How Youzan Built a Value‑Stream System for End‑to‑End Demand Management

As Youzan’s teams and business scale quickly, the amount of information that must be shared both inside and outside the organization grows, creating complex connections and inevitable problems such as macro‑level information asymmetry that hinders goal achievement, and micro‑level trust erosion when development timelines are compressed.

Establishing a Value‑Stream System

The Efficiency Improvement team introduced a value‑stream framework that involves every stakeholder in pursuing shared objectives and delivering results that meet or exceed expectations. The article outlines the team’s practice of demand lifecycle management.

Key Activities

The team’s demand‑management journey spans multiple development stages, collaborating with related teams to ensure orderly demand delivery, prioritize and schedule demands on the product side, and eventually extend these practices to business partners, merchants, and internal units. The methodology includes end‑to‑end demand handling, demand layering, scheduling, and value‑closure mechanisms, supported by dedicated tools.

1. Business & Product Planning

Planning aligns with company OKRs, industry trends, and business characteristics to define business and product OKRs, evolution routes, and directions. At the line level, planning starts with demand research and proceeds to monthly scheduling.

1.1 Demand Research

Demand research is the primary basis for planning. The team collects internal and external feedback transparently to minimize breakpoints, ensuring that merchants and internal stakeholders receive the latest, complete information. Two main demand streams are managed:

Merchant Demand : Issues include irregular management and slow response, leading to low merchant satisfaction. Sources range from BBS posts to user research. Dedicated interface persons (customer satisfaction center, merchant service center, etc.) collect, filter, and register demands for a unified intake.

Business Demand : Challenges involve diverse channels and long cycles. Sources include management, market, and operations teams. Product managers act as interface persons, evaluating and admitting demands after internal registration and communication.

2. Demand Analysis

Collected merchant and business demands are entered into a product‑demand pool and displayed on the efficiency platform’s demand board. Product managers, together with team leads, assess background, purpose, impact, and priority, define data‑tracking points, operational plans, and expected commercial value. Detailed grading rules are documented in related articles.

3. Demand Scheduling

Product team leads hold regular scheduling meetings with front‑end, back‑end, big‑data, and testing representatives. The process includes:

Pre‑meeting: Product TL shares background, purpose, and goals; technical TL conducts pre‑review and assesses resource availability.

During meeting: Product and technical TLs align on scope and priority, followed by resource pre‑allocation.

Post‑meeting: Scheduling results are communicated to all stakeholders and visualized on the platform.

2. Demand Implementation

In the implementation phase, product managers refine requirements into concrete product solutions, secure development resources, and proceed through design, coding, testing, and release. Activities include task breakdown, progress tracking, unit testing, code reviews, daily stand‑ups, and project retrospectives.

3. Product Operation & Value Review

After launch, business owners execute operational plans (promotion, pilot, etc.), while product managers monitor progress, collect telemetry data, and evaluate whether the delivered value meets expectations. Results are compared against OKRs, and subsequent optimization strategies are discussed.

Business line leaders hold regular reviews (bi‑weekly, monthly) to assess planning progress, compare expected versus actual value, and adjust OKRs or re‑evaluate business rationales when outcomes fall short.

At the corporate level, committee members review completed high‑priority demands during monthly planning meetings, confirming strategic alignment and determining next focus areas.

Conclusion

Implementing full‑lifecycle demand management has strengthened cross‑team collaboration, ensured information symmetry, and improved efficiency while reducing costs. By breaking down company OKRs into concrete demands and fostering transparent communication, teams can concentrate resources on high‑value work, assess value delivery accurately, and continuously refine the process to match the company’s evolving pace.