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This article is organized according to the content of the 42nd meridian under the theme of the closed-door sharing session.

Zhong Qiuyang, since October 2018, has worked in the world’s largest perfume and makeup giant Coty Group, responsible for the construction of technology and data application systems. He previously worked as an architect in Ali Zhongtai, responsible for consulting and product export of the middle platform.

I have been waiting for the search and big data team in Jingdong and the Alibaba Group. Later I switched to the brand Coty (the world’s third beauty company) to make a digital transformation, that is, in the multinational company. station.

So I will talk to you from the business and organizational structure to see how they feel after turning around in Party A and Party B.

In mid-2015, after visiting Supercell Game Company, Mr. Ma proposed to organize the upgrade of Ali in accordance with the concept of “Greater Middle School and Small Front Desk” (note that the organization upgrade is not just technology).

From a technical point of view, the prototype of Ali Zhongtai was born in 2008-2009: Taobao system is split into distributed, starting with basic and core service centers and middleware.

From an organizational perspective, in order to better coordinate the Taobao Tmall business structure in 2009, Ali established the Shared Business Division.

But at the beginning, resources were limited and demand was unlimited. The shared business team worked overtime every day, and the business side was not satisfied, and there was no sense of existence.

To 2010, a major event changed the fate of the team. The group purchase portal of Ali E-commerce business has become more cost-effective, and the promotion effect on Taobao Tmall merchandise sales is amazing.

At this time, the Ali Group decided on a very bullish thing. Tmall and Taobao (and later 1688) had to share the cost-effective traffic through the shared team. The sharing team got up at once, on many projects. Have a voice.

In 2013, Ali was adjusted to 25 business divisions, and the shared platform division was established, which is the core business platform of Ali Group today.

Everyone must pay attention to the fact that when Ma announced the strategy of the China-Taiwan in 2015, the whole thing was driven by the technology and the organizational structure, not a big change. The real change took place in 2008-2013.

2018 – 20In 19 years, China and Taiwan are really hot. Everyone said that they want to take the middle platform. But really every enterprise needs the middle office?

In other words, does each company have the maturity conditions for the business, technology, and organizational structure that Ali had when it announced its strategy for China in 2015? (Moreover, there is a culture that encourages innovation to embrace change.)

With this question, I am talking about the relatively “corrupt” retail industry that I am currently in. At present, the main customer groups of many Chinese entrepreneurs are similar traditional industries.

To understand the survival of China and Taiwan in the enterprise, many people have overlooked the very important point, that is, we must understand the complex organizational structure of a company.

The picture below shows Coty’s organizational structure. The thickest lines of the Coty Group are divided into three categories: high-end perfume (xxx), mass beauty (yyy) and hairdressing (zzz). Everyone can see that the public beauty is the CEO’s temporary direct control through COO, CMO, and HR, which is related to the previous decline.

The business line of Volkswagen Beauty has the global operations president (yyy COO), and its subordinates are senior vice presidents of each region (North America, Europe, Third World). The Senior Vice President is below the National GM, such as China, Brazil, and the Middle East. Everyone is familiar with the structure below the country, which is the regular sales, marketing and other business lines.

But the national team is actually just an executive team. One of the more exciting things about multinational companies is that the brand’s core powers, such as brand positioning and R&D, are at headquarters.

Of course, many multinational companies are already turning: design for China, decide in China, deliver at China speed. The group’s financial report can reflect the speed of the transfer.

Back to the theme of the split architecture, the Chief Supply Chain Officer reports directly to the CEO, and the president of the public beauty operations (yyy COO).

There is therefore a mass beauty supply chain that does not belong to the popular beauty COO tube, but is under the supply chain team responsible for the popular beauty supply chain SVP (SVP yyy) tube.

So at the architectural level, a new brand in China’s beauty industry like Perfect Diary, through an efficient decision-making and operation system, can hang international brands without the need for a platform.

Before I discussed this question with all the other platforms, such as Ali Jingdong.The problem, our consensus is that any multinational company brand has a certain market share, and it is an opportunity for local new brands.

Under the system of Arinai, the business department, as a front-line team, understands business needs and even solutions. However, this directly leads to the traditional enterprises hanging in the copy system, because there is no digital transformation in digital enterprises, and there is only continuous upgrading.

Only companies with systems like Coty need to transform.

In traditional enterprises, the business department still demands and even solves the problem as in Ali.

But the difference is that there are pseudo-demands, miscalculations, bad processes, and the average age of employees is more than a teen over Ali, and the IT or informatization team is still considered to be implementing business-side advice (it does Without first-line business understanding), natural transformation failed.

This means that building a system in this system (in the middle of the public opinion) is equivalent to taking part of the power of the original business unit: it is possible to clarify the process for the first time, and it is possible that the process will be rebuilt and rebuilt. It is possible that several cross-sector processes will be integrated.

So, digital transformation/central platform construction is a process of tearing and redistributing power, which means that the absolute leader or the “top-to-be” can not do the money.

I especially agree (of course, everyone agrees that most companies can’t use it). Ali likes to use financial freedom executives, because such people have less concern and can stick to the right path.

Of course, not only Coty, but other multinational companies including P&G and L’Oreal are basically such a complex organizational structure. So digital transformation (and the use of medium-sized tools and even methodologies and ideas) is only suitable for two roles:

One type is the CEO. The reason is simple, only the CEO can force all business teams to work together to digitize.

Of course, it’s better to recruit and license young business leaders who understand the Internet. As a digital leader, I think this transitional position in a particular period is very tasteless.

And the CEO is the headquarters, because we just mentioned that the national GM of a multinational company has only executive power.

There is another type of person who wants to be a CEO and has a way out.

He really wants to bring a business transformation, can see the huge difference between the company’s realized value and potential value, and is not afraid of this because it has to be torn with other teams, there is a way to get rid of the road. It’s a matter of death.

So, back to the opening case of Ali, there is no continuous innovation business (Taobao to Tmall to the current cost of new retail), no organization structure escort (sharing division and 2010 control of the flow of cost-effective traffic), Without the promotion of epilepsy and Ma, the middle school is just a dead system.

I think that good market and segmentation categories, good products, good organizational structure/synergy, are allThe basic problem to be solved before the middle station.

After all, the important thing in China is the methodology: breaking through the limitations of a single product and business, using a comprehensive long-term perspective to examine the industrial panorama of the company’s development, digging deep into the value of the industrial chain, horizontally precipitating the platform and creating synergies. Create long-term value.

Then, let’s answer the question of a big problem in the middle of Taiwan. How do we tell the user the value of the middle office? Before looking for users, we must first think clearly about where the value of the middle office is.

I thought about this problem earlier, and it was very embarrassing. At that time, I was exporting the team in Ali Zhongtai and blowing “opening data” with the customer, but is this nonsense? Everyone on earth knows that to get through the data, it is a truth to tell others to drink more water and go to bed early.

I will give an example of a platform. A scholar-type executive came over to take charge of the entire data in the middle of the stage, with a team of thousands of people at the peak. The person in charge of the team asked him, you came over, how to locate the data in the middle of the station? What are your expectations? What do we do?

The scholar answered and got through the data.

The people below ask, how do you get through? What data is open?

The scholar answered and got through the data.

How do you ask, he will only tell you to open the data, because he is not sure about the platform business: What data is there for different business lines? What data is missing? Even higher-level, group-level, how does data help synergies across different lines of business?

Results This year, the scholar changed to a consultant in the group sub-sector.

So to tell the customer about the value of the middle office, you must have a front-end business as a catcher. I also mentioned Ali’s example at the beginning, even if it is Ali’s middle office, it also grabs a piece of business, and it is very front-end traffic business.

Looking back, what business is there in Coty?

For this traditional retail company (brand), the biggest expense is marketing. Retail companies spend one or two points on IT, but there are ten or twenty points in marketing.

With L’Oréal, Estee Lauder, and Shiseido as examples, the following picture shows a few of the online marketing of brands. It is a place where brands really spend money and is full of opportunities. On the one hand, these parts are very easy to digitize. On the other hand, these Some have not been digitized enough.

So instead of grabbing IT, it is better to replace 4A companies with digital means in the marketing field. This part of the business is very large. Of course, this needs to be nowMost mid-level startups do not have the marketing and 2C capabilities.

The above are some of my experiences and understandings about the business of the China-Taiwan business. Based on this, there are several other ideas that are thrown out to discuss with you:

1) At this stage, for most multinational companies, the incremental business that can be brought about by building a single business system is greater than the incremental increase of the integrated system. A single system means clear claims and expected results.

So many companies do not have much meaning in doing it now. If you have this money, it is better to connect with the net red, and the effect of bringing goods is immediate.

Of course, this is a trade-off between short-term and medium- and long-term values. The effect of docking with the network red is only a short-term number. The long-term value is maintained by the middle platform (assuming the business innovation just mentioned and the organizational structure protection under the attention of the top leaders).

Many people overestimate the short-term value of technology and underestimate the medium- and long-term value of technology.

In the short term, technology must not be the first to save the performance of Coty, but in the medium and long term it must have technical support.

This is still an example of Ali. In fact, inside, Ali’s operation, or the real second in doing business, especially in the past few years, the expectations of the online project are not high, and there are also a bunch of bugs.

There was a problem with the early Taobao or Alipay system. We piled up the machine to get the server top, and even the small two manual operation, not as high as the current promotion.

Because early Ali’s core competencies were not technology, but marketing.

But Ali’s style of play is, first, if I think this project is very important, I will guarantee that it will be successful or even very successful at all costs. Second, although there is no technical thing, it depends on the second. However, I will still publicize that it is because the technology is very bullish.

This is the English fake it until you make it, which is “believe to see”, which I highly agree with, see Alibaba Cloud and Data Bank.

In the early days, technology can’t help the business achieve great value, but what is your medium- and long-term judgment? If your judgment is worthwhile in the future, then the solution to this paradox of “the current vs. the future” is to rely on operations first.

Operation is very important for front-end technology projects, although most of the technology systems outside the platform do not have this concept. The operational solution is the process flexibility from the starting point to the result.

Operation helped me to the present, the technology is really strong, such as Ali’s search recommendation algorithm, the second is to compete with the algorithm, the arch industry ranking, compete for traffic.

2) A company with a middle office may not be able to win. Even if it wins, the medium-sized service provider may not win. The logic is very simple. As a service provider, what you earn is not the money that people grow, it is the money that is developed.

3) The value of the service providers in China is to follow the concept of education and education in Ali.The field, while providing cost-effective development services, is stronger than the Kingdee UF team and much cheaper than SAP, IBM, and Accenture.

4) From the enterprises that use the middle platform, the biggest win in the future is the new brand that truly understands technology. They will definitely take the middle platform themselves. For example, if I start a business as a retailer, I will definitely take my own skills. There are no opportunities for service providers outside of the consultation.

The second biggest winner is the cutting-edge brand that is passionate about technology. Half understands the state and is an opportunity for the middle-class service providers.

The third is a foreign company like MNC Coty, which has the resources and resources. Although the Chinese business may be slammed, there is a global business back.

There are some local brands or operating companies that are keen on technology after the 60s and 70s. Their winning face (from the perspective of earning money from the middle-office service providers) is the same as MNC.

The enterprises led by this group of bosses are the target of most of the current Chinese-based startups. Basically, there are bosses who are concerned, authorized, and able to engage in overall projects, but they are rather embarrassed, and generally can’t make money from here. Many projects are ERP systems in the middle of the coat.

Finally, it is still the market, products, organization and higher-order culture that determines the company’s winning face. But for these companies, the methodology of the middle-class is the winner, which is a higher-dimensional competition. .

Of course, most companies have not yet done the basics. In the initial stage, it is more important for companies to apply the concept and methodology of the middle school (such as the organizational level just mentioned) instead of building the actual middle platform. Competency Center.