Under the wave of the fourth industrial revolution , when the dominance of the mobile Internet was established, the whole world seemed to have become a digital world. People are accustomed to the happiness and convenience brought by mobile payment, e-commerce, and fast media. The interaction between people and the screen has finally changed from a large screen to a small screen. Don’t underestimate this small screen. It is the door between humans and the virtual world. When the sesame door becomes a reality, the boundaries between the virtual and the real world will become more and more blurred.
Digitalization has become a popular vocabulary in the past one or two years. Management changes, business models, etc. must be covered with the cloak of "digitalization". The informationization that was often called has become a historical vocabulary, with a bit of a rural flavor.
- Is digitalization an advanced model of informatization?
- digitization is more complex than the technology used in informatization?
- Digitalization is more driving force for enterprise transformation and development than informatization?
- is a numeral that IT manufacturers can wear at will?
In general, digitalization is a "high-end" new technology technology, and informatization is the representative of traditional computer technology. Is this true? The editor will now share his views on digitalization and informatization in the past and present lives.
Is informatization digital?
Everything has to be traced from the beginning, start from the concept definition, and see if there is any essential difference between digitalization and informatization.
Informatization , Baidu Encyclopedia entry, this concept originated in Japan in the 1960s, and its definition refers to the historical process of cultivating and developing new productivity represented by computer-based intelligent tools and making it benefit society. It is suitable for intelligent tools to de productivity, which is called information productivity. Wikipedia definition: usually refers to the process of modern information technology applications, especially the process that promotes the transformation of application objects or fields (such as enterprises or society). For example, "enterprise informatization" not only refers to the business model, organizational structure and even the transformation of business strategy that is facilitated or able to achieve by the application of information technology in enterprises. The "National Information Development Strategy for 2006-2020" issued by the General Office of the CPC Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council , which is described as follows (2006): Informatization is a historical process of making full use of information technology, developing and utilizing information resources, promoting information exchange and knowledge sharing, improving the quality of economic growth, and promoting the transformation of economic and social development. The inspiration for informatization terms comes from MarcPorat's classification of categories of human civilization era: the agricultural era, the industrial era (industrial revolution) and the information era (1978).
digitization, digitalization (conversion of analog information into digital information) and digitalization (the administration of digitalis for the treatment of certain heart disorders, digitalization). At present, it seems that translations in the country are all "digital", and the two are not very clear. The two words
do not have the same meaning. The West has different understandings of digitization and digitization. The definition of Digitalization is more like the definition of informatization we understand, with the meaning of governing and improving data content. Let’s boldly assume that the digitalization that the West believes may be the informatization we understand, just like the understanding of traditional Chinese and Western medicine, it may be that the treatment methods are different.
Google describes the difference between the two: What is difference between digitization and digitalization? Digitalization is the conversion of analog to digital, whereas digitalization is the use of digital technologies and digitized data to impact how work gets done, transform how customers and companies engage and interact, and create new(digital) revenue streams.
from Gartner's Understanding is: digitalization is “the use of digital technologies to change a business model and provide new revenue and value-producing opportunities ; it is the process of moving to a digital business." I personally think Gartner's interpretation is more appropriate.
digitization illustrates the behavior of converting analog information into digital forms that a computer can handle. Simply put, digitalization is the early stage of digital transformation. It is actually the stage before Industry 4.0, that is, Industry 3.0 or , the third industrial revolution . On the other hand, digitalization originally represents the process of digital control, connection and planning in a broad sense. So far, this term describes more the process of changing in multiple industries. The result of digitalization is transformed or newly developed business models, socio-economic structures and organizational models. This is what we are talking about digital transformation . (The above description from Google)
In summary, are informatization and digitization similar to the true and false Monkey King in " Journey to the West ", and are Sun Wukong and Liuer Mihou the two sides of a monkey? In fact, informatization and digitalization are the same roots, just like the fork of a branch. No matter how it grows, it cannot be separated from the support of the trunk (IT technology system). Informatization and digitalization are two flowers on a vine.
How digitalization drives enterprise changes
There is a hypothetical premise for this question: "IT+Management" or "Management+IT". The order of the two is actually the meaning of who dominates whom. Management itself is science and technology, and IT is also science and technology, but there are essential differences. IT itself is a technical tool that can make management simpler and clearer. Management is the "elder" of IT in the time dimension. Only with management can there be technical tools such as IT to empower management and improvement.
"Management + IT" has always been the mainstream. In the past few years, Gartner proposed the concept of dual-mode IT to divide information technology into different paths and directions of information implementation under the premise of certainty and uncertainty demand factors. Many industry companies have successively proposed similar ideas, McKinsey proposed dual-speed IT, Huawei proposed NEWICT, Lenovo proposed two-state IT.
The demand for processes and data in enterprise management has brought huge challenges to the implementation of information technology. Many non-IT people believe that technology is omnipotent. As long as the so-called specific business needs are proposed, it can be realized by IT technology. This is a misunderstanding of IT technology (correct solution: IT technology has many functions and models that cannot be implemented, and there is no ready-made technology waiting for managers to choose).
As enterprises continue to develop, especially when encountering troughs and sticky periods in their respective industries, For example: the current global automotive industry (as shown in the figure below), the automotive industry is struggling under the impact of the epidemic and faces huge survival risks and tests. At this time, IT technology cannot obtain clear demand imports, because the business uncertainty is too great, and no one knows whether this new product can be sold.
At this time, it doesn’t make any sense to improve the production efficiency of the factory. It is better to study on time supply chains to study how to make upstream and downstream enterprises in the supply chain survive. For example, the need for improvement of systems such as ERP and MES is not so urgent.How can traditional enterprise managers think about breakthroughs during the industry trough period like
? Changes in business models have become a very necessary issue to study. digitization enriches the meaning of informatization itself, and it has not changed in essence. It is still the essence of "connection" and "computing power" to drive business development, breaking ineffective or inefficient connections in the past business model, and selecting and trying new objects to connect and operate. Who dares to say that the new connection is correct in this process? By using the iterative characteristics of IT technology to try and error, it can be said that the choice of finding the best path has gradually emerged. Other reform methods and tools simply cannot achieve the inherent advantages of IT technology (high quality and low cost). can not only ensure the rapid time, but also reorganize enterprise management elements (process and data) to test whether the business model can continue to create value and let the company get out of the predicament.
At this time, an IT team with close relationship with the enterprise (independent IT company settings) is needed to achieve this business model change. It is necessary and only this team to drive business transformation with digitalization must and can only be accomplished by this team. Traditional IT companies and consulting companies, the so-called high-level consulting consultants, cannot understand where this industry can go (or they will not change seventy-two times), because they are experts trained in the "IT+ management" model, and their thinking and cognition cannot be broken.
Can traditional Internet enterprise BAT and emerging Internet enterprise TMD lead this change? can tell their ability by a simple judgment. The sales strategy of public cloud basically proves that they can sell hardware resources . Some Internet big names even do not even use their main business platforms on their own public cloud platforms, but they continue to promote the use of cloud computing and big data (the Internet industry does not have data from various industries at all. They have user data to connect customer portraits with traditional industries, and they basically cannot see the value generated by empowering to transform and subvert other industries. Their advantages and disadvantages of other companies do not form a complementary relationship. What should I do if I have a technical misalignment like ?
understands digital drives enterprise change from a more macro perspective. It can be explained from Marx's discussion on the dialectical relationship between productivity and production relations . Science and technology have promoted the industrial revolution, and the emergence of the industrial revolution has promoted profound changes in social economy and enterprise management, as well as the reconstruction of corporate business models. Every industrial revolution will give birth to new social production factors due to the emergence and application of new technologies. This time, the central government took "data" as a new factor of production, pointed out new production resources for my country's economy, promoted new technologies to enhance productivity, and continuously liberated people's production labor. digitalization is to use new technological means to drive the generation of new production factors in society. If corporate reform does not combine this production tool well, then new momentum will not be driven by it in the subsequent economic operation, and then we can only face more cruel market elimination.
Who is the real promoter of enterprise digitalization
The process of informatization development of Chinese enterprises has been around for nearly 30 years. Looking at the development of global enterprise informatization, we have also seen many basic paths, and have come step by step. Judging from the ", integration of informatization and " work promoted by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, in recent years, it has also proved that domestic enterprises informatization has made great progress and has grown very fast. IT manufacturers have also received dividends from enterprise information development, and there are too many excellent manufacturers growing in China.
Generally, we divide these manufacturers into several types:
- A. International traditional IT manufacturers represent IBM, Oracle, SAP, etc., and there are nearly a hundred companies in all sizes;
- B. International Internet giants, but they do not have much business in China;
- B. ml1C. Local consulting companies usually start their own business from overseas code outsourcing, and start businesses from large international companies (particularly in recent years), and management software manufacturers who bought Taiwanese and Korean products first, then gradually grew up after optimization;
- D. Local Internet companies have come out one after another, such as Ali , Tencent , etc.;
- E. Various small IT startups have mixed quality and mixed quality with various entrepreneurial purposes. The last category is actually the IT departments of large and medium-sized enterprises that have been divided into independent IT companies. They have been developing in the growth environment of domestic enterprise informationization for more than 20 years (basically they were established in 2000 in the early stages). Let’s focus on this type of company.
The relationship between digitalization and enterprise change has been explained earlier. Taking this as the fulcrum, we can see that the top five types of manufacturers can basically say that they are doing digital technology work, because informatization itself is digitalization, and there is no change in concepts. So what they say is that they can do "digitalization" is essentially understanding a certain type of IT technology. Can understanding technology help enterprises achieve uncertain needs? Is the transformation of business model?
Independent IT companies have become more and more differentiated from large and medium-sized enterprises in recent years. Why is it becoming more and more common? The reason is nothing more than the following points:
First, it is the inevitable result of the development of enterprise informatization to a certain level. The executive department of enterprise informatization is the internal IT department of the enterprise, commonly known as Party A. After 10 or 20 years of growth, this department has gradually grasped the lifeblood of enterprise informatization. Simply put, it is to turn a professional IT technology team into a compound talent team that understands business, is familiar with management and technology. They provide information services for various business departments, starting from sorting out the business department processes and data, gradually understanding the business operation mode of this department, and clearly knowing the pain points and difficulties, fulfilling the principle of clearing bystanders, making suggestions for improvement, choosing appropriate IT technology to solve business problems, and improving business operation efficiency and quality. connects the originally scattered human-machine-based and material rings, so the quality of this team marks the management level of this enterprise's knowledge assets (the highest form of data assets);
Second, the capabilities of the top five types of manufacturers are different, which gives Party A's team a full opportunity to make up for the failure. Party A's own IT team must work side by side with its business department for a long time. Therefore, Party A's independent IT company team grew up quickly, training its resilience and agility, and improving its technical level. Taking SAP implementation consultants as an example, the good consultants of are basically trained by Party A. , consultants who graduated from school and trained in thinking mode are basically academics, and it is difficult to become expert;
Third, it has become a common practice for party-first IT teams to independently become corporate operations in the international community, and many of them have become leaders in digital transformation in their industry, such as EDS in the United States and Dassault Software, which was born in the French company that produces Rafale fighter . These companies have their own special positions in the global IT industry. Since 2000, a number of such companies have emerged in my country. Baosteel's Baoxin , Sinopec Petrochemical Yingke , FAW Qiming , etc. have gradually become the leaders in their industries, and have even achieved good results across industries;
Fourth, the data assets of enterprises are becoming more and more important at the moment. Who can operate the data assets of enterprises and protect the data assets from leaking ? Of course, it is an independent IT company of the enterprise. This asset cannot and will not be directly handed over to other five types of manufacturers to manage and operate.
In summary, the development of enterprise informationization is generally divided into four stages, "information", "network", "number", and "intelligence" (as shown in the figure below). A good IT team will go through these four stages in full. Through the experience of these four stages, we will basically understand the development of this enterprise management, business model and strategic. We will know how to use new technologies to help enterprise management change and business reconstruction, design and lead new business model changes, and continuously provide more feasible methods and paths for value creation and value acquisition.
Therefore, only by choosing the right digital implementation team and making long-term investments, and at the same time, through the coordination and symbiosis with the top five types of companies, can we achieve the effect of winning and win-win results, use appropriate technical means and resources, long-term services and technical precipitation, and combined with their own management changes and model exploration, we can truly achieve the ambitious goal of leading high-quality development of enterprises.
text/ Director of Information Strategy and System Operations Department of BAIC Group and General Manager of BAIC Blue Valley Information Li Xiaolong
