Small and medium-sized enterprises ride the digital "fast train"
Digitization of production, management, and marketing... Nowadays, more and more small and medium-sized enterprises are taking the digital "fast train".
This year's government work report proposes to deepen the special action of digital empowerment for small and medium-sized enterprises. Small and medium-sized enterprises are the driving force for high-quality economic and social development, and an important force in promoting the integration and development of the digital economy and the real economy. Industry experts say that there is a huge number of small and medium-sized enterprises in China, and digital transformation can help them improve quality, increase efficiency, reduce costs, and achieve a leap in development.
Digitalization of production——
Intelligent manufacturing has helpers
As soon as the steel raw materials enter the conveyor belt, they begin to self deform. After turning, hobbing, heat treatment, grinding, testing, and then being transported by intelligent cars to another processing unit... Walking into Zhejiang Xiaxia Precision Manufacturing Co., Ltd. located in Luotuo Street, Zhenhai District, Ningbo City, Zhejiang Province, the 5G intelligent workshop is bustling. This is an intelligent workshop tailored for the production of new energy vehicle transmission gears. It can continuously adjust parameters according to customer needs, achieving optimization of various performance such as noise reduction, shock absorption, torque increase, and impact resistance.
In the eyes of Xia Ting, the general manager of Xia Xia Precision, this intelligent workshop also serves as an "experimental base" - summarizing relevant technologies, equipment, and experience, and outputting them to the entire manufacturing industry.
"At present, in addition to improving the level of intelligence in parts manufacturing and component manufacturing, enterprises also have higher goals: to transform into providing complete machines, intelligent equipment manufacturing, and overall intelligent solutions." Xia Ting told reporters that he realized that a large number of small and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises in China urgently need digital transformation, and intelligent equipment is an important support for transformation. This field has a large demand and wide space, so the company will separate its digital business, Established Xiatuo Intelligent Technology Company, dedicated to intelligent equipment manufacturing, intelligent control system integration, etc., serving the digital transformation of other enterprises.
"The intelligence of manufacturing industry cannot be separated from the intelligence of equipment. Our independently developed gear production assembly line has been recognized by multiple international electric tool, automotive and other enterprise customers, which has doubled our confidence. We have decided to synchronize the production of intelligent equipment." Xia Ting introduced that in response to the large-scale production and testing needs of the automotive gear industry on-site, Xia Tuo Intelligent Technology team has developed a fully automated gear processing production line. This production line creatively integrates high-frequency quenching, automatic detection and other processes into the entire automated production line, truly achieving full process automation production, which can help improve production efficiency by 35%.
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have a large volume and wide range, which is the focus and difficulty of digital transformation. Many business leaders feel the urgent need for digital transformation and upgrading, but due to high initial investment, high uncertainty, and long return cycles, many small and medium-sized enterprises hesitate to move forward.
Previously, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology jointly issued a notice on conducting pilot projects for digital transformation of small and medium-sized enterprises in cities. From 2023 to 2025, the pilot projects for digital transformation of small and medium-sized enterprises in cities will be organized in three batches. Two departments support pilot cities in selecting key industries and related small and medium-sized enterprises, and support small and medium-sized enterprises to utilize the platform capabilities and data foundation of chain owners and leading enterprises to achieve synergy in multiple aspects such as orders, design, production, and supply chain, promote "chain style" digital transformation, and enhance chain replenishment capabilities.
In August 2023, Ningbo was selected as one of the first pilot cities for digital transformation of small and medium-sized enterprises in China. With impressive innovation, Xiatuo Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. has become a list of digital transformation diagnostic service providers at the municipal level in Ningbo. Zhenhai District of Ningbo City actively guides self cultivated intelligent manufacturing engineering service companies such as Xiatuo Intelligent Technology to assist in the intelligent diagnosis and transformation of small and medium-sized enterprises in the entire area. In 2023, there were over 80 Xiatuo Intelligent Technology service enterprises.
In recent years, various regions have successively launched a series of measures, focusing on segmented industries, carrying out digital diagnosis, training and optimizing digital transformation service providers for small and medium-sized enterprises, and promoting typical applications of digital transformation. More and more small and medium-sized enterprises are taking the digital "fast train". Experts pointed out that the foundation of SMEs' digital transformation is uneven and their demands vary greatly. Internet platform enterprises, industrial Internet platform enterprises, large enterprises, digital transformation service providers and other suppliers need to give play to their advantages in infrastructure, digital technology, industry accumulation, etc., face the differentiated needs of SMEs, continue to enrich the transformation "toolbox", and improve the pertinence of products and services.
Management digitization——
Online collaboration is more convenient
For small and medium-sized enterprises, digital transformation is a systematic project with multiple points, long lines, and wide coverage, which has strong comprehensiveness, intersection, and complexity. The use of online office, financial management, intelligent communication, remote collaboration, video conferencing, collaborative development and other products and solutions to achieve digital operation and management is an important part of digital transformation.
In November 2022, the Office of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the "Guidelines for Digital Transformation of Small and Medium sized Enterprises", proposing transformation paths from five aspects: conducting digital evaluation, promoting digital management, conducting business digitization, integrating into digital ecology, and optimizing digital practices. Among them, promoting digital management refers to the construction of organizational structures and management systems that are suitable for digital transformation in small and medium-sized enterprises, strengthening digital talent training, deepening cross departmental communication and cooperation, improving the level of refined enterprise management, and optimizing enterprise management decisions.
At Keda Yifa Electronics (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd., the application of digital office software has greatly improved intelligent office capabilities. In the past, files generated in daily work, some in emails, some in instant messaging software, and some in paper documents, often encountered problems such as difficult searching, inconvenient viewing, and untimely message notifications. When there are too many internal approval documents, multiple documents need to be opened for repeated confirmation. After the establishment of the digital office system, reimbursement, procurement, technical support, order arrangement, and approval of new product models are all integrated into a one-stop office process, bridging the data silos of enterprises.
The relevant person in charge of the company stated that in the past, approval for office work required printing paper documents and handwritten signatures, which were time-consuming and inefficient. Now, through the digital office software WPS 365, online document finalization and signature functions are used, allowing for online approval anytime and anywhere, breaking through geographical and time limitations and improving online collaboration efficiency. In daily communication and collaboration, employees do not need to frequently switch between various software accounts, and operation and maintenance personnel only need to maintain a set of account systems, greatly reducing maintenance costs.
Recently, China Industrial Internet Research Institute announced the list of typical products and solutions for digital transformation of SMEs in 2023, and Jinshan Office's digital application WPS 365 for enterprise users was successfully selected. Its online collaboration function can reduce communication costs for team members, while AI capabilities provide support for document editing, data analysis, and project management.
Lingke Huizhi Technology Co., Ltd., located in Qingpu District, Shanghai, is a domestic supplier of intelligent core components for vehicle body domains and has been selected as a specialized, refined, and innovative small and medium-sized enterprise in Shanghai. The relevant person in charge of the company introduced that in daily production, order issuance, procurement, and 3D digital and 2D drawings of some design software all involve operations such as document information recording, sharing and collaboration. Especially as a high-tech enterprise, all employees of the company need to encrypt and manage important documents in production, research and development, quality inspection, finance, personnel and other office scenarios. The use of digital office systems helps to improve efficiency for all employees of this enterprise while ensuring safety. In the document circulation process, WPS 365 provides seven layers of sharing and control capabilities, allowing users and teams to set refined permissions such as read, edit, copy, export, save as, and print; In the document storage process, the security capability is enhanced through three layers of design: document not landing, landing can be encrypted, and leakage can be traced.
Realizing online collaboration in research and development, design, procurement, production, sales, logistics, inventory, and other businesses is an urgent need for many small and medium-sized enterprises. A survey conducted on specialized, refined, and innovative enterprises found that small and medium-sized enterprises mainly focus on three aspects of digital management capacity building: first, the establishment of a refined management system; The second is "integration", which means the integration of business operation and management; The third is "control", which means paying more attention to internal control compliance on the basis of more mature collaborative management.
Zhang Qingyuan, CEO of Kingsoft Office, stated that the digital transformation of the world economy is an inevitable trend, and all sectors of society should actively participate in the digital empowerment of small and medium-sized enterprises. To meet the niche needs of more users, Kingsoft Office will optimize its self-developed models on the basis of an open-source base, further enriching the practical application of AI models in the office industry. In the future, more enterprise users will be able to experience the AI and collaboration services provided by WPS 365.
Marketing digitization——
Decision driven by data
Accelerating the digital transformation of small and medium-sized enterprises not only enables them to improve their management efficiency, reduce costs, and optimize resource allocation under the empowerment of emerging technologies such as cloud computing, big data, and artificial intelligence, but also enables them to keep up with the trend of the digital economy era, constantly innovate their products and business models, and inject new impetus into their operations.
Guangdong Taili Technology Group Co., Ltd., located in Zhongshan City, Guangdong Province, is a technology innovation enterprise that focuses on the research and application of high-performance new materials. It has been deeply involved in the field of home storage for many years. In an interview with this newspaper, Cai Wangyi, the brand manager of Taili Group, stated that the group had established a digital operations and algorithm department many years ago, responsible for collecting, analyzing, and applying big data for digital transformation. Nowadays, the work of various departments in enterprises is closely related to data, and digital applications have become very popular.
Taking brand digital operation as an example, in the past, it was difficult for companies to evaluate the effectiveness of media advertisements such as subways and elevators, and the conversion rate and revenue brought by advertisements were unclear. Now, using e-commerce backend data and analysis from data service providers, it is possible to clearly understand how many users the advertisement has reached and which users have purchased goods through the advertisement. For example, on e-commerce platforms, based on past sales data, it can be known which age group purchases the most Tai Li products and which cities are mainly distributed geographically. Therefore, companies can use this to advertise, known as "crowd packs" in the industry. The content and channels of advertisements are targeted at specific target audiences. Subsequently, staff can further analyze whether the target audience has clicking, purchasing, and other behaviors through the backend data of the e-commerce platform.
In terms of product development, using digital tools, the algorithm department of the enterprise can analyze user feedback on product improvement suggestions, compare potential competitors, and predict how much cost will be required in the early stage, how long the product lifecycle will be, and how long it will be profitable if a new product that can solve user pain points is launched. If the test data meets expectations, new products can be produced and sold in large quantities, and precision marketing can be carried out. The company's new six claw suction cup hook went through this decision-making process and became a popular product in the store once it was launched.
"Digitization can not only improve efficiency, but more importantly, it can help us make correct decisions, promote performance success rates, and provide practical solutions." Cai Wangyi said that the company has been actively promoting digital transformation and has a positive outlook on digital development. To this end, it has also established its own digital platform to analyze various business data and empower production and marketing.
Tiktok released the Research Report on the Mechanism of Global Interest E-commerce Assisting the Transformation and Upgrading of the Development Mode of Manufacturing Enterprises, which pointed out that with the continuous progress of digital technology and the rapid development of the digital economy, the consumer Internet represented by global interest E-commerce is becoming an important force to drive the transformation of manufacturing enterprises' profit model, production and operation model, value creation model and digital transformation of the production end. In order to adapt to the rapid growth of orders on e-commerce platforms, enterprises voluntarily carry out digital transformation of their supply chain, in order to quickly adjust production lines based on feedback from sales, allocate raw materials and production line workers in real-time, and enhance their ability to independently plan production. Many companies have established professional data teams to track and analyze link conversion rates, visitor numbers, etc., and provide optimization suggestions to the sales end, greatly improving their refined operational capabilities.
Experts say that in order to meet the rapid response needs of e-commerce, more and more enterprises will gradually undergo changes in production organization methods and digital transformation in the future. Related studies have found that digitalization of marketing is the first step for many enterprises to choose to initiate digital transformation. With more and more traditional enterprises and small and medium-sized enterprises starting to digitize their businesses, the demand for digital marketing will explode.