Although difficult, there is a way to go.
Editor’s note: This article is from WeChat public account “Note Man” (ID: Notesman ), author Yang Li.
To B ability determines the Internet landscape for the next decade.
In 2018, To B’s voice was in full swing, from BAT to the big unicorns, the transformational determination was great, and the action was fast.
This round of To B is a digital economy (or so-called growth) through new technologies such as Saas, Pass, Internet, artificial intelligence, cloud computing, big data, Internet of Things, blockchain, etc. Enterprise efficiency upgrade and new round of transformation and growth under the information economy, knowledge economy, and intelligent economy, it must include urban upgrading, strategic upgrade, model upgrade, technology upgrade, organizational upgrade, marketing upgrade, product upgrade, service upgrade, and operational upgrade. , quality upgrades, efficiency upgrades, ecological upgrades, cognitive upgrades, talent upgrades, manpower upgrades, financial upgrades, etc., thus driving the upgrade of 2C services. This is the main theme of economic development in the next 10 years.
Now, 2019 is coming to an end, how have their business logic changed, and what kind of fireworks have collided after many companies meet at To B? After a year of exploration and experimentation, what new perspectives does the To B market have? In the future, Note Man will continue to pay attention to the road of To B in the era of industrial Internet. Look forward to it!
Since 2014, the business service situation in the To B field has quietly changed. By 2019, the To B market has “exploded” for four years.
Internet + economy is considered a new way out. However, the business model, business logic, and industrial attributes of the B-end market are completely different. Compared with the C-end, the B-side business is larger and more complex. ToB, will be a slower, harder, and more worthwhile path.
I. An objective reality that I have to admit
1. The wave has not kept up
Kizi Guangnian “Why did the Chinese to B era finally come? There is such a summary in the article: The essence of To B recovery is the “technical substitution” caused by the combination of technical capabilities and market demand.
In history, the two outbreaks of the informationization experience of the European and American To B companies failed to catch up.
One time in the 1970s, the initial stage of the development of the To B industry began with the gradual transfer of information technology from military to commercial, and entered the mature stage in the 1970s.A group of future giants such as SAP (1972), Microsoft (1975), and Oracle (1977) were born.
At the time, China had not yet reformed and opened up, and its economic foundation was very weak. Chinese companies had no time to take care of the To B industry.
The other is the “cloud computing” technology innovation that began around 2000. A group of tens of billions of companies such as Salesforce, Workday, and Servicenow appeared in this round.
The reason is that the United States is the first to encounter a state of market dividends, and what any enterprise can use for competition and development is basically running out.
There is a bottleneck in enterprise development, and internal efficiency, cost reduction, and innovative service are just needed. To do all this well, there must be technical support. Therefore, in the pursuit of their own efficiency and innovation, a variety of tools to improve efficiency and reduce costs have emerged.
In 2008, the establishment of European and American enterprise-level service unicorns reached a small climax. The mobile transformation of the Internet superimposed the information budgetary pressure brought by the economic crisis, causing the SaaS (Software as a Service) model to break out in the United States. At present, 9 of the 21 corporate service unicorns in the United States were established in 2007-2009 (such as Slac, Tanium, Sprinklr, AppNexus, etc.).
And around 2000, Chinese companies benefited from China’s huge demographic dividend, providing unique conditions for the development of the C-market, resulting in a number of platform-based economies: content platforms, social platforms, e-commerce platforms. And the O2O platform, with the help of traffic dividends, enables the Internet to rapidly scale services, manufactured goods and content.
However, in terms of governance, enterprises often adopt “earth-based steelmaking”, but they have no time to take care of the modern management methods and tools of science, and lack the urgent need to improve efficiency through technology.
In fact, the initial business model of the Chinese Internet giant was once aligned with the To B business.
As established in 1998, Tencent was originally intended to be a provider of growth service technology for telecom operators; Ali, which was established in 1999, started in the Yellow Pages of Enterprise;
As Baidu, which was founded in 2000, it initially provided search engine technical support to the portal; NetEase, founded in 1997, was the first barrel of gold earned by the telecom post office system.
A variety of indications indicate that the To B business is difficult to develop in China, and it has ushered in a sunny day after turning to To C. Therefore, 20 years have passed, and the To B industry is still the only place in the scenery.
2. Capital did not look at
To B industry has a slow development, a long climb, and a large bubble. There are errors in valuation, and the true and false barriers in the industry are difficult to distinguish, making investors more cautious.
According to billions of European statistics, in the past five years, the number of To B companies that have received financing in the country has risen from 1,141 to 3,442 in 2016, and then to 1,765 in 2018.
Review of foreign countries (China and the United States are the world’s two major economies, so foreign data is mainly based on the US market). In 2014, there were 525 foreign-funded enterprises, and they grew steadily year by year, showing a general upward trend. By 2018, it will reach 1048.
3. More difficult points
1 More market segments
The B-end itself is very complicated. There are many different sub-areas. For example, the government, the military, and the monopoly organizations can be divided into one category. The industry giants can be divided into one category. Small enterprises and private organizations can be divided into one category. Different segments require different service systems, and each segment has a huge market.
2 Service is difficult
Service B is more difficult than service C.
The B-side enterprise has a complex organizational structure, a longer decision-making chain, and more influence decisions.
For example, they want to buy a management system, and the person in charge of decision-making has a different position, and their appeals are different. Some may be in the perspective of maximizing the interests of the company, and some may also stand in the perspective of the department itself in the company.
At the same time, the users of this system are also important influencers of decision-making, a system that is popular among business owners, but may be contradicted by employees.
Because To C is faced with individuals, they are willing to invest a lot of time and energy for games and entertainment.
To B is faced with enterprises, can not expect employees to work with the spirit of games and entertainment, and To B products are more convenient for decision-making, but more burdens and constraints for employees, a system must be accepted by everyone, the cost is very Big.
At the same time, policy makers have to bear more credit risk.
The decision makers choose whether a product is linked to their own credit, so when they evaluate this credit risk, they often choose the lowest risk product and service option when choosing the To B product. Not the best solution.
In addition, after-sales service costs are higher. To B is not a hammer sale, To B business is focused on maintenance, and the transaction is completed with a series of after-sales services, which means that a lot of manpower and resources need to be invested.
This is why To B is difficult to progress in China.