PCG is accelerating from the “track business integration” to the “deep water area optimization”.
Editor’s note: This article comes from Interface News , author Lin Teng.
Tencent PCG’s organizational optimization rhythm is constantly accelerating.
Recently, Interface News learned from Tencent that Tencent PCG (Platform and Content Business Group) issued a document to implement the appointment system for middle management cadres.
According to internal documents, the middle-level management cadres (general manager, deputy general manager, assistant general manager) whose main post is in the PCG business group and has been officially appointed by the company, have a tentative appointment period of one year, and are working at the end of the term. Review of the performance of duties, all partners of the business group (a decision-making body composed of VP and above executives) to discuss and decide whether to re-engage in the next period.
This is actually an extension of the executive partnership system for this former department. Since the adjustment of Tencent’s organizational structure last year, the newly established PCG has implemented a partner system for VP (Vice President) level executives. This system also includes a VP appointment system for a period of one year.
In addition, Interface News was exclusively informed that Tencent’s Aspects Department under Tencent PCG will adjust the current structure of the seven major departments, including the information flow platform product department, interest reading product department, and browsing platform product department, to be introduced according to content. The 18 centers divided into various functions such as distribution technology, user growth, and other functions are all under the unified ownership of Tencent. The organization is flat and reports directly to Tencent Vice President Yin Yu.
This is a top-down organizational management action. In addition to senior management no longer “life-long”, PCG is also vigorously promoting the transformation of organizational capabilities. The news from Interface News is that PCG has no layoff plan and the total staffing remains unchanged, but in order to match business strategies, the organizational form and talent capacity will be adjusted accordingly.
Since 930 last year, the HR department of PCG has been focusing on the internal talent transformation of the company, offering multiple courses on data and growth, and accelerating the introduction of external technical talents, especially data, growth and visual understanding capabilities. .
Interface News From the official recruitment website of Tencent, PCG currently has a total of 594 positions open for recruitment. This number ranks among the top three in the number of posts in all Tencent business groups.
Since Ren Yuxin made his last public appearance less than three months ago, PCG is accelerating from “track business integration” to “deep water area optimization”.
Let the battlefield have good generals, and the good generals have battlefields
“Tencent is really moving. One year after 930, the business will start first, and the next step is to move the organization.” A PCG executive told the interface journalist.
Before the implementation of the one-year employment system, Tencent officials signed the same contracts as employeesThe conventional terms are three-year contracts, six-year contracts, and open-term cooperation.
The appointment system is to break the “lifetime system” of senior middle school cadres, and make a comprehensive evaluation on the annual performance of middle and senior cadres, ethics of cadres, whether they are the best candidates for current posts, and personal learning and growth. Whether to re-employ and whether to re-employ in the original or new position.
Tencent COO Ren Yuxin said in an interview in September this year that when the PCG new business group was established, the company implemented a partnership system for each VP. The evaluation was not based on individuals but shared the responsibility of PCG. Good sharing of interests, poorly shared responsibility.
But this is not the first time Tencent has released a signal on the optimization of executive organizations.
At the end of 2018, Ma Huateng announced, “Management cadres must be able to move up and down, and cadres are not for life. We will give 20% of the priority to younger cadres, hoping that more young people will stand out in the future.”
After that, Tencent has made overall optimization adjustments to a group of middle and senior cadres, including assistant general manager, deputy general manager, general manager level, and even vice president level. Based on Tencent’s roughly 200 mid-level executives, the adjustment ratio is about 10%.
In June of this year, Tencent also adjusted the rank system and mid-to-high-level cadre performance appraisal. The target was “reactive is over”, and it was clear that the percentage of cadres at all levels who “can do it” is no less than 5%. In November, Tencent carried out a new round of upgrading the company’s culture, clarifying the original “innovation into” creation “, and at the same time clarifying” reactive power is too “into the corporate culture.
PCG is now highly expected by Tencent. Since the organizational structure adjustment on September 30, 2018, PCG has been regarded as Tencent’s main force in content products. Prior to this, Tencent encountered challenges in the competition. After setting up PCG, Ren Yuxin tried to break the inherent structure and reactivate the vitality of the organization.
Obviously, after this adjustment, Tencent wants to promote a virtuous cycle of cadre ecology by stimulating metabolism and stimulate the vitality of cadres.
“Tencent wants to make the battlefield good, and let the good general have a battlefield,” said the above person.
New organization of content business
Tencent was once known for “stability.” However, from the perspective of various adjustments after 930, Tencent is intentionally breaking this state.
This thinking that breaks the existing system is more reflected in the development of PCG. In an earlier interview, Ren Yuxin said that he hoped to solve the company’s problems with a systematic thinking, which he called “the philosophy of Chinese medicine”.
Reflected on the development of PCG this year, after Ren Yuxin took over, the department gradually promoted a series of gradually deepening actions such as track division, construction of the center, business integration, and organizational transformation.
From the perspective of the upcoming adjustments made by Tencent, this department is adjusting to an organizational structure that can adapt to environmental changes and improve efficiency.And try to create a “new organization” suitable for the content industry.
In the past, the organizational structure of Tencent’s information flow was built around the front end of the product, such as the information flow product platform (QQ highlights), the interest reading product (express), and the browsing platform product (browser). In this way of organization, Tencent’s vision, recommendation logic, and operation methods cannot be unified.
After the new brand launch on November 18, the above-mentioned multiple information flow products were integrated into a unified brand “Tencent Aspect.” The adjustment soon went from brand integration to organizational integration. The new team was divided into 18 centers including content introduction, distribution technology, and user growth.
Take Tencent’s data center as an example. After adjustment, the center is composed of some members of the original 7 teams. Including highlights, newsletters, browser data team, commercialization team, growth team and content ecological operation team.
Architecture adjustment stems from positioning adjustment. From multi-product-side information flow products to a unified information flow service, the original organizational structure is no longer fully adapted and requires a new organizational form.
“After the adjustment, the linkage between various departments and other teams will be closer. If the module in charge is not completed, it will affect the operation of the entire link.” After the organization was restructured, the challenges and pressures of each module actually increased.
PCG is the largest department of Tencent, with nearly 9,000 employees and the department with the most business, absorbing content services from 4 BGs. Previously, each of these content businesses had been cultivated for many years, each with its own style of play.
According to the interface news, Tencent executives have conducted in-depth research on Silicon Valley and domestic emerging Internet companies. After comparison, they have concluded that these companies are very close to Silicon Valley culture and methods of doing things. Tencent not only has to In the short run, it is more important to get out of your own way after running the road that others have traveled for several years.
Tencent PCG’s adjustment thinking is to rebuild resources and capabilities, build an industrialized production system for content products, activate organizational restructuring, and change the production and thinking modes of employees’ products.
“This adjustment has released a signal: ‘Everyone should return to the battlefield’ and no longer be their own small products and small teams. The external environment of the information flow is facing the industrialized system.” The managers said.
According to Yang Guoan, a senior management consultant at Tencent, due to the highly uncertain and rapidly changing external environment, the organization model of enterprises needs a new ‘species evolution’. The new evolution must pay attention to the external environment, improve strategic agility, strengthen organizational capabilities, and adjust its own organizational structure, from a ‘hierarchical organization’ to a ‘market-oriented ecological organization’. “
In Yang Guoan ’s theoretical system, when multiple business teams in an enterprise need to share resources and capabilities, the value of synergies on the platform emerges; the positioning of this platform is not headquarters, not control and order, but ratherservice.
To a certain extent, after the establishment of the technology platform and the content platform, Tencent PCG began to shift to a “market-oriented ecological organization”.