’s financial Cloud platform, which took 10.3% market share in the second half of last year, according to a report released by global market intelligence firm IDC on May 12. JD Cloud has serviced 780 financial institutes, including banks, insurance, trust and securities companies.

Logistics

JD has begun operating two highly automated warehouses in Poland and Germany to serve local clients. Both warehouses started trial operations in March, and are ideally situated to cover most of Europe, providing convenient and rapid fulfillment for clients. The warehouses will utilize JD’s cutting-edge AGV (automated ground vehicle system), a transformative technology that is 2.5 times more efficient than the manual picking used in traditional warehouses.

Retail

During an online event series titled “Retail Connected,” hosted by World Retail Congress in lieu of its annual offline retail conference, JD Retail’s Head of Strategy Development Chenkai Ling spoke about JD’s ongoing focus on omni-channel, how the pandemic has permanently altered retail, how fragmentation of the retail space is a positive development, whether delivery speeds in China can be shortened even further in the future, and more.

Health

JD Health will cooperate with PKU Healthcare Tairan, a Chinese company committed to treatment in the field of urology, in order to provide systematic, convenient and private male disease diagnosis and treatment services, and cooperate with offline hospitals across the country. Approximately 361 million men in China suffer from various male-specific diseases, according to WHO.

Additionally, JD launched its first health insurance product, “Family Doctor Insurance” on May 8. The insurance will integrate health management services into traditional medical insurance, covering everything from claim settlement to disease prevention.

International Business

H.E. Amb. Irit Ben-Abba, Ambassador of the State of Israel to China, visited JD headquarters on Apr. 28, to discuss potential collaborations between JD.com and Israel in the areas of technology innovation, supply chain and logistics, cross-border trade, sustainability and more.

Have a bit more time? Check out some of these reads:

JDT’s Chief Economist’s Analysis of China Census: After the release of China’s once-in-a-decade census, Dr. Jianguang Shen, chief economist of JD Technology, wrote about the bright spots and challenges reflected in the population’s structural changes:

https://jdcorporateblog.com/jdt-chief-economist-outlines-highlights-and-challenges-on-chinas-census-2020/

Gen Z Consumption Trends on JD: Gen-Z purchased a disproportionate amount of domestic products, signaling a loyalty to local brands, according to JD’s new Gen Z consumption trends report. Read more about the group that had the highest growth rate in online shopping turnover in 2020: https://jdcorporateblog.com/jd-unveils-gen-z-consumption-trends/

JD Brings E-commerce to Tibet

JD is expanding into Tibet, where residents have struggled to both sell and receive products in the past due to an average altitude of 4,000 meters and complex terrain. By helping Tibet develop its e-commerce ties, JD hopes to improve the living condition of local people, bring more high-quality Tibetan products to customers, increase the income of local farmers and more. Read more about how JD’s expansion: https://jdcorporateblog.com/in-depth-report-jd-com-brings-e-commerce-to-tibet/

Read past JD News Roundups below

###

Continue reading “JD News Roundup 2021 – Vol. 8 (Apr. 24-May 14)”

JDers’ Videos Rewarded in “100 Reasons to Love Beijing” Competition

Posted on May 17, 2021Sep 20, 2022 by Hui Zhang

by Hui Zhang

Representatives from JD.com, China Radio International, Beijing International Studies University, Pubilicity Department of Beijing’s Dongcheng District, Beijing People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries rewarded as “Excellent Organizations”

JDer Ella Kidron’s video “Discovering Beijing’s Limitless Possibilities” and colleague Kelly Dawson’s video “Unexpected Beijing” won the Grand Prize and Third Prize at the competition, respectively. Kidron’s video was also rewarded the only most innovative video award among all over 1000 entries. JD.com was rewarded as one of the “Excellent Organizations” attending the competition. Mr. Jiang Jianguo, minister of the State Information office, presented the Grand Prize Award to Kidron. Mr. Wang Xudong, curator of the Palace Museum who is a veteran scholar of Dunhuang Studies, also attended the event.

Ella Kidron on stage to receiving “Grand Award”

The short video competition together with an essay contest with the theme of “100 Reasons to Love Beijing” has attracted over 1,000 foreign participants living in Beijing from about 100 countries. More than 100 short videos were finally selected to be rewarded at the ceremony. The event was organized to give foreigners the opportunity to share their experiences of living in Beijing, and to express their feelings towards the city from their unique perspectives with different cultural backgrounds.

Performers on stage

Kidron fell in love with Beijing on her runs around the sprawling capitol city. As a native New Yorker and former athlete, her life can be hectic, and running has been a constant companion.

Ella Kidron

“My Beijing story and my love of athletics are deeply intertwined. When making this video, it was important to tell the story through sport, both in terms of what I have discovered and who I have met along the way. Forging friendships has given me a sense of belonging in a city over 10,000 km from where I grew up,” said Kidron.

Ella Kidron’s video “Discovering Beijing’s Limitless Possibilities”

Dawson’s life in Beijing has always been about the “nooks and crannies” that one discovers throughout the city. As the protagonist of this story, it is emblematic of one of her favorite hobbies, using her own lens to capture the unexpected throughout Beijing.

Kelly Dawson Receiving “Third Prize” on stage

“What I love most about Beijing is that it surprises me all the time. I’ve lived here for more than 6 years, and I still feel that it’s a place where I see things every day that I don’t see every day,” said Dawson. “I wanted to make this video for the competition as a kind of love letter to the city that I’ve called home these past years.”

In addition to Kidron and Dawson’s videos, JD.com also submitted 28 other videos with various themes to the competition. Among the 30 works submitted by JD, four of them were shortlisted for the 100 Outstanding Works in the competition.

Group photo

The organizing committee will translate the selected 100 videos into multiple languages, such as Japanese, Korean, French, Spanish and Russian, and will promote the videos through various of social media platform including You Tube, Facebook, Twitter, Ticktok, and etc.

(Banner photo: from left to right are Yuchuan Wang, Ella Kidron, Kelly Dawson, Hui Zhang responsible for JD’s International Corporate Affairs holding four prizes on April 15)

(zhanghui36@jd.com)

JD Industrial Technology Cooperates with Chalco Materials

Posted on May 17, 2021Aug 14, 2021 by Ling Cao

by Ling Cao

JD Industrial Technology, a business unit under JD.com providing industrial products and services, signed a partnership in Internet procurement services on May 11 with Chalco Materials, a subsidiary under Chalco Aluminum Corporation of China (Chalco), the only large company in China’s aluminum industry that’s engaged in the whole value chain.

As Chalco Materials’ intelligent and digital procurement solution provider, JD Industry Technology provides an integrated service covering procurement, merchandise, operation and supply chain, helping the company achieve digital transformation.

In just four days of preparation, based on JD’s long-time development of its MRO standard program building, JD has helped Chalco Materials match the demand of over 500,000 specific industrial products, making the procurement process more efficient. JD is also coordinating with Wafangdian Bearing Group in Dalian, ABB, Schneider Electric and Delixi Electric to provide related resources and services to Chalco.

JD can utilize its own capabilities in smart supply chain to help Chalco design cost-effective fulfillment solutions, especially for many of their factories in lower-tier markets.

Yuesheng Chen, general manager of JD Industry Technology’s manufacturing industry department said, “The cooperation is just a start. We will continue to optimize our service for Chalco and provide comprehensive solutions, helping to improve the quality and efficiency of their procurement abilities.”

In the future, both sides will expand cooperation in co-building fulfillment centers and forward warehouses, further enhancing the service quality.

(ling.cao@jd.com)