-- Explore the effective path of professional integration of state-owned enterprises
Wen | Wang Jipeng
Source| the April 2022 issue of State-Owned Enterprise Magazine
Since the launch of the three-year reform of state-owned enterprises, the state-owned assets system has vigorously promoted professional integration, the main responsibility for the main business has become more prominent, the industrial competition has become more orderly, the allocation of resources has been more optimized, the industrial chain has been smoother, the innovation has been more powerful, and the results of reform and development have been obvious.
The key tasks of the reform of state-owned assets and state-owned enterprises include promoting the optimization and structural adjustment of the layout of state-owned capital, promoting the strategic reorganization and professional integration of state-owned enterprises, and giving more prominence to the main business and developing the real economy. The reorganization of state-owned enterprises is divided into two steps, the first step is to merge the same kind of items, the policy-oriented reorganization of state-owned enterprises, the formation of state-owned capital investment companies, state-owned capital operation companies and state-owned industrial groups; the second step is to reorganize or newly establish the business reorganization and plate development within the above three types of companies. This can be simply interpreted as restructuring the group first, and then reorganizing the organization and business within the group.
In the process of professional integration, the views and measures of "one industry, one enterprise" and "one enterprise and one industry" have emerged. The meaning of the words is very simple, but if you do not know it, you will make dogmatic and empirical mistakes, follow the clouds, draw a scoop according to the gourd, and make random changes, causing unnecessary losses, missing development opportunities, and losing the good situation of reform.
There are three models for the restructuring of central enterprises
There are at least three models for the restructuring of central enterprises. The first is to combine strong and powerful to improve industrial concentration, while reducing some duplicate construction and duplicate investment. There are the most cases of this model, such as the reorganization of CRRC by North and South Vehicles, and the reorganization of Guodian and Shenhua into the National Energy Group. The second is the integration of the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain, which is called vertical mergers and acquisitions, which can reduce the dependence on external resources, which has the fewest cases of this model, such as Sinochem Group and China National Chemical Group to form a new Sinochem Group. The third is specialized reorganization, which is to jointly reorganize the existing sectors of various central enterprises to enhance the market scale and increase market competitiveness, and the number of cases in this model is relatively small, such as the newly established China Rare Earth Group and China Logistics Group.
The first and third of the above three models can be regarded as "one industry, one enterprise". "One industry and one enterprise" can be understood as attributing a type of industry or business to an enterprise for unified operation and management, that is, merging similar items, reducing internal competition in the system, avoiding left-handed hitting right-handed, and also conducive to enterprise specialization, fundamentally reducing repeated investment and homogeneous competition. "One enterprise and one industry" can be understood as the main business of a type of industry or business for the enterprise, focusing on the main business, abandoning other businesses, and avoiding diversified investment. Renda Strategy believes that the "one industry, one enterprise" model will promote the optimization and integration of resources, thereby driving the efficient operation of enterprises and the in-depth development of the industry. "One enterprise and one industry" is convenient in supervision and clear in group control, but there are many problems in corporate strategy, and it is necessary to choose carefully.
"One industry, one enterprise" has obvious advantages
The advantages of "one industry, one enterprise" are obvious. First, "one industry, one enterprise" is an effective means to fundamentally reduce duplicate investment and homogeneous competition. Effectively promoting the continuous optimization of the layout structure of the state-owned economy is of great significance to improving industrial concentration and the core competitiveness of enterprises. With advantageous enterprises as the main body and the reform of the industry system in related fields as an opportunity, we will vigorously promote the professional integration of the industrial field through gratuitous transfer, paid acquisition, joint-stock cooperation, etc., effectively enhance the competitiveness of enterprises through the optimal allocation of resources, and create a world-class enterprise with global competitiveness.
Based on this, the central enterprises and state-owned enterprises have intensively reorganized and integrated, adjusted and optimized the business sector, promoted the concentration of resources in the main business, made industrial competition more orderly, and improved the degree of industrial concentration. The problems of disorderly competition and homogeneous operation have also been significantly resolved, and the allocation of resources has been more optimized. The professional integration between central enterprises and between central enterprises and local state-owned enterprises is also effectively promoted, further promoting the integration of institutions, personnel, management and culture, guiding the concentration of resources to advantageous enterprises, and the reform results are very remarkable.
In 2020, the State Pipeline Network Group acquired the relevant pipeline assets of the three major oil companies through market-oriented methods, breaking the traditional pattern of integrated operation of upstream, middle and downstream businesses mainly by the three major oil companies, improving the level of interconnection, and promoting the initial formation of the "X+1+X" oil and gas market operation mechanism with Chinese characteristics and the new pattern of "one national network", effectively ensuring the safe and stable supply of oil and gas energy in the mainland. This professional integration involves 4 listed companies, the transaction consideration is 406.18 billion yuan, and the reform of equity diversification at the level of the national pipe network group has been completed synchronously, and 243.7 billion yuan of funds have been introduced, creating a number of "global largest transactions" in the world in 2020 and the largest transaction in the global oil and gas industry in the past 5 years.
The electrical equipment industry is a national heavy weapon for achieving energy security and stable supply. For the establishment of China Electric Equipment Group, Renda Strategy analysis believes that this will effectively solve the problems of scattered resources, prominent structural contradictions and weak core competitiveness in the field of transmission and distribution equipment manufacturing in the mainland, and build an industrial coordinated development ecology with leading leadership, chain extension and cluster progress.
Second, "one industry and one enterprise" is conducive to greatly enhancing the core competitiveness of enterprises. "One industry and one enterprise" can reduce the external costs of enterprise operation, so that enterprises can "focus on the main business", in terms of professional integration, take business strengthening and refinement as the goal, and continuously release synergistic effects, achieve technological breakthroughs and management improvement, and form unique advantages, thereby enhancing the core competitiveness of enterprises.
CNOOC focuses on the main business, comprehensively sorts out its affiliated enterprises, formulates a development and exit list, implements dynamic adjustments, actively implements the improvement of the quality and efficiency of the industrial chain, strengthens the effective coordination of the upstream, middle and downstream sectors, accelerates the restructuring and integration of similar businesses and assets, promotes the concentration of production factors to the main business, and improves the efficiency of resource allocation and overall operating efficiency. For example, the establishment of international trade companies, the integration of existing trading companies, unified planning of marketing and trade business, resource allocation and system construction, and promotion of the organic combination and mutual leverage of resources and trade, further enhance the resource advantages and competitive advantages of CNOOC.
"One enterprise, one industry" potential problem
"One enterprise and one industry" has its rationality and positive significance, but its existing problems are also obvious.
First, "one enterprise and one industry" may hinder the integrated development of the industrial chain value chain of enterprises. The rapid development of science and technology and the complexity and change of the environment have eliminated the traditional industrial barriers, and the industrial boundaries are gradually blurring. Now many enterprises can not even use industrial attributes to define, such as Didi will travel services with the Internet, finance, technological innovation integration, upstream and downstream integration and business model innovation, business scope has covered travel services, financial services, intelligent transportation, automatic driving, artificial intelligence and so on. Now Didi is not only a travel service company and an Internet company, but also a financial enterprise and a technology company.
Adopting "one enterprise and one industry", if only the traditional industrial classification is used to require it, the enterprise will be greatly constrained in the development process. For example, if a travel agency operates tourism and financial business at the same time, it can increase the number of tourism orders by providing consumers with tourism financial services such as "first travel and then pay" and "down payment tour". However, in accordance with the "one enterprise, one industry", the travel agency only operates the tourism business and restricts or abandons the industry and finance model, in the current era when "advanced consumption and installment consumption" are becoming more and more popular, consumers will choose other travel agencies, and the travel business of this travel agency will be greatly discounted and the development of the enterprise will be affected.
Second, "one enterprise and one industry" may hinder the innovation of enterprise business models. At present, the industrial boundary is gradually blurred, and cross-border cooperation, value co-creation, and model innovation have become trends, showing a trend of industrial integration and development. Adopting the strategy of "one enterprise and one industry", the innovation and development of enterprises will also be greatly hindered. Changsha net red Wen Heyou, it looks like a catering company, in fact, it through cultural innovation and business model innovation, to create cultural IP to attract passenger flow, to obtain direct store profits, sub-brand franchise fees, cultural and creative peripheral profits and online mall profits, and then through the rental of shops, collect property rent, earn money in the whole industry chain. Wenheyou's multi-point composite business model makes it no longer just a catering company, but can be called a cultural and creative company or a commercial real estate company.
Therefore, "one enterprise and one industry" is not only the "one industry" in the traditional cognition, but at the same time it can not be the "one industry" in the traditional cognition, and its connotation and extension have been greatly expanded. That is to say, modern enterprise competition has gone beyond the traditional industrial attributes and more integrated into the new economy, new formats and new models. At present, many state-owned assets regulatory authorities authorize directly managed enterprises to study and propose new business areas to be cultivated and developed in the five-year development plan, and after reporting to the SASAC for approval, they are regarded as the same as the main business management, and after the development is mature, they can apply to the SASAC to adjust it to the main business, praising this policy.
To deepen the reform of state-owned assets and state-owned enterprises, we must base ourselves on innovation, adhere to one enterprise and one policy, and avoid one-size-fits-all. It is necessary to thoroughly study individualized reform plans in light of the actual conditions of enterprises. Which is more conducive to the high-quality development of state-owned enterprises is more in line with the development laws and trends at this stage. At the beginning of the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan", the Beijing Municipal State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission required that the main business of Beijing municipal enterprises should not exceed two, and the same industry could not be engaged in two listed enterprises at the same time. That is to say, other enterprises with similar businesses should be reorganized to municipal enterprises with this as the main business. At that time, we suggested that Beijing study whether it could introduce a model of integrated trading companies. For example, the Beijing Enterprises Group in the municipal enterprises, its business covers city gas, water, beer, pension real estate, rail transit, new energy, hotels, etc., with a comprehensive trading company structure with the core of serving the city, if it is limited according to the main business, it will be sufficient.
The reform of state-owned assets and state-owned enterprises requires courage and wisdom. As long as we respect the law, respect reality, and pay attention to innovation, state-owned assets and state-owned enterprises will become better and stronger.
The author is the chairman of Beijing Renda Strategy Management Consulting Company