What role will digital tools play in the digital transformation of physical industries?

Li Nan, Senior Researcher of Tencent Research Institute

Wu Pengyang Senior Researcher of Tencent Research Institute

Throughout the first three industrial revolutions, the efficiency changes in human society have been accompanied by the birth of new tools, which will comprehensively promote social transitions from production and lifestyle, organization and business models.

Nowadays, a new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation has swept the world, and digital tools have become the intersection of the integration of the Internet and the physical industry, which is driving the digital transformation of business models, organizational management, business scenarios and so on. To complete the digital transformation of the real industry, it is inseparable from the support of technical tools in the whole chain such as data collection, computing and storage, mining and analysis, application development, interactive display, etc., and also needs the support of R & D design, manufacturing, operation and management, after-sales service, procurement and marketing and other application tools.

Development Status:

Three types of digital tools to help industries grow

In the process of industrial digital transformation, the development of digital tools such as support, universal application and vertical application is an important link to promote the deep integration of digital technology and the real economy.

First, the development of supportive tools continues to emerge, becoming an "accelerator" for the application of digital technologies in various industries.

Such tools include data acquisition, computational storage, mining analysis, application development, interactive display and other general technology products, mainly based on the packaging and evolution of digital technology. Digital technology enterprises have accelerated the improvement of toB services, and technology-based tools have become "standard". For example, one-stop machine learning tools, big data management tools, and Internet of Things platforms in the industry are emerging in an endless stream, supporting third parties to carry out secondary development and achieve application innovation. In addition, the native technology of the Internet industry is accelerating the spillover of new digital tools, providing more and more powerful support for the digital transformation of the physical industry. For example, game engines in the game industry are becoming an important tool for building digital twins in manufacturing, healthcare, transportation, etc. Game company Unity provides traditional industries with the tools to build a digital twin three-dimensional world with powerful game engine capabilities, and can support enterprises to be highly customized.

Second, general application tools tend to mature and become an important starting point for the real industry to explore digitalization.

Universal application-oriented tools that integrate digital technology and the common needs of enterprises continue to be enriched and popularized, such as online marketing, remote collaboration, digital office and other tools have become the starting point for digital transformation in various industries and industries. On the one hand, the application of universal application tools has accelerated the popularity, such as the online office field, according to the Data of the China Internet Network Information Center, as of June 2021, the scale of online office users in China has exceeded 380 million, and the usage rate has increased from 21% in June 2020 to 37.7%. On the other hand, universal application-based tools continue to evolve towards platformization, meeting more digital needs by integrating third-party applications. For example, Slack can directly integrate industry-leading software and mini programs, so that all the user's tools can work better, the Slack application catalog currently provides more than 2400 applications, and supports users to quickly install and use. Through the 4.0 version upgrade, weChat, a domestic enterprise, has realized the connection and integration with Tencent conferences, Tencent documents and other applications, providing customers with a smoother and richer collaborative office experience.

Third, the innovation and exploration of vertical application tools has become the key to improving productivity through digital transformation in the real industry.

Vertical application tools are deeply integrated from digital technology and industry technology, knowledge and experience, mainly including intelligent quality detection, predictive maintenance of equipment, intelligent identification of medical images, intelligent planting of crops and other industry applications, which can deeply solve industry-specific problems and is the core of enterprises to achieve digital transformation. On the one hand, it has become a trend for digital technology companies to cooperate with the real industry to launch vertical application-oriented tools, such as the Tenghui Fei pupil AI quality inspection instrument jointly developed by Tencent and automation company Huiyan Technology, which can improve the quality inspection efficiency by 10 times compared with the original manual quality inspection. On the other hand, innovative enterprises are actively deploying in the field of industry needs and digital technology integration, and promoting the innovation of vertical application tools. For example, in the field of smart medical treatment, according to iResearch data, from January 2020 to July 2021, smart medical start-ups obtained three types of medical device registration certificates for 12 medical imaging digital tools such as pneumonia, tuberculosis and fractures in the field of artificial intelligence and medical image integration.

Problems:

Compatibility of categories, thresholds and business needs

At present, the digital tool chain in the mainland is in the stage of consuming more digital tools on the Internet side and fewer digital tools on the industrial Internet side. On the one hand, rich platforms and applications such as social networking, entertainment, e-commerce, and takeaway have fully met the needs of consumers; on the other hand, the needs of enterprises such as research and development, production, and supply chain management generally lack sufficiently rich and convenient tools to effectively support the real industry to complete digital transformation.

First, there are few types of digital tools, and there are not many types and functions of digital tools, which cannot meet the diversified needs of the real industry.

The digital transformation of the real industry involves the needs of R & D and design, manufacturing, operation management, after-sales service, procurement and marketing, etc., and the needs of various industries such as industry, city, transportation, and medical care are very different, which requires different kinds of digital tools to meet the personalized requirements of various industries and fields. However, at present, whether it is a tool evolved from the consumer Internet or an original professional software tool in the real industry, it cannot fully meet the above needs.

Second, the threshold is high, and the use of digital tools requires high technical capabilities, which limits the application of the real industry and secondary innovation.

Digital tools are essentially enabling tools for the digital transformation of the industry, and its core role is to combine industry knowledge to achieve new business, the exploration of new models and the digital transformation of traditional services, so as to achieve optimization of quality, efficiency, cost, etc., but the current digital tools are high in their use costs and thresholds, whether it is large and medium-sized enterprises, or small and micro enterprises, when applying digital tools for business construction, there are higher professional requirements for users, tools need to be specific transformations, etc., resulting in no use, The phenomenon of no one using it persists. In addition, Gartner estimates that the shortage of digital talent will create 30% of technical vacancies in 2020, requiring digital tools that can efficiently and simply support the use of more people in the physical industry.

Third, the adaptation is poor, the integration of digital tools and physical industry knowledge is low, and the adaptability to business needs is not strong.

The digital transformation of traditional industries is the result of the integration of digital technology, industry needs, knowledge and experience, but the current digital tools are often based on a single digital technology to form a universal tool platform, which has a poor degree of knowledge integration and adaptability with different industries, and the current homogenization phenomenon is also more serious, limiting industry innovation. The current digital tools are focused on artificial intelligence, Internet of Things platform, blockchain, big data platform and other single products, its design and function are focused on innovation and optimization at the IT level, the lack of integration and integration of industry knowledge, and the various tools are difficult to open up, can not adapt to the requirements of the real industry professional knowledge density, complex and diverse data types and other scenarios, resulting in the redundancy of many functions and products. According to the Standard Group, on average, more than 60% of enterprise-grade software features are virtually unused or completely unused.

Future trends and development opportunities

With the continuous deepening of the national digital integration strategy, enterprises that master digital technology will increase the development of digital tools, and gradually solve various problems and obstacles faced by digital tools through in-depth cooperation with physical enterprises, and more rich, convenient and professional digital tools will usher in new development opportunities.

First, integration and platformization will be the "issue" that general application tools need to face.

With the deepening of digital transformation, the needs of enterprises will also transition from a single local scenario to a global scenario, in this process, the tool needs of enterprises are no longer limited to a single online conference, collaborative office, etc., but turn to the digital toolbox of the whole link, which will stimulate large tools to continuously integrate small tools, evolve to the platform, small tools will continue to be integrated, forming an ecosystem of mutually beneficial coexistence between platform tools and subdivision tools.

Second, deep cultivation around the integration of digital technology and industry knowledge will be the key to building the competitiveness of vertical application tools.

In scenarios with intensive technology and industry experience, such as medical image recognition, predictive maintenance of industrial equipment, and intelligent planting of agriculture, digital and intelligent tools have obvious effects on the efficiency and cost optimization of the industry. However, the path of differences in industries and fields varies greatly, resulting in higher development costs of tools, and the need for long-term experimentation and accumulation on the user side. This requires the main body of tool developers to carry out deep cultivation in subdivision industries and subdivisions in order to build a moat of vertical application tools.

Third, improving the adaptability of industry demand will be the key path to develop supporting tools to "highlight the siege of homogeneous competition".

The development of support tools is accompanied by the vigorous layout of different subjects, and is in the stage of white-hot competition, and the emergence of excellent tools needs to be adapted and integrated with the industry's usage habits, knowledge experience, business models, etc. to build core competitiveness. For example, SIEPA predictive analytics tools from Siemens enable interactive and intelligent analysis of industrial experience and industrial big data, and help users build equipment fault libraries.

Fourth, the spillover of Internet native technology will continue to become one of the sources of digital tool innovation.

With the acceleration of the pace of integration of different industries, the technology and tools accumulated by the Internet in games, advertising, e-commerce, social networking and other fields will have more opportunities to experiment and explore in traditional industries, including image recognition, speech recognition, 3D modeling, real-time rendering and other technical tools will enter the industrial Internet from the field of consumer Internet to accelerate the realization of digital transformation of traditional industries.