Editor's note: On April 19, 2021, Tencent launched the fourth strategic upgrade in the company's history, incorporating "promoting sustainable social value innovation" into the company's core strategy, becoming the foundation of the company's development and driving all core businesses. What kind of thinking is behind this upgrade? What goals does Tencent hope to achieve with the changes?
At the beginning of the establishment of Tencent SSV, we interviewed the president of Tencent Martin Lau on these issues. In his view, when everyone in a society conducts various explorations in order to create social value and fulfill social responsibilities, it is a very good social stage.
Nearly two years have passed, Tencent SSV has insisted on the long-term determination to do the "difficult but right" thing, and has been striving to be an "explorer of technology for social benefit", and more and more co-creators are willing to accompany it. At this time, look back at this interview, maybe you can find Tencent's unchanged original intention.
Q: Tencent has incorporated sustainable social value innovation into its core strategy, and I would like to ask you to talk about the most important decision-making considerations.
Martin Lau:
From a certain point of view, the exploration of social responsibility is accompanied by the process of Tencent's discovery of its own value. Since the founding of Tencent, we have been thinking about what kind of value the company can generate. At that time, the key was user value, which was the foundation of Tencent's home.
Over time, we have found that to truly do a good job in user value, we need to find people who can make the best products, and we need to create an environment where colleagues work together, that is, we need to value employees.
Later, as the company grew larger, survival was no longer a problem. But at that time, you had to do everything yourself, which was actually in conflict with the entire ecology. Therefore, we have made an open strategy, that is, in addition to user value, we must also create ecological value with partners.
After the "930" upgrade, we gradually entered the field of TOB, began to deal with all walks of life, in addition to commercial customers, there are many social institutions, local public service organizations, public welfare organizations, etc., we found that the upgrade of technology is valuable to all kinds of companies and organizations.
In this process, on the one hand, business organizations, including brands, retailers, etc., will gain value from technology platforms and enhance their capabilities. On the other hand, we see that many non-commercial organizations have also improved in the process of technological upgrading, and they have not created more income and profits, but more social value.
From this, we further feel that in addition to the user value, employee value, partner value and business customer value just mentioned, there is actually an opportunity to create value, that is, social value.
So it's a gradual process, and after doing so much work, finding a depression is a great opportunity left to us by this era.
There are three important touchpoints in this process. The first is the "930" change, which made us take "technology for good" as an important mission. We have been figuring out what to do under the "technology for good" program.
The second point of contact is the pandemic. At that time, the whole company mobilized to buy masks and buy all kinds of protective equipment. To help digitize public utilities and provide the most accurate information to the public, as well as Tencent Meeting, Tencent Classroom to support the resumption of work and school, help overseas fight the epidemic, and so on. At that time, I felt that an enterprise could not only do a good job in business, but also exert great power and create a lot of social value at critical times.
The third was the 99 Giving Day in 2020, when the foundation felt that there was not necessarily so much spare money to donate during the epidemic, but later found that everyone's enthusiasm was very high. This proves once again that when we set our goals and mobilize talent, capabilities and technology within Tencent, we can achieve good results.
On top of that, we are thinking about what Tencent can do in the future. The conclusion is that a greater upgrade is needed to truly make the creation of social value a core strategy and goal. It is not just "have a public welfare foundation, write a corporate responsibility report, and do every point in place", but to take the sustainable creation of social value as an important factor in our mission of "science for good". This is a relatively big change in positioning.
When there is a strategy, it is also necessary to match the upgrade of organizational structure and resource investment. The upgrade program is to create social value as a core business, we need capable leaders, a series of personnel such as products, technology, operations, etc., and a lot of upfront investment to bring this organization on track.
Q: Does this mean that there is no clear boundary between business and public welfare in the future? If sustainable social values were to be translated into a strategy, what would be the strategic objectives? What is the difference between the operation mechanism and assessment method and other business lines?
Martin Lau:
There will still be a boundary between business and public welfare, and the boundary is that it aims at financial indicators, how much income it creates, or how much social value it creates. The measurement criteria in business are very clear, and we are still exploring how to measure the social value created by a business.
Frankly speaking, in the past, in the field of public welfare, the intensity was not as great as the core business, and many times it was based on the personal passion of colleagues. After creating social value becomes a strategic goal, we need to match the corresponding resources and talents, which is different from voluntarily doing social responsibility and doing public welfare, and we are also thinking about whether the use of the core capabilities of an enterprise will be better, faster and more powerful to promote the growth of social value.
Q: In addition to the growth of internal logic and the discovery of new value depressions, does Tencent's strategic upgrade take into account the global trend and the requirements and expectations of the entire society today?
Martin Lau:
I see that more and more people around the world are discussing such topics. When a company reaches a certain scale, the public, the government and all the media will greatly change its requirements and expectations in terms of social responsibility and social value, and at the same time, I think the company itself will have the spare power to do these things, which is a big trend.
On the other hand, all over the world, technological upgrading and digitalization have formed a big wave. In the wave, the pace of different organizations will be different, technology companies will be faster, and more traditional companies may just start to do digital transformation and technological upgrades. All industries are facing the impact and opportunities of digitalization and technology at the same time.
This is also the case in the vertical field of public welfare, where relatively few organizations know how to use the power of science and technology. So it's a good match: tech companies are ahead of the trend, many nonprofits are relatively slow, and we can help connect nonprofits to the wave of technology.
Q: You mentioned that in the future, there will be a dedicated business line responsible for the creation of social value, so what considerations does Tencent have in terms of organizational structure innovation? For example, industrial Internet business will naturally penetrate into society, and WeChat has become a very important part of people's lives, is there a way to integrate the work of creating social value into every product and every business?
Martin Lau:
I think it's also a process of continuous exploration. In the face of specific products, we must use good ethical standards to judge which are commercial value, which are user value, and which are social value, and we must make a balance and trade-offs between them. Tencent's approach has always been to use corporate culture and everyone's cognition to determine the bottom line, some products are more ideal, will spontaneously do better, and some will meet the most basic bottom line.
In the process of creating a new business line that specifically promotes sustainable social value creation, I think there are several pieces of work to be done: First, the work that the company itself can grasp.
For example, when setting up a digital upgrade platform for non-profit organizations, what functions can enterprise WeChat launch to assist? How can the media sector help in focusing on important issues in the field of public welfare? How can cloud technology and product departments get involved?
On the one hand, the new business line should create their own technology platform, on the other hand, it should also promote the company's internal product upgrade, pull other teams to take action, rather than waiting for everyone to consciously do public welfare, and have a dedicated business line to better focus on the company's capabilities.
The other is to explore what new areas can better create social value. For example, Tencent has made a Science Exploration Award in the field of basic research, which also allows science popularization to reach more people, and there are actually many things that can be done in addition to this.
Q: An important part of the plan you talked about is to use technology for social value creation in public welfare, science and technology, education and other fields.
Martin Lau:
The first is that the public welfare platform should help non-profit organizations to carry out digital upgrades, which is an important point. In addition to helping fundraising on 99 Giving Day, can you continue to retain users, so that non-profit organizations can have further contact with him and become long-term supporters and volunteers? Many users have such demands, and non-profit organizations also have demands, can they make their contacts more efficient? These are all things that can be done next.
In fact, the technological upgrade in the field of public welfare is similar to the upgrade path of the retail industry we did before. In the retail upgrade solution, it is important to match the online and offline user experience, so that the experience of enterprise customers when they contact brands and retailers online is consistent with offline, which requires the entire ERP system and supplier system to be completely transformed. The same is true for public welfare organizations to do online, which needs to be greatly upgraded to the front desk, middle office, and back office.
In the field of science and technology, what we need to do may include financial support, human support, finding opportunities for further commercialization of new inventions and discoveries, and providing the computing power and platform resources required in the field of science and technology.
In technology and education, we can next open up deeper channels of engagement. In addition, there is the work of narrowing the gap between rich and poor and environmental protection, which are open topics. We need to lead the organization to explore in depth what direction to do, what the entry point is, what the strategy is, and what the resources are needed. These jobs are the same as doing business, except that the goal is not business value, but to create a business that can ultimately create social value.
Q: What do you expect the Sustainable Social Value Strategy to achieve?
Martin Lau:
I think it is difficult to determine the goal, and my own hope is that in 5 or 10 years, many companies will be able to create social value as their goal, or one of the goals.
In fact, you think, whose responsibility is it to create social value? The government has been doing these things, nonprofit organizations are doing it, and there are many individuals who are supporting non-profit organizations or becoming public welfare volunteers. Over the years, enterprises have slowly participated, and I think the depth of participation is relatively shallow.
We're also thinking about how to get involved. Bill Gates pulled away from Microsoft and started a foundation again, with great success. I wonder if his work would be more powerful if it was built on Microsoft's platform? This is also a question worth exploring. It is good to have more people doing social welfare or creating social value, what kind of way to do it? It may be to recreate the organization, or it may be to use the platform, talents and resources of the enterprise to create social value within the enterprise.
Q: What does it mean for the company to make the creation of social value a core strategy and core business?
Martin Lau:
I think the definition of a company is a little different. In the past, the company's goals focused on business value. Of course, the situation is different all over the world, but with the improvement of moral standards, the requirements for companies are also increasing, especially for companies of a certain size and specific positioning, if they want to have a more harmonious relationship with society, they need to spend more energy to do things that are beneficial to society.
Q: It sounds like there's a long gestation for strategic upgrades, and what important exchanges did you have with Pony?
Martin Lau:
What I remember more clearly is that I talked with Pony on the phone about this for more than an hour while climbing the mountain. When we look at the trend of the whole world, it is clear that technology can bring more value to society.
When we think about what kind of work and projects will be under "technology for good", there are also many discussions and thoughts, one of which is, should we make a bigger upgrade? In the "930" reform, Tencent proposed to take root in the consumer Internet, embrace the industrial Internet, upgrade science and technology, and put forward a new mission of "science and technology for good". After discussing for more than an hour, I felt that doing social value creation was a better direction.
Q: Was this in the second half of last year?
Martin Lau:
Yes. The commendation meeting also touched us a lot. When rewarding colleagues who participated in the fight against the epidemic, we counted that 12,000 people at Tencent participated in the anti-epidemic cause. During the anti-epidemic period, my feeling is that whether it is from the public welfare or from the aspect of product or development, their investment and passion have exceeded the usual state of doing business business, during this period, the gap between the department and the judgment of interests - these often encountered problems are all swept away, everyone runs back to back with a clear goal, creating considerable social value.
We feel that this event is very powerful, cohesive, and brings a lot of energy and motivation to the whole company. After the commendation meeting, I happened to be climbing the mountain, and I called Pony for a long time about this, and we basically settled on the direction.
Q: What was Pony's focus during the discussion?
Martin Lau:
Our considerations are very similar, mainly focusing on how to define this new business, what adjustments the company needs to make to this end, and also discussed many details, including how to determine the goals and assessment criteria of the new business, how it differs from the commercial business, what specific directions to make, and so on. Many possible specific directions were discussed.
Q: It's a long-term commitment, is it difficult for you to make up your mind?
Martin Lau:
I think it can be done, so I can definitely make up my mind. There were all kinds of debates during this upgrade, but not around "should or not", everyone was very supportive of doing it, and more of the debate was "how to do it". There is currently no very clear path for us to refer to on a global scale, which is also interesting, where exploration and doing business are similar.
We can invest more in what we have done before, whether it is people, resources or organizational concern, if they can do better, then this is a guarantee. On top of this, we explore new directions, just like exploring new businesses, the team has proposals, and at the last selection meeting, everyone will have in-depth discussions and challenge them, which will be a more difficult process.
Q: I just mentioned that there were more than 10,000 employees involved during the epidemic, and there was no department wall to work together, which is a special situation. So in the daily environment, in a commercial company, how to get employees engaged through systems and management?
Martin Lau:
I think it's important to start with the new team itself, a good leader, and strong enough to do this well. Once the team is assembled, how to measure whether they are doing things in the right direction will be a long-term job, and it cannot be required to see results in the short term. It's not the same logic as other businesses, it's more mission-driven. On the one hand, there will not be too strong competition, there will be a relatively relaxed environment, on the other hand, if there is no clear goal and competition, it is easy to go astray. How to have a good incentive and assessment method to lead their work needs to be further explored.
Q: How is this job different from "corporate social responsibility" in the usual sense?
Martin Lau:
I think social responsibility is more of a bottom-line thinking. It involves three aspects: the first is whether the product creates special user value; the second is whether the bottom line of morality is adhered to in the process of creating user value; The third is whether it is relatively restrained in business, which is the first stage of social responsibility work. In fact, when a business benefits less commercially than the value it creates for society, it is a business that does a good job in assuming social responsibility.
Therefore, we have been very restrained in monetizing social products, and we hope that it can be used as an open platform, allowing all kinds of people with ability, resources and special skills to reach users and obtain commercial benefits on the platform, while we get as little as possible in the middle.
In this regard, we are not like some international companies that run out of data. We do not store all user information, when there is nothing in your database, the user's privacy security cannot be threatened by you, and advertising and commercial businesses cannot use the user's private information.
Another example is the juvenile protection system of games, and we have spent a lot of effort to build such a system to control the game time and game consumption of minors. After the system was done, there were a lot of people trying to circumvent it, and we used a lot of technology to prevent that.
Q: What areas do you personally pay special attention to in the direction of future planning?
Martin Lau:
One of my own concerns is the public welfare platform itself. If the platform is stronger, it can naturally give great help to all kinds of public welfare, so that the public welfare organization can bloom more and more strongly. The other is education. It is hoped that quality education will be further popularized. The people around me are all beneficiaries of quality education, and if the path of education is broader, it will make development more balanced.
Q: I just talked about a lot of ideas and methods, simply put, I hope to use the core capabilities of a company's business and technology to create social value continuously, deeply and broadly, but the difference, as you said, it must be mission-driven in order to really do a good job. This brings us back to the fundamental question: Who exactly is a company going to become? What kind of business is most valuable to society?
Martin Lau:
This is a very macro question. Just like asking what kind of person you want to be and how to be a person who is valuable to society, in fact, this is a permanent pursuit. It is how you are in the process of continuous self-discovery and improvement, when you see an opportunity, you tell yourself that you have to face the difficulties. It may be this process that defines you.
This is a bit like the problem we mentioned at the beginning, Tencent in this process from creating user value, to employee value, to partners, all walks of life, and now to social value, we hope to set the goal of creating social value a little higher, and when creating social value, we can also use an unrestricted and uncapped way to do it.
So how big and how high it can be done in this way, this is what we want to explore. And I think every company, every individual, has a role to create social value. We are willing to take bigger steps in certain directions, and it doesn't matter if we encounter difficulties.
Of course, other companies will have their own direction, and I think that when everyone in a society is engaged in various explorations to create social value and fulfill social responsibilities, this can indeed be said to be a very good social stage.
This article is included in Tencent SSV's 2022 issue of Care.
Why is "Care" the theme of the annual magazine?
As Pony mentioned in the preface, "Only when we always maintain sufficient empathy for social pain points, that is, care, and innovation of sustainable social values, can we always maintain sensitivity, vitality and depth."
His words have strengthened our original intention: the emotional core of social value creation is to "care for people".
In this yearbook, we record the stories of some partners who care about social issues and practice social values, and invite a number of experts to talk about what "sustainable social value innovation" should do; Several Tencent executives also talked to you about Tencent's mission vision and internal drive in their hearts in the yearbook.
More wonderful stories and thoughtful thoughts in the annual magazine will be published one after another, so stay tuned~