Themed "No Future Without Technological Innovation", the 2021 New Year Forum of Fudan University School of Management focused on the strongest momentum for the industrial development, providing deep insight into the trend of technological innovation as well as the Chinese economy.
Professor Lu Xianghua analyzed several hot events in the internet industry in 2020 and offered advice for the future development of the industry. She reminded us that the improvement of technical efficiency should be in line with the development of society. Her research direction is internet technology innovation and operation, big data analysis, and digital transformation of enterprises. Here are some of her views recently published on the media and shared in the classrooms.
Optimal solution of technological innovation
In the modularized industries, the key to technological innovation is to find the points with "imperfect performance", and to re-enter the market through innovation in technology integration or in functional module.
How should Chinese small-and-medium-sized enterprises choose from these two paths of innovation? If the product does not fully meet user expectations, the company does not own the core technology of the module it belongs to, or the company’s position on the value chain is close to end users, then innovation in technology integration will help it gain a stronger competitive advantage. Otherwise, the company has to rely on some kind of modular innovation to achieve differentiation in the market.
Logic behind community group buying
Though there are concerns that with internet giants such as Alibaba, JD.com, and Meituan entering the community group buying, vegetable vendors might lose their livelihood, Professor Lu believes that in fact the competitors of internet platforms are other platforms instead of small and medium-sized vendors. Although the platform does have an impact on the vendors, its refined management of the industry has improved the efficiency of the entire industry chain and created new jobs. Vendors can make changes in time and join the platform ecosystem.
Meanwhile, it’s not a purely either-or situation. Professor Lu reminds us that we should observe community group buying in the long term in order to see whether it has created higher circulation efficiency, better service, and more jobs for the society.
Solution for the predicament of delivery platforms
Professor Lu pointed out that the unreasonable delivery time limit is to a great extent caused by the labor surplus and the biased evaluation mechanism of the platform. Delivery platforms use algorithms to improve the efficiency in matching the demand, the supply and the services for the merchants, users and deliverymen. However, instead of balancing the interests of all parties, the current algorithm obviously gives full priority to the consumer experience and the order volume of the platforms. The solution lies in improving the efficiency evaluation mechanism so as to take better care of the needs and interests of the deliverymen.
Professor Lu pointed out that expectation management is very important. She believes it's time to lower the expectations of the user, the deliveryman and the platform, so as to provide the industry with an opportunity to solve the problems brought about by the pursuit of speed. Therefore, the competition in the internet industry nowadays is not who can make the system more efficient, but who can design a mechanism to better match and coordinate employee execution with the system, and then reinitiate the improvement of efficiency. In Professor Lu’s opinion, the key of this mechanism lies in a better way of cooperation between enterprises and employees.
Essence of digitalization
Professor Lu believes the essence of digitalization lies in the leverage of technology so as to perceive and respond to consumer needs with higher effectiveness and efficiency. If the informatisation of enterprises decades ago was about the perception of consumers, consumption data, brand image, etc., digitalization of our time is demanding the enterprises to perceive the data and personal needs of each consumer, which poses a much bigger challenge.
