Netease to B, soft outside, hard in

author | Zeng rang

writing | The Bell says

In an increasingly complex market environment , How to survive and develop better has become an important issue for every Internet enterprise . And for a long time , Whether it's To C still To B, Internet companies fighting in the fierce market are looking for “ Fast, fast, good business ” It has become common 、 Natural choice , It also seems to be more conducive to the long-term development of enterprises .

However , Recently, two interrelated events have occurred one after another , But it shows that this choice may not be the only correct answer .

On one side , It's from PC The era began to be established in the earliest stage 、 Until today's Internet evergreen —— Netease just celebrated its 25 Anniversary of the ;

On the other side , It's under Netease To B Business Netease has launched a new big data infrastructure platform product NDH. Simply speaking , The original mainstream products in the market —— Well known foreign manufacturers Cloudera Of Hadoop The release is out of service , At this time, Netease Shufan officially released its alternative version . I didn't expect this move to become famous in the technology circle KOL I don't understand , Point straight here “ Not a good business , It's a fire pit , Why does Netease jump in ？” And then , The person in charge of Netease Shufan also wrote , Give an explanation , call “ Do your business well , Win the past and pursue the so-called ‘ Good business ’”.

Two things come together , Found a very interesting phenomenon ： An Internet company that doesn't always do such a good business has passed through in the continuous questioning 25 year , And many of them rush as soon as they come up “ Good business ” Go to the Internet company , May have disappeared in the long river of history .

Review Netease and Netease To B Business development , From it, we may find the answer to how Internet companies can develop beyond common sense and cognition for a long time .（ If you are interested in the discussion between both parties , At the end of the article, their respective views are posted ）

“ Soft exterior ” The netease , from To C To To B All the time “ lack ” Offensive

all the time , Although Netease can always appear at the top of various lists among Chinese Internet enterprises , But the company seems to have been lacking in business “ Offensive ”, Did not appear in the market competition with a fierce attitude .

stay PC In the early days of the Internet , Online games imported from South Korea and other places are popular all over the country , The number of online people has reached record highs , It triggered a large number of enterprises to import overseas . Due to the lack of high-quality products in the market , As long as the introduction, almost all can have a good performance , This is typical “ Good business ”.

But Netease didn't do this , It chooses self-development rather than introduction , And the product type chooses to fight with these imported Games PK The main difference , Whether it's realistic 《 A Chinese Odyssey 》, Or cartoon style 《 Fantasy westward journey 》, All of them are based on relaxed social turn playing methods .

In online games , Netease also doesn't have a positive market share , Instead, I made an extra piece of cake , This can be seen later 《 Yin Yang teacher 》、《 Never stop 》 Wait for the game development to see .

Other important business lines of Netease , For example, online music 、 Online retailers , Offensive “ lack ” They all have similar performances .

Online music kills traffic in various ways , Even by inducing downloads 、 Binding rogue software and other ways to increase the number of users , Netease cloud music plays with the feelings of music , Taking the route of community subculture ;

When the e-commerce track is in full swing , Large and small enterprises sharpen their heads or imitate Alibaba 、 Or imitate JD , Netease didn't set foot in this “ Good business ” The Red Sea , Instead, I created Netease strict election 、 Netease Weiyang such “ alternative ”、 A platform that will not let competitors directly feel the threat of the market .

With the tide of digital economy , stay To B Business , Netease, which seems to lack offensive characteristics from the outside , More obvious .

As Netease To B The main bearer of , The development of Netease Shufan seems to be fast and large-scale 、 Protruding left and entering right 、 Go ahead 、 Seize the opportunity to quickly expand the team, these practices do not go hand in hand , So many industry media directly define Netease's practice of counting sails as doing “ Slow business ”.

In this context , Netease Shufan launched NDH, Choose to do what no one else does 、 Also considered not “ Good business ” Of Hadoop Distribution business , Not those hot tracks , In terms of style , It's not unexpected .

In the market of serving the digitalization of government and enterprises , Netease Shufan is more like a “ People and animals are harmless ” The existence of , No big bang 、 No concept , So many Internet companies are doing To B In business , Will forget the existence of Netease as a competitor .

from To C To To B, Netease has never changed .

“ Soft exterior ” under ,“ Just in ” It is the secret of the success of Netease products ？

Lack of aggressiveness , It doesn't mean that Netease's products are unsuccessful , contrary ,25 Over the years , such “ Soft exterior ” under , A large number of products from NetEase have gone their own way .

Do not engage in self-developed round games stimulated by dopamine 《 Fantasy westward journey 》, Harvest 268 Wan is online at the same time , It has become a phenomenal online game that continues to be popular so far ;

Netease cloud music to create a community cultural atmosphere , The topic continues unabated , It has become one of the most popular online music platforms in China ;

Netease strict selection has created a unique strict selection mode in the field of e-commerce , Be imitated , At present, it has precipitated as high as 10 100 million post purchase user comments ……

Looking back , There was no offensive product success at first , Basically, Netease is nothing more than a kind of “ Good business ” Other than the appropriate way to meet the user experience .

2D Turn system makes online games easy and interesting 、 No more tension , But there is also a sense of gain ; The culture of music platform allows users to find resonance with life through music , Return to spiritual pursuit ; Strict selection helps users in “ Dyslexia of choice ” Next, select the products , Strengthen user connection ——2022Q1 Financial report for the first quarter , Netease strictly selected Pro Member size increased year on year 65%, This connection began to harvest on a large scale .

Now? ,To B The era of , Netease Shufan is doing something with Netease To C The product is internally consistent , But its target of demand has changed , From ordinary users to customer enterprises .

Reply KOL“ A pit of fire ” When questioned , Wang Yuan, head of Netease Shufan, explained why Hadoop The direct cause of the distribution business , That is, the data research and development and data platform originally provided by Netease Shufan for customers can be built on the existing basic software of customers , Including those that are no longer updated and have risks CDH, Now , Under the needs of customers , Netease has made its own technology independent NDH Help customers achieve bottom replacement , It becomes a natural thing .

It can be seen that , To the outside world, Netease Shufan seems to have chosen one that everyone is not optimistic about Hadoop The distribution business is doing , But in fact , Netease Shufan just wants to take advantage of the situation to meet the needs of customers .

Under this kernel , Netease Shufan shows many differences with others in the market To B Characteristics of inconsistent practices .

for example , Don't chase the tuyere , Instead, find what you are best at and meet the needs of users and keep doing it .

NDH Just one of them , Before independent production , It has been used in Netease for a long time . In the short term , Its release can help Netease Shufan seize part of the reason CDH Customers and markets brought by service suspension ; In the long run , This product is polished for a long time , It is already Netease “ Better things ”, Under the precipitation of practice, it is also more able to support the data business of customer enterprises . According to Wang Yuan ,“ Now that it's done , We must find ways to do better .” Netease sail counting plan will NDH Gradually push forward to become a “ Increasingly powerful analysis oriented data storage and computing platform ”.

For example , Do not control customers , And advocate helping customers grow , Promote customers to be independent .

in the past ,To B There is a joke in the field , The solution is to let customers “ Get on a thief's boat ”, Let customers rely on themselves , Continuous follow-up service can get a lot of benefits , Many enterprises do this . But Netease Shufan has always emphasized that it should hand over control to customers , Do it with an open attitude To B Business , Teaching a man to fish is better than giving him a fish , Finally, let customers be able to “ On the way ”, Be able to do some business by yourself .

Maybe it's to match this idea , Netease Shufan has its own paranoia about the opening of technical architecture , This is embodied in the modularization of products , For example, despite NDH product , But they do not bundle data research and development or data platforms , But to separate and let customers choose freely , Users can still choose to adopt CDH、FusionInsight etc. . Of course , If necessary , It can be changed to NDH, But this change is technically free .

For example , Do not over standardize 、 Rapid replication of growth patterns , And emphasize professional services to customers .

This point , It is related to the difference between the data business in the Chinese market and the global common practice . In Europe and America , The long-term commercial economy has made standardized services such as the public cloud widely available , Many large enterprises and even government units can operate on the public cloud , for example NASA、FINRA（ The financial industry regulator ）、GE、 Novartis et al , Many domestic entities , In regulatory compliance 、 The external and self requirements in terms of data security are more stringent, even more stringent , Therefore, special data services become particularly important .

In this context , Netease Shufan emphasizes expert service 、 The whole process of service , Ranging from IT Consultation 、 planning , To implement 、 Operation and maintenance 、 Even knowledge transfer can fully serve customers , Make the mode very heavy —— This goes against the usual “ Good business ” Definition .

Sum up , Follow on To C The characteristics of the field , stay To B On the track , Netease Shufan doesn't choose “ Good business ” The essence of , In fact, it is nothing more than paying attention to customers 、 Constantly polish the performance of products , Ultimately help customers achieve business goals such as cost reduction and efficiency increase .

This slow business 、 Not the best business , Maybe just doing “ valuable ” Business .

“ Just in ” The essence of , It is the return of value that Internet enterprises are pursuing

Including large Internet enterprises , Under the interweaving of the external environment , Wave after wave of layoffs , One of the hardest hit areas is undoubtedly To B field .

It's good for the enterprise in the early stage for some “ Good business ” The project is busy, and a large group of people are quickly gathered , But I didn't think about what is the most important to customers “ valuable ” Technology 、 Products or services , Invest a lot of money and revel for a while , As a result, the stall is too big and has no value support , The birds and beasts scattered in a hasty end , The final performance is the huge scale of layoffs 、 On the feather .

As the market returns to rationality , The dividends of asymmetric information disperse , Customer enterprises will pay more and more attention to what they purchase 、 Cooperative To B Can business bring real value to itself .

Internet companies used to see many “ Good business ” How to do it , In the eyes of customers, it is not “ valuable ” Business , This requires that the current Internet enterprises must adjust their ideas and playing methods .

In this sense , Many Internet companies have begun to cut down what used to be seen as “ Good business ” Project , Except for their failure , The active adjustment and return of enterprises are also important reasons .

stay To B On the track , More and more enterprises begin to help enterprises progress with the attitude of service , recollect “ Customer success ” This To B The fundamental goal of the business , Instead of just focusing on strengthening yourself . This is not a strong man breaking his wrist , It is the restart of Internet enterprises .

Take Netease Shufan as an example , One outstanding performance is , They define their opportunities in digital basic software , The competition and cooperation relationship with mainstream cloud manufacturers is often more manifested in open cooperation . A similar , Application development based on basic software , Netease Shufan will also not provide all services , such “ Stick to your duty ” Behind doing fine and professional work is right “ valuable ” Guided persistence .

NetEase To B What you do is not necessarily To B The only referential object in the field , But at least , When more and more Internet enterprises have similar practices ,To B Perhaps the business will truly realize the return of value , And the Internet enterprises behind it will be further away from long-term development .

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【 End 】

Zeng rang

1 Titanium media 、 Product path 、 Everyone is a product manager and many other venture capital 、 Top 10 authors of science and technology website of the year ;

2 Judge of Huxiao Award ;

3 The writer ：【 Mobile Internet + Business opportunities in the new normal 】 Best selling author ;

4 《 China business daily 》《 Business community 》《 Business Review 》《 Sales and marketing 》 Wait for nearly ten newspapers 、 Magazine commentator ;

5 Titanium media 、36kr、 Tiger sniffing 、 Interface 、 Surging news and so on 80 Columnist ;

6 “ Brain artist ”（ Brain craftsman ） Concept proposer , Now it has evolved into “ We-Media ”, Become an industry ;

7 Tencent all media school honorary tutor 、 Communication consultant of many technology intelligence companies .