According to media reports, on the afternoon of July 12, Premier Li Qiang of the State Council presided over a symposium for platform enterprises and encouraged platform enterprises to have confidence and move forward, and to strengthen their “internal skills” and work hard. The Premier said:
Platform economy has great potential on the new journey of comprehensively building a modern socialist country.
However, seeing the list of platform enterprises attending the symposium, many people may be full of question marks:
At the symposium, the heads of enterprises such as Meituan, Xiaohongshu, Haizhi Online, Huolala, Alibaba Cloud, Xugong Hanyun, Douyin, and Zhilian Recruitment spoke in turn, and the heads of enterprises such as Pinduoduo, JD.com, Ouye Yunshang, BOSS Zhipin, Aerospace Cloud Network, and Kaos submitted written speeches.
Huh? Which platforms are those companies that I’ve never heard of, and how did they “sneak in”? Ha! Why aren’t WeChat and Taobao there? The two biggest platforms haven’t even spoken yet, how can other companies have the nerve to speak?
**First of all, not having heard of the name doesn’t mean they’re not powerful.**
For the general public, Haizhi Online, Xugong Hanyun, and Ouye Yunshang, the companies attending the platform symposium, are indeed obscure, and to be honest, just looking at the names, they have a strong sense of being copycats… The reason why they are qualified to be representatives of Chinese platform enterprises along with Meituan, Douyin, and JD.com is actually because their tracks are different.
Meituan, Douyin, and other Internet companies are platforms for the general consumers, even platforms that cover and serve almost every Chinese person, with high visibility, great influence, and an economic volume comparable to that of a province or a city.
While companies like Haizhi Online and Xugong Hanyun are platforms for enterprises, especially for industrial enterprises, they cover a certain industry or a certain industrial link of enterprise users, which can be called industrial Internet platform enterprises.
Haizhi Online is an order platform for non-standard parts processing, connecting consumer goods manufacturing enterprises on one end and mechanical processing enterprises on the other, allowing more industrial product design ideas to be free from processing capabilities, and also allowing mechanical processing enterprises to obtain orders more conveniently.
Xugong Hanyun, you can guess from the name, is an industrial Internet enterprise invested and incubated by Xugong Group. Simply put, it is responsible for helping customers who have purchased excavators and cranes from Xugong Group to better collect and utilize industrial data.
For example, a super-large construction project requires thousands of excavators and other construction machinery. If you want to allocate these big guys to achieve the optimal balance of construction speed and cost efficiency, you can’t rely on a super-strong project manager, but only on the help of Internet tools.
However, just serving its own customers doesn’t make it a platform enterprise. Xugong Hanyun will also provide services for other equipment enterprises and construction enterprises, not only providing services for Chinese enterprises, but also making its mark in the Asian and African countries covered by Chinese construction enterprises, so it is qualified to participate in this symposium.
Similarly, there is Kaos, an industrial Internet platform incubated by Haier Group, which mainly provides smart home appliance services.
Ouye Yunshang is an Internet platform for bulk commodity electronic trade under Baowu Group (Baosteel and Wuhan Iron and Steel). If you want to buy 2 steel pipes, you can go to the hardware store on the street. If you want to buy 2,000 steel pipes, you can place an order on 1688. If you want to buy 20,000 tons of steel, it is suitable to go to Ouye Yunshang for inquiries.
Internet enterprises in the steel trade field
Aerospace Cloud Network is an industrial Internet enterprise incubated by China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation. Its official website claims to be the 【National Industrial Internet Platform】. There’s nothing they can do, they just have this identity and confidence.
Industrial Internet enterprises may not be well-known in society, but their influence on economic development and the economic volume they support cannot be underestimated. They deserve to be called platform enterprises.
**Then, most of the platform enterprises you haven’t heard of have a state-owned background.**
From the introduction I listed above, everyone should be able to see that these industrial Internet platforms attending the platform enterprise symposium mostly have a clear state-owned background. This factor may not be critical for a platform enterprise to do well, but it is very critical for a platform enterprise symposium organized by the State Council.
Counting those well-known platform enterprises with hundreds of millions of users, one by one, they are all private enterprises. If only these consumer-type platform enterprises are invited, the symposium will inevitably be a bit awkward. Therefore, although the operating logic is not consistent, and the development and regulatory issues they face are not the same, they still have to add the industrial Internet platform to the group chat when holding the meeting.
As for why consumer-type platform enterprises are all private enterprises, while the representatives invited in the industrial Internet field are all state-owned enterprises, this question is beyond my knowledge reserve.
**Finally, the two largest platform enterprises are in a bit of an awkward situation.**
Tencent and Alibaba, it should be no exaggeration to say that they are the two largest Internet platforms in China, but they were not invited to this platform enterprise symposium, or they were not given the opportunity to speak. Similar to this situation, Didi was also not seen in the official reports.
Listing them like this, I believe everyone has a clear idea. As platform enterprises that have received billions of dollars in fines in the past two years and have just been recognized as having completed rectification, it is really inconvenient to invite them to participate or let them speak.
This is a typical logic of inviting guests for an official meeting organized by the government.
Discover more from 自由档案馆
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.