Interview with Chairman Zhang Chengkang of SiE Information: With the acceleration of digitization, how does data drive the transformation of the manufacturing industry?
Recently, Zhang Chengkang, Chairman of SiE Information, visited a newly built PCB factory in Zhuhai. The same production capacity originally required 8000 employees, but now only 1/3 is needed. The transformation behind it is the improvement of automation and digitization, greatly reducing the dependence of production on human resources.
These changes are also reflected in the latest financial reports. According to the financial report released by SiE Information, the company achieved a revenue of 867 million yuan in the first half of the year, a year-on-year increase of 61.57%; The net profit attributable to the parent company was 55.1424 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 19.36%.
As the head of an industrial management software company, Zhang Chengkang noticed that after years of information construction, the company has accumulated a large amount of data and realized that mining and analyzing value from data is gradually shifting from process driven to data driven digital transformation system, which is an important transformation of digital transformation.
Data drives transparent decision-making in enterprises
Under the epidemic, the supply chain cycle of the industrial chain has been hindered, but it has also accelerated the driving force of enterprise digital transformation.
Many factories used to not need to be connected to external networks, but with the expansion of business or the construction of multiple factories, data needs to flow and share between different systems and factories, which has given rise to the demand for enterprises to go to the cloud, further amplifying the value of data, "said Zhang Chengkang.
For example, in the past, there were few products that could be traced back to which supplier, just like in the automotive industry. Now, with the help of digitization, as small as four wheels on a stool, one can know the origin, factory time, and batch number.
Digitalization can also connect products with people, and anyone who installed a certain product can trace it back, "Zhang Chengkang said, picking up a bottle of water on his desktop." The barcode on bottled water is only readable by the production enterprise, but more information will be loaded in the future
In the future, all materials in the factory will be interconnected using a unified digital "language". Zhang Chengkang said that the economic crisis of enterprises often comes from inventory, and with the help of digitization, manufacturers can know the supply chain status of suppliers through data connections between enterprises and processes, making information more transparent, thereby reducing waste and improving efficiency.
In the revenue of SiE Information, the proportion of revenue generated by the digitalization of newly built factories is increasing. Zhang Chengkang said that in the past, only a recruitment sign was needed at the factory entrance, waiting for job seekers to come. However, now it is necessary to take the initiative to go to the train station. Nevertheless, it is unimaginable to recruit 8000 people at once. "Nowadays, many new factories are basically equipped with digitization and intelligence as standard.
Explore new scenarios for digital consulting
With the gradual penetration of technologies such as 5G, AI, and the Internet of Things into the hinterland of factories, Zhang Chengkang believes that data cleaning, filtering, and governance are becoming increasingly important.
Many factories have digital screens that clearly display the data status of the factory, but data governance between data collection and data application is becoming increasingly important, including how to classify and apply this data to different scenarios, "said Zhang Chengkang.
From how to utilize data to how to digitize transformation, the confusion of small and medium-sized enterprises remains unabated. In response, SiE Information has established a company specializing in digital transformation consulting to provide professional digital transformation consulting services for client enterprises.
Zhang Chengkang introduced that the goal of using ERP and other management systems in enterprises is to solve human, financial, and material problems. However, with the development of big data, AI and other technologies, enterprises have shifted from informatization to intelligence, and the demand for digital transformation has greatly increased.
In the information age, the previous ERP system can solve specific problems, but in the digital age, single point solutions are far from enough. Enterprises also pay attention to the future development direction, just like human resources is not only about recruitment, but also related to the human resource strategy of enterprises.
Compared to multinational consulting companies, a set of consulting plans often costs hundreds to tens of millions, which is difficult for small and medium-sized enterprises to bear. However, SiE Information, with a manufacturing background, can help customers combine consulting with practical implementation, avoiding the separation of the two. At the same time, lightweight consulting reduces the consulting threshold for enterprises. In the future, consulting services will be provided around industrial clusters to further reduce the threshold for digital transformation of small and medium-sized enterprises within the cluster.
At present, SiE Information helps customers from industries such as automotive, manufacturing, healthcare, and high-tech accelerate the completion of enterprise digital transformation projects by providing digital transformation consulting services to customers.
Domestic industrial software carries the banner of "independence"
From process driven to data driven, the digital transformation of enterprises has also given rise to new opportunities for domestically produced software.
If machines and other hardware are the "trunk" of the human body, then industrial software is the "brain" of the human body. Although industrial software accounts for a small proportion of its output value, it is most likely to be pinched "seven inches".
Extending the time, Zhang Chengkang discovered that the software industry has indeed ushered in an unprecedented opportunity. In the 1990s, the development of the automotive electronics and software industry was tepid. Taking automobiles as an example, almost all of them were mechanical structural components, except for radios that had certain electronic properties.
Today, apart from the wheels, body frames, seats, etc., the entire car is not an electronic component, and many other components are only composed of batteries, electronic components, and software, which are becoming increasingly high.
However, it is not easy to gain a share in the expanding market. Zhang Chengkang mentioned that the overall revenue of domestic industrial software companies is not high, even some top companies have annual revenue of only a few hundred million yuan, while multinational companies in China often have revenue levels above 1 billion yuan. "This is simply a PK between small ants and giants. One of the major characteristics of domestic industrial software companies is that they are cheap, and as long as multinational companies use the 'killer weapon' to reduce prices, their killing power is great.
With the opportunity of localization, industrial software companies have landed on the Science and Technology Innovation Board and raised funds since the beginning of this year, which has given domestic industrial software more confidence in dealing with competition.
It is worth mentioning that domestic leading enterprises are increasing their support for independent brands. Zhang Chengkang introduced that in the past, many large enterprises were 'borrowing oriented', using whoever's software was easy to use. Even if multinational enterprise software was more expensive, it didn't matter, but now they tend to lean towards domestic brands when purchasing.
Zhang Chengkang said that changes in the external ecological environment, especially the pioneering use of leading companies such as Huawei, have enabled a group of independent brand software companies to have a place to play.
