Wen | Zhang Shule
In the past two days, the circle of friends has been brushed by a brand film of Tencent.
Let one person connect with a group of people, let the small shops on the street connect to distant business.
Let artificial intelligence help the manufacturing industry to carry out quality inspection, let the power grid and transportation be regulated with big data, and even let agriculture start automated planting...
When I also saw this "Digital Technology, Helping the Real Economy" brand film on CCTV, I suddenly realized that this was Tencent's declaration to all The Chinese people: In the unprecedented changes in a century, in the context of many challenges and pressures in China's economic development, Tencent will jump out of the comfort zone, go deep into the traditional industries that it does not know, and pave the way for promoting the development of the real economy.
Constantly taking the initiative to change based on the environment, Tencent is still the Tencent I know.
Listen and exercise restraint
Time back to ten years ago, in March 2011, just over 100 days after the 3Q war that began in November 2010, Tencent was eager to reflect after severe pain, and launched ten "diagnosis Tencent" closed doors to listen to the outside world.
As financial writer Wu Xiaobo said in Tencent Biography, almost all of China's most important Internet observers at that time were invited to participate in this "fairy meeting".
At Ma Huateng's request, all Tencent executives must attend at least one event to listen to the judgment of the outside world and even criticize it.
More than 100 experts and industry observers, the dagger shot is not polite.
In the one I participated in, tencent's two vice presidents and many middle and senior executives did not argue the whole time, only listening, answering, and deep reflection that overflowed into words.
Change happens quietly in this series of small-scale connections.
Tencent's first initiative to seek change began, and "openness" became the key word in its subsequent decade.
The WeChat project, which began on the first day of the 3Q war, may have also carried the fate of saying goodbye to yesterday from the beginning.
On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the establishment of WeChat in January 2021, Zhang Xiaolong, the father of WeChat, took the stage and summed up the 10 years of WeChat with two words: "connection" and "simple".
Zhang Xiaolong once said that minimalism cannot be surpassed.
As we have experienced, WeChat has always been minimalist in various functions. Even if you are not sure that you will never go online, such as a small program and video number that has been tested for a long time and has been late but has erupted overnight.
Minimalism on the tool is a kind of restraint.
The connection with the user should be redoubled.
In the Spring Festival of 2014, WeChat "red packets" were launched, and in the industry's view, this product made WeChat Pay one of the top streams of third-party payment.
But in fact, the red envelope is still only used as a minimalist connection, allowing users to establish an open channel closely related to their own culture and customs with WeChat and users and users.
Based on this shortcut, the estrangement between relatives and friends due to spatio-temporal distance may be alleviated.
This is just a microcosm of Tencent's connection with users.
Behind the self-restraint and simple connection, we can see tencent listening to the outside world and self-reflecting changes: giving people roses, leaving a fragrance in the hand.
But this is just a start-up, still in Tencent's comfort zone.
The connection with industry that opened in 2018 has become a bit fatal.
Win mutual trust
Connecting industries, there is a half-life saying.
Ma Huateng previously said in a media interview that before out of the instinct of distrust, all the business was done by ourselves, but now we have given half our lives to our partners.
What happens if half a life is handed over?
Some articles have criticized that Tencent has lost its dream and has no innovation.
This statement stems from Tencent's abandonment of e-commerce businesses such as Paipai.com and Tesco, and its investment in several independent companies such as JD.com, Pinduoduo, and Vipshop; the conclusion falls on Tencent's fall behind in the field of short video.
In addition, under the opening of mini programs, Tencent has given some vertical segments of market businesses such as knowledge payment, local life services, and enterprise services to "partners" to do too many stories.
Even in 2018, Tencent just launched a reading software called "Lizhi", but found that it "collided" with the partner's product, and immediately informed the relevant person in charge of the offline "Lizhi" and held accountable.
With such a half-life cooperation attitude to connect the industry, Tencent's idea of industrial Internet is also clearly visible: help but do not point fingers, use their own advantages to do the underlying structure, and help the intelligent transformation of the industry.
In this way, after three years of trial and error in more than 30 industries, Tencent has provided more than 400 customized solutions for mutual benefit and win-win results with partners.
Now, Tencent has gone one step further.
In December 2021, Ma Huateng wrote that more and more industries have begun to digitize and be intelligent, more and more elderly, young people and people with disabilities have joined the digital world, and the main objects of Internet services have developed from users (C) to industry (B), and now become social (S) - this is a new stage.
The core idea is summarized as: user, industry, society (CBS) trinity, science and technology for good.
In other words, Tencent should have a deeper connection with users, industries and even society, and carry out business expansion and promotion by helping the real economy and creating value for society as a whole.
It's hard to face without me
Is it difficult to help the real economy? Hard.
Because this time, Tencent wants to jump out of the Internet comfort zone, go deep into the field, factory workshop, and establish connections with unfamiliar entities such as agriculture, manufacturing, and energy, and provide targeted intelligent solutions.
For example, Shi Leigang, a doctor who left his scientific research post and went deep into the countryside, the connection point between him and agriculture is the field.
Shi Leigang's mission is to help build smart agriculture.
In this completely unfamiliar field, Tencent, which is the best at social networking, initially encountered the problem of "how to communicate with farmers".
It is not difficult to understand that farmers can't understand what you call "smart agriculture" and "digital help farmers", and naturally they are not willing to sacrifice a few more minutes of labor time to communicate with you.
In order to understand the real needs of farmers, Shi Leigang thought of many ways, such as carrying a pack of good cigarettes, and when he met villagers in the field, he handed over cigarettes first, and first won the time and trust of a cigarette for himself.
In this way, in the fields of Shaanxi, Henan, Northeast china and other provinces and cities, they learned about the difficulties and advantages of the differentiation of agriculture in thousands of villages and towns.
If there is a lack of technology, Tencent will build a platform to connect with first-class experts and provide technical support in a timely manner; if there is a lack of sales channels, Tencent will establish channel links to do order agriculture, adopt agriculture, let agricultural products go directly to communities, schools, and institutions, and achieve high quality and good prices for agricultural products.
The sales guarantee and brand building of agricultural products are still in the scope that Tencent is familiar with, and how to help agricultural production reduce costs and increase efficiency and risk control based on technology and platform, Shi Leigang is still groping.
"The crops in the experimental field are highly yielded, of good quality, and not sick, but once the seeds reach the hands of the fellow villagers, there will be various problems." Shi Leigang's words also spoke of the difficult challenges that Tencent encountered in connecting various industries in society.
Leaving the Internet, measuring the earth with footsteps, and talking face-to-face with tongues, only by listening, restraining, and opening up half-life determination and perseverance can we establish deeper connections with more traditional real industries.
Tencent, which could have done it quietly and brushed its sense of existence with some successful cases from time to time, chose to take the initiative to self-pressurize itself with brand films declared to the Chinese people at the beginning of the Long March.
It can be imagined that the smart energy, smart transportation, AI planting, intelligent manufacturing, and smart retail displayed in the brand film requires much effort and sinking, and how many Shi Leigang uses countless "one cigarette kung fu" to pull up his pants legs and roll up his sleeves to find a connection point.
In the following years, in order to "help the real economy", the willingness and gain in the process, the various unknown challenges that need to be faced, and the doubts that need to be endured by leaving the comfort zone are probably not something that can be brushed over by the four words of "facing difficulties".