Original address: The stories of these IT companies will also appear in your industry! Read "Top of the Tide"
About ten years ago, a friend sent me a book, Toffler's "The Third Wave", which was ten years old at the time, but the ideas in the book still shine and make people addicted .
In the book, the author presents good insights: such as the prevalence of multinational corporations; the invention of computers to make working from home possible; people will be freed from the shackles of 9-to-5 work;
Time has passed, and now we find that most of Toffler's genius predictions have come true, which also reminds me of a key word - wave. In my mind, the word "wave" has been closely associated with the IT revolution, technological progress, the development of the Internet, and changing trends. A company that can be called a wave must be at the forefront of the times, leaving a deep imprint on the times.
Last year, 20 years after the publication of The Third Wave, another book about the wave touched me and made me see it all night long and I couldn't put it down. This is Wu Jun's Top of the Wave. This book describes some of the companies that have stood on the cusp of the technological revolution over the past century, representing the technological waves of different eras until the next wave.
In the wheel of history, some of them represent the next wave, some have experienced ups and downs, some have declined or are going to decline, in any case, they all have one thing in common - they have all been brilliant. So, what are the elements of their success, and what have they done right in the development of the times? Under the new wave of trends, what choices have they made?
The so-called "taking history as a mirror, you can know the rise and fall", as the trend-setters of the times and the top of the tide, they have their own reasons for success and reasons for failure.
Talk about success first: how to make waves
Author Wu Jun vividly analyzes many well-known companies such as AT&T, IBM, Apple, Intel, Microsoft, Cisco, Yahoo, and Google in "Top of the Wave". These companies have also experienced the development process from small to large and from big to giant , have been fortunately pushed to the top of the wave and won the seat at the top of the wave. At this time, we not only have to ask, why? Why are they on top of the wave?
Intel is on top of the wave because it has caught up with the information revolution. Originally, it was also the little brother in the field of low-end processors, representing products with low performance and low prices. Coincidentally, IBM wanted to produce PCs in a short and fast manner, and was too lazy to design its own processors, so it used Intel 8086 directly, and Intel became famous in one fell swoop. Later, with the rise of compatible machines, these compatible machines also only used Intel processors in order to be compatible with IBM. Intel naturally became an important company in the entire computer ecological chain and achieved an irreplaceable position. Intel's success echoes the old adage "The times make heroes."
Of course, in addition to the current situation and opportunities, enterprises also need to have a far-sighted strategic decision-making ability to make the right choice when the opportunity comes. Intel obviously has such ability.
When Japan was at its peak, Japanese chips in PCs once accounted for 60% of the total. The world is wondering whether the US will fall behind Japan in semiconductor technology. However, if you calmly analyze the world semiconductor market, you will find that Japan's semiconductor industry is concentrated on chips with low technology content, such as memory chips (ie memory), while the world's high-end chip industry, such as computer processors and communications The digital signal processors are all in the United States.
Based on this judgment, in the 1980s, Intel decisively stopped its memory business, completely ceded this market to the Japanese, and concentrated on making processors from then on. In the end, Intel's dominance was achieved through its own focus and concentration. The phrase "intel inside (built-in Intel)" made it the standard for processors in the PC industry, establishing a strong brand position in the minds of customers. As a BTOB type commodity, the Intel brand is placed in the hearts of customers, winning customers and naturally winning the market.
Similar to Intel's luck is another company, Microsoft. Microsoft also took advantage of IBM to make the big list of IBM, occupying another important seat in the computer ecological chain-the operating system. Microsoft has benefited from a very high level of marketing by offering BASIC to IBM for free, while preinstalling DOS on IBM-PCs for a near-free price ($5 per copy), which is so cheap that a pirated copy Not too lazy to steal. Microsoft used these conditions in exchange for the right to sell, that is, the operating system can also be sold to other manufacturers. This means the rise of compatible machines and the vigorous development of personal PCs, which naturally leads to Microsoft's dominance.
It can be seen that whether it is Intel or Microsoft, they have achieved the top of the wave because they successfully seized the opportunity and achieved the status of kings through the promotion of the wave of the information revolution, and then, with their management and operation capabilities, they caught the wave and followed the wave. , topped the wave.
Talking about failure again: why the tide ebbs and flows
Ten years ago, when we mentioned Motorola, it can be said that the scenery is infinite. Motorola is full of streets. Motorola is completely synonymous with mobile phones. As everyone knows, earlier, in the first-generation mobile communication market, Motorola once occupied more than 70% of the market share, and the products were quite expensive. At that time, if you wanted to compete with Motorola, you could only hope for the next generation.
However, I didn’t expect the next generation to come so fast, and Motorola was not able to lead the wave of the second generation of communications. It was too addicted to technology and came up with an iridium project that had technology but no market. At the same time, it lost its transformative power to keep pace with market demand. , plus attacking everywhere, lacking the main direction of attack, the result was overtaken by Nokia, who was born in a wood processing company.
Analysis of Motorola's failure, I am more inclined to judge from the perspective of brand positioning. Motorola once straddled the two fields of communications and computers, and it is possible to become a dominant player in any of the two fields. The tangled thing is that it wants to have both fish and bear's paw. This is not impossible. As long as the two have synergistic effects and can exert their resource advantages and technological advantages, it is not impossible. But the key to this is that Motorola must first be able to dominate a category, gain a firm foothold in a certain field, and lead the wave before discussing breakthroughs in other fields. It is a pity that Motorola lacks the decisiveness to focus, the determination and speed to keep up with the changes of the times.
On the other hand, Nokia is constantly doing subtraction, focusing on the field of communications, and eventually became the communications overlord after Motorola. The reason is very simple, the brand is the philosophy of equals, what you are equal to and the reverse equals, what is equal to you. When the answer behind the forward and reverse equal signs in the mobile phone field was Nokia, Motorola immediately became a declining noble.
However, after a decade of dominance, Nokia failed to turn around in time for the next wave. As the author mentioned in this book, "Nokia has undoubtedly caught up with the wave of digital mobile phones, but it is losing the market in this revolution of smart phones". Nowadays, mobile phones are all smartphones, and Nokia is equal to a mobile phone rather than a smart phone, so Nokia is also surpassed by the pronouns of Apple, Samsung and other smart phones.
Many scholars are analyzing the reasons for the decline of Nokia. Some people think that it is a technological loss. In fact, it is not. Nokia entered the smartphone field not only earlier than its peers, but even earlier than the new entrants Apple and Google. Some people think that the competition is too strong, Apple is Nokia. However, it is obvious that Apple is not the only one in the mobile phone market. According to the statistics of the market research company HIS, in terms of mobile phone shipments in 2012, Samsung accounted for 29% of the global mobile phone market share, ranking first in the global mobile phone market. Ranked first in the world.
It can be seen that Samsung, which makes home appliances and electronic products, can still break through, why Nokia is faltering; some people think that Nokia failed to understand the trend of mobile Internet, but in fact, in the 1990s, Nokia CEO Ollila predicted the mobile phone mobile phone. Internet prospects, he realized that calls would become an add-on to mobile phones, that the future was in access to the Internet, and that Nokia would be transformed to a certain extent as a software company.
From the above analysis, it can be seen that Nokia entered the field of smart phones at the earliest, and its technology definitely has advantages; its rival Apple mobile phone is strong, but the smart phone is very large, otherwise there will be no Samsung, htc, Xiaomi and many other mobile phones. Come to share, Nokia's winter cannot be attributed to its rivals; Nokia is not without insight into the development of mobile Internet and new trends in mobile phone development.
The real reason is that this "giant of thought" belongs to the wave of the past. It was too successful in the era of 2G mobile phones. The huge success has engulfed him in the new era, making it difficult for him to turn around quickly with a change of mind. , we can see that Nokia has been reluctant to give up the outdated symbian system in the early days. This kind of burden makes Nokia feel a little "dazed" in its actions, and finally in the process of expanding the smartphone market space Little has done, and there is no direct peer relationship with the smartphone. The original impression that it was equal to a mobile phone was too deep, and it did not implant a new brand through practical actions during its development, so everyone's impression of Nokia was dusty in the last communication era.
From the above, Motorola, Nokia, and other companies that have succeeded and then declined are basically the same reasons for failure, not from the outside, but from the inside, and the willingness from the inside failed to keep pace with the times. Move with the times and lose power in the next wave.
In fact, for the leader, it takes courage to sacrifice one's own life. The common problem of successful companies going into decline is that they dare not take risks after using their advantages to achieve extreme success, and finally become 100% losers when they encounter disruptive technological changes and changes in market structure.
Finally talk about standing invincible: how to be proud of the tide
In the book "Top of the Tide", what I admire most are those companies that can never give up and remain invincible in the long river of historical development. It is basically unrealistic to lead the wave forever, and it is impossible for a company to maintain its leading position, because the development of technology is extremely changeable.
As the saying goes: "The moon is full and the water is full." After the crest is the trough. It is worthy of admiration that some companies can lead the wave many times, and even if they fall into the trough, they can still get endogenous power and rise in response to the trend. IBM is undoubtedly a good example of this.
IBM first caught up with the last wave of the mechanical revolution and started creating businesses. Soon after its establishment, it experienced the biggest economic crisis in the history of capitalism - the Great Depression of 1929-1933. In the face of the crisis of big waves and survival of the fittest, companies went bankrupt one after another, but IBM survived, and founder Watson's management and management skills played a key role. This shows that in the face of crisis and unfavorable external development environment, enterprises should optimize internal management, improve management efficiency, and enhance management efficiency.
IBM, which has experienced the crisis, not only experienced the ability to survive, but also harvested the good opportunities brought by the economic recovery after the crisis, namely Roosevelt's New Deal, which employed a large number of government workers. The government's demand for tabulating machines increased significantly. IBM's business is booming.
But times are advancing, and if IBM sticks to the rules and cannot look to the future, then there will be no Big Blue legend. When the wave of the electronic technology revolution came, Watson Jr. persuaded his father to fully devote himself to the emerging electronic industry, and finally this decision allowed IBM to successfully lead the computer technology revolution. It makes the computer from government to society, from pure scientific computing to business. It is 30 years in line with the tide of the computer revolution. For a long time, it has given its employees the most generous compensation and benefits, and it is one of the most desirable companies when people are looking for a job. It even has the myth of never laying off staff...
However, all this is beautiful when entering the era of information technology revolution, IBM failed to turn around in time, and finally IBM reluctantly became a laggard. At this time, the microcomputer slowly began to be competent for some tasks that previously required mainframe computers. In this way, the microcomputer began to endanger the mainframe market. IBM has suffered heavy losses and for the first time in its history has begun mass layoffs. This period was the most difficult period in IBM's history. At the time, some questioned whether IBM would go out of business. There are also media reports: IBM has stepped into the grave with one foot. This time, the management ability has once again saved IBM. The difference is that this time they invited foreign aid - the airborne soldier Gerstner.
Gerstner did three steps:
The first step is to increase revenue and reduce expenditure, cut some redundant departments and some unpromising projects, sell some non-core assets, and do hemostasis first.
The second step is to reform some of the company's institutions and systems, and buy back some of the service companies that have been separated to facilitate the transformation to services; then each person's pension is linked to the benefits of the whole company rather than the previous departments , which is equivalent to the performance appraisal of all employees; in terms of research, he cut research and development funds, cut off research that focuses on theory and is not beneficial, and even requires all IBM researchers to earn a certain salary from product projects. This approach will undoubtedly be very difficult. Quickly turn research results into products.
The third step is to vigorously promote transformation and focus on customers. IBM established itself as a service-oriented technology company and positioned its user base at the enterprise level, while abandoning the end-consumer market where it did not.
The end result is obvious, IBM remains one of the world's largest, most profitable, and most profitable technology companies. Its far-sighted transformation strategy is most praised by the outside world, especially in the past few years, we have seen the collapse of DEC, the transformation of Dell, the softening of HP, and IBM's former rivals have been strategically lost to varying degrees, and business difficulties have occurred. Everyone has begun to imitate IBM. At this time, IBM has already Leading for many years.
From IBM's development process, we can see. A product has a life cycle, but an enterprise can develop sustainably. The key is to understand the law, master the law, conform to the law, follow the wave, and rise to the top.
Catch the next wave and achieve the top of the wave
Of course, there are big and small waves, and they are not limited to the field of science and technology. There are waves in any field. The key is that we must form unique insights, capture fleeting development opportunities, and follow the trend.
For example, the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China mentioned the "five-in-one", and put the construction of ecological civilization in a prominent position.
According to estimates by Hu Angang, Dean of the Institute of National Conditions of Tsinghua University, during the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan" period, China's green investment will reach 8 trillion yuan, which may be the largest green investment in the world. Therefore, I once suggested that one of my clients should vigorously promote the research and development of green building design and energy-saving design, introduce relevant foreign knowledge and technology, and quickly achieve a synonym for green standards in the field of architectural design. The "water sellers" on the "Gold Rush Road" have reached the top of the wave following the new round of urbanization in China and the comprehensive upgrading of old buildings. This is also due to the inspiration this book gave me.
In short, through this book, we can see that in the limited life of enterprises, there will not be too many real waves. As Wu Jun mentioned in the book: "The development of science and technology is uneven, but in the form of waves. Everyone should see the waves clearly and catch up with the waves. In this way, they will not waste their lives." cherish the tide.
It is true that life can experience several waves. Instead of just being a spectator in the ebb and flow, it is better to keep your eyes open and prepare for the next wave.
The question is, in the era of mobile internet, what is the next wave? Perhaps, we need to find the answer from the law.