From "digital economy" to "AI+", Weimob's "Digital Business" guides the direction of sustainable growth for enterprises

Nowadays, the concept of high-quality and sustainable growth has become a consensus in many aspects of society, and stimulating "new quality productivity" has become the key solution to increase quality and efficiency under the new normal. It can be seen that in recent years, whether it is the in-depth exploration of the "digital economy" or the wide application of "artificial intelligence +", it reflects the active exploration and practical innovation of enterprises in the pursuit of a long-term and continuous development model.

In line with the company's forward direction, Weimob officially released the brand upgrade in September 2023, putting forward the brand proposition of "making growth continue to happen". Focusing on the present and the future, in the face of the changing market environment and consumers' more rational decision-making expectations, how can enterprises "make growth sustainable happen" through digitalization? On April 23, Weimob Group officially released "Digital Business" as a systematic answer at the current stage.

Innovate the theoretical framework and release the digital growth model of the enterprise

If you want to be sincere, you should know it first.

Looking back at the essence of growth, Liu Run, the founder of Runmi Consulting, started from the principle of economics and proposed that growth comes from "production factors × productivity". In the past 40 years, the abundant supply of production factors, especially the supply of labor, has largely driven the process of China's economic development, and at the moment when the demographic dividend is weakening, it is particularly important to stimulate the improvement of productivity through science and technology, so the development trend of science and technology represented by digitalization has become the greatest certainty in the next 10 years.

With its ability to efficiently allocate production and living factors, the digital economy has formed a data productivity that supports the vigorous development of new quality productivity. Quan Zhongguang, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), pointed out during the "two sessions" that the "newness" of new quality productivity is embodied in four aspects: new workers, such as new talents who can make full use of modern technology, new labor tools, such as AI generative artificial intelligence, new labor objects, such as data elements, and new infrastructure, such as big data centers.

Coincidentally, in Digital Business, Weimob and Harvard Business Review (Chinese Edition) researched and pioneered the digital growth model of enterprises based on the practice of the digital field, helping enterprises understand and reshape their real and long-term competitive advantages and achieve sustainable growth with three major elements: strategy, technology and talent.

In terms of strategy, enterprises must first face the collision of "new models" and "old territories". Generally speaking, companies that have been proven and successfully grown by the market already have their own business development strategies that are deeply embedded in the enterprise from top to bottom. Digital transformation is a "latecomer", which relies on enterprise decision-makers and digital leaders to formulate a clear and coherent digital strategy in the top-level design and execution strategy based on business segmentation scenarios, with business and technology as the "two-wheel drive", and fully integrate it into the overall enterprise strategy.

In terms of technology, digitalization is more of a systematic project. Considering that an enterprise is a whole composed of multiple business units and modules, a multi-brand, cross-regional group company is more "complex". It is particularly important to achieve "systematic" and "integrated" from the technical level to realize "systematic" and "integrated" from the technical level to how to implement the digital "strategy chess" to the digital "business chess" and "flexible and scalable", instead of repeating the "wheel-building" of various internal business systems, resulting in business silos, data chimneys or innovative business needs that cannot be met.

In terms of talent, China is facing a shortage of digital talent and structural imbalances. According to the "Industrial Digital Talent Research and Development Report (2023)", the current digital talent gap in mainland China is 25 million ~ 30 million, and now with the digitalization of the whole industry, the talent demand gap continues to expand. One of the most feasible ways for companies to turn their existing workforce into digital talent is perhaps the most feasible approach.

Focusing on the above strategies, technologies and talents, Digital Business presents relevant theories, methods and practical experience of industry experts one by one, and inspires and promotes the digital transformation process of enterprises based on cutting-edge thinking.

Four major industry practices, multi-dimensional display of sustainable growth paths

Consumption, as the end of the entire market, presents the fluctuations and trends of the economy in a more concentrated and complete manner. Wu Ruiling, vice president of the China Chain Store & Franchise Association, said that under the current new consumption cycle, consumer subjects and channels have undergone earth-shaking changes, and the relationship between brands and consumers is being redefined.

In this context, considering the practice of digital economy in different sub-industries, it is necessary to have a deeper understanding of the commonalities and differences between industries. The common part is mainly that the essence of business has not changed, and retail has always been people-centric and centered on meeting the needs of consumers. People are the core point and key to understanding the ongoing transformation of the retail industry. The difference is reflected in the retail category, and the service forms, product attributes, and business models of different industries are diverse, and cannot be generalized.

Taking the footwear and apparel industry as an example, under the wave of digital economy, it is possible to comprehensively and directly reach and understand the needs of consumers based on the new production factor of "data". Leading enterprises in the industry can already connect the upstream, midstream and downstream through the precipitation and application of data assets, reshape the overall advantages of the entire value chain, and then promote the continuous improvement of efficiency on the supply side and the continuous improvement of experience on the consumer side.

Due to the unique industry attributes of the home furnishing industry, the difficulty and cost of customer acquisition are much higher than those of many other industries. Some benchmark enterprises have made efforts to upgrade their technical capabilities, and carried out business innovation for online customer acquisition, online marketing, and online customer operations, directly improving service quality and achieving business growth;

The transformation of the FMCG and 3C industries in the context of the digital era is also obvious to all. Through digitalization, brand merchants can achieve more personalized and diversified connections with consumers, carry out refined operations for consumers, and continuously enhance consumer loyalty. However, how to bring new business increments with digital products, marketing, services, etc., varies greatly among different industries.

All of these will be shown in Digital Business. At the same time, in order to systematically and scientifically demonstrate the endogenous logic and make it easier to understand and learn, Weimob also presents the implementation path of "making growth continue to happen" in a three-dimensional way through six aspects: user assets, data value, operational efficiency, channel empowerment, product efficiency synergy, and model innovation.

Specifically, Digital Business uses the cases of Xtep and Belle Fashion to present how enterprises can make "data value continue to grow", Ordos and Peacebird as the leading practices of "continuous growth of user assets", borrow Cool Technology and Hongxing Erke to trace how digitalization can make enterprises "continue to grow in operational efficiency", provide a reference for "continuous improvement of channel empowerment" through Lifejia and GUESS, and present "continuous growth of product efficiency synergy" with 3Trees and OATLY Finally, the cases of Marsfield and Taetea Group are used to present the successful path of continuous iteration of model innovation.

epilogue

Sun Taoyong, Chairman and CEO of Weimob, once concluded that there are two core elements of "making growth happen": one is customer-centric, and the other is long-term compound interest. This is also the core connotation that runs through Digital Business.

It is expected that by reading "Digital Business", it can help more industry practitioners understand the development process of the digital economy, form a systematic understanding of sustainable growth, and provide a meager help for more enterprises to leverage digitalization to empower their own advantages, activate new quality productivity, and achieve sustainable growth.