Zhou Yunjie: Industrial Internet Is An Opportunity For Chinese Enterprises

"Scientific and technological innovation is always a very important topic. Because to ensure the security of the supply chain and turn it into an independent and controllable industrial system, technological innovation must be indispensable. We must break through the bottleneck technology. " Recently, Zhou Yunjie, deputy to the National People's Congress and President of Haier Group, said in an interview with 21st century economic reporter.

During the NPC and CPPCC sessions this year, Zhou Yunjie brought four suggestions, covering industrial Internet, coordinated development of regional economy, smart and convenient life for the elderly, and domestic medical devices, etc., reaching into different aspects of people's daily life.

"I think we should establish an industrial Internet with Chinese characteristics with characteristics, differentiation and independent intellectual property rights, so that we can have the right to speak and have the right to dialogue with others." For the fifth year in a row, Zhou Yunjie put forward suggestions on the development and construction of industrial Internet. He believed that the construction of an industrial Internet system with Chinese characteristics is of great strategic significance in the current historical period.

Especially under the background of anti globalization trend and trade environment, the state and the central government timely put forward the dual cycle strategy. Zhou Yunjie believes that the essence and premise of the dual cycle is to solve the problem of demand. Only when demand and purchasing power rise can the domestic big cycle be turned around. The industrial Internet plays an important role in activating the vitality of small and medium-sized enterprises which bear a lot of employment and tax.

China's industrial Internet development has reached a critical turning point

In recent years, the development of industrial Internet has been paid more and more attention by the state. In the "industrial Internet innovation and development action plan (2021-2023)", the Ministry of industry and information technology clearly proposed the development goal of realizing the overall development of industrial Internet by stages. This year is the fifth year in a row that Zhou Yunjie has put forward suggestions on the development and construction of industrial Internet. He believes that China's industrial Internet is at a critical turning point from its initial development stage to its rapid growth period.

At present, a multi-level and systematic industrial Internet platform system with Chinese characteristics of "three types of Platforms + five modes" has been basically formed. Zhou Yunjie told reporters of the 21st century economic report that "as a big manufacturing country, China has an independent and complete industrial system with obvious advantages in industrial scale and supporting facilities. The comprehensive application of industrial Internet platform is developing in depth."

But at the same time, compared with the development level of developed countries and the requirements of supporting China's high-quality development, China's industrial Internet development level still has much room for improvement. Zhou Yunjie pointed out that one of the pain points of China's industrial Internet is that the demand for digital transformation of enterprises and the supply of industrial Internet platform cannot accurately match. On the supply side of the platform, there are three deficiencies: the limitation of supply knowledge, the preposition of supply capacity and the fragmentation of supply.

In addition, China's industrial Internet also faces the problem of more enterprises on the platform and less enterprises providing services. Zhou Yunjie takes Haier's CAOS industrial Internet as an example. At present, there are nearly 700000 enterprises connected on the platform, but only about 10% of the enterprises provide services. "This shows that some enterprises still have insufficient understanding and trust in China's industrial Internet." He said.

However, China's industrial Internet also has its own advantages compared with the predix platform in the United States and mindsphere platform in Germany, which has a good industrial foundation. Zhou Yunjie believes that China is not only a big industrial manufacturing country, but also a big consumer country. We can organically connect and integrate the consumer Internet and industrial Internet, and establish a user driven industrial Internet ecosystem. "The industrial Internet is an opportunity given to Chinese enterprises by the times. China is in the forefront of the world in terms of consumer Internet, including mobile payment."

Zhou Yunjie judged that in order to really make the industrial Internet efficient, it is necessary for the enterprise industrial system to reach the 4.0 level, and the sufficient condition is the participation of users. Let users participate in the whole process design is one of the important ways to realize the differentiation of China's industrial Internet.

It is understood that Haier has been exploring the development of industrial Internet since 2012, trying to connect the industrial Internet end with the consumer Internet end, so that consumers can participate in customization. In 2017, Haier set up an industrial Internet company and officially launched the CAOS industrial Internet platform. At present, the CAOS platform has formed a relatively perfect enabling ecology, and has become an ecological platform for mass customization, open multilateral interaction and value-added sharing centered on user experience.

In Zhou Yunjie's view, the next three years will be an important stage in the outbreak of new models and formats in the field of industrial Internet. The acceleration of the construction of industrial Internet system with Chinese characteristics is bound to help meet the personalized needs of every consumer and every enterprise, thus promoting the high-quality development of the real economy, and having an all-round, deep-seated and revolutionary impact on China's future industrial development.

Enhance international discourse power

As a global enterprise, Haier has a global sales network in more than 160 countries and regions. In the first half of last year, Haier Zhijia achieved 47 billion yuan in overseas market, accounting for 49% of the company's total revenue, and nearly 100% of the company's own brand.

In the home appliance industry, it is very simple to do OEM OEM. The profit margin of medium or small-scale enterprises can reach about 3%, and that of larger enterprises can reach about 5%. "OEM manufacturers are not at a loss in the beginning, but the profit margin can't be improved any more." Zhou Yunjie said that Haier has adopted another strategy overseas, insisting on being an independent brand.

In his opinion, brand is basically input at the beginning, and output is at the end. "But our profit margin will gradually improve and enhance, which is the advantage of being a self owned brand, although the time is very long."

Haier can be said to have a deep understanding of this, "it is very painful to make a brand overseas. It needs to endure loneliness. According to the international law, it will take about eight to nine years to make a brand and make profits in a country. In the United States, it took more than eight years for Haier to build a factory and make profits. " Zhou Yunjie said.

In recent years, with the acceleration of China's home appliances to the sea, China's industrial Internet also began to go to the world. It is understood that during the epidemic period, the CAOS platform played an important role in Haier's operation in overseas markets.

"The CAOS model has been used in our overseas factories many years ago, including the factories we acquired, such as GEA, Fisher & payck in New Zealand, candy in Italy, Sanyo in Japan, and our own investment factories. After using, all platforms have achieved good results. " Zhou Yunjie told reporters.

Zhou Yunjie specially pointed out that after Haier acquired GEA, it did not use the predix platform of the United States, but directly used the CAOS platform, which has been very effective. According to its disclosure, since the acquisition in June 2016, through effective integration and coordination, GEA has maintained a good growth momentum and its market share has continued to increase. In 2019, the company realized revenue of 57.9 billion yuan in North America, an increase of 10.8 billion yuan, or 23%, compared with 47.1 billion yuan in 2017.

The CAOS platform has realized the overseas localization replication of the Chinese mode, which also shows that the industrial Internet with Chinese characteristics can also go overseas.

According to Zhou Yunjie, at present, CAOS has become a globally recognized standard setter and leader in the field of mass customization. It has led and participated in the formulation of 36 national standards and 5 international standards, covering 6 major fields such as mass customization, intelligent manufacturing and intelligent factory. In particular, in terms of International standards, CAOS has led the three international standard groups of ISO, IEEE and IEC The organization of global standards on mass customization has won the global voice in the field of standards for China's industrial Internet.

With the continuous growth of industrial Internet with Chinese characteristics created by CAOS, the world has a new understanding of the breakthrough and innovation of Chinese industry. In September last year, kahos was invited to join the European federal cloud (gaia-x), enabling German industry 4.0. It is worth noting that CAOS is the first and only industrial Internet platform in China to join the project, and the first industrial Internet platform outside the EU to integrate the platform architecture into European data and cloud sovereignty.

"The industrial Internet is a new round of development opportunities for China brought by the times." Zhou Yunjie believes that creating models of various industries through the industrial Internet will enable China to produce more invisible world champions in numerous subdivided industries, thus forming an industrial Internet system with Chinese characteristics. "It is believed that with the continuous promotion of national policies, China will form differentiated global competitiveness in the construction of industrial Internet with Chinese characteristics in the next three to five years, and bring a win-win" China paradigm "for global industrial change He said.

Smart family should meet the needs of aging

In addition to the development of the industrial Internet, Zhou Yunjie also paid special attention to various "digital divide" problems encountered by the elderly in their daily life.

Online shopping, online registration, mobile payment With the rapid development of mobile Internet, our life has become more and more intelligent and convenient.

At the same time, for the elderly, they often do not enjoy the convenience of digital services because of their learning ability and ability to accept new things. Mobile payment, health code, online registration, and even the complicated buttons of household appliances sometimes aggravate the confusion and anxiety of some elderly groups, and many of them even feel frustrated.

According to statistics, by the end of 2019, the total population of the elderly over 60 in China has exceeded 250 million, accounting for 18.1%. "China's aging is more and more obvious." Zhou Yunjie believes that how to prevent the elderly from being marginalized by the digital society is a respect for the elderly and a responsibility of the whole society.

Home life is the core life scene of the elderly, so it is necessary to let the fast-growing elderly group enjoy the high-quality life brought by smart family. To this end, Zhou Yunjie put forward "suggestions on making the elderly enjoy digital intelligent convenience" at the two sessions of this year, advocating that attention should be paid to the needs of the elderly, and it is suggested to promote the establishment of a standard system of smart home products and services for the elderly, and integrate the diversified needs of smart families and aging.

The data shows that in recent years, the domestic smart home market scale has increased year by year, with a market size of about 450 billion yuan in 2020, with a compound annual growth rate of nearly 20%. However, most of the smart home products do not start from the actual use needs and experience of the elderly, and the operation process is relatively complex, which creates a "digital gap" between the elderly and the convenient intelligent experience.

In fact, the aging design in smart home helps to enhance the scene life experience of the elderly. Zhou Yunjie gave an example to the reporter, "for example, the toilet used in the bathroom, it is very difficult for the elderly to get up after sitting down. A lifting toilet can be set up to make him stand up more comfortable." In his opinion, for every seemingly simple detail in life, design and transform suitable for aging according to the needs of the elderly can make the elderly feel respected and help them integrate into the information age.

"With the acceleration of aging, a lot of people are thinking about how to make money for the elderly. My starting point is how to keep the elderly from falling behind in the digital process." Zhou Yunjie said that at present, Haier has cooperated with iFLYTEK to provide voice module in home appliances, so that the elderly can control TV, air conditioner, washing machine and other household appliances through voice. At the same time, through special scene design, it makes digital operation more convenient and helps elderly groups better enjoy the quality life brought by smart families.

(our reporter Qi Yu also contributed to this article)