Keywords: business strategy; E-commerce; enterprise
Keywords: business strategy; E-commerce; enterprise
For an enterprise, e-commerce is a new means of operation. With the development of network and e-commerce, when more and more enterprises begin to realize management and marketing by means of e-commerce, an e-commerce management and market environment is formed, which is a brand-new international market with fierce competition. In order to adapt to this new business environment and meet the challenges from global competitors, China's e-commerce enterprises and traditional enterprises that are developing or about to develop e-commerce should not only choose business models suitable for their own development, but more importantly, formulate effective business strategies to improve their competitiveness. This paper makes some preliminary discussions around this issue.
1. Mechanism and comparison of the two business strategies 1. Mechanism of diversified management strategy
Diversification strategy refers to the business strategy that enterprises operate more than two industries at the same time and provide a variety of products or services with different basic economic uses in order to enter different markets. It is the expansion behavior taken by the enterprise to seek long-term development when it develops to a certain stage. The advantages of diversification strategy are: it can make enterprises gain more market opportunities, make full use of various resources of enterprises to realize the integration of various businesses, and enrich the series product structure or product portfolio structure; Diversification is flexible and can quickly quit bad business, thus effectively avoiding, dispersing or reducing the risk of "over-specialization"; In addition, enterprises that implement diversification strategy can make full use of brand effect, employee potential, marketing channels, management experience and material resources to provide diversified products or services for the market. In a word, diversification strategy plays a very important role in strengthening enterprise strength, dispersing business risks, giving full play to resource potential and establishing enterprise image. Abroad, a number of enterprises such as DuPont, General Electric, Philip Morris, Mitsubishi of Japan and LG of South Korea have achieved great business results by implementing diversification strategies. In recent years, Haier, Konka, Chunlan, Hongta and other enterprises in China have also achieved certain success in diversification.
The disadvantages of diversification strategy are also obvious, mainly including the following three points: First, the management difficulty increases, especially when the enterprise enters a new field with low correlation with the original business, the original management concept, model and experience of the enterprise may be difficult to work together, which will increase the cost of coordinating various relationships, and may lead to unstable organizational structure and increase the risk of out-of-control operation; Second, resources are dispersed, and enterprise resources and funds are allocated to multiple businesses. On the one hand, this may lead to the loss of the original core competitiveness and the difficulty in cultivating other core competitiveness. On the other hand, it may fall into a situation of shortage of resources, ineffective turnover, having to shrink or go bankrupt. South Korea's Daewoo, Japan's Sony, China Giant Group and Chundu enterprises all have problems. Third, it affects the effective implementation of CIS strategy. Most of the diversified enterprises are well-known enterprises with good performance in their main business. After diversification, the sharing of the original brand value by multiple products may affect the brand foundation created by its main business. 2. The mechanism of specialized management strategy
Specialization strategy refers to the continuous development of enterprises by engaging in production and operation in a certain field that meets their own resource conditions and capabilities. In the early 1980s, Michael E. Porter, a professor at Harvard Business School in the United States, put forward three basic competitive strategies suitable for enterprises of any nature and scale, one of which is specialization strategy. Porter's specialized competition strategy means that enterprises focus on a specific market in order to have a competitive advantage in the local market. Because enterprise management is inseparable from market competition, management strategy and competition strategy are closely linked. The advantages of specialized management strategy are: enterprises can concentrate all kinds of resources on the most familiar business areas, so as to develop and cultivate competitive products; Facilitate the operation of enterprise integration strategy, realize large-scale production and gain the cost advantage in the industry; It is conducive to the implementation of CIS strategy and the organic integration of corporate brands and products. From the point of view of competition, the specialization of enterprise business can serve narrow strategic targets with higher efficiency and better effect, so as to surpass opponents in a wider scope of competition. Porter believes that in this way, the profit potential of enterprises can exceed the general level in the industry. There are also disadvantages in implementing specialization strategy: because the business of enterprises is concentrated in a certain field, some other market opportunities may be lost; The key of this strategy is to find a special target in a market segment and occupy a place in the market through serving this special target. Due to the increasingly fierce market competition, it is difficult for many enterprises to find or create a core product that can use professional management strategies for a long time. Specialization is easy to form a high exit barrier, and enterprises are in a crisis of "over-specialization" because of business crisis. Due to the concentration of business areas, on the one hand, some technical or resource advantages of enterprises may not be fully exerted, on the other hand, it is easy for enterprises to fall into a complacent situation and passivate their response to market changes. 3. The basic principles for enterprises to choose business strategy
At present, the word that people talk about most about e-commerce is "profit". Indeed, network enterprises are looking for their own profit model, and all large and small e-commerce websites are struggling for profit. An influential e-commerce website even suggested that the goal in 2002 is to "earn a dollar and do it well!" . Around how to make enterprises profitable, academics and business people have racked their brains. Facing the time-consuming market, enterprises have begun to take concrete actions. Some enterprises, especially those powerful portals, have chosen diversified business strategies, while many others have determined professional business models. What is the effect of diversification or specialization? For these enterprises, most of us can only wait and see. For those indecisive enterprises, we should stop and wait and see now. The question of which is better, diversification or specialization, has been debated for a long time, and there is no absolute standard so far. Under certain conditions, professional management makes the enterprise successful; Under other conditions, diversification may achieve better business performance than specialization. In different situations, even the same choice may have different results.
In fact, what kind of business strategy an enterprise chooses depends largely on its macro environment, industry situation and its own situation. From the growth history of enterprises in Europe, America, Japan and other countries, it can be seen that the adoption of specialization or diversification strategy is closely related to the degree of market economy development in the country where the enterprise is located. European, American and Japanese enterprises implemented professional management from the end of 19 to the 1950s. Since 1950s, diversified business strategy has been widely adopted and enterprises have grown rapidly. In 1980s, the competition in the international market became more and more fierce. At the same time, with the improvement of diversification, the possibility of enterprises taking risks increases, and the disadvantages of diversification begin to appear, which is recognized by the majority of enterprises, and the number of enterprises implementing diversification is gradually decreasing. In recent years, the development of the Internet has accelerated the integration of the global economy. European and American companies have cleaned up non-core businesses and re-integrated resources through the Internet. Professional management strategy is increasingly favored by the business community. It can be said that when a country's market economy is in a period of development, enterprises often adopt specialized business strategies; When the market economy develops to a relatively developed level, enterprises often adopt diversified business strategies; When the market economy develops to a very advanced stage, enterprises turn to specialized management strategy. Secondly, it is related to the life cycle of the industry in which the enterprise is located. Generally speaking, enterprises in the growth period of industry life cycle should adopt professional management strategy; Mature enterprises can choose specialization or diversification according to specific conditions; Declining enterprises should actively carry out diversified operations.
Third, it is related to the enterprise's own situation. Enterprises usually choose their business strategy based on the following three considerations. First, the original business development space is getting smaller and smaller, and the competition is becoming more and more fierce. At this time, when new development opportunities are found, we must choose diversification. Secondly, it is necessary to have certain surplus business resources to support enterprises to carry out diversified operations. On the contrary, if the business resources of an enterprise are insufficient, it should implement a professional business strategy; Enterprises with excess resources do not have to diversify their operations, but can continue to specialize. How to choose depends on other factors. If the enterprise's management resources are not rich, it is best to adopt professional management strategies. Thirdly, there is a high degree of original resources that can be migrated, that is, considering the degree of migration such as the cloning of management concepts, systems and mechanisms, the extension of technology, and the flow of talents. The higher the general liquidity, the higher the success rate of diversified investment; Conversely, the lower the liquidity, the lower the success rate of diversification.
Second, specialization should become the basic business strategy of enterprises in the current e-commerce environment. Specialized operation is the realistic need of e-commerce development.
Value and transitivity are the basic attributes of information. The value of information can only be reflected through communication and exchange. After processing, analyzing and processing, information accumulated to a certain extent can become more valuable information, which is the self-accumulation and appreciation of information. The above process will lead to more information, and the more marginal utility people get from these increased information, which is the increasing marginal utility of information. The core of the network economy is the information network represented by the Internet, so information becomes the core resource of the network economy, and the consumption under the network economy also presents the law of increasing marginal utility, which is completely different from the law of decreasing marginal utility followed by traditional economics. E-commerce is supported by computer and network technology platform, which realizes the effective transmission of information, and takes business flow, capital flow and logistics as entity business objects, and needs the support of corresponding security and credit system. Therefore, it has become the main operation mode of e-commerce in the early stage to carry out e-commerce under the condition that other conditions except information flow are not perfect and give full play to the increasing marginal utility of information to provide various market and transaction information. In fact, consumers and customers also recognize this. All kinds of survey data show that the main purpose of enterprises and consumers is to conduct market research online and find all kinds of business information through the network. For enterprises, a correct understanding of the economic environment and the status quo of the industry, facing the reality, choosing a pragmatic business model, formulating practical business strategies and tactics, and persisting in doing so will certainly achieve results. Many domestic enterprises have done this and achieved certain results. Dangdang online bookstore, Joyo.com and other enterprises have achieved breakeven of 5438+0 by the end of 2006. Ctrip.com, which provides tourism services, and 372 1, which provides domain name services, have also started to make profits around. Their success is not mysterious, that is, in the past few years since their establishment, they have persisted in focusing on one field and never wavered or changed their business model. For example, the "Chinese real name" system established by 372 1 website based on the concept of "network popularization" has solved the "internet bottleneck" of domestic netizens, and users can directly access websites on the Internet in Chinese. This service model is the concrete embodiment of the specialization strategy. Not long ago, Yi Bei injected US$ 30 million into Yi Bei and bought 33% shares in Yi Bei. Although people have doubts about Yi Bei, an American company that is not familiar with the Internet and e-commerce environment in China, and worry that Yi Bei will fall into the "capital injection trap" that once appeared in China, one thing is worth affirming at present. It is Yi Bei's persistence in C2C market that has formed its own characteristics. Today, investors are becoming more and more rational, and Yi Bei has put money into this auction website, which is regarded by many as "bleak in Qian Jing". What's more worth mentioning is that many little-known e-commerce websites are active on the Internet. These websites, known as "alternative e-commerce", can't be compared with mainstream e-commerce websites in terms of capital, scale and promotion methods, but they have a good profit model. As long as you browse a few such websites, it is not difficult to find their characteristics: unique business perspective. "Alternative" products or services are often not available on big websites, such as antiques, jade, stamps, local products and so on. There seems to be no market for these products, but they have a steadily growing customer base. The investment in "alternative" is not large. A considerable part of the "alternative" is to open their own shops on some well-known B2C websites. For example, there are a large number of netizens or enterprises in Yi Bei to promote their products, and some "alternative" websites are established by enterprises or individuals. Low-cost and professional business strategy is the survival way of alternative e-commerce. In addition, looking at the development history of e-commerce in just a few years, it is not difficult to find that the scale and growth rate of B2B and B2C e-commerce markets are much larger than the latter; In B2B market, the development trend of vertical market is much better than that of horizontal market. This also reflects from one side that specialization is the realistic need of e-commerce development at present.
2. Look at the disadvantages of "diversification" strategy from Enron bankruptcy.
On February 3rd, 200 1, 12, Enron Company, with assets of 50 billion and ranking seventh in the world's top 500 companies, filed for bankruptcy protection, becoming the largest bankruptcy case in American history.
In the 1980s, it started with electricity and natural gas trading and achieved great success in the energy market. Enron, which has been rated as "the most innovative company" by Fortune magazine for six consecutive years, can be regarded as the first batch of enterprises engaged in B2B e-commerce. 1999, Enron established the energy e-commerce platform (Enron Online), which was the largest B2B e-commerce platform in the world at that time. Through this platform, Enron has achieved great success in the energy market. In its heyday, online transactions accounted for 2/3 of the company's total business volume, and Enron suddenly changed from a "low-profit natural gas operator" to a high-profit energy trader, which was regarded as a model and the most successful one of informationization. But then Enron's business strategy began to change. Jeffrey skilling, the CEO at that time, believed that with the re-integration of enterprise business, the further development of free market and the further reduction of agency fees, the comprehensive integration mode of traditional enterprises would rapidly disintegrate. Therefore, Enron's future is not to continue to be a traditional energy company with huge assets, but to become a pioneer in promoting the "decentralization" of various commodity markets around the world. So Enron began to expand into high-speed telecommunications networks and financial markets, and unnecessarily invested huge sums of money. Enron's "decentralization" strategy is also reflected in its e-commerce application. The e-commerce platform of the world's largest energy trading enterprise operates more than 65,438+0,500 products, from daily necessities, users' electricity and natural gas supply to other extended equipment such as protective covers in bad weather. Not only that, Enron even plans to cooperate with Global crossing, an American bandwidth provider, to launch a broadband futures market on the basis of realizing the spot market transaction of bandwidth. It can be said that Enron's bankruptcy is also largely influenced by its "decentralization" strategy. In an open platform for online transactions, its goods should be freely interchangeable and mobile. At present, the products of some industries do not have the conditions for online trading. For example, in Enron's energy industry, electricity and natural gas are not freely interchangeable commodities, and the prices vary greatly from region to region, and they are constantly changing over time; In addition, liquidity is also a problem, especially in the electricity market. It is obviously impossible for China enterprises to buy electricity on Enron Online. One of the attractions of online trading lies in its fairness and openness, while Enron Online is a closed trading platform of "leader mediation". All buyers or sellers who want to trade on Enron's Internet must become the signatories of Enron, that is, the leaders of its customers or suppliers. To this end, Enron's competitors have ridiculed that no one wants to believe that the signatory of every transaction is Enron's own trading place. Of course, customers are more willing to patronize a neutral platform where direct transactions can be made. For traditional enterprises like Enron, it is unwise to develop a closed e-commerce platform alone. In contrast, GM is much more realistic. As a pioneer of automobile online sales, in 2000, General Motors established the B2B automobile trading market Covisint together with Ford, DaimlerChrysler and Commerce One. This market adopted Yi Bei's free bidding method, and attracted more than 1300 auto parts manufacturers from all over the world to join it, becoming a super online trading market with more than 200 billion dollars. Because of this, the three major car overlords. To sum up, the author believes that in the information age, especially in the early stage of e-commerce, "specialization" can be said to be the foundation of enterprise competition and even survival, and specialized business strategy should become the basic strategic model of most traditional enterprises in the field of e-commerce application.
Three, enterprises should pay attention to several problems in the process of formulating and implementing business strategy.
1. The choice of business strategy needs more rationality.
Looking back at the development of e-commerce in China, it can be described as ups and downs. From concept hype to replication model, from venture capital to overseas listing, many enterprises are blindly following suit. In the past two years, "diversification" has become another focus of academic, business and media attention after e-commerce, and more and more enterprises are engaged in diversified operations: home appliance industry and other industries have poured into IT industry; And some traditional IT companies are moving into the industries of home appliances, communications, real estate, insurance and so on. They think it may be rich in gold. Indeed, in foreign countries, general electric company, Microsoft and Intel, the overlords of the IT industry, have achieved diversification with their strong technical strength and assets. In the second half of last year, the autobiography of Jack Welch, president of General Electric Company, sold well all over China. Some people not only saw the general business philosophy and successful experience in this book, but also found a new way out and economic growth point for the revitalization of enterprises in China, which is "diversification". Haier, Chunlan and Lenovo, more and more people openly declare that they want to be "China's GM", and in the intensive expansion and infiltration, they begin to copy the model of "industrial integration" and "capital does not land for 24 hours". Diversification seems to be a panacea for enterprise development. This "diversified" fashion certainly affects e-commerce companies that have not yet emerged from the shadow of the network bubble. While excavating more charging channels during the Internet depression, Yahoo has also extended its reach to other fields. In March, 2002, in order to explore diversified business models, Yahoo began to March into Hollywood for gold.
Affected by it, some domestic network enterprises have also begun to try diversification. On February 25, 2002, Sina announced the establishment of Beijing Sina Network Technology Service Co., Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary, and launched Sina. Net, an enterprise information service platform. The goal achieved by Sina. NET strategy is to provide professional information construction solutions for enterprises and governments by effectively integrating the advantages of existing technologies and online media resources.
Another well-known portal, Sohu's diversification attempt began as early as the end of 200 1 when it launched e-commerce and SMS services. In 2002, Sohu successively launched B2C business and ETS (Internet technology solution), and then launched Sohu. NET- Sohu Enterprise Online February 25th is the same day as Sina. Unlike ETS, which mainly serves large enterprises, Sohu.net- provides comprehensive network technology applications and networks for small and medium-sized enterprises. Sohu pursues the multi-effect diversification strategy mentioned by Zhang Chaoyang, that is, it fights simultaneously on four fronts: Internet technology (ETS) service, new media (online advertising), communication (charging SMS, mobile communication) and B2C e-commerce (Sohu Mall), and attacks in many ways, without giving up the information portal and adding a single soldier to realize transformation. Theoretically, Sina and Sohu. Net strategy is not really diversified, because this new business is still within the scope of network services engaged by the two portals. In their words, it is "the exploration of combining offline resources and technical product development to find a richer and more effective revenue model". However, as an information portal that is good at providing content services, it has entered a business field that it is not good at after all. The author is not denying the more pragmatic management style adopted by these enterprises, but worrying whether this exploration will weaken the value base of the two information portals, because compared with those specialized IT enterprises and system integrators or ASP, after all, sohu.net and sina.net cannot provide enterprises with "personal" services from hardware to software, and the solutions provided through the network may be a bit far away for enterprises. Fashionable things don't necessarily represent the direction. We should gradually cultivate a rational corporate culture that is sensitive to environmental changes. This culture can guide enterprises to make specific analysis according to their own business environment and their own reality, and correctly define their own competitive space. This competitive space should not be limited to existing competitors, but also bring potential and new competitors into their own vision. When determining the business strategy, we must not blindly follow suit. No matter whether an enterprise adopts diversified operation or specialized operation, it must always closely follow the core competitiveness of the enterprise to ensure that new business areas can be strongly supported by the core competitiveness of the enterprise and transformed into corresponding market competitive advantages. 2. Follow the market rules in the e-commerce environment, and pay attention to adjusting and improving the business strategy.
The business strategy of an enterprise is not static. On the contrary, the formulation and implementation of business strategy is a process of constant adjustment and improvement, and it can even be said that it is a process of learning to adjust while constantly correcting mistakes.
If e-commerce enterprises want to survive and develop, the development of e-commerce can only meet the needs of the market, make the best use of the situation, and should not do something beyond reality. Boo.com, an online clothing retailer that was once called the banner of European e-commerce, left a profound lesson. At the beginning of its establishment, Boo had abundant funds, but it didn't have an online "fitting" system with 3D imaging technology. The technology was complicated and could not be realized in the end. If we don't go to the multilingual data center that technology can't achieve, we may not lose so badly. As Marwinston, CEO of Boo.com, himself summed it up: For whatever reason, enterprises should not violate any basic business rules in the field of e-commerce. Two years ago, Disney boasted that its Go.com website was the company's financial gateway for the 265,438+0th century. With the bursting of the Internet bubble, Disney adjusted its business objectives in time. Today, Go.com has taken on a brand-new look, becoming an information portal to provide customers with better content services. The main source of income is online advertising, followed by user service fees and content outsourcing income. In addition, it can also profit from various e-commerce activities such as online auction. Professor H.Minzberg of McGill University School of Management pointed out that strategy is shaped, not formulated. The market is not fixed and the operation is not standardized. If an enterprise can formulate a feasible business strategy and implement it according to the above principles, then success is only a matter of time.
Four. Concluding remarks
As mentioned above, in fact, no matter what kind of business strategy model, it has its specific scope of application and application methods. Whether it is diversification or specialization, there are many successful examples at home and abroad. We shouldn't favor one over the other and exaggerate or belittle the role of a certain business strategy. Therefore, the author puts forward that specialized management is the practical need of e-commerce development, and specialized management strategy should be the basic management strategy of enterprises in the current e-commerce environment, which does not mean denying the role of diversification strategy. In the future, with the development of e-commerce, the improvement of its environment and the improvement of enterprise management level, diversification strategy will certainly play its due role. It can be predicted that with the development of information technology, enterprises that use e-commerce to improve management efficiency and competitiveness will certainly create more new business strategies in the new century and new environment.