Zhang Hancheng: From technology to ecological construction, cloud computing chess is getting bigger and bigger, how to successfully land

After more than ten years of development, cloud computing has gradually moved from concept to practice. A group of Internet giants quickly rushed into the field of industrial basic research and core technology, represented by BAT, and rapidly deployed in the field of cloud computing. Foreign-funded clouds such as AWS , Oracle, Microsoft, and IBM also entered the Chinese market through a cooperative model.

However, as the infrastructure service capabilities and technical layout are not very different, the competition of cloud service providers is also changing, and the opportunities for competition have expanded from pure technology crystals to cloud ecological construction and operational strategies.

When I first came into contact with cloud computing in 2006 , I was doing CRM cloud sales, pre-sales, and channel work. At that time, I needed to go to the cloud. It turned out that the cost of cloud deployment was too high, and the speed was not guaranteed. The service provided is cheaper than ours, and the functions are not worse than ours. In that era of features and prices, we decisively gave up the cloud strategy.

2011-2014 Big data business innovation, thinking of cloud as the direction, cloud data analyst direction, I believe that in addition to the IT itself can make money, the data itself can generate analytical value to make money, and began to provide data analysis SAAS services.

During this period, I have tried user comment analysis, personalized recommendations, Weibo data analysis, social media data analysis of the entire network, and enterprise first-party data analysis. The cloud system developed at the time provided services for 10,000 customers for free and set some charges. The data is about 10 span> 1000 basic charges can be charged, tens of yuan per month, there are 5 pan> about 50 are advanced charging mode, hundreds of yuan per month.

At that time, we calculated an account, and the money received was not enough to support bandwidth, calculation, and storage for free customers.

It also leaves a conclusion: doing cloud is valuable to customers, but without a cloud service with a small user scale and low fees, it will not work to make money. The more customers develop, the more they lose, and the business will never succeed.

At the time, we joked that it was better to open a restaurant than SAAS . This restaurant pays every day, and you pay monthly. A customer is tens of yuan a month, hundreds of yuan.

This exploration period is very difficult. We have used all kinds of expansion methods, channels, typical customer modeling, various promotion, market activities, government procurement, etc., which are generally similar to other SAAS partners in China. I have had no work enthusiasm for weekends and holidays for more than a year.

But in the end, there is only one summary: 2B customers' acquisition cost exceeds monthly fees, and there is no renewal, so basically don't do it.

Of course, you can search the evaluation index system of SAAS . During this period, many people wrote many articles about the reasons why SAAS was not established in China. People are cheaper than the system. The business on the cloud has a high cost of acquiring customers. The number of customers is not tens of thousands. 10,000 , it is basically difficult to become a business, etc.

In addition, there is an important exploration: the cloud actually wants to have its own traffic. If you buy traffic, the 2B cloud conversion rate is so low. Once the customer does not renew the business, this business will not be formed. For example, when buying keywords on Baidu, it turns out that 1,000 clicks are 10,000, and the conversion rate is less than 0.1 pan>. Baidu ’s cost is about 10,000. This customer pays you 3,000 yuan a year. Customers do n’t need your product anymore, then you lose money.

Since 2015 , cloud computers, big data, and artificial intelligence have been in full swing. The government is fully engaged in government cloud, enterprises are engaged in enterprise clouds, and all industries are also engaged in vertical industry clouds. Everyone's understanding of the cloud has changed. We are very active in embracing the cloud. Even proposed that the use of cloud amount has become an important business indicator. Talk about my views here.

Cloud is an ecological business

According to IT industry experience, I've collected from the compilation of the development system, the C language development system, to object-oriented (PB) development system, to develop systems for the entity (E-branch, Xinyu intermediary business software development platform), the SOA ( SageCRM , open environment) facial services, to SAAS , to big data, to JS code (small program).

Until the current cloud development system (IAAS , PAAS cloud, computing and storage and network) monopoly, to the end may be the monopoly of algorithm and data definition system (cloud platform algorithm and data precipitation), IT development has always been an ecosystem The development process of construction is even more so on the cloud today.

Cloud ecology provides institutional IT , algorithm and data tooling (big data, artificial intelligence, blockchain, voice, video, image processing, various developed out-of-the-box tool systems), and collaboration , Infiltrating humanities into business operations (price system, product system) and strategic competitive strategies of data ecology.

For example, I think Taobao is the largest cloud ecosystem and the largest SAAS company in a broad sense . This is basically monopolized and defined in the retail industry.

The formation of an ecology is revolutionary, and it is also based on the current business development and gradually established on the basis of cultural systems. It is a common thing to rise from the ground, fight the local tyrants to divide the fields, build the system, and reform the entire talent team. Looking at the peak of Teacher Wu Jun ’s wave, it is not difficult to find that every time IT changes, new technologies replace old ones, there is little linearity, and technologies are emerging endlessly. It is an inevitable phenomenon that new technologies eliminate old technologies. So how to understand the business ecology is to understand the cloud. However, the current competition for cloud ecology has just begun, especially in China. It is said that one of the four major software companies in China, UFIDA, counted that their cloud sales last year were not enough.

Cloud's strategies for different industries and cloud service cloud vendors are different

SMEs on the cloud solve the problem of efficiency and cost, supporting the business is the core problem

This part of the customers basically adopts the methods of doing market and engaging in agents, reducing the cost of acquiring customers, expanding the benefits of cloud computing, and allowing more original IT involvement to make money together; it is like Alibaba ’s cloud computing and UFIDA ’s finance. The cloud development strategy is mainly based on short, fast and fast;

The government's cloud solution solves the problem of data interconnection and management, and security is the core issue

This part of the operator, Huawei, Telecom, Ali, Tencent and other companies have done a good job; there are also two core features:

1. The government cloud has entry barriers, such as security, confidentiality, cloud security certification, trusted cloud, etc .;

2. The relationship between these companies and the government is inherently good, with a business foundation and easy to develop.

Large enterprises go to the cloud to solve the problem of convergence

1. Self-built and common sense public cloud are integrated with each other;

2. Internal, electronic process: For example, the core business system ERP , CRM , HR , OA can be self-built;

3. External, e-commerce system, user behavior analysis system, website content management system, logistics system, trade system, marketing management system.

4. Especially large enterprises will establish their own cloud computer strategy, use IT as a strategic development, and provide private cloud services internally and externally provide cloud computer services upstream and downstream of the industrial chain.

The main problem of SAAS is the renewal rate and growth rate

Many articles on this issue have their own views, so I won't talk about them one by one. In summary, it is most likely to survive independently.

lPAAS in China is mainly for the development of small and medium developers, and then form a cloud ecology

Like the promotion of IBM bluemix and the self-developed PAAS promotion of friends , the promotion strategy of PAAS is aimed at small and medium developers, but most of the PAAS are mostly because of their small size, and finally they also engage in PAAS by penetrating SAAS .

IAAS mainly thinks about safety, stability, fast speed, etc.

This is basically a decisive strategy. Cloud infrastructure is the most commoditized area in the cloud computing market and the lowest level of ecology, like water, air and soil. On the basis of equal performance, the lower the price, the better the cloud sales. Of course, this real estate logic has something in common, that is, the mall has a good atmosphere, and the price may be high. There are also many strategic articles about IAAS , which are not described here one by one.

" Cloud chess " view

1. Yunping is operating rather than selling

Friends who have done cloud operations know that cloud sales are in the cloud, and the core indicators are traffic, conversion rate, access depth, online time, function usage frequency, customer acquisition cost, monthly recurring income, churn rate, customer unit price, repeat Purchase, customer life cycle value, customer acquisition cost, etc. If an investment company invests in a company, the SAAS cloud company has two evaluation criteria:

First, the customer's LTV (life cycle value) is greater than 3 times CAC (customer acquisition cost). According to this standard, it is possible to judge whether the company can achieve profitability in the long run.

Second , the time to recover the CAC cost is less than 12 months. According to this standard, it can be judged how long the company can achieve profitability.

Those who have done sales know that the four indicators of sales, the number of sales opportunities, the sales conversion rate, the unit price of sales customers, and the repurchase rate of sales, as long as the overall cost of the project is less than the cost of sales, this project can always be done, and The more projects you do, the lower the cost, and the more money you make. Basically, this business model mainly depends on sales ability, and profitability mainly depends on the platform ability of the product.

But to use the sales method to make the cloud, the first is low efficiency and high cost (clouds rely on machines to explore sales opportunities and online automatic orders), and the second is low revenue (cloud's IT overall cost of ownership is low, so basic investment Low), which was originally done by computer automation. Now it is done by humans. This high and low is much worse, very terrible.

Do you know why the founder of Salesfoce did cloud? In order to save the cost of pre-sales demonstrations, he always wants to demonstrate products to customers, build different environments, and feel tired, so he deploys local systems in the cloud. It is cost savings in the future. Clouds that do not save on sales costs and implement costs are considered rogues.

2. The core of the cloud is the establishment of the cloud market

Cloud is like a vegetable market. The vegetable market sells vegetables and buys food from each other. There are many kinds of vegetables sold in the market, and there will be more talents to buy.

Cloud is not what the enterprise wants, what the enterprise wants is the support for the business, pure IAAS is not what the enterprise wants, the enterprise wants is the business support system of SAAS .

It's like when Alibaba Cloud started investing 100 million yuan in Jinmao Building in 2008 to do cloud, mainly in the cloud sales, website system, CRM system, reimbursement system, etc., to today's Alibaba Cloud Creek conference ecosystem The construction is very good, there are thousands of cloud market partners who can make money.

Its competitiveness is not technology, but the establishment of the cloud market, and the same reason as the mall, sometimes rely on long-tail products can be drained, attracting customers to place an order to buy. Therefore, the competitiveness of the cloud market is the most important part of the ecology.

3. The low cost of cloud acquisition is an important factor for cloud's success in 2B

Anyone who has seen the future of free commerce knows that free is almost zero customer acquisition cost, and the advertising cost is obtained through the operation of customer time.

It is said that some domestic cloud companies, in the beginning of the first year of income are all agents, the cost is 0 yuan, the commission is every year, how much you sell is yours, just to occupy the land, become a landlord, and later pay rent Naturally it will be very comfortable.

So how to reduce customer acquisition costs is very important.

4. How to understand, 0 yuan won the bid for the project, proofing, front site

Many people often laugh at these start-up IT companies, or operator giants who won the government cloud project of a certain government for 1 yuan and 0 yuan. Once the cloud project is established, the subsequent benefits are the real value.

Because the cost of such project sales is the highest, this method greatly reduces the cost of customer acquisition, transfers construction costs to operating costs, and later obtains government-purchased services through operations, which is actually a clever competitive strategy.

It should also be added that the government has given a lot of land and machines free of charge, and anyway, it is not allowed to be used for operation. To put it bluntly, inventory pressure is high, and clearance sales are important, as are machines and cloud facilities.

5. Organizational form of cloud enterprise

Cloud companies basically account for 60 pan> in technology and 40 pan> in service and sales support. In the initial stage, they basically did not distinguish between industry customers and battled for land. The land is well managed and the land is poor. Let ’s talk about it first. It was a revolution, it was a war, and war was about to bleed and sacrifice.

Therefore, the organization form of the cloud enterprise must be flat, all for customers.

6. Cloud pattern and understanding of future society

If human beings need to organize and operate collaboratively, then the cloud must be the chassis, the definition layer. How the world calculates, stores, and uses group wisdom, how to collaborate, and how to communicate, the cloud can be planned and laid out.

The pattern of cloud represents the understanding of future social organization and needs, so cloud is destined to be an open ecosystem in the end. This is the pattern of the cloud.

What do you do in the cloud, technical architecture, computing, storage, networking, security, data management, PAAS , artificial intelligence, blockchain? It's still an industry application, or it's as small as a website. This represents the pattern of your transportation system.

7. Talents required by cloud computing

From the current point of view, the cloud is diversified, and the essence is to provide some kind of cloud ideas to solve old problems, including Didi, Meituan, Huiyi Huiying, Pingduo, basically: Ali 's technology Baidu's technology Tencent products Direct sales team.

8. About cloud big data artificial intelligence

Many cloud strategies now propose 3.0 , which is essentially the evolution of applications of IT in " cloud data artificial intelligence " .

For example, Zhang Huaidong, vice president of Huawei ’s Enterprise Cloud Business Department, said: With the development of cloud computing, big data, artificial intelligence, and Internet of Things technologies, humans will enter a smart society in the next two or three decades. We believe that it has the following Three characteristics. One is the perception of everything, the second is the connection of everything, and the third is the intelligence of everything.

Any enterprise, including the government, including non-profit institutions, and universities, must seize the opportunity in this wave of all-intelligence intelligence towards a smart society, they must go through digital transformation.

First turn it into a digital organization and organization, through digital transformation to achieve the improvement of management capabilities, including the transformation of personalized service methods, and intelligent decision-making.

In this field, our position is the enabler and promoter of the smart society, focusing on " one core and two wings " , focusing on creating open, safe and reliable cloud technology facilities and services. Huawei Cloud has a strong momentum in China.

9. Opportunities for foreign cloud computing companies

It is said that Alibaba Cloud's cloud sales last year were 45 pan> IAAS , 5 pan> PAAS , 50 pan> SAAS . It can be seen that foreign companies in infrastructure are almost uncompetitive, especially for the government cloud market, many clouds The land and hardware environment of domestic computer companies are all sent by the government. The cost is very low. How to compete? There is also the market of SAAS , because the Chinese part is made by domestic software companies, which is more in line with the usage habits of the Chinese people, so the market of SAAS is basically the world of domestic software. Only in the market of PAAS , it is difficult for domestic architects to make flexible, complex architecture, good scalability, and forward-looking platform products, so the fat of foreign companies in the domestic market by technology is PAAS . The competition is becoming more and more fierce. The domestic software that competes through IAAS and SAAS is also strengthening the ability of PAAS through the investment of users , so PAAS is an opportunity for foreign software companies, but it is also very challenging.

From technology to ecological construction, the cloud computing game is getting bigger and bigger. The future of the cloud is that everything will serve everything and become the big steward of enterprise IT needs. How to develop competition, let us wait and see.

About the author

Zhang Hancheng

Research areas mainly include: Introduction to Big Data Basics, Big Data Application Practices in Enterprises and Governments, Business Models for Data-Driven Business Transformation, Medical Big Data Operating System, Financial and Tax Big Data, Customs Big Data, Poverty Alleviation Big Data, Operator Big Data Construction solutions, tourism big data platform construction solutions, data asset management, big data industry ecological analysis, data trading market, blockchain, artificial intelligence and other new technologies are the value and empowerment solutions for traditional enterprises.