Now it seems easy to criticize the Qing Dynasty for being conservative and resisting change, but try putting yourself in that era. It was a time when agricultural civilization was evolving into industrial civilization, and not many people could see it clearly.

Now we are again at a critical juncture of civilizational change. Will we, like the remnants of the Qing Dynasty, remain skeptical of new things? Years later, we may become the subject of discussion for future generations, and history may repeat itself.

At a time of civilizational change, transformation and change are of paramount importance. Case Study

Let me first tell a well-known story.

American inventor Thomas Edison invented the electric light and established the Edison Electric Light Company, which of course used direct current (DC).

Later, Tesla invented alternating current (AC), which was more efficient to transmit than DC, and AC was set to replace DC.

The two giants began to "fight" over this, and of course, Edison was more powerful. But what use was power? The future trend was AC.

Edison's company, after much reflection, removed the founder's name and changed its name to General Electric (GE). This company, which continuously adapted to environmental changes, became the only one among the first batch of companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange to survive. The "Big and Strong" Notion No Longer Works

Enterprise development is a history of constantly overcoming hurdles, and each hurdle eliminates a batch of enterprises. Some hurdles come from their own development, and some from environmental changes.

Indeed, "big and strong" was once the totem of Chinese enterprises. Just as industry leaders began to taste its benefits, they found that the path of "big and strong" was no longer viable.

Fifteen years ago, I wrote an article proposing that we had not heard the phrase "big and strong" for a long time. Wasn't that the ultimate pursuit of enterprises in the 20th century? At that time, wasn't there the saying "too big to die"?

Why is "big and strong" no longer mentioned? Aren't the ones dying now those "big and strong" enterprises? A batch has already died, another batch is queuing up to die, and another batch, unable to find new ways out, is also waiting to die.

Why do "big and strong" enterprises die? We can ask another question: Why did dinosaurs become extinct while flies and mice survived? Don't Hope for a "Shangri-La"

I recently put forward two viewpoints: one is that "every industry is worth redoing"; the other is that "the day has come when small enterprises no longer have to look at the faces of big enterprises."

These two viewpoints aim to convey a conclusion: those enterprises that once prided themselves on being "too big to die" will find that when their industry is redone by others, being "big and strong" only means "dying more tragically."

Nokia's mobile phone business died because the mobile phone industry was "redone" by Apple. If Tesla redoes the automobile industry, what will be the fate of the current auto giants?

The giants must realize that the future state of the same industry will be different from the present, even completely different. Not long ago, someone asked me which industries are not affected by the Internet. I said almost none. There is no industry that can hope to be a "Shangri-La." Judgment Based on the Times

I reached the above conclusions mainly based on my judgment of the times.

When industrial civilization arrived, was the "big and strong" of agricultural civilization useful? China's century of backwardness and beating was actually the result of the failure of the peak of agricultural civilization to resist industrial civilization.

What era are we in now? I think it is too small to call it the Internet era. The popularization of the Internet and the future Internet of Things has brought the world into the era of information civilization.

The technologies and thinking of the information civilization era may transform traditional enterprises beyond recognition. Some industries close to IT and the Internet have already been transformed, and the transformation is continuing. Now and in the future, industries farther from the Internet and IT will gradually be transformed.

Note that in the past, industry entry mainly came from endogenous technologies within the industry, that is, technologies that experts in the industry could understand. In a new era, industry transformation is basically driven by external technologies, technologies that the bosses and experts in the industry do not understand.

Information civilization has arrived. Is the "big and strong" of the industrial civilization era useful? Different Competitive Logic

Our competitive thinking was solidified in the 1970s and 1980s. During that period, the technology representing industrial civilization reached its peak, and the industry landscape was basically solidified (except for emerging technologies and industries that were gestating the information age). The related management, strategy, and marketing systems also reached their peak. That was a period when no more thinkers emerged.

When industries operated on inertia along the original track, "big and strong" became the overriding goal. The limits of scale predicted by American futurist Alvin Toffler were repeatedly broken. If it were not for the long-term low cost of Chinese manufacturing and the country's vast strategic space, Western giants would have found it hard to find opponents.

However, the popularization of IT and mobile Internet has changed all this. The world will enter a competitive logic different from that of the past few decades. A Fractured Era: An Era of Sudden Environmental Change

There are two competitive logics in this society. One is the logic of competition between economic entities or living beings; undoubtedly, "big and strong" has advantages. The other is the logic of organizations or organisms adapting to natural laws, following the survival of the fittest.

Since the 1970s and 1980s, the global economic and technological ecology has not changed significantly. Sociologists call this period the "post-industrial era." Competition is mainly between enterprises, with visible opponents, and "big and strong" has advantages over "small and beautiful."

Now, the world's economic and technological ecology has entered a fractured era, or a discontinuous era. This is a concept proposed by Peter Drucker.

What is a fractured era? It is like yesterday was a sunny day, but overnight it is snowing heavily. Do you go out wearing yesterday's clothes or change clothes?

The fractured era is the leap from the industrial era to the information civilization era. We may have thought that the Internet brought e-commerce, but a deeper understanding should be information civilization.

In the fractured era, competition between enterprises weakens, and the main object of competition is adapting to the new economic and technological ecological environment. At this time, the highest law of competition is Darwin's theory of evolution, i.e., survival of the fittest.

What exactly does the "fit" adapt to? Of course, it adapts to the environment.

However, in many cases, we rarely talk about adapting to the environment in the marketing field. This is because environmental changes have two states: one is a gradual quantitative change process; the other is a sudden qualitative change process.

If the environment is undergoing sudden change, then it is not competition between individuals, but the integration of the enterprise as a whole with the environment, and the issue of survival of the fittest.

The fractured era is an era of sudden environmental change. Direction Matters More Than Methods

Direction matters more than methods. Whenever it is time for transformation, we bring out this saying. If you take the wrong path, the farther you go, the greater the loss.

Now is the time to bring out this saying again.

A Taiwanese businessman returned to Taiwan and wrote an article on Phoenix Net, roughly saying that he had "returned to primitive society." On the mainland, everything is done through mobile payment, while in Taiwan, you still have to queue at the counter. At this time, what is the use of being proud of "queuing is civilized"?

Putting great effort into a backward method will only take you farther from new things. Of course, I am not criticizing "queue civilization."

In this era, some people are intoxicated with the pinnacle of past civilization, while others are creating new civilization. The pros and cons are immediately apparent. Opening a New Track Is Key

Under the "big and strong" mindset, setting a growth target for yourself every year seems to have become a convention, with no exceptions.

But if the original "big and strong" track is meaningless, do we still need to be big and strong? It seems few people have thought about this question.

It can even be said that enterprises have been "kidnapped" by the notion of "big and strong."

Recently, many enterprises have seen sales decline, including industry leaders. When sales decline, they look for growth from other channels, including entering other industries. This is the growth inertia that enterprises have formed over a long time. As a familiar saying goes: "Just bury your head in pulling the cart, without looking up at the road."

It is time to reflect on the growth inertia of enterprises. In a new civilized environment, if the traditional track is meaningless, then growth will not make the traditional track meaningful.

In an era when a new civilization is born, opening a new track is the key. This is why transformation matters more than growth.

Of course, the scale of civilization is not completed in a day, but it will eventually be completed. This transitional period is a dual-track period. The traditional cannot be abandoned, and the new must be started. Operate on the traditional track to buy time for finding new growth paths. How to Transform When a New Civilization Arrives?

How to transform when a new civilization arrives? This is an art, after all, transformation is different from entrepreneurship.

In the past, Liu Chuanzhi proposed the idea of "making a big turn." If you originally had a sufficiently large scale, then transformation must "make a big turn." However, "making a big turn" still cannot escape the original track.

What is needed now is to start anew and "redo the industry." When the new field grows, gradually weaken the original field.

Starting anew first involves exploring the direction. Since current industry transformation has already crossed the original industrial direction, the following keywords are particularly important for transformation.

First, cross-border. Especially cross-border with IT and the Internet. Find the future direction through cross-border collision.

Second, platform or ecosystem. Future enterprises will not be highly organized, but platforms (ecosystems) + individuals. Build new platforms to support individual innovation and entrepreneurship.

Third, turn the company into an "investment entity." Whether internal or external, support those entrepreneurs (or internal entrepreneurs) who align with future directions but lack funds.