Whether it is in the field of consumer Internet or industrial Internet, there are generally three types of enterprises.
The first type is the hardware and software research and development rooted in digital technology, the development of various basic system software, operating systems, the development of various basic hardware equipment, high-performance chips, electronic components, intelligent terminals, communication equipment and robots, etc., which is the basic industry of the development of the digital economy, and is a high-tech enterprise that manufactures digital software and hardware equipment.
The second type is a platform-based enterprise that applies digital technology and software and hardware industries to the social economy. Including consumer Internet platform enterprises or industrial Internet platform enterprises, these platform enterprises are platform enterprises that provide ecological environment for various network companies.
The third category is the tens of millions of network companies that survive and develop on the Internet platforms provided by platform-based enterprises, and it is these companies that serve the public and the economic system, and constitute the application scenarios of the consumer Internet and the industrial Internet.
Among them, digital platform enterprises are the core, pillar, and main arena of digital economy applications, often the representative of a social trillion-yuan enterprise, and the most concentrated embodiment of a country's digital economy strength. A platform often carries thousands of network technology service companies, which is public and social. This is because digital platform enterprises are a new economic form with data as the key factor of production, a new generation of information technology as the core driving force, and network information infrastructure as an important support.
In fact, in the economy and society, platforms are not new, but have existed since ancient times. **Bazaars, department stores and supermarkets are goods circulation platforms, labor markets, headhunting companies are human resources platforms, marriage agencies, matchmakers are matchmaking platforms, and so on.
Generally speaking, the platform has two basic functions: one is information intermediary and transaction matchmaking to achieve efficient matching of upstream and downstream resources;The second is the direct provision of goods or services. For digital platforms, these two types of functions have given birth to two types of representative enterprises: one is the sales platform represented by **, JD.com, and Pinduoduo, the information exchange platform represented by Tencent, and the travel platform such as Ctrip and QunarThe other is a platform that directly provides content, such as various search engines, news**, short** services, etc.
With the application of the Internet and the support of data elements, the digital platform has been endowed with a new characteristic connotation.
First, digital platform enterprises take the Internet as the main carrier and the new generation of information technology as the core driving force, because of their fast information dissemination, wide coverage and strong penetration, once the business model is effective, it can be quickly replicated and promoted at a very low marginal cost, with significant economies of scale, so the expansion rate far exceeds that of traditional enterprises.
Second, digital platforms use data as the key factor of production, and data is inexhaustible, which can be transferred and bought and sold many times, and the use and mining of data will generate new data. On the basis of mastering a large number of active user data, the platform generates user portraits and carries out precision marketing, and the value-added services that can be provided are multiplied and easier to grow.
Third, the Internet industry has always been a hot spot and outlet for investment in the past 20 years, and a large amount of capital has poured into platform-based enterprises, further boosting the prosperity and development of platform-based enterprises. All these factors determine that digital platform companies are more likely to form giants.
However, the key to the success of any platform-based enterprise is still to target the pain points of the industry and use digital technology to solve the structural contradiction between supply and demand.
In the consumer Internet industry, various e-commerce platforms have solved the channel contradictions in the traditional retail industry and supported tens of millions of B2B and B2C online commodity consumption companies: for example, the Pinduoduo platform supports millions of commodity, daily necessities, clothing enterprises and hundreds of millions of customers discount transactions;Food delivery platforms such as Meituan and Ele.me provide delivery services between upstream restaurants and downstream consumers around the needs of a large number of urban wage earners for convenient and affordable mealsTencent's WeChat supports the exchange of information for hundreds of millions of usersThe online ride-hailing platform supports the operation of tens of millions of taxis;To a certain extent, the live streaming platform makes up for the lack of user experience in the online shopping scenarioWait a minute. These platforms have indeed brought efficiency gains to all aspects of society.
Similarly, in terms of industrial Internet, there are science and technology financial platform enterprises to improve the level of financial technology for all kinds of financial enterprises, improve the efficiency of financial resource allocation, and solve the problem of difficult and expensive financing for all kinds of small and medium-sized enterprisesThere is a digital logistics enterprise platform to provide high-efficiency and low-cost seamless docking of warehousing and logistics for ports, railways, and highway logistics and transportation enterprisesThere is a design designed for Industry 40 automated factories provide intelligent software platform enterprises;Wait a minute.
Once the digital platform is bigger, it will have the characteristics of industry, ecology, publicity, sociality, monopoly, etc., and in the process of development, it will often form the guarantee function of industry order, fair and just operation, the agglomeration function of similar transactions in the industry, the pricing function of the transaction cost of platform merchants, and the function of optimal allocation of resources, forming the convergence function of hundreds of billions of yuan, trillions of yuan or even more than 10 trillion yuan.
Platform companies with these five functions are often the symbol and banner of a country's consumer Internet and industrial Internet application development, and are the key to the core competitiveness of the digital economy between countries and countries. In this regard, on the one hand, the state should give full support to such companies with platform significance in the early stage and embryonic stage of development, and inject heavy capital in their embryonic state, including capital markets, financial markets, various sovereign markets, public offerings, and private offerings. On the other hand, it is necessary to take into account the huge social influence generated by the public, social and monopoly nature of such companies, and there should be standardized negative list management rules.
Specifically, the social influence of platform enterprises is mainly manifested in the following four aspects.
First, it has the effect of influencing amplification. The relationship between platform enterprises and merchants on the platform is deeply integrated, and platform enterprises have profoundly influenced thousands of merchants and participants on the platform in terms of governance model and value orientation, so the social responsibility of platform enterprises is no longer limited to themselves, but also includes the social responsibility of merchantsOnce a risk occurs on the platform, it is not only the financial risk and legal risk of the enterprise itself, but also the social risk with a wide coverage.
The second is to change the consumption and behavior habits of end users. For example, the rise of e-commerce platforms has changed consumers' shopping habits, and mobile payment has changed people's payment habits.
Third, it has the best attributes and social mobilization capabilities. The content transmitted by some large-scale ** and Internet platforms, especially information platforms, has played a major role in guiding the direction of society, and has strong ** attributes or social mobilization capabilities.
Fourth, it plays a value-oriented output role. The social concepts and value orientations disseminated by the platform will imperceptibly affect the shaping of the public's value perception system, especially for young people whose worldview and values are not yet fully mature. The excessive promotion and beautification of advanced consumption and hedonism on some platforms is not conducive to the formation of good qualities such as down-to-earth and positive from an individual levelFrom the national level, it is not conducive to the promotion of national strategies such as manufacturing and rejuvenating the country through industry.
Therefore, for platform-based enterprises, it is necessary to adhere to the principle of equal emphasis on support and supervision, on the one hand, encourage and support to become bigger and stronger, on the other hand, clarify the boundary between rights and responsibilities, establish a full life cycle supervision system of "before + during + after the event", and form a standardized and thorough negative list management rules.
In fact, "digitalization" has not changed the basic economic laws and financial principles of human society. All kinds of Internet business platforms, as well as information platforms, search platforms or financial platforms based on big data, cloud computing and artificial intelligence technologies, should be in awe of the rules of human society, economic laws and financial principles in the operation and development, and fully understand and reach a consensus.
First, it is necessary to raise the entry threshold and strengthen supervision for Internet platform companies in the financial, public service, and security categories. Where an internet platform or company whose business involves the financial field, education, health, public transportation and other social service fields, as well as the social security field, must raise the registration threshold, implement a strict "license before license", and the relevant regulatory departments confirm the corresponding qualifications and personnel quality conditions after issuing a license, and the industrial and commercial departments can issue licenses, and implement "negative list" management, in-process and post-event management, and full life cycle management for these three types of online platform enterprises.
Second, to implement the anti-monopoly law, it is especially necessary to guard against enterprises whose market share reaches 80 or even 90 percent of the entire country. It is necessary to promptly correct and stop online platform companies from expanding their scale in the form of "financing-loss-subsidy-burning money-refinancing" until they defeat their opponents, and after forming a monopoly advantage, they charge high fees to platform merchants or consumers, or force users to "choose one of two", big data killing, etc. This kind of behavior violates the principle of market fairness and disrupts market order.
Third, restrict the mixing and overlapping of Internet platform businesses. It is necessary to strictly require a clear distinction between information platforms, search platforms and financial platforms like Google and Facebook in the United States. Those who do information should not do finance, those who do search should not do finance, and those who do finance should not control information platforms and search platforms.
Fourth, the property rights of information and data should be protected. In the process of using data, value and property rights are generated, and the property rights of information data should be protected in the same way as patents and intellectual property rights. The jurisdiction and transaction rights of data are owned by the state;The ownership is shared by the entities of the bilateral transaction, and the platform cannot carry out big data killing without authorization based on a strong position, nor can it illegally transfer the shared data without the consent of the individualAfter the data transfer, the subject only has the right to use it, and cannot transfer it again;The property distribution rights of the data are shared by the data owner.
Fifth, ensure the security of information and data. Internet platform companies and all kinds of big data and cloud computing operating companies should develop encryption technology and blockchain technology, protect network security, prevent hacker attacks, prevent leakage incidents, and not infringe on basic human rights such as privacy, and never allow company managers to use the company's internal resource management power to steal customer data confidentiality and privacy.
Sixth, raise the entry threshold in the field of data transactions, and establish and improve unified rules for data transactions. All types of market entities involved in data transactions, including both parties to the transaction and third-party institutions that provide services such as data transaction intermediaries, data hosting, data processing, and data cleaning, must obtain the permission of the relevant institutions, and the relevant state departments shall issue business licenses, and only those who hold licenses can participate in data transactions. Establish and improve unified data transaction system rules to prevent illegal data transactions and data theft.
Seventh, ensure the accuracy, reliability and safety of various certification technologies and methods. In recent years, many online authentications, including online real-name systems, have been easily attacked by hackers due to poor security, resulting in privacy leakage and social chaos, which need to be improved urgently. In recent times, there have been many innovations, such as biometrics, iris recognition or fingerprint recognition. This type of innovation may seem advanced, but all of these biometrics can be imitated by hackers, and it is difficult to regulate if a hacker cracks a person's biometrics such as iris, voice, and fingerprints. These identifications are accurate and unique under normal circumstances, but they can be imitated and difficult to figure out. Therefore, now the United States and Europe are not allowed to do biometric systems.
Eighth, everything that changes people's way of life must be fully heard and gradually unfoldedIt is necessary to coexist with the old and the new, and with double regulations;It is necessary to think backwards and fully demonstrate social security under unconventional circumstances, and it is absolutely impossible for Internet companies to act rashly. For example, in recent years, China has developed rapidly in terms of currency digitization, e-wallets, and online payments, and people use mobile phones as wallets, and mobile payments are almost inseparable from food, clothing, housing and transportation, and some stores cannot even use RMB. However, it is important to recognize the reliability of a cashless society in the face of wars and natural disasters, and that the huge social electronic payment system may collapse in an instant, so it is important to think twice.
Ninth, after an internet platform company has the function of a social public service, once an accident occurs, the consequences will be serious. Because of their penetration, wide coverage, and huge scale, once Internet companies are negligent in management, even if there is only one loophole, there will be major consequences if they are released to the whole country. For example, operating a taxi and ride-hailing business is a social public service, because the Internet service system needs to cover the whole country, and its scale can reach several millions. If there is a vicious incident due to the imperfect management system of the company, it is not only a problem of enterprise suspension and rectification, but also a question of how to punish it. Under normal circumstances, a rental company has hundreds of cars, and if an accident occurs, it will be fined 3 5 times the amount and hundreds of thousands of yuan. Uber in the United States lost tens of millions of dollars in non-fatal accidents, not because the company also paid a huge amount of compensation, but because of the large social impact, which caused the company to suffer heavy losses, forcing the company to completely correct and never let employees make such mistakes again. Therefore, in this regard, it is necessary to break the routine and not use the conventional management method. The normal compensation for work-related death is 600,000 yuan, and the compensation for accident death is 3 times, that is, 1.8 million yuan. This must not be the case for large-scale ride-hailing, and the fines will be increased.
Tenth, standardize and strengthen the tax collection and management of Internet platform enterprises. Many department stores have closed in recent years, and some department stores in large cities1 3 have closed. One of the most important reasons is that online shopping diverts the business volume of the store. An important reason why physical stores cannot compete with **, in addition to rent and operating costs, is taxes. The taxation of department stores is regulated and should be collected, while the taxation of e-commerce systems is invisible, which violates the principle of fair competition between different business formats.
To sum up, the digital economy is a new engine for development. It is necessary to enthusiastically support at the macro and strategic levels, but also to leave a cautious and a little leeway. For issues involving national jurisprudence and the basic purposes and principles of the industry, such as the principle of data and information property rights, the principle of finance, the principle of finance, the principle of taxation, the principle of restraint of cross-border operations, the principle of social security, the principle of monopoly and anti-monopoly, or the principle of input and output of enterprise operation and the principle of capital market operation, we should have a certain degree of cold thinking and forward-looking thinking, so as to prevent problems before they occur.
In the process of digital governance, through the use of digital means, while creating an inclusive business environment and promoting innovation, it is also necessary to coordinate the relationship between various stakeholders within the market, maintain fair competition among various subjects in the market, prevent digital economy risks, and better use the characteristics of the digital economy to achieve common prosperity while escorting the healthy and sustainable development of the digital economy.
This article is excerpted from "Digital Economy: Connotation and Path", author: Huang Qifan, Zhu Yan, Shao Ping, and published by Ebang Power with permission.
About the Author
Huang Qifan. Researcher, Academic Advisor of China Finance 40 Forum, Executive Deputy Director of the Academic Committee of the National Innovation and Development Strategy Research Association. He used to be the mayor of Chongqing and the vice chairman of the Finance and Economic Committee of the 12th National People's Congress.
Huang Qifan has in-depth theoretical thinking and rich practical experience in the operation mechanism of the economic system and economic management, and has outstanding economic research ability and deep academic attainments. He has in-depth research on capital market, financial risk prevention, industrial structure transformation and upgrading, pillar industry cluster development, digital economy, real estate development, urban and rural land ticket system, and international pattern.
Zhu Yan. Professor and doctoral supervisor of the Department of Management Science and Engineering, School of Economics and Management, Tsinghua University, researcher of the Institute of National and Global Governance, Tsinghua UniversityHe is currently the dean of the Internet Industry Research Institute of Tsinghua University and the director of the Advanced Information Technology Application Laboratory of the School of Economics and Management. He received his bachelor's degree and doctor's degree from Tsinghua University in 1994 and 1998 respectively. His main research areas are digital industrialization and industrial digitization, digital economy, industrial blockchain, etc.
Professor Zhu Yan is currently the vice chairman of the Digital Economy Special Committee of the China Federation of Network Society Organizations, the director of the Industrial Digital Financial Technology Application Laboratory and the chairman of the Blockchain Branch of the China Society of Technology and Economics, a member of the China Informatization 100 Committee, an expert of the China Digital Economy 100 Association, the deputy director of the Internet Economy and Industrial Innovation and Development Committee of the China Industrial Economics Society, and the academic dean of the Blockchain Industry College of Chengdu University of Information Technology.
Shao Ping. Chairman and CEO of Juliang Group and Jujun Technology.
Mr. Shao Ping has worked in the financial field for more than 30 years and has profound professional knowledge and rich practical experience. He served as Vice President of China Minsheng Bank and President and CEO of Ping An Bank.
In 2014, he was awarded the titles of "National Internet Finance Leader of the Year", "Emerging Banker of the Year" and "Strategic Banker" of the Year, and was named one of the "50 Most Influential Business Leaders in China in 2016" by Fortune magazine. He used to be an expert of the Financial Research Center of the Counselor's Office.