From Liu Qiangdong, Ma Huateng to Li Yanhong, why do tech giants fire frequently?

　　A wave of reflection has swept across the technology and Internet industry.

　　Liu Qiangdong, the former chairman of JD Group, internally criticized some executives, saying that "people who fool themselves with PPT and fake vocabulary are liars." Immediately afterwards, Ma Huateng said at the staff meeting that "there is not much time left for some businesses of Tencent. ", the internal corruption issue is "shocking", and ByteDance CEO Liang Rubo said at the company's general meeting that he will continue to "reduce fat and increase thinness". The harshly worded internal letter mentioned customer trust many times, and asked Alibaba Cloud to improve its working methods and risk identification and handling methods accordingly.

　　On January 6, Robin Li, chairman and CEO of Baidu, gave a speech at the plenary meeting. He pointed out many problems existing in the company, such as asking technical experts not to "self-proclaim" and making technologies that the market really needs; It’s good news”, and mentioned that many employees and even some executives think that the new business is right to lose money.

　　Behind the collective reflection and adjustment signals released by the top leaders of technology and Internet companies is the end of the era of the Internet's barbaric growth and disorderly expansion.

Especially when the industry enters the "second half", due to changes in the macro environment, the peak of the demographic dividend, the continuous impact of the epidemic, and the decline in market value, cost reduction, efficiency increase and high-quality growth have become key words for the industry's next development.

　　According to CNNIC's previous report, the growth of Internet users in China has continued to slow down in recent years, the demographic dividend has already peaked, and the Internet advertising business is also under pressure.

The QuestMobile report pointed out that in the first half of this year, the scale of China's Internet advertising market was about 290.36 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 2.3%, and the number of advertising brands dropped by 38.3% year-on-year. , compared with the same period last year, only a slight increase of 0.9%.

　　From the perspective of performance, in the past year, Tencent reached the bottom in the second quarter of last year, with revenue of 134 billion yuan, until the third quarter rebounded to 140.1 billion yuan.

The net profit from the first quarter to the third quarter under non-international financial reporting standards (Non-IFRS) also experienced from 25.5 billion yuan, to 28.1 billion yuan, and then to 32.25 billion yuan.

Alibaba's latest financial report shows that the mid-term revenue of the 2023 fiscal year is 412.731 billion, with a net loss of 2.169 billion. Due to the disruption of the supply chain and logistics caused by the new crown and the impact of continuous competition, the core business of China's retail business is 268.199 billion yuan, compared with the same period last year. Compared with the same period last year, it decreased by 1%; customer management revenue decreased by 8% year-on-year.

Previously, Bytedance Liang Rubo also revealed that revenue growth has slowed down and product DAU is growing, but it is lower than the expectations set at the beginning of the year.

　　In the past year, technology and Internet giants including Tencent, JD.com, Byte, Xiaomi, etc. have carried out employee "optimization". Come.

It has become the consensus of Internet giants to shrink and adjust business strategies, tighten money bags, and reduce costs and increase efficiency.

　　At the staff meeting, Ma Huateng said that everyone should form a habit of reducing costs and increasing efficiency; Li Yanhong emphasized in his internal speech that Baidu has begun to adjust, and that gross profit is more quality than income; Liang Rubo also said that Byte will continue to "reduce fat and increase thinness"; Liu Qiangdong asked JD.com to return to the core of the company's business strategy "cost, efficiency, and experience."

　　"When Internet companies become big companies, Internet companies increasingly need to optimize internal management to improve Internet companies' operating efficiency." Regarding this wave of reflections on Internet leaders, Zhejiang University International Business School Digital Economics and Finance Pan Helin, co-director and researcher of the Innovation Research Center, told reporters that this also means that Internet platform companies have entered a mature stage from the growth stage. In the past, they were fighting for traffic, but in the future they will be fighting for business management.

　　After reducing costs and increasing efficiency, and returning to the essence of business, where will the Internet giants go next?

　　From the micro level of the enterprise, Zhang Yong has set a "progress" strategy for Ali in 2023.

In Alibaba's new round of structural adjustments, Ali appointed a new Chief Human Resources Officer (CPO) and Chief Technology Officer (CTO), and Zhang Yong concurrently served as President of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence.

The organization responds to changes flexibly in order to promote the advancement of strategy and business. After taking the first step of organizational change, it is expected that a series of changes and developments such as Alibaba's new strategy, specific style of play, and new growth points are brewing. .

　　In the eyes of Ma Huateng, the most eye-catching business of the WeChat business group is the video account, which he evaluates as "basically the hope of the whole company."

In Tencent's financial report for the past year, the video account was mentioned many times. For example, the revenue from the live broadcast service of the video account has become one of the core factors for the growth of Tencent's value-added business. The total user time of the video account exceeds 80% of the circle of friends. Strong advertising demand and more.

But it is worth mentioning that the flow of the video account is largely inseparable from the diversion of WeChat, a super application, and Douyin is still its strong competitor.

　　At the general meeting, Robin Li also mentioned that Baidu does not have such a star product as Ma Huateng’s video account, but its research and development intensity and proportion of research and development are higher than those of Tencent. return." He said that he hoped that Baidu will "at least have a high-growth and innovative business in the new year, truly above and beyond our expectation (exceeding expectations)."

　　In addition to actively looking for the second curve of growth, industry insiders generally predict that Internet companies will continue to reduce costs and increase efficiency in 2023, and will continue to reduce internal costs, such as "optimizing" personnel and marginalized businesses that do not make money. , to further release internal management efficiency.