If you don’t refactor the industry, the transformation of any industry is awkward.
文|龙真梓
Edit | Huang Wei
The Internet dividend will be exhausted. What kind of companies can seize the next wave? This is a question that almost everyone in the new economy is asking for, and few people seem to be able to give an answer.
However, as a deep observer and participant in the Chinese Internet, Zeng Ming, former chief of staff of the Alibaba Group and former head of the University of Lakeside, may be one of the few people who can answer this question.
Zeng Ming was interviewed this day and it happened to be double 11 this year. Shortly after he returned to China, the interview was conducted in his private house in Beijing. The Chinese-style lobby has a sun, and a tea table occupies nearly half of the hall. Zeng Ming sat behind the table and was interviewed while drinking tea.
The tranquility in the house seems to temporarily isolate the outside world, but this is the 11th double 11 of Ali, and the carnival atmosphere has already swept the country.
This year, Tmall spent 1 hour, 3 minutes and 59 seconds to break through the turnover of 100 billion yuan, 40 minutes earlier than last year. The speed of logistics that has often been criticized in previous years has also been enhanced by the cooperation of pre-sales mechanisms and supply chains. According to the rookie data, at 8:01 am on November 11, the 100 million packages of Tmall Double 11 have been issued.
In this scholar who has been acquainted with Ma Yun for nearly 20 years and has been deeply involved in the development of Ali strategy, the double 11 is a good example to prove the success of Alibaba’s past strategy, namely “smart business”. “The victory.”
Taobao is a dual 11 platform that works with sellers and millions of partners to complete complex tasks such as retail, transaction and distribution, for network collaboration. When data is more and more, let big data combine artificial intelligence, provide personalized recommendations and other services, is for data intelligence.
The combination of network collaboration and data intelligence is smart business.
“This simple equation represents the secret of Alibaba’s success and represents all the passwords for future business.” In the book “Intelligence Strategy,” Zeng Ming elaborated on this concept.
As the book says, in addition to Ali’s successful methodology, Zeng Ming believes that “smart business” has a more important meaning –Out of the outline of the future business. But to face the future, today’s entrepreneurs should first adjust their expectations, because “the money that is easy to earn is definitely gone. Everyone has to do more hard work.”
What is the harder thing? In Zeng Ming’s eyes, the chance to find sinking is not counted, because “this wave must have passed, and it’s no longer meaningful to sink.” The need to look at subdivisions is not counted, because the true value is still hidden in the fundamentals – changemaking every traditional industry worth refactoring is a creative “Bitter work.”
“The second half of the Internet is the main battlefield for smart commerce. The technology of the Internet and AI can be used to transform every industry, and every industry will essentially move toward network collaboration and data intelligence. Evolution. This is the concept of the industrial Internet,” he said.
Although the concept of the Internet plus traditional industries has long been commonplace, it is clear that the difficulty of this matter has been underestimated in the past. The experience of failure shows that the combination of the two cannot be simply added, and such transformations often float on the surface and become general.
So, what kind of temperament company is most likely to reap this opportunity? Zeng Ming’s answer is a team with deep industry experience and Internet experience. Such a team can evolve the addition of the Internet into a multiplication method to achieve a chemical reaction between the two to achieve a true transformation of the traditional industry.
Zeng Ming is honest, in the short term, the technology of Internet and AI is still unable to usher in a big outbreak, and the cycle of transforming traditional industries with existing technology is still very long. But he still believes that the worst era can also be the best era: “The most competitive enterprise in the future, it is likely that the team with these two kinds of genes, after continuous innovation and efforts, eventually formed a batch New entrepreneurial power.”
This is the faint hope that Zeng Ming saw at the moment.
The following is the conversation (edited):
Technology and business are dual gears
: The book mentioned that network collaboration + data intelligence = smart business is the secret of Alibaba’s success. Can you briefly introduce the cause and effect of this formula?
Zeng Ming: As far as Ali’s own development process is concerned, although the term “network collaboration” was determined when I finally wrote the book. But synergy, as early as 2007, Ali began to realize. At the strategic meeting in September of that year, we proposed that Alibaba’s goal for the next decade is to create an open, collaborative and prosperous e-commerce ecosystem. At that time, there was already a concept of synergy, but we spent a lot of time trying to figure out what is synergy, and then there is the development of the series of Taobao open platform and open API. This kind of driving mechanism of network collaboration has probably played a big role in Ali since 2012. So from 2008 to 2012, Ali essentially completed a process of forming an ecosystem.
Since 2012, we quickly realized that such a large amount of data can’t be handled by people alone. It depends on the combination of big data and artificial intelligence to truly provide thousands of people. Thousands of personalized services. After 2015, it is basically seen that network collaboration is driving data intelligence, and data intelligence further drives network collaboration, and the entire ecosystem is moving toward a positive cycle.
: The book emphasizes many techniques such as big data and machine learning. Do you think that in the world of smart business, is Ali’s most important barrier still organizational? What is the ratio of technical and organizational capabilities?
Zeng Ming: In fact, the core competitiveness of all enterprises, if you must push it forward to the most fundamental factor, must be the team’s organizational ability, because things are done by people. But the most important job of this team is to do the most suitable thing at the most suitable time. So why in the past two years, everyone can see that Ali went from Dharma to Luohantang and then to Pingtou’s technical input. Because we believe that the wave of technological change is continuing to develop at a high speed. To keep up with the wave of technology in the future, we must continue our mission to push these new technologies and businesses to new boundaries.
The importance of technology has always been there, but the earliest we just did an alibaba.com, the technology at that time was such a level, we do that, the technology needed is as long as that level . But today, like today’s double 11 complexity, if you don’t have the ability to process 550,000 transactions per second, it’s impossible to survive. So technology and commerce are dual gears, and advances in technology will drive business advancement, and business advances will push the next step forward in technology.
The most competitive company in the future is not an Internet company
: The Internet has been in the second half for a while. What do you think of this?
Zeng Ming: There are many kinds of understandings in the second half. I think in the sense that the second half is the main battlefield of intelligent business, and smart business has become a new business paradigm.
In the past 20 years, the use of technology by these innovative companies has laid a good technical foundation for the future society. At the same time, the business model they pioneered will become the dominant model for future business. Therefore, in general, the second half of the Internet is the technology of the Internet and AI. It can be used to transform every industry. Every industry will evolve in the direction of network collaboration and data intelligence. This is the concept of the so-called industrial Internet.
: What do you think is the biggest difficulty for companies to make smart business changes in real-world applications?
Zeng Ming: In essence, everyone’s understanding of the Internet, artificial intelligence, and intelligent business is not enough. Like people who have worked in this industry for 20 years, the more they work, the more they feel wary, and they feel that the future will be more challenging than today. When we all face such a big challenge, you can think about those companies in the traditional industry. They really need to understand these essences and truly put these technical ideas on the ground. It is a very big challenge.
But one of the biggest opportunities today is the second half of the Internet we just talked about. Many industries will be refactored, and deep industry experience becomes very important. So it is very likely that the most competitive companies in the future are not only people with Internet experience, nor traditional industry experience, nor the transformation of so-called traditional enterprises. It is likely that there are teams with these two types of genes. Continuous innovation and efforts have finally formed a group of new entrepreneurial powers.
: People with these two types of experience combine to sound like the Internet+ with the premise?
Zeng Ming: Right, so I wrote a book devoted to Internet multiplication, not the concept of Internet plus. When the concept of Internet Plus just came out, I did it for two years and found that it didn’t work well. I realized that everyone thinks of it as a simple addition, but it is actually a multiplication, a chemical reaction.
When you really integrate the two ideas into your bones, what comes out is meaningful, and it can produce real customer value.
Now you ask most of the CEOs, he will tell you about the ABC of the Internet, and how the future is going,But as long as you do it, many people are wrong. The simplest, you look at how many people in the startup, when the traditional enterprise transformation, will directly go to the cloud computing, will use the resources of the open platform, and how many companies are still doing things with the traditional ERP ideas. They think their ideas have changed, but the actual operation is far from the right path.
Easy to make money, definitely not enough
: At least since last year, more and more people feel that there is not much chance for Internet entrepreneurship. They can only look at the sinking or subdividing areas. What do you think?
Zeng Ming: I feel that sinking may soon bottom out. If it is extremely extreme, I feel that sinking is the last outbreak of China’s past innovation model, and everyone has to do more hard work in the future. I believe that after the sinking, it must be a consumption upgrade. How much can you sink? I chatted with people that day. He asked me what is the sixth-tier city. I don’t know what a sixth-tier city is.
: So what do you do harder, specifically?
Zeng Ming: More creative things. What exactly is what the customer really needs is not simply taking out the inventory of the factory, selling it at a faster and lower cost with a routine that everyone is familiar with. There is essentially no innovation in this, it is an integrated, familiar integration of the past. I’m talking about it straightforwardly. How many of these are these two years? Because it has brought all the mature techniques and experience of the past into a success, and has a traffic bonus. Of course, I don’t want to underestimate them. Of course they broke through the strategic forward-looking nature at the time, and I fully admit it. I just said that if this wave is sure to pass from the big business environment, it will not be interesting to sink again.
The hard work, for example, does not break up a vertically integrated supply chain reorganization, re-constituting an open and collaborative supply platform, and the transformation of any industry is awkward. The transformation of the supply chain in e-commerce is a very complicated matter. There are so many links, which industry experiences or which Internet technologies can be used, and which ones cannot be used. There is no such thing as 3 or 5 years.
I think that we still underestimate the fundamental changes we are taking, or that we want more people to think about something more essential. Because looking at the corresponding side of the future, it is actually looking at the essence, seeing the essence to see the future. So the big direction is right, more important than anything else.
Creativity and creative individuals are becoming scarcer, just can you be such a person?
: Do you think that in the development of smart commerce, does it necessarily mean the elimination of some ordinary manpower? What can an individual do in the process?
Zeng Ming: Due to the development of artificial intelligence technology, in principle, structured knowledge can be replaced by machines. It is a big threat to many so-called simple mental workers in the past, and these jobs may not exist.
But in turn, every round of technological advancement will generate new jobs, and we also see many new jobs appearing. Of course, this requires education and individuals to make new and big changes in these areas.
There is another interesting point. In fact, organizing empowered individuals becomes more important. The future world is an era of creativity. Who is the leader of creation? It is human. In this sense, the entire society is rapidly polarizing. Traditionally, knowledge workers, no matter which high-ranking school you graduated from, are quickly being eliminated. The traditional investment bank is the best job and is now disappearing.
But on the other hand, any creative work is getting more and more extensive, even including private kitchens. With and now there are many unimaginable net reds, essentially the individual’s creativity has been further amplified by the Internet age. Therefore, there are innumerable individuals who can obtain network support that was previously impossible. Previously each individual had to belong to an organization, and the individual was a screw that was locked in the tissue. Now a creative individual can flow freely in the network and freely mobilize resources to become a self-propelled body. In this sense, creative and creative individuals become scarcer and they have more bargaining power than capital. It’s just that you can be such a person, that is the challenge.
: Under the background of capital winter, some companies feel that layoffs are the best way. Some companies feel that optimizing the internal human effect and making innovation adjustments is also a way. How do you think about these two kinds?
Zeng Ming: These two are completely different situations. Some people can’t get paid quickly, so there is nothing to talk about, and layoffs. When Ali was in the midst of a crisis in 2000, when there was only seven months of salary left, the first thing he could do was to cut the people who could cut. You must first pass the crisis and survive. So it is really worth reminding everyone, I noticed that some entrepreneurs underestimated the difficulty now, and they are still slowly adjusting step by step, and even dare not face reality, which is very dangerous. For example, you still have threeThe monthly money is on the account, the financing has not been closed, and then I am not willing to tell the investors what the actual situation is. I feel that I have already carried out this round first, and I will make adjustments in the next round, but some problems are not The later efficiency can be solved.
·: In the current environment, have you seen some companies that have excellent combat capabilities other than Ali?
Zeng Ming: Although we say that the big environment is so difficult, I think that some companies in this wave have already been seen. In fact, after Ali, no matter today’s headlines, a lot of fights or quick hands, it is already a very successful business. You can look forward to it, like the little red book, there are also very different development paths and new positioning.
So I believe that the power of innovation will continue. Some people criticize me for saying hundreds of billions of dollars and tens of billions of dollars, but I think this is the simplest analogy, not that I pursue, but we If you make an analogy, I think that in the next few years, there will be a lot of solid companies with the potential of tens of billions of dollars. They will emerge more, but everyone needs a little patience. As I said, the industry Internet will definitely have a wave.
: In this environment, do you have some experience and experience to share with entrepreneurs and managers?
Zeng Ming: I think adjusting expectations is the most important thing. It’s really easy to make money. It’s definitely gone. Then don’t worry, because it’s actually quite awkward. First of all, advanced technologies like AI can’t have a particularly large, re-explosion within three or five years. Therefore, the huge entrepreneurial opportunities brought about by new technologies will not be seen in these 3 or 5 years. If you are doing cutting-edge technology, you are destined to have a relatively long-term accumulation. Second, if you apply the current Internet and artificial intelligence technologies to traditional industries, this is also a very difficult thing. Without 3 or 5 years, you can’t see the direction at all, so the simple, easy-to-earn money is gone.
But in turn, I feel that countless opportunities exist. Because every industry can be refactored, how many big industries have not been really transformed? I think many people will be very surprised. Why is the online education suddenly become so hot this summer? It’s because of the accumulation of this in previous years. Online education suddenly makes everyone feel It is an industry that can take a step forward by using an Internet-like approach. This phenomenon will increase in the next three or five years, in different traditional industries.
: If we put the timeline a little longer, what do you think is the most important quality of future entrepreneurs?
Zeng Ming: Sure everyone will talk about learning ability, but I think the term “learning ability” is not enough in today’s expression. Or it can be expressed as a super-study ability, bringing a breakthrough in self-iteration. There are really entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs who have a great success, and basically have the ability to die. Because he will surely encounter his own bottleneck in a very short time, he will die if he can’t get through.
A previous industry has been developing for almost 20 years. You can learn slowly, accumulate it slowly, and after you have accumulated it, you can enjoy the bonus it brings for a long time. A person’s life is consistent with the cycle of industrial development. People are not so bitter, your career cycle is consistent with the life cycle of the company. How is the change that has occurred in the past 20 years compared with the past? How can one withstand such a toss, we are all evolving super species.
About observation +
If you want to communicate with Miss Xiaojie and the tens of thousands of friends of “Observation +”, you are welcome to add Junjun WeChat: hello36kr, join our community and learn to play together.
If your company, industry and hot topics in the new business world are closely related and are seeking coverage, please feel free to contact us with the introduction. (Contact: longzhenzi@36kr.com)
Extended reading:
The book Smart Business explores the future of business models, where network collaboration and data intelligence together form the DNA of a new business ecosystem. In Smart Strategy, Zeng Ming further discussed how data and networks reshape business strategies and provides new ideas and possible ways to organize businesses, create value, and create competitive advantage.
