04 | everything must be done in advance: four issues that must be clearly considered before the construction of China Taiwan Relations

Share through the previous talks , I believe you have some understanding of the concept of Zhongtai .

There are many people and articles in the community talking about the concept of China Taiwan , But few articles describe the landing method in detail .

It's not because of how mysterious the landing of the middle platform is , But because, as mentioned earlier , Midrange is an enterprise level capability reuse platform , First of all, Zhongtai is concerned about enterprise level development , Generally, we call this kind of level problem the strategic problem of the enterprise , Each enterprise has a different strategy , Its core competence is also different , Naturally, the middle stage of each enterprise is also different .

Since the middle stage of each family is different , Does that mean the landing method of the middle platform , You can only depend on yourself , There is no trace ？

The answer, of course, is No , There must be rules to follow in the construction of Zhongtai , It is only more abstract than the methods of other technical classes . How to speak? ？ In essence, the middle office is also a problem of architecture , It's just that it's no longer the technical architecture we often see , It's a step up , It's an enterprise architecture issue .

therefore , Starting today , We officially enter the second part of the course , That is, the content of the landing chapter , Let's explore the methodology for the implementation of China Taiwan construction .

Are you ready to try ？ But we still have to wait , Before the formal introduction of methodology , We need to think about some problems first .

In recent years, I have participated in the middle stage construction of many enterprises , Some of them only got involved in the middle and late stage of the construction of Zhongtai , To put it bluntly, I went to put out the fire . When I first stepped in, I found that China Taiwan construction had reached the bottleneck period , There are all kinds of problems . After continuous analysis , I found that most of the problems can be attributed to the construction of Zhongtai , I didn't think about the following questions clearly .

therefore , Let's start with these questions .

Start with a story

In order for you to better understand , Here we make a virtual example .

“ Geek real estate ” It's a real estate company . Different from other real estate enterprises , This enterprise focuses on vertical fields , Mainly responsible for the development of real estate projects around the high-tech parks in the first and second tier cities , The service groups are mainly IT Working group .

Now the whole real estate industry , Due to policies and other reasons, they are developing towards asset light and diversified business . I heard that several major real estate leading enterprises are carrying out the construction of the middle stage with great fanfare , The boss of geek real estate called the most senior and knowledgeable in the company IT My little Wang , I hope Xiao Wang can shoulder the heavy responsibility of the company's middle office construction , Help the future transformation and development of the enterprise .

After Xiao Wang learned the news , Very excited . As the person who knows the most about the company's information construction , In addition, we have been paying close attention to the concept of "Zhongtai" that everyone is talking about outside , Know the core and importance of Zhongtai to an enterprise . Such an important task falls on my shoulders , Xiao Wang is determined to do well , Don't let your boss down .

Blink of an eye , Six months have passed .

Look at Xiao Wang at this time , The original ambition has long disappeared , On the contrary, they are exhausted , I was overwhelmed by the pressure from all sides , Specifically, ：

• Since the establishment of the China Taiwan team , All businesses will continue to raise demands , The boundary of the middle stage itself is rather vague , However, people and resources were first seconded and divided from the front desk , So it's hard to refuse the demands of the front desk , The middle office seems to be an internal outsourcing team shared by all front office business teams . The problem of demand congestion and scheduling also began to appear , There are too many demands to work overtime every day , The front office business also complained about the slow response of the middle office , Affecting the front-line business .
• The middle office team is also in an awkward position . There are many stakeholders , There are various front office teams in front , At the back, it is necessary to integrate various existing core systems of the enterprise , We should also face the constant supervision of our leaders . And most of all , All parties feel that they have different understandings and demands for Zhongtai , Even the demands of some different stakeholders will conflict with each other . The Zhongtai team and Xiao Wang are sandwiched between the parties , Constantly pulled by various stakeholders , Very afflictive .
• also , Zhongtai has been under construction for some time , Half a year has passed , But what worries Xiao Wang is , I don't think there are many construction achievements . It's a mess , It mainly responds to the needs of various front office businesses , But the front desk business doesn't like to use , When raising demands, one is more active than the other , When the front desk access is really needed , It is to use various reasons to shirk , Unwilling to access . It seems that there is no big difference between what Zhongtai has done and what it hasn't done , Didn't achieve the expected effect , I didn't even think about the expected effect .
• ……

There are many similar problems , Xiao Wang has lost his original edge at this time , Frown everyday .

Four issues that must be clearly thought out before the construction of the Middle East and Taiwan

Although this is a fictitious story , But in reality, such a situation is not uncommon . In the middle stage construction of many enterprises I have contacted , There have been similar problems more or less , It also bothers all the middle office teams , It will even shake the enterprise's determination to build a middle platform , Reconsider whether the middle stage is the right direction .

But in my opinion , To get out of this dilemma , We need to think clearly about four issues before the construction of Zhongtai .

What is the vision of Zhongtai construction ？

“ Never make up your mind when you are in trouble ”, This is in the process of planning and landing the middle platform , The most spoken sentence .

Too often we confuse the solution with the problem itself . Zhongtai is just a solution , But most of the time, I see that people regard Zhongtai as the problem itself , What does it look like to be obsessed with the middle stage of others , What should my middle stage look like , Instead of focusing on whether the central office has solved the problems that should be solved , I don't even have a clear idea of what problems China and Taiwan want to solve .

So what I am often asked is , What should the middle stage look like ？ How to build the middle platform ？ But I usually ask a question first ： What problem did you build Zhongtai to solve ？ What value does it have for the enterprise and business ？ In many cases , The other person can't answer clearly and directly , Or say a bunch of things like eliminating chimneys , Remove islands, etc “ Big talk ”. in my opinion , This is the fact that we have not yet made clear the vision of China Taiwan construction .

The middle stage is like a product , Need a clear vision , Let everyone know clearly , The value of Zhongtai construction to enterprises and businesses , So we can keep moving in the same direction together . If the vision is missing , Then it will be easy for us to lose our way in the process of the construction of Zhongtai , Lose concentration .

Vision helps us understand our goal of building a middle office , Help us judge what is in line with the vision of Zhongtai construction , As a middle office team, we need to consider . Beyond this , What is more important is to help us judge what is not what the middle office should do , Subtract for the middle stage , This is actually more important in the construction of Zhongtai .

Especially in the early stage of the construction of Zhongtai , Projects are often still in the pilot stage , There won't be too many people and resources at your disposal , If you don't have your own direction , Will fall into the situation of Xiao Wang above , Turn the middle office into an internal shared outsourcing team .

Therefore, in the construction of the front stage , The first thing to ask yourself is ： We build Zhongtai , What is the vision ？ And more importantly, this vision requires all the roles , Go up to the enterprise management , All relevant personnel down to the middle office should make clear and reach an agreement .

How do you do it ？ In the actual implementation process , There will be some tools and practices , I will share it with you later in the course of middle stage design .

Who are the users and customers of the middle office ？

This issue is also very critical , Because the middle office is an enterprise level business , Inevitably, we will face organizational problems and numerous stakeholder problems .

Let's be frank , The construction of the middle office is usually accompanied by organizational restructuring and redistribution of interests and responsibilities within the enterprise . If we do not understand the relationship between the various stakeholders of China Taiwan construction , Inevitably, in the process of the construction of the Zhongtai, there will be four walls , fall into “ Stakeholder vortex ” In , Faced with various resistance , Into a very passive situation .

So before the construction of Zhongtai , We'd better find out if Zhongtai is a product , Who are its users ？ Who are the customers ？ Are users and customers a group ？ What other stakeholders besides users and customers ？ What expectations do they have for Zhongtai , Are these expectations consistent ？

To figure this out , We can think of the enterprise as a family , Specific to a business line, it is like a child in the family , He is more concerned about whether I can play more today , That is what we often call short-term tactical goals , Back in the enterprise is my business line this year or even this month KPI Whether the goal can be achieved .

The management of the enterprise is like the parents of the family , He focuses more on the future of his children , Can you spell tens of thousands of other people's children during the college entrance examination , To achieve sustainable development , That is what we often call long-term strategic objectives , Focus on the next five years , What will the enterprise look like in ten years or even longer .

At this time, the Zhongtai is like a K12 Our English education products are the same , Then think about it , If you are the product manager of this product , Who would you care more about ？ It is the short-term tactical goal of the child who is the actual user of the product , Let him have a good time , Even like a game ？ Or the person who actually pays for the product , That is, the long-term strategic goal of the parents of product customers , Even for the best results , At the expense of the child's user experience ？

In this case , The fundamental problem lies in the contradiction between long-term strategic objectives and short-term tactical objectives . The answer is simple ： We all need to pay attention . We need to find the combination of enterprise management and line of business concerns , That is, the combination of long-term strategic value and short-term tactical value .

And for the middle stage , The situation may be more complicated than mentioned above , Its stakeholders are not just users and customers , Because of its special location , Stakeholders are often complex . Keep your direction , Find the joint of the interests of all parties , Is a very difficult and necessary thing . otherwise , In the process of construction, it will be subject to resistance from all parties , There's friction , As a result, it is difficult for the middle stage to push forward and land .

But on the contrary , China and Taiwan should not just try their best to meet the demands of all parties , After all, the middle office team is not an outsourcing team . The middle office needs to have its own ideas and plans , To be able to listen to others , But you have to be clear about your goals , Go your own way . And my goal , It comes from the above-mentioned vision for the construction of the middle office , And the vision of Zhongtai often comes from the strategic needs of the enterprise .

therefore , I often say , Although the construction of China and Taiwan needs to take into account the interests of all parties , However, it is mainly to solve the fear and anxiety of enterprise management about the long-term survival and sustainable development of the company .

It's very important to think about this , Because the next question is related to this , That is, who should pay the Zhongtai money ？

Who pays for the Zhongtai ？

We often say that talking about money hurts our feelings , Also often choose to avoid talking about . But the problem of money is often the essence behind many problems , It is also the source of many contradictions in the process of building China and Taiwan .

The money here is more vernacular , For the inside of the enterprise , It may represent people and resources . therefore , This question can also be extended to the question of where the people in the middle stage come from ？ Secondment from the front desk team ？ Or re recruit new organizations ？ The construction of a middle platform often lasts a long time , Who will bear the cost of these people ？ If the middle office empowers the front office business , Should we divide a part of the budget of each front office business as the construction budget of the middle office ？

If these problems are not considered clearly , It will also bring great trouble to the construction of the middle office .

in my opinion , The construction of Zhongtai in the market , In terms of investment structure , Basically, it can be divided into two types , namely “ Crowdfunding model ” and “ Investment and financing mode ”. Of course , We can also see these two types of mixed patterns .

First say “ Crowdfunding model ”. I believe you can see it at a glance , The crowdfunding model is the user prepayment , The manufacturer promises to provide a certain type of product after a certain period of time . Back to the background of Zhongtai construction , Is to raise funds from the front desk of the business , The rich hold a money market, but the poor touch a personal market , A budget that can work out a budget , A person who can make a difference , To build a middle office team , And then in turn serve the front office business team .

I also mentioned in the previous talks , The middle desk is built for the front desk business , So it seems that there are resources on the front desk , The middle desk serves the front desk , Take people's money to help people deal with disasters , b. .

In fact, there is a big problem hidden here , The problem lies in the match between the vision of Zhongtai construction and the investment model of Zhongtai . Because the business front desk gives priority to its own short-term practical problems , From the front office business, which is already short of resources , And then divide certain resources for the construction of China and Taiwan , The business front desk is the actual investor of the middle office construction , As mentioned earlier, he will also pay more attention to short-term tactical goals , Naturally, I hope that China and Taiwan can see results in the short term , Help yourself solve practical problems .

If the vision of Zhongtai is to solve the short-term problems of the business side , Actually, it's OK . But most of the visions I have seen for the construction of Zhongtai are at the strategic level of the enterprise , It is built for the long-term development of the enterprise .

At this time, if we still adopt the crowdfunding mode , You will find it very contradictory . Enterprise management , It is often the initiator of the middle stage , He focuses more on long-term strategic goals , The middle office team needs to listen ; However, the front office business team is the actual investor and user of the middle office , Both users and customers , He focuses on relatively short-term tactical goals , We need to see the actual value of the achievements of China Taiwan construction to the business in the short term , The middle office team should listen to . At this time, the Zhongtai team will naturally be pulled by the long-term goals and short-term goals , Very afflictive .

So if the vision of Zhongtai construction is to solve the long-term strategic goal of the enterprise , Then I suggest we try to use another one that we are familiar with “ Investment and financing mode ”, Or at least a combination of investment and financing and crowdfunding .

Investment and financing mode , seeing the name of a thing one thinks of its function , That is, in the early stage of the construction of a product, the investor shall pay for it , After a period of construction according to the construction objectives of the product , After relative maturity , Then gradually let users use , Finally, through the service for users , Make users satisfied , The mode of realizing income, recovering enterprise investment and making profits . At present, most start-ups adopt a similar model , I believe you are familiar with .

For the investment and financing mode of Zhongtai construction , It is the early stage of the construction of Zhongtai （ from 0 To 1）, Not directly from the front office business team , It is invested and constructed by the enterprise's own strategic reserve resources . After a certain period of construction , such as 6 Months , Then gradually find a suitable front office business for pilot access , If the effect is good, it will be extended to more front office business teams . When the service is stable , It also has a stable value for the front desk , Then gradually collect certain resources from the front desk , It can be people or other resources , The so-called recovery of investment and Realization of profit . The profit here is just a metaphor , It may meet the needs of the enterprise management for the enterprise's strategic objectives .

The advantage of this model is that the middle office team will have more autonomy in the early stage of the construction of the middle office , It will not be affected by too much existing business pressure during the start-up and fragile period , To better realize Zhongtai's own construction vision . But the disadvantage is that the enterprise needs to have strong strategic resources to support , Greater strategic determination is also required . I have seen many Internet companies' middle office construction , They often adopt similar patterns , So in the eyes of the outside world , Their middle stage construction is very direct and rapid .

So if your company has a vision of building a Zhongtai , It is to solve the pain points and problems of short-term tactics , The crowdfunding mode can be adopted to start the investment structure , The advantage of this is that the startup of the middle console will be smooth , High resource utilization , The initial new cost is low . But if the goal of China Taiwan construction is a long-term strategic problem , For example, business transformation , It is suggested that more consideration should be given to the use of enterprise strategic investment , Use investment and financing mode , This is more conducive to the healthy and rapid development of China Taiwan construction .

How to verify the target of the middle office ？

Remember the story of Xiao Wang mentioned at the beginning ？ Another difficulty in the construction of Zhongtai is that it is difficult to quantify the construction results . This is not like the business line at the front desk or what we often see ToC Types of products , It is relatively easy to find some quantitative indicators to measure the success of the product , For example, the number of common users , User activity or market coverage .

Of course, Zhongtai can also say , The reason why the front desk has these achievements , It's all the empowering effect of my Zhongtai , But it's often dangerous . Because we can't provide detailed data to prove these users 、 How much of this share is due to the achievements of the Zhongtai construction . contrary , The front desk business may say that the middle office is still holding back , You see, if it hadn't been for two times in the past few days , It has affected our front desk business , The numbers may be much better than they are now , wait .

You see , The middle desk serves as the front desk , Not only can they not share the joy of business success , On the contrary, it is easy to be thrown into the pot and become a pot bearer .

therefore , Start with the end , Before construction, we should think about how to verify and measure the middle office . By thinking about it in advance , So that we can avoid some wrangling and risks in the middle and later stages of construction .

At present, there are some assessment standards for the middle office in the industry that we can refer to , For example, Alibaba's mid platform assessment is designed to ：40% stability +25% Business innovation +20% Service access +15% Customer satisfaction .

Can our own middle office simply reuse other people's Indicators ？ The answer must be No . China and Taiwan have different visions , The assessment methods and indicators are naturally different .

For example, back to the example of geek real estate , The vision of Zhongtai construction is to support business transformation , Supporting the new business , It may not be necessary to require such high stability and access volume in the early stage , It may only support one or two new business lines , It is more about service satisfaction , Or other indicators .

Specific to the design of verification indicators for a certain middle office of an enterprise , This is a complicated process , And it tends to evolve , It needs to be combined with the above-mentioned middle office vision 、 Investment model 、 Stakeholders' interests and other relevant factors to integrate the design . Some of the ideas we used , I will tell you more about it in the planning and design of the middle stage .

Last , It is recommended that you do not wait until the construction is completed to consider how to measure , Try to think about it in advance, even before construction , Only in this way can we help the construction of China and Taiwan to the greatest extent , Don't mess up .

To sum up

In fact, the construction of Zhongtai is a very “ Dangerous ” The process of , The above question is only the most basic question .

Figure out why these questions are important , It is because they can help us judge the construction of Zhongtai “ Surrounding environment ” Whether it's ready . We have seen many enterprises build up middle-level enterprises , Some succeed and some fail , In fact, it is not because there is a big difference in strength and methods , The problems and difficulties we encounter are often the same .

The main thing is Whether the incubation environment in the middle stage has matured . Some enterprises did not succeed in the end, but because they left too early , The idea is too advanced , The surrounding environment is not ready yet .

So before the planning and construction of Zhongtai is really started , First ask ourselves these four questions , From my own experience , It is very necessary and helpful .

Last , If your company is also planning or has begun to build a middle platform , For the four questions mentioned today , Please think about it , Have you figured it out ？ Can I use a page A4 Write down the conclusions of these problems on paper , Then show it to others , Is the understanding consistent ？