The Internet is open all year round.
Editor’s note: This article is from WeChat public account “Deep Sound” (ID: deep-echo ) , Author Yimin.
A special overtime is taking place among Chinese Internet companies.
The sudden outbreak of pneumonia has arranged the emergency pause button for the Spring Festival holiday for ordinary people. At the same time, some employees of major Internet factories have been temporarily pressed.
Different from the SARS epidemic 17 years ago, the status of the Internet in people’s lives is more important today. Related products and services provided by Internet companies have become an integral part of many people’s lives. Because of this, when the accident comes, Internet people must take more responsibility.
Programmers, product managers, operations, marketing, as well as customer service, courier, takeaway, and ride-hailing drivers have different responsibilities, but everyone is busy fighting for the same victory.
“996” in the case of pneumonia
In the past few days, Internet companies have successively launched various strategies, including donating supplies and providing free products and services to help prevent and control the epidemic. Behind fast and agile decision-making, Internet company employees must work overtime.
On New Year’s Eve, a photo of a Ctrip customer service holding a child to answer a user’s call became the protagonist of the content pushed by Ctrip’s official account that day. This is a glimpse of the overtime response of Internet companies in the ongoing epidemic of pneumonia.
January 20 is the inflection point for the daily life of all Chinese people during the Spring Festival this year. At 9:30 pm that day, Academician Zhong Nanshan confirmed that the new type of coronavirus pneumonia was transmitted from person to person during an interview with CCTV News 1 + 1. The severity of the epidemic escalated, and subsequently a series of measures were gradually introduced.
Ctrip took the lead in issuing a statement on January 21 stating that it provides free cancellation guarantee for related orders in Wuhan, and online travel companies such as Meituan, Feizhu, Ma Honeycomb, Tongcheng Yilong, Tuniu, and Donkey Mom followed suit. On the same day, the railway department decided that no refund fee will be charged for the train tickets for departure and arrival in Wuhan, and that it will be processed with the purchase of Ride Insurance.
The introduction of the above measures is very important to prevent the spread of the epidemic.For service companies, this means a dramatic increase in workload in a short period of time.
According to Ctrip CEO Sun Jie, the pneumonia epidemic has caused Ctrip’s daily incoming volume to surge and service demand to multiply. To this end, thousands of customer service providers have undertaken tens of millions of user calls, while business departments are busy with the supply of hotels, etc. To implement cancellation strategies.
Relevant withdrawal strategies were upgraded on January 24, and the scope was expanded from Wuhan to the whole country. In addition to the surge in demand for corporate customer service that directly connects passengers at the front desk, back-office services also need to be expanded to cope with the surge in transactions in a short period of time.
According to Tencent Culture’s official account, on the 30th day of the New Year, 1,677 Tencent employees were still working overtime.
Among them, in order to deal with the sudden demand for a large number of refunds from payment service providers (such as Ctrip, 12306, airlines, etc.), the WeChat payment related team has established a special refund protection team to maintain service stability.
Tencent Culture At the same time, including Baidu, Today’s Headlines, Kuaishou, Tencent News and other content information products, the APP has launched special channels to combat pneumonia in order to spread relevant protection, health knowledge and the latest information. E-commerce companies such as JD.com, Alibaba, and Netease Yanxuan have used their respective advantages in the supply chain and logistics to mobilize supplies such as masks and protective clothing to the affected areas.
Meituan, Hungry Me, Didi and other companies that provide offline services have also launched corresponding measures around the epidemic. For example, Meituan launched contactless distribution, and Didi launched a medical support team in Shanghai. Enterprises such as Tencent and Byte Beat have opened remote collaboration-related office products for free, and online education companies such as Penguin Coaching, Youdao, Good Future, and Ape Coaching have opened online teaching platforms for free in order to ease users’ office and learning needs.
Internet companies have such a strong sense of existence in the prevention and control of the epidemic that it is inseparable from the basic fact that the Internet has a very high penetration rate in people’s daily lives.
17 years ago, SARS was regarded as a turning point in the development history of JD. At that time, due to the impact of the epidemic, few customers bought electronic products offline.Few, in order to get out of the predicament, Liu Qiangdong tried to do online business, which became the real starting point of today’s huge JD Group.
For Alibaba, another appliance giant, 2003 is also memorable. That year, an Alibaba employee was infected with SARS because of going to the Canton Fair. The entire company’s office area was completely blocked. All employees entered the SOHO state, and their business was at risk of shutting down. Ma Yun sighed in an interview: the first shot hit us, and the company was isolated.
Fortunately, with the help of a series of measures, Alibaba weathered the difficulties and even achieved greater development: In May of that year, Taobao went online, and Alibaba opened a new era.
The story of JD.com and Alibaba during the SARS period is the epitome of the childhood of China ’s Internet. After 17 years, the industry has become an adult, and the potential energy is incomparable. For this reason, the “996” of Internet people at this moment can prevent pneumonia. Control brings more valuable help.
Agile and fast are typical labels of the Chinese Internet industry. These labels are amplified in emergencies, and the formation of capabilities is closely related to the overall development of the industry.
China Internet, open all year round
The shopping malls are closed, express delivery is closed, and the Spring Festival holiday is one of the few hardworking people who will really close for rest, but the slogan of the Internet industry is “No Spring Festival.”
Even if there is no epidemic, 365 days a year is the norm for many Chinese Internet people. During some important festivals, many products will usher in peak periods, and Internet people will be even more busy.
As the most important traditional festival for Chinese people, the Spring Festival has been an excellent time window for Chinese Internet companies to leverage the market, attack their opponents and reverse the pattern since the Spring Festival Evening of the Year of the Sheep in 2015. This year, it is the fast hand that won the exclusive interactive cooperation rights of the Spring Festival Gala.
On the day of the Spring Festival Gala, there were more than 400 employees working at Overtime Headquarters. They needed to respond.During the Spring Festival Gala, the massive users and traffic that flooded in a short period of time, Su Hua and Cheng Yixiao, the founders of Faster, also supervised the scene. The huge investment of funds, resources and human resources is to hope that the company’s product user volume will be on a higher level. This is not easy in the context of the disappearance of mobile Internet dividends.
Figure source network From the publicly disclosed information, Kushou’s investment has achieved a corresponding return. In a third-party report officially recognized by Kushou, it was written as follows: In the spring of 2020, the peak DAU of the Kushou series products far exceeded 300 million. This is not the end of the fast-handed K3 strategy, but the starting point of maintaining the average DAU at 300 million in the second phase of the K3 strategy.
One year ago, Baidu was preparing for the Spring Festival Gala. At its headquarters in Houchang Village, Beijing, Baidu regards the entire hall of the K2 building as a command room. In addition to the core command room, Baidu APP, Dasou, Shake, and other grouped operations rooms are linked next to it. In order to cope with the peak traffic during the Spring Festival Gala, Baidu’s related technical team has worked overtime several months in advance to make preparations.
Figure source network While the mobile Internet dividends still exist, almost the major Internet companies are participating in the Red Packet War. At the age of 30, the reunion day is the most critical moment of the war. When users grab red packets on their mobile phone screens When it ’s fun, hot pot take-out and unclosed cafeterias in the office area become the standard for Internet people working overtime.
Compared with pure online products, the arrangements for the Spring Festival of companies and businesses involved in offline business are more complicated. A Spring Festival Evening Interaction allows the team to work overtime to make arrangements. Every Spring Festival needs to ensure that offline service capacity is sufficient problem.
When the Spring Festival is approaching, as the drivers and masters gradually rest for the festival, the problem of taxi difficulties in many large cities will emerge. This year, Didi’s pricing system in some cities has increased holiday savings. Passengers need to pay drivers a fee ranging from three to five yuan. This is a price-driving solution provided by Didi in order to alleviate the tight transportation.
O2O companies like Meituan and Hungry have the same troubles. Their takeaway business depends on a large group of takeaways to maintain.For normal business operations during the holiday season, they need to stabilize the takeaway team. Similarly, raising the distribution fee has become one of the important methods for retaining delivery staff on takeaway platforms.
Even when the pneumonia epidemic is spreading, takeaways have not stopped. On empty streets, takeaway brothers have become the most active crowd.
The ability to provide stable services during the Spring Festival has become the core of many business competitions.
Taking the express delivery business in the e-commerce industry as an example, during the Spring Festival holiday, Alibaba’s logistics business, Cainiao Wrap, showed that due to the shortage of express delivery staff, related services have been resumed from February 1, 2020. At the same time, JD.com advertised on the TV station: it will still be delivered during the Spring Festival. Before the pneumonia epidemic expanded, a SF Express courier told “Deep Sound” that during the Spring Festival, SF will arrange staff on duty in each area, so normal delivery will not be affected.
Earlier, Uber ’s Chinese people, Uber ’s surprise attack and the rise of Douyin, have become a classic case of Internet industry competition.
The short Spring Festival holiday has become an arena for the core business of various companies. Regardless of the normal operation of the business or the continuous provision of services, it is inseparable from the support of Internet people and offline service staff during holiday overtime.
China’s Internet is open all year round, related to the characteristics of Internet products always online, but also to fierce competition in the domestic market: just because of the decision to let riders go home in the Spring Festival of 2016, Baidu Takeaway The competition has fallen short, and the Spring Festival holiday in just a few days can cause a wide range of endings. The intensity of the industry’s killing is evident.
Special industry conditions and market characteristics have created today’s Internet industry and also created a special cultural atmosphere. In 2019, “996” has become one of the key words in the industry, and the relevant disputes have not been conclusive and consensus has never been reached. But it is undeniable that the Chinese Internet can indeed “play”.