This is a very interesting experience. It is my first time to try to write blogs and I could learn so much from others even in the same topic. Even if there is only one topic, the interpretation of this question is multifaceted. When I wrote down my comments I feel like we were face-to-face talking with each other. At the end of this blog I will post all links of my comments.

The new understanding of digital business

At the beginning, I just considered digital business as a new industry and did not connect it with other industries. However after referring some related articles and learning from other students, I have some new understanding of digital business.

To some extent, it is a totally new industry. Without development of internet, it seems difficult to appear. However this does not mean that it is completely indepent with other industries. Traidtional industries such as food and snack industry, and manufacturing industry are finding ways to transform and upgrade to have more opportunity to develop in digital business.

I used to think online shopping may be the only important part of digital business. However this is a lopsided view.

What I learned from this lecture

One of the biggest problems of my blogs is that the example which is a little bit ‘narrow’. The second example is about JingDong and the third is WantWant. From a Chinese perspective, the two examples are easy to understand and find resonance, because these are well-known companies in China. However for a foreign student who may be a Japanese or France, it may be difficult to understand and feel no resonance. Thus the first thing I leanred is that I could think the title from other angles. For example in the second blog, Zixuan Yuan wrote silk industry use in digital business and posted a famous brand. She considered the title from a new angle and conbined the most famous and traditional industry of China with the digital business.

The next problem is about my structure. After reviewing all my blogs, I find that there is no subtitle in my blog. Subtitle could help me organize my thoughts when I was concepting my blog, and help readers easily to understand the logic and framework of my blogs. I usually think an essay should be with subtitles but ignore even a short blog could also use this.

Comments link

Blog 2:

The opportunities and challenges of two operating model in IKEA

How Suning Tackled the Problem of Increasing Costs During Internet Transformation

Blog 3:

Novartis —A successful case of using digital in pharmaceutical field

Digitalization of the Palace Museum

WantWant is one of the most famous snack food companies in China. The name is came from the dog of Mr.Yanming Cai who is the chairman of the board. In 1992, WangWang firstly invested Chinese mainland, and in 1996, the first factory was set in Hunan province of China. Until 2006, there are more than 100 factories set allover China.[1]

Since 1980, due to the reform and opening-up policy, which means that planned economy would be reformed to commodity economy, and government tried to attract foreign investment, there were more and more factories set in mainland cities.[2] WantWant found a vacancy of dairy market, thus they spend a lot of money on advertising of their dairy products were soaring, which becomes one of the pillar industries. At the same time, they promoted a serious of snacks products. On the other hand, with no more other competitors and its brainwashing advertisement with distinctive trademark. This is the golden age of flourishing development for WantWant.

However, in 2008, because of the Melamine with Chinese Milk Scandal, the credity of Chinese dairy industry has plummted. Moreover, due to development of economy, more and more Chinese families are able and more inclined to choose foreign milk with guaranteed quality. On the other side, dairy products of WantWant are more like milk flavored drinks, and parents have no way of knowing the source of WantWant dairy products. This is the first shock to WantWant.

The second problem is marketing approach. After 2008, WantWant is targeting 20-year-old as customers. However, marketing means of WantWant is still television advertisement, which ignores the impact of the Internet on the young. Moreover, the rise of other snacks food companies, such as Bestore and Three Squirrels also pose a threat to market shares of WantWant.

Thus, WantWant also work out some solutions. One is that it advertised new one but the publicity was limited because the shooting style and content of the advertisement is exactly the same as that was 10 years ago. Instead of feeling nostalgic for the advertisement they saw as children, young consumers felt the design was too poor.

In the face of such a crisis, WantWant decided to change the traditional way of marketing model into the digital marketing. Digital marketing is an important part of digital business, more and more traditional industry companies prefer choosing to transform and upgrade through digital marketing. WantWant chose Wechat as the platform of its digital marketing.

So why Wechat? Wechat is one of the most famous and widely used social app in China, which is similar to Whatsup. However, Wechat is not only a common and normal communication app. One of the most important functions in Wechat is that every company could apply for a Wechat official public number. When customers follow these official numbers, they will be the first to receive latest information from these companies. On the other side, these companies could set Wechat applets, and put products link in their articles, thus customers do not have to download a lot of apps or through a computer to buy what they want.

The first way is using online marketing. WantWant decided to promote the new performance of Hot Kids which is the logo of WantWant. Customers could win a raffle through retweet articles, which means when they retweet articles to their Wechat Moments and get the specific number of like, they could apply for lottery. However, the prizes are not all their famous products but with some new goods, thus this is a good way to promote their new products. Last step is to encourage these winners to show their pictures and opinions and operator of official accountant will like their comments.[3]

The second change is cooperation with other companies. WantWant cooperated with Zhanqi TV which is a famous live game website. During Chinese Spring Festivals, it combined werewolves of miller’s hollow with Hot Kids.[4] Besides, WantWant cooperated with a local Shanghai clothing brand which is called Tyakasha to promote cooperation clothes. The key is to use web celebrity effect, through web celebrity effect to increase the effect of brand culture, and through raffle directly promote products.

According to the 2017 financial report (2018 financial statements have not been released), operating income which increased at 2,027.47 billion Yuan, was up 6.6% from a year earlier. Besides, the pillar industries which are dairy products and drinks, was up 7.1% from a year earlier. On the other side, WantWant also promoted some new products such as pre-mixed cocktail specifically for young ladies, and another new dairy product in which the milk protein content is up to 3.6%. Moreover, the packaging of this dairy product is based on the classical packaging but changing color.

Generally this is a useful way to engrain brand in customers’ mind. However, these do not directly increase producting sales. Facing the impact of digital business as well as competition from other snacks food companies, digital marketing could be a useful tool to help WantWant transform and upgrade, but how to improve competitiveness with the use of digital marketing is another main problem for these kind of traditional companies like WantWant.

[1] http://www.wantwant.com.cn/  

[2] https://baike.baidu.com/item/旺旺/336604?fr=aladdin 

[3]Gao Jiamin. Case study report on the marketing model in the digital transformation of traditional enterprises — a case study of want want group[D]. Xi’an International Studies University(2017):1-64

[4]Gao Jiamin. Case study report on the marketing model in the digital transformation of traditional enterprises — a case study of want want group[D]. Xi’an International Studies University(2017):1-64.

When we mentioned Chinese online shopping websites, most people may be familiar with Taobao which belongs to the Ali company. However, JingDong which was listed at the National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotation in 2014, is one of the biggest online shopping websites in China[1]. In 2015, JingDong was named one of the top 100 Internet companies in China. Because Jingdong has its own delivery system and develops it as a new brand called JDWL (shortly for JingDong WuLiu),  JingDong is different from other online shopping websites like Taobao[2]. In Taobao, in different online stores you may face choices of different delivery companies such as Shunfeng, Yuantong.

With the development of digital business, the demand of delivery is increasing, thus more and more delivery companies appeared. The transporting velocity is an important factor that most customers considered. Manuscript express waybills are replaced by typewritten receipts, which could save time, but many companies are still based on manual work. How could JingDong improve its competitiveness on delivery?  Due to this, the automatic belts are put to use in JingDong to improve the veracity and efficiency of delivery. Besides this, when products are damaged or lost, Taobao as a third party could not be responsible for the behavior of delivery company. This might reduce the customers’ consumption experience. But for JingDong, its self-contained delivery system could be effective monitoring and solve customers’ problems immediately. This system is the most typical feature that distinguishes JingDong from other shopping websites, and this might be opportunities for JingDong standing out.

On the other side, Alipay is the biggest ways of eletronical payment in China, but this could not be used in JingDong. JingDong coorporates with some banks but still not like Alipay could combine all banks together. Due to this, most customers do not choose JingDong as their first choice of online shopping. Besides this, in recent years Ali company holds double 11 shopping festivals every year. This attracts many customers and hundreds of billions of yuan are recorded. However, JingDong has been lost for years, and the number of online stores settled and commodity classification seem much less than Taobao. Besides, other electronic business websites such as DangDang which is based on books and electronic books and Vipshop that focuses on costume and makeups, have developed to grab a share of the market. How could JingDong maintain and even develop the market share? This might be a big problem for JingDong for many years.

At first, JingDong sets many warehouses in different cities aiming to delivery productions in time and develop online shopping for vegetables and fruits, which is mature industry and service system in most western countries. Thanks to those warehouses, “Next day arrival service” is one of the most famous services from JingDong, which means spot orders submitted before a certain time (counting from the time the order was picked up after delivery) will be delivered the next day. Since June 2016, JingDong and Wal-Mart announced to corporate with each in sharing some inventory items, which means if you bought an item through JingDong, you may find that your item was send from Wal-Mart warehouse. This behavior could increase range of goods and control management costs. In 2018, JingDong and Walmart strengthen corporation in sharing the resources of inventories, shops and customers. This corporation model in which JingDong provides the customer resources and Wal-Mart shares its inventories, reaches a win-win situation.

The success of JingDong is inseparable from its unique delivery services, and now “Next day arrival service” covers 248 cities all over the country. However, physical economy contributes to be impacted by the digital economy, most stores try to replace physical stores into warehouses to control costs. As I mentioned early about the feature of JingDong, we could find that JingDong excessively relies on its distribution speed, which is based on a wide range of suppliers. There are a large number of spot orders from all over the country every day, thus how could JingDong balance the inventories and spot orders. Not only JingDong chooses increase corporation with brick-and-mortar stores, but also Letv which is a video websites, opened its first physical store before 2017. And now China decided to strengthen the control of e-commerce, thus some companies consider to turn into physical economy. But generally, the situation of physical economy uncertain.

In conclusion, JingDong is a company which is developed by online shopping. In the digital economy, JingDong could analyze the data of and give the customized recommendation to customers. But essentially, JingDong is a virtual online supermarket. It depends on unique delivery system occupying the market, but its success much more relies on the physical economy. In the information age, digital economy is supposed to help but now more impacted physical economy. JingDong should consider its role in the digital economy and find a balance between digital and physical economy.

[1] http://news.sohu.com/20140523/n399921292.shtml

[2] http://tech.qq.com/a/20161123/036305.htm?pgv_ref=aio2015_hao123news 

Accountants seem to be one of the jobs which are most affected by digital economy. Since 15^th century, accountants have developed from a basic and simple job to interdisciplinary and professional talents. Besides more, computers become an important tool for all accountants. For instance, ACCA test was changed from handwriting to computer-based testing, which is one of the biggest changes to accountant role.

In the early century, the responsibility of accountants is to collect a large number of accounting data and make financial reporting by themselves. However this manual working might bring some problems like repetive reimbursement, and if even they found a small problem, they had to check nearly all data during that accounting year, which meant that they had hugh workload and usually reduced wrok efficiency. Due to this, a transnational corporation may need large number of basic accountants to deal with data. On the other side, it has almost no barrier to entry, and these reasons make the supply exceeds demand in accountant marketing.

Since the end of 20^th century, the development of computer and internet makes the working of collecting data much easier than ever before, and reduces workload of accountants. However, due to the low barrier to entry, there are too many accountants rather than the demand of marketing. The basic working of accountants is graudally being replaced by computers, thus accountants should improve their professional knowledge and skills. In the digital economy, digital information is the primary productivity, thus accountants should not only be satisfied with the statistics, but also learn to predict the future trend according to the known data. Now the most useful function of financial reporting made by accountants is to provide cogent and reliable financial information to decision maker.

Generally, some working of accountants are already or gradually being replaced by computers, this might be a social problem to affect the employment status and also could be a challenge for companies how to improve competitiveness in global digital economy. However, digital economy could promote the accounting job transformation and upgrading. Accountants would put more attention on how to use and analyze financial information to support the beneficial decision of a company.