Chen You
Born in 1964 in Zongyang County, Anhui Province, he has a master's degree in computer science from the University of Science and Technology of China, one of the founders of Tianyuan Dike, and has devoted himself to the software industry for nearly 30 years without distraction. He is a member of the 4th and 5th Shenzhen Nanshan District CPPCC Committee and the vice president of Shenzhen Software Industry Association. Over the years, he has always taken the revitalization of China's software industry as his responsibility, and the products he has participated in research and development have won the second prize of Shenzhen Science and Technology Progress Award, and he has personally won the Guangdong Provincial Entrepreneurship Leading Talent Award, the 2019 Shenzhen Science and Technology Award (Mayor Award), and was awarded the title of "Excellent Communist Party Member" by the Shenzhen Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China.
From the early days of entrepreneurship to the present, we are grateful for the atmosphere and soil of scientific and technological innovation provided by the city, so that we can free our hands and feet to boldly innovate and move forward towards one goal after another. In Shenzhen for more than thirty years, looking back at my life, graduation, work, entrepreneurship, governance, from based on survival to pilot development, all the way to the wind and frost, rain and snow, but no regrets.
one
After graduating from graduate school, I thought of working hard in the hot land of reform and opening up, so I decided to go to Shenzhen with my dreams and take advantage of my youth to break through. Under the influence of the strong entrepreneurial atmosphere of the officers, I chose to start a business, and after the market experience, I plunged into the field of application software research and development and service, and opened a new chapter. 】
Take advantage of the young people to choose to go south to Shenzhen to break in
I was born in Zongyang, Anhui Province, and my ancestors have been farmers for generations. My father studied private school for a few years and later became a brigade secretary in the village. Because of the limited conditions, my parents could not give us a particularly superior life, but they always insisted on letting us study more, and my parents' persistence had a profound impact on my life. When I was a child, I was sick and sick, and I took three breaks from school during my schooling, and although I stumbled, I never gave up my studies.
Through unremitting efforts, I was admitted to Wuhan University majoring in computer science, and then to the University of Science and Technology of China for further study. In 1989, I successfully completed my master's degree in computer science at the University of Science and Technology of China. At that time, I was faced with the choice of employment or staying in school, and my supervisor was Professor Chen Guoliang, who was elected an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2003, and he suggested that I stay in school. In that year, many students chose to work hard in Shenzhen, the hot land of reform and opening up, and weighed it up again and again, and I also wanted to take my dream and take advantage of my youth to go to Shenzhen to break through.
So, I packed my bags and stepped on the train south to Shenzhen, heading for the dream land in the hearts of young people. Unexpectedly, since then, the trajectory of life has been closely linked to the young and vibrant city of Shenzhen. When I first arrived in Shenzhen, because the school I graduated from was somewhat famous and my academic literacy was better, I quickly got acceptance letters from three companies. In the end, I chose to join the SEG Group, which was influential in the electronics industry at that time.
Embark on an entrepreneurial journey to take on a bigger challenge
When I first joined the work, it was relatively smooth, and a year and a half later I was promoted to department manager and quickly became the technical backbone of the company. The atmosphere of Shenzhen officials to start a business has always been very strong, and everyone is riveting. At that time, in addition to doing my job, I was always thinking about how to better realize my self-worth. I am not a person who is content with the status quo, and I always like to take on bigger challenges and want to break out of my own career.
In 1992, Shenzhen set off a new upsurge of reform and opening up. The state has given Shenzhen many preferential policies to encourage and support the development of the private economy, and the atmosphere of entrepreneurship has become more intense. So I decided to jump out of my comfort zone again and founded Tianyuan Dike in 1993 with 10 like-minded technical backbones, a company born in Huaqiang North, which later developed into "China Electronics First Street".
▲ Tianyuan Dike in the early days of entrepreneurship.
At the beginning, we mainly did the agent of a foreign minicomputer brand, as well as system integration and related software research and development. At that time, software was in a weak position in the electronic market, and most of the customers' thinking was "buy hardware and send software", and we had to comply with market demand to focus on hardware sales. Because of the resource advantage, we quickly gained a foothold, through the agent minicomputer and sales of memory modules, control boards, tape drives, hard disks and other hardware, the company's annual revenue exceeded 10 million yuan, which is a great achievement for our start-ups.
Against all odds, choose to focus on the software area
Soon, our company became famous in China. But the good times are not long, because the electronics industry has developed rapidly, and within a few years, the market and industry situation have undergone earth-shaking changes. Due to the low threshold in the field of hardware sales, a large number of competitors quickly poured in the industry, and the company's profit plummeted. I remember once, a company open bidding to purchase a minicomputer, the budget is about 700,000 yuan, we and competitors take turns to quote, the price is from 700,000 yuan all the way down to 450,000 yuan. Although we eventually won the contract, the profit was already very thin.
At that time, the company's technical personnel were more, everyone had good areas and familiar resources, so the products we sold became diverse, but the company's book funds were not much, and it was difficult to support the synchronous development of multiple projects. Due to the excessive dispersion of the products developed and the insufficient stability of the products sold, the business situation is not optimistic. Seemingly multi-line attack, in fact, there is no core competitiveness, coupled with the lack of timely response to market changes, we quickly fell into a dilemma.
In 1995, after market research and policy analysis, I found that the government and enterprises' understanding of software was deepening, and software began to gradually get rid of the attachment to hardware, and its value was gradually emerging. I realized that the era of software is coming, and if Tianyuan Dike wants to survive, it must conform to the needs of the development of the times and focus on the software field.
The decision to change the big picture is always difficult, and some shareholders do not agree with my judgment and want to continue to get out of the predicament through hardware sales. After several tosses, the company not only did not improve, but went to the situation of scattering. Therefore, I persuaded several shareholders with the same ideas to firmly transform with the determination of a hero to break their wrists, and even gave some projects to interested shareholders for free, so that they could start another business, while Tianyuan Dike focused on the development and service of application software. It was a difficult step, but it determined our future.
two
【Shenzhen's development pace is very fast, the market is changing rapidly, if you want to stand firm, you must keep up with the pace of the times and conform to market changes.] In this process, we must also adhere to the original intention, and always contribute to the development of the city with high-quality software products and pioneering services. 】
Gradually find the direction of development in the exploration
Although the positioning is clear, everything is not as simple as we think. At that time, the information was not developed enough, and we did not have much experience and advantages in software development, so we could only rely on sincerity, diligence and pragmatism to struggle on the road of application software research and development and service. While forming a technical team, we explore the market demand and slowly find the direction in the exploration.
After gradual stabilization, we independently developed the "Entry and Exit Management System", "Foreign Exchange Trading System" and "Billing and Write-off Accounting System". Among them, the "local network billing and accounting system" developed for the Zhuhai Municipal Bureau of Posts and Telecommunications is the first time that Tianyuan Dike has entered the telecommunications industry. Relying on the communication operator business of that year, we found a foundation based on the industry, and this attempt became our "representative work" among the first-line enterprises in China's software industry.
In 1998, in order to coordinate management, the General Administration of Telecommunications of China intended to establish a long-distance centralized billing system at the provincial level, but due to the lack of professional and technical personnel, the plan was delayed. After learning the news, I organized more than 20 technical personnel of Tianyuan Dike to assist the software center of the General Administration of Telecommunications of China free of charge and develop related system software. This action allowed the technical team to get a good exercise, and also laid a first-mover advantage for later development.
The following year, China Telecom proposed the establishment of a "provincial billing and accounting system" and bid for bids nationwide. They provided a model that software companies developed against the model and finally scored it through testing. Thanks to our previous experience, we mobilized fifty or sixty technicians and developed the system in just two months. In the end, Tianyuan Dike's software ranked 12th among more than 60 software suppliers, and successfully obtained the first batch of "provincial billing and accounting system" operating licenses.
▲Anhui local billing project promotion mobilization conference at a glance.
Win key projects to achieve leapfrog development
The growth of enterprises is inseparable from the support of the government and the development of cities. I remember that in 2001, the Shenzhen Municipal Government organized a number of our software companies to go to India to investigate the development of their peers and learn from the advanced experience of the world. This expedition made me realize that India can become a major exporter of software in the world, not only because of its price and language advantages, but more importantly, because they pay special attention to the quality of software.
At that time, one company we inspected employed more than 10,000 people, and was the first company in India to list on the NASDAQ in the United States, and the size of Tianyuan Dike was less than 100 people at that time. I'm deeply touched by this, and they can do the same as we can. So he secretly decided that he must put software quality in the first place, and was determined to build a software enterprise with a scale of 10,000 people in China.
After returning, we learned Huawei's management methods, implemented the employee and backbone shareholding system, built a core team and continued technological innovation, and strengthened software quality management and process management. Through continuous efforts and development, we have gradually emerged in large-scale industry application software companies.
2001 has a special significance for us, this year we successfully won the bid of about 56 million yuan "Anhui Province local telecommunications business billing and accounting system" project, so that the enterprise to achieve leapfrog development. The project was piloted for the first time at the Wuhu Telecommunications Bureau in Anhui Province, and then fully promoted in a subsidiary of Anhui Telecom Corporation. In 2002, this system won the second prize of Shenzhen Science and Technology Progress Award.
It can be said that through this battle, Tianyuan Dike officially entered the list of telecom core software support manufacturers. Soon, with the billing system as the entry point, we have opened a number of services such as telecom operator marketing services, customer relationship management, online billing, and business analysis, and gradually exerted our fists in the larger market.
Grasp the direction of development layout one step ahead
In the process of growing a company, I have found that technological innovation is important, but it is more important to innovate ideas. Technological gaps can be bridged in a variety of ways, and once the concept is backward, the gap will quickly widen. I believe that concept innovation is to grasp the direction of industry development, keep up with market demand, and be one step ahead in action.
In October 2002, the National Telecommunications Conference was held in Anhui. It was mentioned at the meeting that if there is data to support the formation of quantitative standards, I believe that many decisions will be more accurate. At that time, the concept of big data had not yet emerged, and the speaker had no intention, but the listener had a heart. I thought to myself, if I can develop a system like this, there will definitely be a market.
Half a year later, in March 2003, the National Telecommunications Conference was held in Nanchang, and our marketing personnel brought their ownly developed telecommunications business analysis system to the meeting. This system is the earliest analytical application system launched in the industry, using data warehouse, OLAP and other technologies for operators' management decision-makers, to achieve flexible display of business data, in the form of multi-dimensional analysis, up and down drilling, dashboard and other forms of analysis information.
We integrate the billing of communication operators in the hands of enterprises, and try to find out the reasons behind the data changes by sorting out and analyzing the year-on-year, month-on-month, etc. As soon as the system was launched, it was well received, and it successfully won orders from six provinces, ranking first in the country in terms of market share. The company has also successfully entered the field of crm system of telecom core software by virtue of the technology accumulated in this process, and has been able to take the lead in data warehousing, data mining and big data. In 2004, the "Telecom Business Analytics System" was a great success in the market.
Successfully listed on the Growth Enterprise Market of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange
As companies slowly get on the right track, we get a lot of attention from investment institutions. In 2005, Intel Capital threw an olive branch to us and wanted to invest in the acquisition of Tianyuan Dike. But after weighing the pros and cons, we still politely rejected each other, and wanted to adhere to the original intention of entrepreneurship, and steadily and steadily make Tianyuan Dike bigger and stronger step by step.
In January 2010, Tianyuan Dike ushered in a development milestone. We were successfully listed on the ChiNext board of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, which was only three months after the opening of the board, becoming one of the second batch of companies listed on the ChiNext board in China, and also won the title of "The Most Valuable Investment Company on the ChiNext Board". It is difficult to start a business, and it is even more difficult to keep a job. After the listing, we did not focus too much on the capital market and ignored the old bank, continued to maintain competitive advantage through continuous innovation, met the continuous upgrading needs of customers, and strived for rapid performance growth to meet investors' expectations for listed companies.
▲ In January 2010, Tianyuan Dike was successfully listed.
Operating enterprises can not rush to make progress, drilling and clever, we must operate steadily, always focus on the main business software. At the same time, we have laid out cloud computing in advance, dug deep into big data, and increased investment in research and development in the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence. Since 2016, we have been listed in the "Top 100 Comprehensive Competitiveness of Software and Information Technology Services in China" and "Top 100 Software Business Revenues in China" for many consecutive years.
Today, we have the highest maturity level CMMI5 certification in the global software field, and are provincial engineering technology research centers, provincial academician workstations, and municipal enterprise technology centers, and our business has expanded to government, military, public security, operators, finance, new energy and other fields. With its love and focus on the software industry and a keen sense of smell for the market, Tianyuan Dike keeps up with the rhythm of the times, conforms to market changes, and always contributes to the development of Shenzhen with high-quality software products and pioneering services.
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[The development of Tianyuan Dike is a wonderful epitome of the rise of Chinese software and the development of science and technology in Shenzhen. Our growth depends on Shenzhen's emphasis on high-tech industries and vigorous promotion of scientific and technological development, and it is Shenzhen's high-quality development that has made Tianyuan Dike. 】
Adhere to the use of innovation to enhance core competitiveness
As an R&D software company, the importance of technological innovation to Tianyuan Dike is self-evident. In the past ten years, Tianyuan Dike has always adhered to independent innovation, continued to increase R & D investment, 2020 R & D investment of 309 million yuan, and set up 4 R & D bases and 3 R & D centers across the country.
On the afternoon of January 2, 2020, the Shenzhen Science and Technology Awards Conference was held in Shenzhen Hall. This conference has a special significance for me, on the same day I was awarded the 2019 Shenzhen Science and Technology Award (Mayor's Award) and spoke as the winning representative. 2019 is also my 30th year of struggle in Shenzhen, and I feel very honored to grow up with this amazing city.
It can be said that the growth of Tianyuan Dike is a microcosm of the rise of Chinese software and the development of science and technology in Shenzhen. Science and technology have never had such a profound impact on the future and destiny of the country as they do today, and have never had such a profound impact on the people's lives and well-being as they do today. The success of Tianyuan Dike is inseparable from Shenzhen's emphasis on high-tech industries and the vigorous promotion of scientific and technological development, and Shenzhen's high-quality development has achieved Tianyuan Dike.
It is our mission to revitalize China's software industry
Rooted in Shenzhen for more than 30 years, I have dedicated the best years of my life to the city and sprinkled my youth and blood on this hot land of entrepreneurship. I am very fortunate to choose to go south to Shenzhen to work hard, choose to start an entrepreneurial journey, choose to focus on the software field, in this process, we have witnessed Shenzhen from a border town all the way to become a world metropolis, under the guidance of scientific and technological innovation, the rapid development of Shenzhen continues to create miracles.
From the early days of entrepreneurship to the present, Tianyuan Dike is grateful for the scientific and technological innovation atmosphere and soil provided by the city, so that we can open our hands and feet to boldly innovate and move forward towards one goal after another. Now, our dream is still shining, we must revitalize China's software industry as our responsibility, and strive to build Tianyuan Dike into a century-old store, into an aircraft carrier of China's software industry, with high-quality innovation and development to set up an industry benchmark.
Shenzhen is a banner of China's high-tech industry, whether it is the number of state-level high-tech enterprises, the level of new scientific research institutions, the combination of science and technology and industry, it is second to none in China. In the future, we will continue to insist on practicing internal skills and bravely stand at the head of the tide of emerging industries such as big data and cloud computing. We must develop more products that meet the needs of the market, continue to contribute to the high-quality development of the real economy, and continuously contribute energy to the innovative development of Shenzhen.
Producer: Shenzhen Municipal Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, Shenzhen Evening News
Chief Planner: Lin Jie
Planning: Joe Hengli
Producer: Yin Changlong, Wang Lei, Ye Xiaobin
Gu Q: Huang Ling
Coordinator: Lin Hang, Zhao Qing, Chen Li
Executive: Wang Shuo Cheng Gong Zheng Shuqi
Dictation: August 4, 2021
Location: 12th Floor, Guoshi Building, Nanshan District, Shenzhen
Written by: Shenzhen Evening News reporter Ye Yangte