A technology is shared by other technologies. With the improvement in the application of these technologies, a large number of advancements are automatically produced in this way. This is the nature of technology.
With the acceleration of cloud computing and the rapid development of blockchain technology, electronic signatures based on digital encryption technology have been quickly implemented. At the same time, the listing of the US service provider DocuSign verified the feasibility of the electronic signature business model. The electronic signature track has once again attracted the attention of capital and triggered another wave of investment.
According to the professional version of Tianyancha app, only esignbao has obtained more than 2.2 billion yuan in financing within one year. Fada and Shangshang have also obtained a large amount of financing in a short period of time, and three independent players Giants participate in the financing of beasts.
However, what is the prospect of the electronic signature that has been matured by capital? After the giants personally end up, is there still spring for unicorn companies? Are there any new stories in the B-side battlefield of the Internet?
Electronic signature, To B or To C?
Under the wave of digital economy, in addition to some irreplaceable paper contracts in various industries, other scenarios involving transactions are the development space of electronic signatures.
At present, the core of electronic signatures is positioned as a corporate service tool, which plays the role of the B-end ecological capability connector. However, with the gradual popularity of electronic signatures and the gradual acceleration of the digitalization process, personal acceptance of electronic signatures will be Even higher, such as buying a car, buying/renting a house, etc., the fast characteristics will also make the C-end users' reliance on electronic signatures gradually increase, and ultimately drive the entire society to "electronic signatures."
Demand determines the user's reliance on software. Electronic signatures have the characteristics of Internet infrastructure, so why do electronic signature unicorns collectively move towards To B instead of To C? Wouldn't it be more profitable to provide electronic templates for users who have electronic contracts and signature needs? Moreover, compared with the slow-developing service-oriented To B, the linear growth of To C business seems to be able to obtain financing more quickly.
Difficulty and fierce competition may be the main reasons why electronic sign companies do To B first.For unicorn companies, the reason for vigorously developing B-side customers instead of C-side users is nothing more than the two factors of demand and supply.
On the supply side, the development of cloud computing and blockchain technology has made digital encryption technology mature. The characteristics of immutability and trace retention throughout the process also provide the underlying support for the legal effect of electronic signatures. On this basis, the promotion of electronic digitization such as electronic signatures and electronic contracts has further accelerated the development of electronic signatures.
At the same time, the successful listing of DocuSign further stimulated the enthusiasm of domestic capital. The market penetration rate of for electronic signatures in the United States is 10%, but the compound growth rate is only 30%, while the domestic penetration rate of is only 1%, but it has a 200% in line with the growth rate. This gap and increase Speed also means that China's electronic signature market has great potential.
Under the comprehensive factors, the entrepreneurial threshold and financing difficulty of e-signature are decreasing. To B's DocuSign has also become a pioneering template that domestic e-signature companies can learn from, giving unicorn companies more confidence.
On the demand side, the feature of To B business is that it does not require the establishment and implementation of application scenarios for C-end users, and creates models with different needs according to different scenarios. For example, the personal rental contract service signed and launched by Tencent Electronics needs to collect and classify various aspects of the rental field, make different templates to meet different needs, and create a contract template library.
For the B-side, you only need to integrate real-name authentication, time stamping, and CA related technologies to digitize relatively limited data to help companies improve production efficiency, instead of further opening up demand and releasing the value of consumer terminals.
The advantage of choosing the B-end is that the development difficulty is relatively small, and under the 's greatest common divisor , all companies with electronic signature requirements are likely to be their customers, while avoiding the giants in the C-end market. Nowadays, the application scenarios of electronic signature companies are no longer limited to online office. The fields of finance, government affairs, e-commerce, and medical care have become the blue ocean of electronic signature companies.
At the moment when the C-side competition is fierce and the traffic is gradually peaking, the value created by To B is much higher than that of the C-side products whose demand is too scattered. This is not only the original intention of unicorn electronics signing enterprises to force the B-side, but also the Internet giants. One of the core motivations for entering To B.
Nuggets B-side, resource contention is the first element
For the Internet giants, in addition to the huge market value hidden in the B-side, electronic signatures also have a perfect ecosystem to tap electronics. Value that unicorns cannot create.
The current pattern of the electronic sign track is that the Big Three e sign treasure, Fada, and Shangshang sign a total of 79% of the market share. The leading companies lead the industry. The industry Matthew effect is significant, but the Big Three have all behind them. The shadow of Internet giants.
e sign treasure can be defaulted to be a member of the Ali system to some extent. There is the shadow of Xiaomi behind the sign. The method greatly ’s "composition" is more complicated. Tencent and bytes Jump have participated in the vote. For this reason, both Tencent and Bytedance have independently developed their own electronic signatures, such as Bytedance's "Electronics" and Tencent's WeChat applet. It is worth noting that bytedance launched its own online contract signing platform node two months after the Feishu access method.
must not only have it, but also fully control it. This is the current investment status of Internet giants on the electronic signing track, or the elimination of dissidents or independent portals, the integration of the electronic signing business under their own system is the ultimate goal of the giants Purpose, the core reason for this is that the B-end ecological layout cannot be faked.
As a B-side business at present, electronic signatures play a role as a contract channel between enterprises. For unicorn companies, the importance of contracts means rigid demand and huge business opportunities, but for the Internet As far as the factory is concerned, the value of the contract channel lies in the acquisition of resources and the synergy with the entire ecology.
To B business expansion requires the accumulation of resources. Conversely, as long as the To B business can run through, it will naturally be able to control resources, and the contract positioning of electronic signature is the best breakthrough to break through the B-side resources.
As a contract channel between enterprises, electronic signatures play the role of Internet infrastructure, which means that electronic signatures can run through the entire industry chain. In a particular electronic signature product, the number of users connected by a single user It is exponential.
For example, ByteDance signs contracts with other brands for live delivery of goods. If ByteDance only recognizes legally large electronic contracts and signatures in the name of security when signing the contract, then it will be able to drive all associated brands. Accept the law greatly. As a To B tool, electronic signatures can bind a large number of brands with high switching costs and security of public signatures. These "bundled" brands may become byte-beating business resources.
To B business expansion competition is resources, the online office industry is the most typical example. Dingding is really easy to use? Not necessarily; corporate WeChat is really the gospel for micro-businessmen? Not at all.
However, DingTalk and Qiwei still have an overwhelming advantage in the office field. In addition to the correct positioning, the resource advantages of Tencent and Ali are also the main reasons for the two to lead in the office field. Dingding is because of the online class fire during the epidemic, which is essentially the cooperation between Alibaba and relevant departments and promoted directly across the country; corporate WeChat can be favored by WeChat business because we have no choice other than WeChat. As long as there are enough resources, it is natural to integrate the resources of its merchants to jointly promote the development of To B business.
Therefore, the connection value of e-signature is impossible for unicorn e-signature companies, nor can it be brought to Internet companies.
Business choice itself is a trade-off of interests. The core of unicorn's e-signature is to only make a limited tool and do what a tool should do. Only in this way can other third parties be willing to use it. The core of the electronic signatures that exist in the big factory system lies in resource sharing or resource discounts to make up for the constraints of bundling.
Photographed by Internet manufacturers ,Yuanwang is leveraging the entire B-end market through electronic signatures. Therefore, it is impossible to give such an important role to unicorn companies. It is not difficult to explain why Tencent and ByteDance independently develop their own electronic signature business. .
The profitability and prospect anxiety of electronic sign companies
The ecological connection and the auxiliary function of resource expansion make Internet giants may not have too high requirements for the revenue of electronic sign. But for unicorn companies, profitability affects the development of the company, and it is necessary to give the capital a satisfactory answer. However, judging from the current market situation, it is still a big problem for companies to make profits on the electronic sign track.
Revenue is mainly reflected in the two dimensions of customer unit price and the number of enterprise users. In terms of the number of enterprise users, unicorns have a first-mover advantage, and under the influence of the Matthew effect, they will not lose too much market share due to the entry of major Internet companies. The profit problem of electronic signatures is mainly reflected in the inability to increase the customer unit price. Or higher costs lead to weak profitability.
Weakening time and paying attention to cost are the logic of C-end products in educating the market. In theory, spending money will definitely get a certain market in a short time. While the B-end enterprise service can only wait for time in the education market, enterprise service is an imperceptible and non-linear process for the efficiency improvement of the enterprise. The failure to take effect immediately means the lengthening of the realization cycle and also affects the users. Willingness to pay.
Basic services such as electronic signature certification and contract signing, and a series of value-added services around electronic signatures are the two major forms of electronic signature business revenue, but at present, more profitable value-added services have not yet been obtained globally. With the large-scale recognition of the market, even DocuSign, the number one leader in e-signatures, has only completed 5.7% (2020) of market expansion.
The basic service is the basic disk. Blindly raising prices will affect the market size, and value-added services will not sell well, which leads to the profitability of electronic sign companies. According to the latest financial report, DocuSign will continue to lose money in the second quarter of 2021, with a net loss of US$25.5 million. This is also the result of DocuSign's 70% market share of global e-signatures and the high willingness of foreigners to pay.
For current domestic electronic signature companies,In addition to the difficulty in cultivating users' willingness to pay, they also have to bear the additional costs of e-signature pioneers.
DocuSign's successful experience cannot be completely copied in China, and unicorn companies, as the leader of the electronic sign track, have to bear various market development trial and error costs. Only excellent product power can cover the market on a large scale and maintain the first mover advantage. All of this is reflected in the cost before the scale effect is formed, which leads to weak profitability at the higher cost level.
In addition, information security is the underlying guarantee of the electronic signature track, and electronic signature is essentially an encryption technology based on CA certificates. The low technical difficulty means that a large amount of information security development and cloud services are required. Shanghai has in-depth cooperation with major Internet companies, all of which will lead to an increase in costs and a weakening of the right to speak.
In the wave of digital upgrades, revolutionary e-signatures have huge commercial value, but the current domestic e-signatures track is not yet fully mature, and the final pattern of the industry is uncertain. How can unicorn companies remain relatively independent and improve in the fierce competition? Profitability, we will wait and see.
.-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-