Virtual Industrial Cluster: New Trend of Industrial Organization in the Digital Economy Era
Hot Views
The Fourth Plenary of the Nineteenth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China will add data as a factor of production. Data becomes a key input for innovation and is fully involved in the process of resource allocation. The accumulation and allocation of innovative elements is accelerating the shift from geographic space and physical space to virtual space and cyber space.
At the same time, digital innovation characterized by cross-border integration, synergy, and inclusive aggregation drives industrial technological and organizational changes. The blurring of industrial boundaries and the virtualization of industrial clusters have become new trends in industrial organization in the new economic era.
Main types of virtual clusters
The systemization of technological innovation, the networking of innovation organizations, and the virtualization of industrial organizations have jointly accelerated the evolution and development of industrial agglomerations based on traditional geographic space to various types of virtual agglomerations.
One is the virtual agglomeration of cyberspace based on information technology.
Information and communication technology is the technology platform for the virtualization and networking of industrial organizations.
Companies distributed in different regions use information and communication technology and other network methods to form dynamic alliances based on market demand. At the same time, suppliers, distributors, service providers, consumers, etc. gathered in virtual spaces use Internet technology to exchange digital information in real time Or knowledge, continue to add value to the virtualized network organization structure.
The second is the virtual agglomeration of geographic space based on functional distance.
Enterprises with strong economic ties in the industrial chain, due to the vertical separation of their division of labor, upstream and downstream enterprises do not need to be concentrated in geographic space, but based on functional distance, which is expressed as a concentrated distribution of massive geographical areas. Through the linkage of the supporting relationship, a virtual cluster of non-proximity geographic space based on functional distance and clustering but not clustering is presented.
The third is virtual agglomeration based on the integration of real and virtual spaces.
The platform economy is reshaping the micro-foundation of the modern market economy. The boundary of resources is expanded from the supply side to the demand side. The value of the industry is composed of the platform, the supply side and the demand side. The carrier of industrial agglomeration is the physical geographic space and the virtual platform space. Combined and transformed, a new form of virtual agglomeration is formed in which the online mobile economy and the offline regional economy are closely coupled.
Representative model of virtual industrial clusters
Based on the cluster's "concentration core", virtual industrial clusters are divided into four types of representative models.
One is the virtual industry cluster around the digital platform.
Service innovation is one of the main characteristics of digital innovation. The isolated information island between production, supply and marketing has been opened up, and the profit model has changed from single manufacturing to full service.
Enterprise groups that rely on digital platforms such as Amazon, Alibaba, and COSMOPlat are typical representatives.
Among them, Haier was rated as the “lighthouse factory” that opens up the end-to-end value chain. The COSMOPlat industrial Internet platform uses digital infrastructure to establish an ecological platform for mass customization centered on user experience, multilateral interaction, and value-added sharing, enabling vertical The digital transformation of the industry has gathered more than 4 million companies.
The second is virtual industrial clusters around the supply chain.
The industrial supply chain in the era of digital innovation has the characteristics of network-based value division. Through Internet information systems and strong production planning, it breaks through the tangible boundary between corporate organization and geographic space, and forms a highly specialized division of labor on a cross-regional scale. Downstream modular virtual industrial clusters.
For example, Apple in the United States has been rated as a "master-level" global supply chain by Gartner. It has established a highly flexible, global multi-domain product manufacturing system around mobile phone production, involving more than 800 companies around the world.
The third is a virtual industrial cluster around technical standards.
Technical standards are an important link for the agglomeration of high-tech enterprise networks.
In 2016, the Global Association for Mobile Communications Systems and 20 companies including Huawei, Davao, China Mobile and China Unicom jointly established the NB-IoT Forum. Each participating company exchanges digital coding knowledge and adds value to its own unique products or services. To the virtual cluster network, promote standard formulation, application promotion, technology realization and resource optimization in the field of NB-IoT technology.
The fourth is virtual industrial clusters around industrial parks.
Traditional industrial parks break through inherent geographical and industrial restrictions to form a new type of park that combines physical parks and virtual parks. There are no clear spatial constraints in geographic space. Cross-domain and cross-regional chain cooperation is carried out through contracts and networks to connect related industries. .
Guangzhou Pazhou Artificial Intelligence and Digital Economy Pilot Zone has gathered leading Internet companies such as Tencent, Alibaba, and Xiaomi to leverage the advantages of its ecological chain to give play to the dual effects of geographic space agglomeration and virtual space agglomeration. At the same time, it is closely cooperating with Guangzhou International Biological Island. Form a pattern of joint development of IT and BT clusters across the boundaries of the park.
Build virtual industrial clusters across geographic boundaries
The National Development and Reform Commission and other 13 departments jointly issued the "Opinions on Supporting the Healthy Development of New Business Forms and New Models to Activate the Consumer Market to Drive Employment Expansion", proposing to "create'virtual' industrial parks and industrial clusters across physical boundaries."
Based on the strategic needs of innovative cluster development models and the construction of virtual industrial clusters, it is recommended to make efforts in the following aspects:
The first is to strengthen the government's "top-down" guidance and support the acceleration of the construction of cross-regional virtual industrial clusters.
Advance the layout of new infrastructure network systems such as data centers, Internet of Things, and Industrial Internet, accelerate the intelligent transformation of traditional infrastructure, and effectively connect geographic space, physical space and virtual network space.
Focus on collaborative innovation in key links such as key technologies, production processes, and the industrialization of results, deploy a number of digital industry technology innovation platforms, and promote cross-field and cross-temporal integration and sharing of elements.
Explore the establishment of a regional integrated governance system that adapts to the spatial organization of the flow of innovative elements and collaborative innovation, and avoid "regional boundary lock-in."
The second is to vigorously support chain-based platform companies to create a virtual cluster platform that connects the industrial chain and supply chain.
Give full play to the core role of leading platform companies in the agglomeration of upstream and downstream companies, strengthen the chain to supplement the chain, and form a closed loop development of the industrial chain.
Build a virtual cluster platform that connects the industrial chain and the supply chain for the entire region and industry in accordance with the way of platform enterprise leadership, market selection, and dynamic adjustment.
Establish and improve the platform entry and exit mechanism and activity mechanism. Large companies build platforms and small and medium-sized enterprises use platforms for two-wheel drive to form a new platform ecosystem that integrates innovation and intelligent collaboration.
Promote the development model of networked platforms, effectively connect various innovation entities, intermediary organizations, innovation platforms, industrialization carriers, etc., to form an open innovation platform network.
The third is to give full play to the pivotal role of networked collaborative organizations and optimize the structural foundation of virtual industrial clusters.
Establish a group of cluster promotion agencies and cluster alliances with platform companies and industry associations as the main body, adopt the "gathering core-industrial chain-cluster network" interactive symbiosis coupling development model, accelerate the breakthrough of various boundary restrictions, and promote the interaction between the upper, middle and lower reaches of the industrial chain. Network-based integrated collaborative innovation of integration and symbiosis, division of labor and cooperation, and benefit sharing.
Realize the collaborative evolution of enterprises, industries, and regional innovation networks, and promote the development and evolution of clusters toward a higher level.
Launch the cluster internationalization plan, carry out international research and development cooperation, and expand the channels for cluster participants to acquire new knowledge to the global innovation network, providing more possibilities for knowledge and technological innovation, cluster update and reorganization.
The fourth is to coordinate the layout of digital industrial clusters, cultivate increments, upgrade stocks, and support the domestic and international dual cycle.
Based on major national and regional strategic deployments, breaking the restrictions of administrative divisions, coordinating the layout of major productivity in the digital industry at the national level, and forming a goose formation development pattern of inter-regional division of labor and industrial coordination.
Accelerate the improvement of quality and efficiency in existing digital industry clusters, and promote the virtual transformation of traditional industrial clusters and advanced manufacturing clusters.
Carry out pilot demonstrations of new formats and models of digital integration and innovation industries, and expand application scenarios of emerging digital industries.
Strengthen the innovation leading power of digital industry clusters, link the construction and development of central cities, metropolitan areas, and urban agglomerations, and form a digital industry cluster complex with urban agglomerations as the spatial scale.
(The author is an associate researcher at the Academy of Science and Technology Strategy Consulting, Chinese Academy of Sciences)