Rebirth 2010: I taught Mr. Lei how to make a mobile phone

Chapter 802 There is no way to win but there are ways to win

Two more hours passed quietly as Zhou Shouzi finished his report.

The finalized direction is clear and definite: four major businesses—gaming, TikTok short videos and live-streaming e-commerce, cloud computing, and cultural and creative industries—will be fully leveraged.

The first three have the core mission of earning foreign exchange, while the cultural and creative business places profit in a secondary position, with its core objective being to promote cultural export...

These may seem like just four macro-level guidelines, but in reality, each direction will extend into countless business lines and branches. Even the smallest branch may involve hundreds of millions or even billions of yuan in funds.

Finally, Chen Mo patted Zhou Shouzi on the shoulder and said earnestly:

"You heard my speech at the annual meeting before the New Year."

You just need to manage the group's business well, steadily advance according to the established goals, and get the entire group working together as one.

As for me, I'll focus on managing people and money. This year, we'll each do our own job, and align our responsibilities quarterly.

“Yes, Moss!” Shou Zi Chew replied in a deep voice.

"Okay, go ahead. If there's anything you're unsure about, come to me anytime. I'll be your strongest support!"

After seeing Lu Qi and Zhou Shouzi off, Chen Mo could imagine that the group's management would be extremely busy for the next week, and the conference room on the other side would be as crowded as a popular tourist attraction during the National Day holiday.

After the Lantern Festival, all employees will return to work, and each person's OA system will contain their work tasks and arrangements for the new year.

As the saying goes, "A year's plan starts in spring," and this is the kind of new look a trillion-dollar conglomerate should have after the New Year.

……

After the Spring Festival last year, Chen Mo also had to face a week-long high-intensity "battle of attrition" to communicate with the heads of various business lines one by one.

Now, he only needs to coordinate with Lu Qi and Zhou Shouzi, and he can complete all the external development plans in one day.

Of course, the remaining time does not mean that he can slack off with a clear conscience, but rather that he must tackle something more important—to "take action" from within.

At this year's annual meeting, Chen Mo did not publicly name the anti-corruption campaign, but not mentioning it does not mean the problem does not exist.

In fact, anti-corruption is an ongoing task that accompanies the development of the other side.

Running a business is like practicing martial arts; it requires both internal and external cultivation.

No matter how powerful one's external skills are, without a solid foundation of internal strength, they will eventually crumble when faced with a powerful opponent, completely disintegrating from within.

Therefore, Chen Mo has always attached great importance to internal development in recent years.

The group not only established "Serious Crimes Unit 6" and "S.H.I.E.L.D." to combat corruption, but also regularly hired world-class accounting firms to audit the use of funds.

In response to the company culture and workplace environment, a rare and effective employee union has been established nationwide, working in conjunction with the human resources department to ensure the orderly development of employees' physical and mental well-being in the workplace.

Despite all the work done, some internal problems persisted despite repeated attempts to curb them.

Chen Mo's declaration at the year-end meeting to "drastically change our competitors" was not just empty talk. But to change our competitors, we must first build our other side into an impenetrable fortress—just like if you want to sell houses, you must first have a presentable model apartment.

Therefore, for the next three days, while the conference room on the other side was crowded with people due to various matters, Chen Mo lived a life of going back and forth between the office and Tianji Pavilion.

This year, his work has two main focuses: first, writing the annual plan mentioned earlier, which is a theoretical exercise on the other side; and second, refining the initial draft of the revised "Landing Plan" for his competitors.

……

Thousands of miles away in Hangzhou, another contest is quietly brewing.

"Manager Hang, I just received word that a company wants to buy the advertising billboards around our bus and subway stations..."

After listening to his assistant's report, Chen Hang, whose internal nickname at Alibaba is "Wuzhao," smiled and asked, "Do you know which company it is?"

"It's a little-known company, but it's got quite a big mouth, acting like money is no object."

"Heh~ It must be related to the other side. Let them add fuel to the fire, annoy the other side before the war starts, and shake their morale. It'll be useful!"

"understand!"

It's common knowledge within Alibaba that Jack Ma and Chen Mo are at odds; the entire internet industry is aware of this. Alibaba and Jack Ma have always been at odds—from the "Winning in China" controversy to their public spats at the Internet Conference, these are all clear evidence.

Especially before the Lunar New Year, the boss gathered him, Jiang Fan, and Peng Lei together and drew up a "Spring Mud Plan," appointing the three of them to be responsible for three fronts respectively. The weight of this important task was self-evident.

If DingTalk can make a breakthrough in the enterprise SaaS market, it may lay the foundation for a counterattack against WeChat in the future, and his reputation and status within the company will inevitably rise accordingly.

Before DingTalk, Alibaba had launched a product called "Laiwang".

Several years ago, during the social media war, the "battle between WeChat and WeChat" stirred up a storm, and the other side seized the opportunity to rise.

Jack Ma had a very forward-thinking vision when he laid out his social empire. He initially wanted to use Alibaba's Wangwang to compete, but he found that Wangwang was deeply integrated with e-commerce scenarios, and it was extremely difficult to change its core. Seeing that it was not feasible, he decisively gave up.

Subsequently, he appointed Lu Zhaoxi, the then CEO, whose nickname was "Temujin," to take full charge of the matter. The latter mobilized the entire Alibaba team to create "Laiwang," making a huge splash and revealing his eagerness, with an attitude of "buying time with money."

When he was involved as the technical lead, he was in a meeting in his original department in the morning, and was transferred to the Laiwang team in the afternoon. It was so rushed that he didn't even have time to hand over his original work.

Laiwang, a platform built with the combined resources of the group, enjoyed great success in its early stages, with its user base exceeding several million in the second month.

However, this success was short-lived. Due to its excessive similarity to WeChat and lack of differentiation, it ultimately failed to retain users.

At the same time, the rapid expansion of the Laiwang team has also exposed many internal management problems. In many cases, one plus one is not necessarily greater than two, and in some extreme cases, it is even less than one.

Ultimately, Laiwang was strategically abandoned.

As the person in charge, he watched helplessly as his team was dismantled. The leader's explanation was "re-establishment," but he knew in his heart that this was just a euphemism for being sidelined.

As a result, Lu Zhaoxi, who played "Temujin," was also affected. The following year, he handed over the CEO position to Zhang Yong, who played "Xiaoyaozi." Although he remained a partner, he gradually faded out of the core management team.

Throughout history, the victors have always been kings and the losers have always been villains.

In fact, Chen Hang's situation at Alibaba is somewhat subtly related to his nickname "Wu Zhao" (meaning "no tricks").

He interned at Alibaba as early as 1999, but went to work in Japan two years later, completely missing out on the wealth-creating myth of Alibaba's IPO.

Later, he was put in charge of Taobao search but did not achieve remarkable results. He was then entrusted with the important task of building Laiwang, but it ended up being abandoned.

Behind the self-deprecating remark that "I'm good at nothing" lies a sense of helplessness and bitterness.

When he first joined Alibaba, the movie Avatar was showing in theaters. He wanted to use "Avatar" as his nickname, but it was rejected by the human resources department. The reason given was that "only senior executives can have three-character nicknames, such as 'Xiaoyaozi' or 'Feng Qingyang'..."

In the end, he could only self-deprecatingly name himself "No Moves"—indeed, at that time he seemed to have no moves left to use.

After years of observation and refinement, he led the remaining team to discover the pain points of working professionals: the overwhelming amount of information in their work and life, including WeChat, QQ, emails, phone calls, and text messages...

The intertwining of information from various media makes it difficult to isolate information, let alone communicate effectively, which has caused great distress to countless professionals like him.

Where there is pain, there is demand; where there is demand, there is opportunity.

At that time, "Zhiyan" emerged and became an important platform for workplace communication, which also gave him a lot of inspiration.

However, the new product he wants to create focuses on communication scenarios among corporate members, which is fundamentally different from Zhiyan.

Subsequently, he launched "Work Circle," which achieved some success internally. He eventually named the product "DingTalk," meaning "a sure thing" or "as certain as it is," reflecting his expectations for the product's stability and credibility.

Unfortunately, because the team that came up with the Laiwang team consisted mostly of "old, weak and disabled" people who didn't want them from other departments at Alibaba, the DingTalk internal testing was extremely ineffective in several companies, and there were even cases of messages being lost during the interaction between the two parties.

Fortunately, although this team is not as technically capable as other teams, it has a tenacious fighting spirit.

On the same day they received the feedback, the team of thirty people fixed hundreds of bugs and resolved the message loss issue.

Some customers even reported bugs at 2 a.m., and the DingTalk members in the group immediately replied, "Received, will resolve immediately," and successfully fixed it by 4 a.m., leaving a message to inform the customer, "The problem has been resolved, please try it!"

This spirit deeply moved him—with such a team, how could they not achieve great things?

Later, DingTalk version 1.0 held a small launch event in Hangzhou, with all fifty-plus team members present, but none of Alibaba executives attended.

It wasn't until the end of 2015, when the emergence of WeChat Work prompted Alibaba to focus on the enterprise-level SaaS market, that he felt his spring had finally arrived.

The turning point came on June 16, 2016. It was drizzling that day, and Wu Zhao was deeply impressed by it.

That day, Mr. Ma (Jack Ma) made a rare visit to their team, personally experienced DingTalk, and gave it his approval.

In July, DingTalk established a business unit, and the group began to allocate resources to support it.

In August, the business unit's size and funding doubled; in September, they doubled again.

Today, DingTalk has grown into a force that can rival WeChat Work, but he can still vaguely sense the strength of the other party.

But so what? When Chen Mo founded WeChat, he still managed to turn the tables against the then-dominant Tencent and QQ's massive user base.

Now, WeChat has transformed from a "dragon slayer" into a "dragon," but it may very well become the new dragon slayer.

He has a team that dares to fight and strive, outstanding products, and the support of the group behind him.

He now has far better conditions than Chen Mo did back then.

If Chen Mo can do it, why can't Chen Hang?
After all, he also shares the surname Chen.

It's not the Chen from Chen Mo, but the Chen from Chen Hang!

(End of this chapter)