The largest retailer in the world (such as Alibaba) does not have its own product inventory; The world's largest content provider (such as Facebook or Weibo) does not publish its own content; The world's largest taxi company (such as Uber or Didi taxi) does not have its own taxi; The largest serviced apartment in the world (such as Airbnb) doesn't have its own house.
This is the most widely circulated description about * * * enjoying the economy on the Internet.
this passage is similar to what I said, "3 spokes * * * a hub", which is nothing but a car. Think of it as a device, when it is nothing, it is useful. Chisel the door to think that the room, when it is not, has the use of the room "has the same effect." Laozi's words actually reflect a kind of "emptiness" value, a philosophical concept that nothing is something, and less is more. Therefore, the "emptiness" of the "emptiness" value is not "nothing", but an empty and infinitely rich realm.
in the classical western business philosophy, it is very important to grasp the "real" value of resources. However, with the development of the Internet, we have gradually entered the era of * * * enjoyment economy. Everyone pays more attention to whose products or services can bring value to users, rather than who needs to master the resources.
as Lao Tzu said, "it is beneficial to have something, but useless to have it". "You" can provide convenience for people, and here "You" or the ownership of resources only emphasizes where a kind of interest lies; "Nothing" will give full play to its value, and resources can be shared through the architectural design of "empty" value, so that limited resources can be used to better enhance the value of products to users.
under this value system, enterprises should focus on the functions of users, supplemented by the resources of enterprises. If the value in English is a kind of value-value based on owning entities, then the new concept of "empty" value we put forward can be understood as "void", that is, the "void-value" based on space. This kind of "empty" value is the core value for enterprises to win in the economic era of * * *.
four elements of "empty" value strategy
"empty" value embodies four characteristics in the strategic design and implementation of enterprises, which we call "empty" value strategy four elements. Only by mastering these four elements can an enterprise truly strike the real thing with virtual reality and make something out of nothing.
element 1: user-oriented
only when the strategy is formulated with user-oriented can resources become "empty". The word "use" in "nothing to use" can be understood as the function of products to users here. Without "use", "nothing" or "emptiness" has no meaning.
"use" and "nothing" just correspond to two systems of strategic management: resource-based view and user-based view. The core difference between resource-based view and user-based view lies in: the former thinks that resources are heterogeneous and users' needs are homogeneous; The latter thinks that users' needs are heterogeneous, but resources are homogeneous.
Only when the pursuit of users is regarded as the pursuit of enterprises, enterprises can jump out of the limitations of the resources they have through the mode of * * * enjoying the economy, thus achieving greater "empty" value.
element 2: create an "empty" pattern
the pattern determines success or failure. The "empty" pattern here refers to the organizational structure that matches the "empty" value strategy and the big pattern that can realize the "empty" value.
The concepts that have emerged in recent years, such as platform or ecosystem, also emphasize the importance of an enterprise's strategic pattern. What we call the enterprise structure can be described more accurately as a node structure similar to the molecular structure. Only by grasping the layout of key nodes in a three-dimensional way at multiple levels can enterprises better formulate the structure and pattern.
For example, the development process of Beijing Rococo Technology Co., Ltd. reflects the importance of enterprise structure. When Rococo was founded in 24, there was only one designer. By the end of 215, it has developed into an international innovative design group with nearly 8 designers. Different from the business department structure of traditional enterprises, Rococo adopts 6+1 cell model to organize designers, and adopts cell chain and cell group model to build organizational structure to meet the diverse needs of users. After developing to a certain scale, although the enterprise resources are more unique and valuable, Jia Wei, the founder of Rococo, found that no matter how fast the company developed, it could not keep up with the changes of users' needs. However, if we continue the traditional way of expanding the scale of enterprises and internalizing more resources, Rococo may soon suffer from big enterprise disease. To this end, Rococo adopted a more open enterprise structure, and started to build a maker incubation platform (cocoa beans) and a maker gathering platform (Luoke). With the strong and unique Design ability of the enterprise and a large number of user demands as the fulcrum, Rococo mobilized the vast designer resources (design) to meet the huge market of China's manufacturing transformation and upgrading (Business) and consumer personalized demand (Customer), and created a brand-new innovative design pattern (CBD) model.
just like rococo, many enterprises are abandoning the traditional enterprise strategy focusing on obtaining resources, and instead creating a larger and brand-new strategic pattern by optimizing the core competence, adjusting the enterprise structure and opening the enterprise boundaries.
Only when an enterprise can formulate its strategic pattern reasonably can it leverage multiple interests with limited resources to integrate more resources, and it is also possible to succeed in the era of * * * enjoying the economy.
factor 3: making a strategy based on opportunity cost
the concept of opportunity cost does not appear very much in the business field. One of the main reasons is that opportunity cost is a "virtual" cost, which can not be clearly measured like fixed cost and variable cost.
however, in the era of * * * enjoying economy, the decision of product or service providers and users is more based on the consideration of opportunity cost. For example, the operating costs of most accommodation providers of Airbnb are not necessarily lower than those of traditional hotel chains, but the opportunity costs of Airbnb accommodation providers are far lower than those of hotel chains. This is because if Airbnb accommodation providers change their minds and choose not to use the vacant rooms at home to receive tenants, they will have almost no economic losses. In other words, the opportunity cost is close to zero. However, traditional hotels need to pay staff salaries and basic operating expenses, so the opportunity cost of vacant rooms is high.
factor 4: learn to give up
the main significance of decision-making based on opportunity cost is that enterprises make choices in order to better create user value. This selection process means that we must learn to give up, and only giving up can get it.
On June 12th, 214, Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Corporation, published a blog post entitled "All OurPatents Are Belong To You", which opened the era of open source for its electric vehicle patents. Although this move was controversial, in the following week, the company's stock rose by nearly 1%, from $26 to $229. By giving up its own patent form, Tesla encourages other charging equipment manufacturers to cooperate with it, so as to promote technological development faster and achieve a win-win situation. This is a manifestation of giving up is getting.
Just like Zhou Botong's Kongming Boxing and Zhang Sanfeng's Taiji swordsmanship in martial arts novels, practitioners need to abandon their former concept paradigm before they can cope with the ever-changing environment. In the current dynamic and changeable competitive environment, the highest level of business strategy is also the need to pursue "empty" value, take users as the guide, build a larger pattern, and make strategic choices by reducing opportunity costs, thus creating new user needs and values, so as to truly create something out of nothing.
(This article is excerpted from "Empty Value: User's Strategic View in the Economic Age", No.5, 216, Tsinghua Management Review)
About the author:
Li Sanli is an associate professor at Moore School of Business, University of South Carolina, and Lu Jiangyong is a professor at Guanghua School of Management, Peking University.