1. Overview
Digitization is a very popular word in recent years. Everyone is talking about it and doing it. Many companies have many cases. Digitization itself has quietly changed our lives, but it is actually a bit confusing at first glance. What is this digitization? I was also confused when I was asked, so this article is to try to interpret digitalization from my personal perspective.
The concept of digitalization is not new. It is impossible to verify who first proposed it. However, in 2012, IBM proposed digital transformation. In recent years, digitalization, digital government affairs, digital China, digital transformation, etc. Business vocabulary. In addition to the promotion from top to bottom in the whole process, the infrastructure of society and enterprises actually has such conditions, so digital transformation is also a further sublimation of informatization.
2. Informatization
To understand digitization, we must first understand informatization.
Informatization is actually easy to understand. At first we used small notebooks to record, but now we use laptops. In the past, we used Feige to send books, but now we use mobile phones, WeChat, etc. In fact, there are three aspects of informatization here. First, everyone has a mobile phone, which becomes the entrance to informatization. Then there are Internet networks built by telecom companies across the country and even around the world. Finally, companies that implement these services. These three The combination of all kinds of conveniences in our daily life.
From the perspective of informatization, mobile phones and the Internet are infrastructure, and the main work of informatization is still completed by the services of enterprises. For example, banks first had to go to the counter to handle deposit and withdrawal business, and later they could handle it at the teller machine, and now it is direct mobile phone transfer. This process is the epitome of informatization, and all businesses can be handled "online".
From this perspective, it seems that informatization has come to an end, and all businesses seem to be able to meet all needs if they are handled online? Then why is it still proposed to digitize? And what role has digitization played?
3. Digitization
The main problem of informatization is "barriers". For example, city A has launched an e-government system, and all civil affairs-related business can be handled online, which is very convenient, right? City B has also launched an e-government system. Civil affairs can also be handled online. However, if a resident of city A wants to move to city B, he has to go through a move-out procedure in city A first, and then go through the immigration procedure in city B. The process in the middle may be complicated. The following is the simulated process:
- First go to city B to go through the admission procedures, city B agrees to move in, and gets a reply letter of approval to move in
- Go to city A to go through the moving-out procedures, city A agrees to move out and moves out the citizen in the system, and gives a moving-out certificate
- Take the proof of moving out and go to city B to apply for the income of moving in, and city B will enter the citizen's information in the system
So far, citizens have to go back and forth between the two places at least 3 times to complete the migration. If the materials are inaccurate or wrong, they need to go back and forth several times to complete the process. The problem here is that the systems of cities A and B are not connected. There is no reason to share the information of citizens in city A to city B, and there is no reason to open its own system interface for city B to operate.
Therefore, the first pain point of digitization is to break down the barriers. For government affairs, the specific method is that provincial or national governments take the lead in developing government affairs cloud, and store user information in core institutions, which can be applied and invoked by governments at all levels. For enterprises, the first step and core of digitalization is actually to break down various barriers between departments, branches, internal and external, and finally form a unified digital platform. At this stage, all kinds of "clouds", such as government affairs cloud, provincial cloud, industry cloud, and group cloud, are actually engaged in this matter, and the benefits brought by these clouds are also real, so digitalization is not just a fiction. The concept is something that is really feasible, really usable, and really beneficial.
4. Case
1. digital government
Digitization has different manifestations at different levels. We are more familiar with digital government affairs. Now it is actually the beginning, but it has greatly improved the user experience. I still remember that I had to go to the scene to queue up for everything in the past. Later, when there was an appointment system, I made an online appointment and queued up. Later, there was an online preliminary review of materials, which has greatly improved the user experience. , Most of the business is submitted online, reviewed online, and ended online, and there is no need to queue offline for the whole process. At the same time, the systems between provinces and cities have also been opened up. In the past, it was too difficult to transfer a provident fund and social security. Now it only needs a few clicks on the website, and this progress is visible.
2. digital bank
The digitalization of banks is actually at the forefront. First, banks have the money to transform; second, banks have a large business volume and are very motivated to transform; third, banks have a lot of demand for transformation. In the early days, we needed to fill out remittance slips for transfers, and the delay in remittances may have been several days. After the transfer is made electronically, it is much more convenient, but we still have to go to the counter to queue up. Later, all banks had apps, but inter-bank transfers were still a big problem. Now it is not a problem to transfer between banks. All kinds of messy functions, such as buying insurance, buying stocks, buying funds, investing, and managing money, can all be handled by the app. But the big problem of digital banks is the data sharing between banks. No one is willing to give their own data to others. Therefore, three-party payment software such as WeChat and Alipay have risen instead. In addition to being more convenient, they mainly master the entrance of payment. , With a large amount of payment data, users can be profiled to develop value-added services, such as consumer loans. Before the rise of three-party payment, banks actually had these data. Why didn't banks do it? In fact, there are some things to do, but the bank does not look down on the personal consumption business. The upgrade of personal consumption is actually a matter of recent years. Before, banks mainly focused on high-net-worth users. Now the market for individuals who want to be personal has been given by Internet companies. Occupied. However, digital banks do not only focus on personal consumption. Another very important thing is industry supervision. For example, if the China Banking Regulatory Commission wants to supervise the flow of personal funds, it must link various banking systems. Each bank must first move its own system online, so digital banking is the common digitization of the entire industry.
3. digital enterprise
Digital government affairs and digital banks are easy for everyone to understand, but digital enterprises are more troublesome, because ordinary enterprises are too small to have a foundation for digitalization. For example, a company only has a total of 180 people. Why do digitalization? Therefore, digital companies actually need to digitize based on the industry. For example, the industry cloud, which is very popular now, is the leading enterprise in the industry, which contributes money, people and resources, and integrates the resources of the entire industry. Of course, what he does is not doing charity. , this benefit is obvious, whoever controls the data controls the future. Therefore, some enterprises with foresight have already begun to digitize, but the difficulties are also great. One is that the degree of informatization of each enterprise is different. If you say that you want to share data, they really don’t know how to share it with you. This is because the infrastructure is not perfect. Or the infrastructure is too fragmented.
If it is a large group, it is okay, and it can do internal digitalization, but the practical significance is limited. Therefore, enterprise digitization must be done from the perspective of the industry, so various industry clouds are very necessary as infrastructure, and most enterprise digitization is actually still stuck at this step. There is also a big problem here. If it is the securities industry, under regulatory requirements, there may be incentives to develop industry clouds, which is also based on the perspective of regulation. So how does the game industry go digital? It feels like it's not profitable.
Another perspective of digital enterprises is to integrate internal systems, but in fact it is part of internal governance or informatization, and it has not yet risen to the level of digitalization, but it does not prevent everyone from doing things under the banner of digitalization. After all It is right to respond to the call, and it is right to say that it is digital, but the result often fails to achieve the expected effect.