Text/On the front line Old cool
Going through the cycle is not only a hot word, but also a problem that every enterprise must face and solve.
Saying goodbye to pc growth dependence, Lenovo is demonstrating the diversified vitality of connecting digital technologies and industrial transformation. In the performance report of the first fiscal quarter of 2022/23 (April to June) released by Lenovo in early this month, each business has achieved significant growth, but a more noteworthy point is that the proportion of business revenue other than personal computers in total revenue has reached more than 37%, becoming the best level in history, which also confirms from the side that Lenovo has seized new opportunities through the cycle.
Every enterprise and industry will go through a cycle in the process of development, expanding, peaking, falling, bottoming out, and then expanding again. The long-term development and success of an enterprise should spiral in one cycle after another, keep up with the times and maintain vitality.
For technology companies, the cycle means multiple aspects, not only business cycles, product cycles, but more importantly, technology cycles. In the era when digitalization and intelligence have become the main direction of industrial transformation, the technology cycle has increasingly become an important support for technological innovation and business exploration of enterprises.
The picture shows Wang Shuai, senior director of technology strategy and innovation platform of Lenovo Research Institute
Recently, in the frontline into lenovo research institute, dialogue with Lenovo research institute technology strategy and innovation platform senior director Wang Shuai, in-depth understanding of the innovation process behind Lenovo's major black technology, unveiled as a leader in the technology industry, Lenovo how to cross the technology cycle, so as to achieve a new development path through the enterprise through the cycle.
Crossing the technology cycle is the first criterion for enterprise innovation
Some people say that Lenovo is getting rid of the label of hardware manufacturers and turning to the industry and scene enablers in the digital age. In fact, this is exactly the case.
In the first half of the year, Lenovo established the primary topic of crossing the cycle, in which technological innovation was listed as the first pillar, and how to cross the technology cycle became the key to building a strong innovation ability.
As the senior director of technology strategy and innovation platform of Lenovo Research Institute, Wang Shuai is responsible for technology strategy, university/government scientific research cooperation, public relations branding and innovation incubation, and has more than 20 years of experience in strategic planning and innovation management.
Before joining Lenovo, Shuai Wang spent about 9 years at Microsoft headquarters and the strategic innovation department of Microsoft Asia Pacific R&D Group.
In 2015, Wang Shuai joined Lenovo, and has experienced positions closely related to technology management, such as strategic investment, innovation incubation, industry-university-research integration, technology strategy and R&D governance, and served as the deputy secretary-general of the Technical Committee of Lenovo Group, committed to promoting the formulation and implementation of Lenovo Group's technology and innovation strategic planning, and creating Lenovo's technology innovation ecosystem; At the same time, it promotes internal innovation incubation to enhance the innovation vitality of the Group and promote the development of Lenovo engineer culture and innovation culture.
From the perspective of personal resume, Wang Shuai has a deep understanding of the enterprise cycle and strategic planning and many years of experience, through him to understand how an enterprise through the technology cycle, it is most appropriate.
For every technology company, there will be a similar set of cyclical development system, which not only has a technical cycle, but also a business and product cycle. The business cycle is mostly in the form of fiscal years as an assessment mode, and the product cycle is divided into two categories, the 2C product cycle is relatively short, and the 2B product cycle will be longer. Returning to the technology cycle, Wang Shuai believes that this is a more difficult time to define, because there is a big difference between technology and technology, and usually, a technology cycle is at least eight to ten years.
Double S Curve structure
Many new technologies go through a process of ups and downs, and each technology that enters the development cycle needs to be considered for a long time. Wang Shuai said that the technology cycle can be divided into three stages: 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, and constitutes the Double S Curve (hyperS curve) structure, which is an important theoretical basis for achieving a technical cycle.
Stage 1.0, the technology recognition phase, mainly determines whether a new technology has reached a breakthrough critical point and has the potential to change the world. Every emerging technology, such as AR, blockchain, new materials like graphene, etc., has gone through this period, and has made people believe that these technologies may have the ability to change entire formats and even the world.
2.0 stage, the stage of commercial scale, the technology at this stage already needs to be recognized in the market, forming a large-scale business prospect and business scenario, which is why 5G, AI and other technologies to seek business scenarios to land. At present, there are still some technologies that are making the 1.0 to 2.0 leap, such as metaversics, AR, etc. It is worth mentioning that in the process from 1.0 to 2.0, there are many technologies, but it is very difficult to truly achieve a leap forward and form a large-scale business; there are also many technologies that cannot complete the 2.0 leap for a period of time, and will return to 1.0, and there will be several ups and downs.
Stage 3.0, industry-leading stage. Those technologies that have the ability to cross the curve will gradually form a significant lead, because it is one to a half ahead of other technologies, and using these first-mover advantages to quickly accumulate resources and business, the company will enter a very rapid stage of development and grow into the head of this track.
Of course, the technology that enters the 3.0 stage will not always lead, the hyperbolic theory is constantly repeated in different technologies, and if the first leading technology appears, there will be a second and a third...
Going through the cycle, every business must face, in which the realization of the technology cycle is crucial. In the actual technology strategy, crossing the technology cycle is an easier thing to say and difficult to do, in addition to the difficulty of defining time, it mainly includes the following constraints:
First of all, the judgment of the future trend, for the technology of a certain stage in the future, the closer to this point in time the more accurate the judgment, and vice versa, the farther away the more difficult to predict, but the problem is that the control of this distance, while maintaining the correct, but also has foresight; Secondly, the formulation of strategy, research and development is not a brain investment, what to choose what is the technical research and development team must think about things; Again, it is the time to persist, some people insist on three years and succeed, some people persist for five years and fail, and some people persist for ten years... How long does it take to be reasonable and smart? Finally, how to quantitatively analyze the value of R&D, whether there is a high R&D cost for an already successful technology, and how to measure its input and output?
Through the technology cycle, not according to a simple slogan, but to fit the development of the times, return to the actual business, and create a cycle model in a planned way.
"Brain-hand integration" to create a strong military model through the cycle
Wang Shuai said that the technology cycle is complex because it has to complete two leaps, after proving that the technology is feasible, it must be successfully marketized, and then lead the industry. Once the technology cycle moves into the next orbit, it can quickly lead to the rapid success of the next product and business.
In this regard, Lenovo has established a "three carriages" organizational structure around the "end-side-cloud-network-intelligence" technical architecture to improve the technological development cycle. Major BGs include PC departments, server departments, industry solution departments, etc., immersed in current products and services within two years or less; Lenovo Research Institute is positioned in 2 to 5 years, using new technologies to drive existing businesses, incubate new business opportunities, and build long-term technological competitiveness of enterprises; Lenovo Ventures (LCIG) aims to invest in innovation over the next 5 years and beyond. Such a three-level innovation system can effectively provide sufficient impetus for the long-term development of enterprises.
It is worth noting that Lenovo Research Institute is in the middle of the three-level innovation system, but it does not mean that the institute does not make innovation within two years and longer-term technical judgments. Wang Shuai said that the resource investment of an enterprise in the industry will be roughly divided into three levels, one is the business with the largest revenue in the current period; The second is medium-term investment to find a new growth engine for enterprises; The third is the core technology related to the future development of the enterprise. The third level is across all BGs, and its mission is to develop core technologies within the enterprise and empower the business, and Lenovo Research Institute is precisely this position.
At this month's Lenovo Innovation Forum Open Day, more than 180 open technologies and dozens of cutting-edge technologies were showcased, including many innovative content around the PC ecosystem. Wang Shuai believes that this is an innovative iteration of PC products, and it is also a concrete embodiment of the technology cycle after entering the 3.0 stage. When an area enters the orbit, the business unit will continue to increase the innovation of existing products, which can affect the current industry situation, obtain new revenue growth, and become an important pillar of the survival and development of the current enterprise.
Similarly, many of the PC product innovations displayed in the open day have a very close relationship with Lenovo Research Institute, and many new technologies and PC products converge to form new application scenarios. Not only that, but there are also many businesses and equipment waiting to meet with the new technology of the institute to open up new markets.
In order to achieve the goal of crossing the technology cycle, Lenovo Research Institute has formed a set of formed methodologies, the core of which is "brain-hand integration".
The brain is to see the trend and formulate a good strategy. Wang Shuai said that Lenovo Research Institute will complete a technology outlook project every year to judge the trend of the technology world in the next five to ten years, and has insisted on nearly twenty years; In terms of formulating strategy, Lenovo recently set up a technical committee, led by the CEO and CTO of the group, the members are the main responsible persons of each research and development line, and the task of the committee is to discuss the future technology strategy, and how to cooperate with various departments, formulate annual planning and specific implementation, and review.
The hand is a step from the level of thought to fact. It can be described by five golden fingers: index finger, pointing to the direction, after the strategy is formulated and implemented, everyone should be clear about where the direction is; The middle finger, the longest finger, represents the execution path, the execution of the strategy from the beginning to the end is a long process, to ensure the smooth implementation of the middle; The thumb, the most powerful and also spanning the other fingers, represents the control mechanism; The little finger, although the strength is small, but also represents commitment, coordination, communication and coordination, which is a necessary element in the implementation of the strategy, but it should also be noted that the process of coordination is often accompanied by contradictions; The ring finger, which represents a review, is easy to overlook, but it is very important.
The five golden fingers represent execution, but also have another meaning: trade-offs. Wang Shuai believes that technical research will also have metabolism, taking the product cycle as an example, three to five years is a cycle, and when it is time to eliminate, there will be new things. Reasonable trade-offs and metabolism contribute to the transformation of technology in the next cycle.
Extend the tentacles and build a moat for technological innovation
In recent times, the rhetoric of the cold winter of the industry in the next decade has swept across major industries, and survival has become the primary issue for enterprises. In this period, Lenovo ushered in a new growth opportunity, not only bidding farewell to PC dependence, but also announcing that it has found a second curve - the software service industry. In this field, Lenovo Research Institute has been strengthening technology research and development.
Wang Shuai said that in the past, Lenovo was a very strong hardware gene enterprise, Lenovo CTO, senior vice president Dr. Rui Yong was responsible for the research institute, and gradually increased its investment in software and algorithms, especially in artificial intelligence.
Through the cycle, it is necessary to set up a ladder, mainly in two aspects, one is the innovation of business models, farewell to PC dependence, service-oriented transformation, which has begun to take shape; The second is research and development, which is a weapon to achieve a cycle through. Under this framework, the institute will cooperate with various business groups to actively expand business scenarios.
The picture shows Lao Liang (left) at the front line with Wang Shuai (right), senior director of technology strategy and innovation platform of Lenovo Research Institute
Talking about the planning and functions of the institute itself, Wang Shuai believes that with the framework of end-side-cloud-network-intelligence, many technologies of the institute are working at the business level. On the end side, most of Lenovo's domestic mobile phone Chinese voice assistants use lenovo research institute voice technology; On the side, from scratch, the Lenovo Edge Computing Platform (LECP) was built; On the cloud side, there is a series of software-defined technologies and products, including software-defined computing, software-defined networking and software-defined storage; On the network side, the research institute is the company's internal 5G network with the most power and the largest force, and the number of 5G standard essential patents currently applied has exceeded 2,000; In terms of intelligence, Dr. Rui Yong is an expert in the field of artificial intelligence, which is also a very significant label of the institute, and many technologies and solutions in the future will create engines related to artificial intelligence.
Not only that, Lenovo Research Institute has always been constantly improving the innovation ecology. In Wang Shuai's view, research and development is not a closed-door thing, innovation must be open, the introduction of more new ideas, new talents, some new ideas, technologies, algorithms, materials, etc., through engineering, so that it has the possibility of becoming a new business, new products.
Based on this thinking, Lenovo Research Institute has had more than ten years of in-depth cooperation with academia and industry, the most typical of which is the "Blue Ocean Fund Program" jointly launched by Lenovo Research Institute and the China Computer Society (CCF) this year. According to the plan, every year, the institute will select young experts to cooperate in the advantageous discipline teams of Southeast University, Peking University, Tianjin University, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Sun Yat-sen University and other universities, and the school and enterprise will work together to promote forward-looking and pre-research technology research.
The thirst for talents is also reflected in the "Lenovo Scientist Program" established by lenovo Research Institute, through which the institute directly cooperates with front-line teachers and experts in specific fields of universities to set up relevant joint laboratories in the form of cooperation, aiming at specific and difficult problems.
It can be seen that from the combination of business with the group, to the ecological cooperation between industry, education and research, to the support of high-end scientific and technological talents, Lenovo Research Institute is not only a platform and power support through the technology cycle, but also a window and a business card for Lenovo Innovation.
At the front line, it is believed that the current industrial pattern is changing rapidly, and there are also invisible crises in the trend of frequent hot spots. Crossing the cycle is an inevitable way for the long-term development of enterprises, and technological innovation is the unchangeable melody. As the technological innovation position of Lenovo Group, Lenovo Research Institute is an important bearer through the technology cycle, always maintaining a steady pace of innovation, building a systematic research and development path, external integration ecology, and internal cultivation.
It can be expected that Lenovo Research Institute will continue to improve the innovation ecology and strengthen internal collaboration in the future, thereby providing solid and powerful support for Lenovo to achieve its goal of crossing the cycle.