He Wei: The policy logic of digital transformation in the new development stage

　　Zhongxin Jingwei, September 30 Title: "He Wei: The Policy Logic of Digital Transformation in the New Development Stage"

　　Author He Wei (Deputy Director, Institute of Policy and Economics, China Academy of Information and Communications Technology)

　　In recent years, especially since the epidemic in 2020, digital transformation has rapidly become a hot spot in the whole society, and the state attaches great importance to digital transformation and has introduced a series of policy measures. What is the logic behind China's policies to promote digital transformation? How to promote digital transformation at the next policy level? This article attempts to analyze.

　　First, the current policy trends of digital transformation

　　Digital transformation has become a hot topic at the moment, which is mainly driven by both supply and demand. On the supply side, new digital technologies such as 5G, industrial Internet, and artificial intelligence have accelerated progress and application promotion, laying a solid foundation for digital transformation. On the demand side, the majority of Chinese enterprises, especially entity enterprises, are in a critical period of transformation of new and old kinetic energy, and they all hope to tap development dividends through digital transformation. Especially under the catalysis of the epidemic in 2020, the digital transformation of enterprises is even more enthusiastic. In July 2021, Xiao Yaqing, Minister of Industry and Information Technology, pointed out in a signed article that for the development of the manufacturing industry, digital transformation is no longer a "choice question", but a "compulsory course" related to survival and long-term development. This vividly depicts the urgency and initiative of digital transformation of enterprises today.

　　Around the important work of digital transformation, the central government, all localities and departments have issued a series of policies, two of which are worthy of attention. First, the policy status is higher. In the past, although there were many policies to promote the integration of digital technology and industry, few "digital transformation" were directly written into policies. Since 2020, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission have successively issued policy documents to promote "digital transformation". The outline of the 14th Five-Year Plan proposes to promote the "digital transformation of industry", which marks the official rise of digital transformation to a clear policy direction of the country. Second, the policy measures are more practical. At present, all localities are strengthening the intensity of policy implementation, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong and other places have introduced policy documents for digital transformation, and have launched digital transformation policy initiatives and a series of incentive mechanisms and special practices, covering all aspects from technology promotion to application pull, from enterprise leadership to industrial empowerment, from pilot demonstration to large-scale promotion, comprehensive, systematic, refined and operable, weaving a policy network to promote the implementation of digital transformation.

　　Second, the logic behind the evolution of digital transformation policies

　　At present, China's digital transformation policy tools are more abundant, the policy system is more complete, and the policy measures are more operable, and the main logic behind these new policy changes is concentrated in three aspects:

　　The first is the active choice to adapt to the continuous evolution of new technologies. Iterative updates of technology are the driving force for digital transformation. New technologies such as 5G, big data, artificial intelligence, and blockchain continue to evolve and upgrade, especially the depth and breadth of integration with traditional industries' technologies continue to deepen, the enabling role is continuously strengthened, and the application scenarios created are also more abundant. This requires us to actively adapt to the law of technological evolution, and expand the policy from "Internet +" to new areas and scopes such as "5G+" and "Smart +", such as the "Sail" action plan for 5G applications, the "5G + Industrial Internet" 512 Project, etc. are such policy applications. Only by keeping pace with the times can we actively grasp the characteristics of the evolution of digital technology and promote the transformation to achieve practical and effective results.

　　The second is to adapt to the actual needs of the continuous transformation of new needs. In the past 20 years, the digital transformation of the consumer field has expanded rapidly, and a stable development pattern has been formed, and market competition has also entered the Red Sea. In recent years, we have noticed that digital transformation has begun to accelerate from the consumer service sector to the industrial manufacturing sector. This means that greater demand for digital transformation will come from the real economy dominated by manufacturing. There are many application scenarios and large development space in the manufacturing industry, which is becoming the focus of digital transformation and is still a blue ocean. At the policy level, we have paid attention to this trend and issued a series of policies in the fields of industrial Internet and intelligent manufacturing, actively meeting the new transformation needs of traditional enterprises and effectively empowering the digital transformation process.

　　The third is to adapt to the forward-looking layout of the rapid development of new elements. More fundamentally, data has become a new key factor of production. Driven by data, digital transformation will inevitably evolve from optimizing processes to deeper applications such as data mining and intelligent analysis. How to strengthen the core logic of data drive and promote the continuous release of the potential of data elements has become the focus and difficulty of the current "digital transformation" policy. Recently, around the exploration of the value of data elements and the embodiment of data empowerment, the state has also issued a series of policies such as "Opinions on Building a More Perfect Factor Market-oriented Allocation System and Mechanism" and "Guiding Opinions of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on the Development of Industrial Big Data", and policy exploration on data elements to empower digital transformation will also be an important direction in the future.

　　Third, the next step to promote digital transformation policy thinking

　　Combined with new changes in technology supply, application demand and data elements, it is necessary to continuously build a more complete policy system to better serve digital transformation strategies and practices. From a policy perspective, we believe that there are three main aspects to start from:

　　The first is to grasp the scene to lead. Massive data and rich application scenarios are the biggest advantages of China's digital economy. The policy measures of digital transformation should firmly hold the "bull nose" of application scenarios, focus on digital infrastructure and major enabling technologies such as 5G, industrial Internet, and artificial intelligence, adhere to the needs of digital transformation from the perspective of users, launch a number of application scenarios with benchmarking significance, build a number of exemplary digital transformation experience centers, and effectively lead enterprises and users to jointly innovate application scenarios, amplify application value, and fully stimulate the enthusiasm for large-scale application of digital technology industrialization.

　　The second is to grasp the cultivation of the main body. Enterprises are the backbone of digital transformation. Focusing on the status of enterprise transformation entities, China has launched a series of policy initiatives to help digital transformation be effective. For example, China has formulated the "Special Action Plan for Digital Empowerment of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises" for small and medium-sized enterprises; launched the "Digital Transformation Partnership Action" to accelerate the "Cloud to Empower Wisdom" for small and medium-sized enterprises; and issued the "Notice on Accelerating the Digital Transformation of State-Owned Enterprises" for large state-owned enterprises, which further strengthened the leading role of state-owned enterprises in digital transformation. In the next step, we should continue to strengthen policy means, consolidate the digital capabilities of enterprise entities, create the main force of digital transformation of large enterprises, and guide and drive small and medium-sized enterprises to take the development path of "specialization and specialization" through digital transformation.

　　The third is to grasp ecological construction. Digital transformation is not something that enterprises can do alone, especially the digital capabilities of small and medium-sized enterprises are still relatively weak. The next policy focus should be to focus on building an ecosystem that provides support and services for the digital transformation of enterprises, mainly including two types of ecology: the first is the application ecology, focusing on new technologies such as 5G, artificial intelligence, and blockchain, in the early stage of large-scale application, through application competitions, demonstration and other policy means, clarify the application scenarios and paths, and reduce the uncertainty and cost of applications. The second is the service ecology, focusing on relying on industrial alliances, industry associations, industrial parks and clusters, through the construction of industrial platforms, digital transformation promotion centers, etc., to gather resources from all parties, provide testing and verification, promotion solutions and other services for enterprise transformation, and solve the problem that enterprises cannot turn and will not turn. (From the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology Digital Transformation Expert Talk) (Zhongxin Jingwei APP)

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