Endogenous externalization begins with internal innovation, perfection in its own practice, and external empowerment.
On the afternoon of April 25, 2020, thinkPad Bloomage Live store in Wukesong, Beijing. Wang Zhong, vice president of Lenovo Group and general manager of the SME customer business group in China, participated in the ongoing live broadcast activities of the store as an anchor and distributed benefits to fans as a "Lenovo Koi".
"Hello old irons!" Wang Zhong, wearing a red hoodie printed with the words "China Lenovo", greeted the netizens on the screen warmly, and although he wore a mask, his joy was also overflowing, which was lenovo's first live broadcast after the new fiscal year. How to make small and medium-sized enterprises feel the changes brought about by digital transformation, and what value Lenovo can bring to the digitalization of small and medium-sized enterprises, Wang Zhong has his own thoughts and answers.
Small and medium-sized enterprises have ushered in new opportunities for high-quality development
Ten years ago, in 2011, Gartner first proposed the concept of digital transformation.
In the past ten years, the wind and clouds have surged, and everything around it has undergone earth-shaking changes, from macro to micro, from the national economy and people's livelihood to food, clothing, housing and transportation. Ten years ago, it was hard to imagine that flexible manufacturing could already process the most complex clothing; artificial meat could come directly to the table through 3D printing; sweeping robots would walk into the most ordinary homes; driverless RoboTaxi could be summoned through apps, and digitalization has completely penetrated into every scene of our lives.
This year, as the opening year of the "14th Five-Year Plan", from the development of the "digital economy" to the construction of "digital China", digital transformation has become the key proposition of the times. Under the influence of the epidemic, the level of digitalization has become one of the important indicators to measure the length of the lifeline of enterprises, and enterprises that have not completed digitization mean that they will be eliminated first.
Therefore, digital transformation is no longer a multiple choice question for small and medium-sized enterprises, but a mandatory question. In fact, small and medium-sized enterprises are also adapting to the change, the investment in IT is increasing year by year, and the IT investment of individual enterprises will reach a compound growth rate of more than 30% from 2020 to 2022.
But this is far from enough, compared with the level of enterprise digitalization in developed countries, China's small and medium-sized enterprises are still in the early stage of digital transformation, there are still many problems that have not been solved, such as the interconnection between systems, how to choose digital tools that are more in line with enterprises, how to make digital tools more compliant, etc. Only by solving all the above similar problems is what a mature digital enterprise should look like.
At present, small and medium-sized enterprises maintain more than 60% of China's total economic volume, and building digital capabilities is the only way for small and medium-sized enterprises to move towards "specialization and innovation". Therefore, we can see that whether it is the notice of the General Office of the State Council that it will increase the relief and support for small and medium-sized enterprises in terms of financing, finance and taxation, social security, special fund support, etc.; or the opening of the Beijing Stock Exchange to accelerate the improvement of the financial support system for small and medium-sized enterprises, and to create a good environment for innovative small and medium-sized enterprises to better and faster financing, all of them show that:
This is a new era for small and medium-sized enterprises.
In the new era, the digitalization of small and medium-sized enterprises is no longer a single fight, lenovo has become a reliable partner on their digital transformation road. Recently, with his exploration and practice in the field of digitalization in China, Wang Zhong won the "2021 Digital Innovation Leader" award issued by 36Kr.
Lenovo has long been deeply engaged in serving small and medium-sized enterprises
In an exclusive interview with 36Kr, Wang Zhong's eyes were firm, and he talked about the digital transformation of small and medium-sized enterprises at present, "At present, there are very few ICT manufacturers in China that can set up a department to serve small and medium-sized enterprises. Because we have such a department, we can study the digital needs of small and medium-sized enterprises more deeply, better provide the products and services they want for small and medium-sized enterprises, and pragmatically help them achieve high-quality development. ”
At the "SME Customer Conference" in April this year, Lenovo released the "Digital FAST Lightspeed Engine" for small and medium-sized enterprises. The four words "Fast fast, Affordable low cost, Simple simple, tested effective" represent the four core demands of small and medium-sized enterprises in digital transformation. In the actual application scenario, the four words have evolved into a number of highly targeted solutions launched by Lenovo. Wang Zhong said that Lenovo has served small and medium-sized enterprises for more than 20 years, and the share of Lenovo PCs in the Chinese SME market continues to rank first, and has now exceeded 30%, hitting a record high. In terms of customer satisfaction, Lenovo ranked first in net promoter value among SME customers.
At the same time, Lenovo and the China Association of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises jointly launched the "FAST Lightspeed Growth Plan", which will conduct digital knowledge training for millions of small and medium-sized enterprises by 2025, design transformation solutions for 100,000 enterprises for free, and provide zero-cost digital start-up funding programs for 10,000 enterprises.
As a global enterprise that started from a small bungalow and gradually developed into a fortune global enterprise in the world's top 500, Lenovo deeply understands the growth path of small and medium-sized enterprises. Wang Zhong said that when Lenovo was founded in 1984, there were only 11 people, and now there are more than 70,000 employees worldwide. We are very familiar with how many difficulties an small and medium-sized enterprise has encountered from starting a business, to developing and maturing, to constantly changing and transforming, and we hope to pass on our development experience to more small and medium-sized enterprises.
With the pragmatic spirit of "competent and willing", the "endogenous" power of Association is self-driven.
Adding a "new engine" to the digitalization of SMEs
"The confidence to provide digital services for small and medium-sized enterprises comes from Lenovo's own digital and intelligent transformation experience and technology accumulation." Wang Zhong said that this can also be summarized as Lenovo's "endogenous" advantage in digitalization.
Among them, Lenovo's intelligent IT engine "DynaSky Optimus" based on the new IT technology architecture of "end-edge-cloud-network-intelligence" includes the IaaS layer (hybrid cloud, private cloud, public cloud/private cloud), GPaaS layer (technology middle office and general service middle office), and VPaaS layer (smart city, intelligent manufacturing, smart education, smart business and other different industry fields). "DynaSky Optimus" has the three characteristics of cloud native, middle-stage and AI intelligence, and when faced with customer scenario requirements, it can complete development and application at a lower cost, more agile and efficient, and more integrated. Through the continuous accumulation and precipitation of innovative technologies and transformation experience, the new IT endogenous practice can accelerate digital reconstruction.
With the help of DynaSky's technical advantages, Lenovo integrates the data, computing power and algorithms required for digitalization and intelligence, and applies them to the company's internal business operations. For example, in Lenovo Hefei Lianbao factory, 80% of more than 5,000 orders per day need to be personalized, in the past it took several hours to rely on manual scheduling, and now through intelligent scheduling, it takes only 90 seconds, and the efficiency has achieved a geometric improvement.
Of course, digital capabilities are not castles in the air, but must be placed on a strong industrial base.
In this regard, Lenovo has 17 R&D bases around the world, the number of researchers and scientists is as high as 10,000 people, and nearly 30,000 patents have been applied for in the world; in terms of products, Lenovo provides end-to-end, rich categories and hardware equipment covering the full price range; at the same time, Lenovo also has more than 20,000 service engineers, and more than 2,400 service stations, which fully and perfectly cover all 1-6 cities in China; in terms of supply chain, Lenovo has more than 30 own and cooperative factories. and more than 2,000 parts suppliers.
These "bottom cards" constitute Lenovo's "endogenous" digital solid foundation, when many companies find that digital transformation is imminent, Lenovo has locked the 3S track from a strategic height (smart products, intelligent infrastructure and smart services) as early as before the cycle comes, which is just in line with the post-epidemic era, market changes and growth logic under the new cycle, and builds certainty for its own business development.
"3 Numbers" in the Digitalization of SMEs
In the face of the uncertainties of the external environment, the motivation for the digital transformation of SMEs themselves is obvious, but it is difficult to really understand how to transform in the midst of it. On the other hand, the number of small and medium-sized enterprises is huge, distributed throughout the country, and their needs vary widely. In the past four months, Lenovo has visited thousands of small and medium-sized enterprises and continuously conducted interviews and exchanges with managers. Wang Zhong said: "After collecting enough feedback, we look at the digitalization of small and medium-sized enterprises mainly with the help of [5, 4, 6] three numbers. ”
5 represents five dimensions, namely "technology, input, awareness, talent and decision-making", which can measure the level of digital development of an SME. Technology refers to the level of technical planning and application; investment is the use of funds and future budget levels for digital construction; awareness comes from whether enterprise managers have complete digital strategic thinking; talent is to judge the digital professional ability of enterprise employees, whether there is a talent management plan for digital construction; decision-making depends on the extent to which enterprises use data to guide and drive business optimization and upgrading.
4 represents four types of enterprises, and the maturity of enterprise digital development can be divided into four categories from high to low, namely digital native, digital-driven, local promotion, and single-point experiment. These 4 types of enterprises are currently distributed in a pyramid shape, and the digital native types at the tip of the pyramid are mostly newly established high-tech start-ups in recent years, while 60% of small and medium-sized enterprises are still in the first two stages of development (single-point experimental type and local promotion type).
For example, a local promotion enterprise (a head automobile interior and exterior decoration manufacturer), the enterprise has more branches in the country, the need to achieve unified management of fixed assets, before manual statistics, the error rate is high. Lenovo provides a cost-effective asset management system that collects and summarizes data in real time through the scanning gun, which improves work efficiency and reduces management costs. At the same time, the whole life cycle management of enterprise fixed assets is realized. In addition, for high temperature and high corrosion environments, Lenovo has specially customized the printing of two-dimensional codes on metal to solve the problem of fixed asset inventory.
6 represents six scenarios, lenovo divides digital investment into six core scenarios according to the core pain points and needs of customers: development scenarios, supply chain scenarios, customer marketing and service scenarios, enterprise management scenarios, efficient office scenarios and IT operation and maintenance scenarios.
For example, in the IT operation and maintenance scenario that represents the basic ability of enterprise digital transformation, Lenovo will create a foundation for the digital transformation of enterprises, such as the investment, construction and operation and maintenance of some IT infrastructure; efficient office scenarios include online and offline conference systems, cross-device sharing and control of remote conference systems; in enterprise management scenarios, Lenovo also covers the digital level of human, financial, legal, administrative, and operational management.
Another example is the customer marketing and service scene, through the customer's full mileage of contact points and relationship construction, relationship operation, efficient customer management, such as small and medium-sized enterprises in customer acquisition, customer conversion, interaction and operation, service, etc.; supply chain scenario is that many enterprises in the construction of upstream and downstream supply chains, need to improve the efficiency of the collaborative operation of the supply chain, in the past, small and medium-sized enterprises rely more on people to pull shoulders, through the way of forming a way to manage the supply chain, through the telephone to form a synergy, but this is far from enough, What they need more now is to move their business from the field of digital transformation to more flexible management.
Around the "5-4-6" theory, companies can re-examine the environment and form a strong relationship with their products and services with customers. At the moment of the rapid growth of China's digital economy, a number of enterprises are growing rapidly with the help of digital Dongfeng, and small and medium-sized enterprises will rapidly improve their digital development level, which will become the key to changing the competitive landscape.
"Endogenous externalization" accompanies the growth of small and medium-sized enterprises
A leading domestic call center business outsourcing provider, during the epidemic isolation, because the call center agents and equipment are in the company, the pressure of Party A's pressure and revenue sharp decline suddenly came, in this case, the company urgently needs a solution that can quickly convert centralized agents into SOHO agents, and with the help of Lenovo Rubik's Cube intelligent customer service system, the company achieved full seat switching within 2 days, solving the problem of not being able to work during the epidemic.
Wang Zhong said, "While we are based on "DynaSky" to enhance our own digital capabilities, we will also externalize some mature endogenous applications to small and medium-sized enterprises, and the Rubik's Cube intelligent customer service system is a very good representative, which provides SaaS and local deployment of two flexible models, which have been used by many small and medium-sized enterprises. ”
Relying on more than 20 years of accumulation and development in the field of customers, Lenovo intelligent customer service system has become the only customer service system in China that has passed COPC certification for 6 times. Artificial intelligence AI has become the core of Lenovo's Cube intelligence system, and more than 60% of customer problems can be solved by AI robots. In addition, the system also supports knowledge graph and semantic recognition functions, which can monitor customer mood changes at any time, making communication more accurate and efficient.
In addition, Lenovo has also built a one-stop, subscriptionable service to provide small and medium-sized enterprises with a wealth of PC products, intelligent hardware and smart services, and can build a variety of intelligent scene solutions according to the actual needs of different types of enterprises, and integrate the decentralized one-time procurement model of hardware, software, services into a subscriptionable service model, enterprises can combine subscriptions on demand, give customers a full-scenario experience and inner value recognition, and help them achieve digital transformation faster.
For example, a retail service enterprise with a rapid business expansion period has many branches, but the existing equipment is old and single, and the off-site collaboration is very inefficient. After using Lenovo thinkplus intelligent conference solution, real-time screen sharing of discussion meeting content can be annotated instantly, meeting minutes can also be shared by one-click scan code, and real-time translation into more than 50 languages is provided.
The digitalization of small and medium-sized enterprises is not achieved overnight, and in this long journey, in order to allow small and medium-sized enterprises to obtain corresponding services more directly and conveniently, Lenovo has also created a one-stop IT procurement platform Lenovo Enterprise Purchase, as well as Lenovo Baiying smart office platform (the platform adopts two forms of PC pre-installed software and mini programs, integrating devices + services + application solutions, and providing digital solutions and services for small and medium-sized enterprises around integrated office, IT services, and SaaS applications). Offline, the Lenovo Intelligent Business Fusion Store can also allow small and medium-sized enterprise customers to deeply experience Lenovo's hardware, software and services, and feel how to reduce costs and increase efficiency through digitalization.
"The number of small and medium-sized enterprises is very large, there are more than 40 million, and now it has become the main force driving China's economic development." Wang Zhong said at the end of the interview, "What Lenovo hopes is to resonate with the same frequency as the development of the country, and in terms of digital empowerment for small and medium-sized enterprises, few manufacturers have the ability to do it like Lenovo, and they are willing to do it." ”
This is not only a new opportunity given to small and medium-sized enterprises in the digital age, but also represents Lenovo's sense of responsibility and original intention to create greater value for society, which is a new starting point for Lenovo, and a new journey for small and medium-sized enterprises, and in the future, it may also become a new symbol of China's digital economy development.