Photo by Brooke Cagle on Unsplash, this article from the micro-channel public number: deep ring, author: Zhao Yu, Editor: Ding straight Jen

The once quiet corporate services market is getting busier.

Following Tencent ’s last year ’s full embrace of the Industrial Internet and the expansion of its products and services to the B-side, another Internet giant ’s byte beats are also continuously increasing its ToB business: its corporate collaborative office product, Flying Books (Overseas version is Lark) The marketization speed is accelerating.

There are nails, WeChat in the front, and flying books in the back. At this point, the new version of “BAT” (B means ByteDance) has gathered in the enterprise Collaborative office track.

In 2015, Alibaba attacked acquaintances positively and could not wait. After that, the company’s IM service sprang up, and its flanking broke out successfully; Tencent followed up the following year and launched WeChat. In the context of the disappearance of consumer Internet dividends, more and more Internet companies have accelerated their deployment in the field of corporate services.

In the field of corporate collaborative office services, three Internet giants such as Alibaba, Tencent and Byte Beat have entered the market one after another, and they have not concealed their ambitions to seize market share. What are the differences in the path of each company given the target? What direction will the corporate collaborative office market show in the future?

Inadvertent nailing

Ding Ding is a product of Alibaba inadvertently inserting willows.

In 2013, Alibaba fully launched the social product “Communication” of acquaintances, and the communication obtained the highest level of resource tilt: Alibaba executives including Jack Ma, Lu Zhaoxi, etc. all exposed QR codes to gather for “communication” Popularity and traffic; the current account is connected with the Taobao account, and the user can either log in directly with the Taobao account or register with a mobile phone number.

Since its official launch in January 2015, DingDao has achieved unexpected success. According to the official information disclosed by DingDing, more than 10 million enterprises have become DingDing users: in 2016, the number was still 1 million; in 2018, the number was 7 million. The rapid growth of the nails is evident.

Wu Zhao once said that the success of Ding Nao cannot be separated from the tuyere. “I said that we had lost our luck and stepped on a tuyere. This tuyere is that traditional Chinese small and medium-sized enterprises have entered The cloud and mobile era. Today they have the opportunity to cross an era and IT era. “

If it was said that the initial birth of Dingding was a by-product of Alibaba’s competition for the social relationship chain, then to this day, Dingding has become an important grasp of Alibaba’s ToB business.

At Alibaba’s Yunqi Conference held in September this year, Zhang Jianfeng, the president of Alibaba Intelligent, revealed that Nail is an important public foundation platform, which raised Nail to the same height as Taobao: there are 1,000 More than 10,000 sellers are equivalent to helping more than 10 million brands realize digitization, and the Dingding platform has more than 10 million enterprise organizations, which is equivalent to helping 10 million enterprises achieve online and digital organization.

“I think the significance of these two things is the same. Because there are so many small and medium-sized enterprises in China, it is very challenging to do informationization and mobility. It requires a public basic platform. And Dingding is such a public foundation platform. “

This statement is enough to glimpse the expectations that Alibaba has pinned on DingDing. Especially after the Industrial Internet has become the mainstream direction of the industry, the market that DingDing may leverage is even more worthy of attention.

However, Ding Diao has not yet achieved the same market position as Taobao. In the corporate collaborative service market, there is another giant eyeing it.

Uncertain corporate WeChat

Tencent did not stand idly by in the face of the siege of the city. In 2016, one year and three months after its release, Tencent also launched corporate WeChat,Face to face with nails.

Enterprise WeChat is not the first enterprise-level application service launched by Tencent. In the era of the PC Internet, Tencent launched the office communication software RTX (Tencent Communication) and QQ Enterprise Edition. In addition, WeChat launched the WeChat Enterprise account in September 2014, integrating existing IT applications and third-party cloud applications with an open API interface.

Office communication software RTX (Tencent) under Tencent

However, when the consumer Internet is booming, corporate services are not the focus of Tencent. The emergence of corporate WeChat is a turning point. Previous attempts provided a basis for corporate WeChat: The WeChat team stated that corporate WeChat is the foundation of RTX Optimized.

On April 18, 2016, Tencent officially released the 1.0 version of the enterprise WeChat APP, which provides functions such as public phone calls, emails, announcements, attendance, leave, reimbursement, receipt of corporate email reminders, and direct email sending of important chat records.

In terms of product features, corporate WeChat seems a bit tedious. However, the biggest advantage of corporate WeChat is that it can bring the benefits of WeChat into the market. Enterprise WeChat continues the basic operation experience of WeChat, and the threshold for entry is low. In product design, old users of Tencent Enterprise Email and WeChat Enterprise Account can directly register with these two accounts and import the corporate address book with one click.

During the development process, the company ’s WeChat always revolves around the idea of ​​“resolving WeChat ’s unsolvable needs in the company ’s WeChat”. As early as January 2018 in the WeChat Open Course PRO site, Zhang Xiaolong said in his opening speech, WeChat is doing such a thing recently, which is to make messages between WeChat and enterprise WeChat interoperable. “

However, it is not easy to implement this idea. The social relationships and usage habits precipitated by users on WeChat cannot be easily separated. In the past few years, corporate WeChat has carefully doneat / jpg / interlace / 1 / q / 85 “data-w =” 1080 “data-h =” 638 “>

In addition, the company ’s WeChat team also launched a “bulk assistant” feature in September this year. The bulk assistant supports sending pictures and texts, reaching 200 people at a time. Specifically, shopping guides can send coupons, holiday blessings, event announcements and other information to customers on WeChat, and customers receive information on WeChat.

It is not difficult to see that the company’s WeChat has continued WeChat’s product philosophy, focusing on connection and individuality-rather than addressing the needs of the boss. The ultimate goal is to help companies clarify production relations and production links, and optimize internal and external communication.

Picture source: Corporate WeChat official website introduction page

Zhang Xiaolong once stated the development prospects of enterprise WeChat, “When the enterprise WeChat extends to the outside of the enterprise, it will generate greater value. The subsequent new changes of the enterprise WeChat will be based on a new concept-let every enterprise employee Has become a window for corporate services. “

The differences in product design concepts between corporate WeChat and Nailing have created the differences between the two products.

Dingding focuses on internal management and communication, while corporate WeChat focuses on external communication and display; Dingding focuses on addressing the back-end needs of the company, while WeChat focuses on the front-end needs of the company.

Of course, Dingding and WeChat also have the same point, that is, they are very concerned about the management of team members, and the product is designed with “people” rather than “things” as the design guide.

Just when the product functions are more focused on management and corporate WeChat are fighting against each other in the market, another Internet giant in China is keenly aware of the new opportunities and launched its own enterprise-level service. The product Feishu / Lark is competing differently with the previous two products.

Te Juntion’s founder Qi Junyuan once told Shen Xiang that the major players in the marketThere are two types of corporate collaborative office software. One type is IM instant messaging tools oriented to real-time communication. This type of tools emphasizes the organization of “people” in a team and focuses on management. The other type is oriented to “things” and all functions are oriented. It is the completion of goals or tasks, focusing on collaboration.

Ningding, WeChat and Feishu are just the embodiment of the above two logical divisions.

Flying book with a sword away

The byte beating that has not been established for 7 years is indeed different from Alibaba and Tencent, both of whom have reached the age of 20.

For example, Byte Beat often emphasizes that its culture values ​​Context rather than Control. Zhang Yiming’s core tone set for Feishu / Lark is also the efficient flow of information to enhance teamwork among team members.

According to media reports, Zhang Yiming has talked about the importance of efficient internal information circulation many times. He said, “Decision instructions are not simply uploaded and issued, but to allow colleagues to solve problems by providing context and promoting internal information transparency. , Make decisions, improve efficiency. ”

Under the guidance of such ideas, the development of Feishu has been accelerated all the way:

  • In July 2017, the 1.0 version of the company’s corporate office software Feishu was launched;

  • In November 2017, Byte Beat fully used Feishu (Overseas version is Lark) as office software, today ’s headlines, Behind the explosive products such as Douyin, Volcano Video, Watermelon Video, there is a credit to Feishu;

  • In 2018, Byte Beat increased investment in Feishu. In October of that year, Feishu’s product and R & D team exceeded 500 people;

  • In January 2019, Version 2.0 of the Flying Book was born, adding core functions such as voice calls, online documents, smart calendars, meeting group chat, and application centers;

  • In April 2019, Byte Beat officially released87 “>

    FeiBook Product Interface

    Byte Beat combined with its own business advantages gave Fei Shu assists: According to the catcher’s report, some companies that grew up based on the headline ecology chose to introduce Fei Shu because of the frequent communication with official staff of Byte Beat. However, it did not use Feishu to replace the original OA system in the enterprise, and even used Feishu only when communicating with the official staff of BYTE.

    But the product design and product logic of Feishu determine its current narrow application range. According to Tech Planet, the media company “minority” eventually chose Feishu after using more than five corporate office collaboration products. After China Gold CIO Zhou Hanlin heard the product introduction at the internal sharing conference held by Feishu, he felt that it was not suitable for his company’s use— “Products are more suitable for Internet companies, especially content companies.”

    Although the products are not as versatile as Dingding and Enterprise WeChat, adding a flying book has deep meaning for byte beating.

    Similar to Alibaba, ByteDance has always been in the social battlefield. On January 15, this year, ByteDance launched a small video social app for friends called “Multi Flash” for young people. In May, BYTE’s instant messaging and interest social application “Feichao” was officially launched, but the two products soon became silent.

    Whether the flying book can repeat the story of the sudden rise of forces, and it is a direction worth paying attention to to help byte beating and tearing up the mouth of society.

    In addition, under the pressure of no growth after the vibrato, the byte bounce also needs to find more opportunities to further explore the realization of traffic in the system and look for new volume. Combined with the current market environment, corporate services is a good direction. It is worth mentioning that the intent of ByteDance to provide services to creators in the ecosystem and improve user stickiness through FeiBook is obvious.

    The division of design ideas determines the differences in product form and function of several giants. It is unknown whether they are good or bad. In the future evolution, each product will also be further developed and expanded on the basis of the current. The test of who can better meet the needs of B-side enterprise users is still to come.

    Where is the future going?

    Friction will also arise.

    This means that corporate collaboration products will continue to penetrate deeper, so that they can break through the already crowded market and gain the favor of users. In addition, product promotion strategies may also affect the industry structure. At the latest, Lark is already aggressively attacking overseas markets. It is still unknown whether the byte jump can move the cake in the collaborative office market of overseas companies served by powerful enemies.

    Inwardly, the competition for the corporate market will determine the next stage of the Internet giants; externally, in the context of Copy from China, Chinese companies’ collaborative office products go to the sea, and there is still more imagination.