China is entering a phase of comprehensive economic and social digital transformation, and 2021 is the beginning of the year. Compared with the previous digital transformation promoted by a certain field and an enterprise, the government is now actively promoting the digital transformation of the economy and society and listing it as one of the priorities of the 14th Five-Year Plan. At the same time, digitalization has entered the second half, expanding from the Internet to traditional industries, and data is becoming a new factor of production.
In the face of this trend, digital transformation has become an existential challenge for enterprises, and if you don't advance, you will retreat. "The biggest challenges of digital transformation are not from the outside, but from within. Culture, organization, talent, management and other links are indispensable. Zhang Yanyan, senior vice president of Schneider Electric and head of human resources China, believes that it is necessary to lay a solid foundation for enterprise digitalization with comprehensive organizational change through "culture first, organizational guarantee, talent win, and ecological empowerment" in order to inject source power into transformation.
Yanyan Zhang, Senior Vice President of Schneider Electric and Head of Human Resources China
Digital Transformation – A Revolution of Inward Looking
Zhang Yanyan said that everyone knows that digitalization is important, but often after introducing a complete set of digital products and technologies at a high price, it has not brought much improvement. The reason is that due to the lag in terms of organization, culture, process, etc., enterprises cannot stimulate people's willingness and improve people's capabilities, resulting in digital transformation cannot meet expectations. Transformation inevitably brings about change, breaking the inherent processes and habits makes many people uncomfortable.
One of the common phenomena is fragmentation. Strategic transformation involves the whole body and requires multi-departmental coordination. However, the complexity of digital transformation is often underestimated, various departments will quickly make many small innovations or small improvements, and it seems that innovation is in full swing within the enterprise, but in the end it is the "Qiandao Lake", which is not organically integrated with each other and cannot form a transformation synergy. The other opposite is the inability to land. Enterprises always want to do a good job of planning before acting, a lot of discussion, research and research cost a lot of time and resources, but it is becoming more and more difficult to reach a consensus. There are many people who come up with ideas, few people who are willing to take risks to promote landing, and few truly valuable practical results.
Therefore, the biggest challenges of enterprise digital transformation come from within. If their own problems are not solved, the transformation will be dragged down. "We must use an inward-looking revolution to open up the 'second pulse of the governor' of the enterprise and achieve self-evolution in order to fully stimulate organizational activity and provide sufficient impetus for the digital transformation of the enterprise." Zhang Yanyan said.
Schneider Electric — the way to organizational change
As a pioneer in digital transformation in the industry, Schneider Electric has made many explorations and practices, and has effectively promoted the process of enterprise digital transformation through organizational change. These experiences, Zhang Yanyan summed up in 16 words: culture first, organizational guarantee, talent win, ecological empowerment.
First of all, corporate culture must come first, and it is very important to establish a culture that tolerates trial and error. Only by establishing a culture within the organization that encourages innovation and full tolerance, and is implemented by managers in practical work, can employees bear the risk of making mistakes, can they give full play to their enthusiasm and initiative, and thus truly and effectively promote change within the enterprise.
Zhang Yanyan said that "inclusion" is one of the cores of Schneider Electric's corporate culture. In the 185-year history of Schneider Electric, schneider Electric has been able to continuously transform and break through, and to integrate multiple M&A organizations at different stages of development, relying on the power of inclusion, "We believe that the different talents and ideas of employees can create value." ”
Taking Schneider Electric's global supply chain as an example, the company has a special plan to fully stimulate the enthusiasm of employees, through a similar internal "entrepreneurial competition" approach, to attract employees with strong digital willingness, while understanding the pain points of specific application scenarios and have digital innovation capabilities, they lead the team, the company gives resource support, deploys internal or external digital application solutions, and finally achieves a significant improvement in supply chain efficiency. In addition, within Schneider Electric, "Eat our own food" is a common phrase, which means to experiment with yourself first, and apply the digital solution and its corresponding management processes in your own organization and factory first, and then bring it to the market after success.
Second, organizational safeguards should be in place, including mechanisms, processes and organizational structures. "Digital transformation requires companies to be very flat and cross traditional organizational boundaries, which is the only way to bring enough flexibility and customer-centric response," Zhang said. "In the digital age, enterprises are more flexible and efficient, and need to break the norm and allow a certain degree of "chaos". In this case, how the organization adjusts and how the management follows up becomes the key issue.
Schneider Electric's answer is: empowerment. Taking China as an example, Schneider Electric's development and growth in the Chinese market for more than 30 years is the process of continuous empowerment and authorization of the group headquarters in China. "We believe that empowerment is about letting people who can hear the cannon fire summon the cannon fire, and we must have agile thinking and agile execution ability." In many ways, the Chinese team can be said to be its own "master", and can quickly make decisions based on the development of the local market and customer needs, without seeking approval from the headquarters. At the end of May this year, the Schneider Electric Software R&D Center was established in Beijing, which is also another proof that Schneider Electric has deepened the guarantee of localization organization. So far, the pattern of the four major R&D centers has been built in China, and the R&D capabilities cover the fields from hardware to software, from 2B to 2C.
Third, talents with digital concepts and capabilities are the winning elements of transformation. Innovative minds are not available to everyone, but digital capabilities can be cultivated. If more and more people in the enterprise have digital ideas and capabilities, then the transformation will come naturally.
Schneider Electric attaches great importance to the cultivation of digital talents, not only setting up supporting courses, but also encouraging employees to exercise themselves in practice. Due to the large number of service industries and the complexity of digital application scenarios, front-line employees often face new needs and challenges. In this regard, the company advocates employees to break the boundaries of departments, form a "business commando team", and coordinate the resources of all parties to solve customer problems. In the process, employees are greatly empowered and feel that their work is more "meaningful". In addition, unlike companies that generally pursue employee stability, Schneider Electric encourages internal mobility and has created an internal Open Talent Market that uses AI technology to match employee capabilities, career development needs, and internal positions. The platform itself is a digital tool that helps employees tap into new potential and gain more room for growth.
Finally, in order to improve the competitiveness of the entire industry, ecological empowerment is also needed. Zhang Yanyan frankly said that today's competition is a competition between the value chain, and it is not feasible to fight alone. And the ecological circle in the digital era will be more decentralized and more equal, there is no "leading big brother" between ecological partners, everyone must promote each other and work together for win-win results in order to promote industrial digital upgrading.
This year, Schneider Electric once again launched the "Win-win Plan", covering the two major areas of green intelligent manufacturing and green energy management, recruiting small and medium-sized enterprises with technological innovation potential to help them incubate scenario-based, landable and reusable solutions. As one of the core initiators, Schneider Electric is more like an "adhesive" and an enabler, and has handed over the stage to many cooperative companies. At the same time, Schneider Electric does not hesitate to share its experience with ecological partners, not only industry empowerment, but also management empowerment. For example, Schneider Electric University, a "university without walls" established in 2020, shares its knowledge and experience with partners, suppliers, and customers, learns from successful or failed cases, learns lessons, and grows into a learning organization together.
Unchanging values – the endogenous force of enterprise development
Zhang Yanyan believes that digital transformation requires changes in concepts, actions and other aspects, but not everything has to change. Business managers need to clearly distinguish between "change" and "unchanged" in the transformation process, and stick to what they think is the most essential.
For Schneider Electric, what remains unchanged is the corporate values, that is, the employee value proposition of "meaning, inclusion and empowerment". Empowering everyone in an organization to do meaningful work in an inclusive culture is the secret to Schneider Electric's continued transformation over the century. In the organizational transformation with digital transformation as the goal, whether it is cultural cultivation, organizational security, talent training and ecological empowerment, it is all carried out around the core of "meaning, inclusion and empowerment", because "excellent talents achieve excellent Schneider Electric." ”
"Digital transformation is like building a house, the target strategy is the roof, the business product is the pillar, and organizational change is the foundation. Only by laying a solid foundation can we stably support the business and ultimately achieve the transformation goals. Zhang Yanyan also stressed that values are the endogenous force of the organization, "with the promotion of endogenous forces, enterprises have the strength to build a solid pillar, lay a good foundation for organizational change, and keep pace with the times in an ever-changing environment." In this way, the success of digital transformation is not far away, and it is enough to wait. ”