news

한어Русский языкEnglishFrançaisIndonesianSanskrit日本語DeutschPortuguêsΕλληνικάespañolItalianoSuomalainenLatina

author:Song Zhiping, Chairman of the China Association of Listed Companies and Chief Expert of the China Enterprise Reform and Development Research Association

source:CEO Reading Club

Hello everyone, I am very happy to come to the HSBC Business School of Peking University in Shenzhen today to attend the launch ceremony of the new book "Innovation Highland - Shenzhen Innovation Revelation", which is also the first launch of this book. Thank you very much for coming. My sharing today is mainly divided into the following three parts.

Why I wrote this book

I have been in business for 40 years. In recent years, I have been the chairman of the China Association of Public Companies. There are 5,400 A-share listed companies in China and 1,800 Chinese listed companies overseas, totaling 7,200. In recent years, in addition to my work as the chairman, I have also done a lot of teaching work, mainly providing EMBA and DBA business education for schools; I also have some time to communicate with the younger generation of entrepreneurs, which is also a very important job; and I also write books for everyone. I have written 24 books so far. The first 23 books are all about business management, which summarizes some of my past experiences, thoughts and feelings.

I often say how can I write a book?Do first, talk later, then write. First do it, that is, do business, observe enterprises, and study enterprises. After gaining certain experience, talk to students in school. After speaking clearly, write down what you have said. This is the process of writing books. Unknowingly, I have written 24 books.

Frankly speaking, the book "Innovation Highland" is different from the previous 23 books because this book is written on the theme of innovation and entrepreneurship in Shenzhen. It is also a book written jointly by the three of us, Academician Liu Ke, Mr. Shen Qinghua, and me.

Why write this book? There are several reasons:

First,Innovation is the theme of this era. We are now talking about "new quality productivity", and its core is actually innovation.

Second, Shenzhen is a national leader in innovation. As one of the earliest special economic zones in my country,Shenzhen has rapidly developed into a world-class innovation hub. Its experience in reform and innovation has been learned and drawn upon by the whole country and has very important implications for the whole country.

As you all know, there are many study groups from all over the country coming to Shenzhen every day, and many local governments and enterprises also come to Shenzhen to study, but we feel that Shenzhen actually needs a book that systematically introduces Shenzhen's innovation and entrepreneurship experience. For this reason, we hope to systematically summarize Shenzhen's experience and share it with everyone.

Third, in the past few years I have been a distinguished professor at SUSTech (Southern University of Science and Technology). The School of Innovation and Entrepreneurship of SUSTech has established an organization for business leadership learning to provide training for business leaders and young entrepreneurs. I have also been doing training and education work here for several years.I hope to write such a book for SUSTech and do some work for SUSTech.SUSTech hopes to become the Stanford of Shenzhen. I think SUSTech and its School of Innovation and Entrepreneurship also need such a book, which can serve as a textbook on innovation and entrepreneurship at SUSTech in the future.

What is this book mainly about?

This book mainly describes the ecosystem of innovation and entrepreneurship in Shenzhen, which covers not only enterprises, but also governments, schools, research institutes, entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial spirit, etc. In other words, it is very important for us to study what kind of innovation ecology Shenzhen is.

The first chapter of this book explains why Shenzhen is an innovation highland and what makes it "high"; the second to eighth chapters talk about cases of corporate innovation and entrepreneurship in Shenzhen; the last chapter talks about the conclusion, which is the ten major revelations of Shenzhen's innovation and entrepreneurship summarized from this.

The core of this book is still about businesses and entrepreneurs, and it uses a large number of cases, so it is actually a case book.We visited hundreds of companies and government departments to write this book, and it took us three years to complete it. The first two years were spent in the context of the epidemic, and we really put in a lot of effort. We hope to give a more comprehensive and systematic introduction to Shenzhen's innovation.

actually,This is not a theoretical book, but a book that summarizes and generalizes practice.This book is a bit like Jim Collins' "Built to Last", which is also a summary of a large number of corporate and entrepreneur cases. This book is very easy to read, not only for government officials, but also for entrepreneurs and young entrepreneurs, or experts and scholars who like to study enterprises. I think it is quite practical and has certain reference significance.

Ten revelations from Shenzhen’s innovation

Today, I mainly want to talk to you about the conclusion of this book, which is the ten revelations of Shenzhen’s innovation.

Revelation 1: Culture is the soul, and innovation requires innovative culture.

Nobel Prize winner Edmund Phelps wrote a book called "The Great Prosperity". He believed that two things are important for innovation: one is innovation culture, and the other is grassroots innovation. These are the underlying logic of innovation.

From the perspective of Shenzhen, what are Shenzhen's underlying values ​​and where does its innovative culture come from? This book analyzes two sources:One is the culture of reform and opening up, and the other is Shenzhen’s immigrant culture.Shenzhen is an immigrant city. People from all over the world gather in Shenzhen with the idea of ​​changing their lives and destiny. This is very important. Shenzhen is a place where everyone wants to innovate and start a business. People who stay in Shenzhen may not think it is anything special, but if you come to Shenzhen from other places, you will find this particularly important. This is the underlying logic of Shenzhen, that is, the culture of innovation.

Revelation 2: Combine an effective market with an efficient government.

Sometimes we think that innovation is a market behavior, but in fact, innovation around the world also depends on an effective government, especially in a country like China, where the government's actions are also very important for innovation. The combination of an effective market and an effective government is the characteristic of innovation with Chinese characteristics, and Shenzhen is particularly prominent in this regard.

Revelation three: Respect entrepreneurs and promote entrepreneurial spirit.

General Secretary Xi Jinping once said a wonderful thing: "The vitality of the market comes from people, especially entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial spirit." I remember a leader in Shenzhen said that our lychees are not as good as those in Dongguan, and our seafood is not as good as that in Hong Kong. Shenzhen's local specialties are entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial spirit. This sentence is very straightforward, but it hits the nail on the head.

The most important things in Shenzhen are entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial spirit. Shenzhen is a fertile ground for the growth of entrepreneurs.Over the years, a large number of entrepreneurs have grown up in this fertile soil, including both large and small entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs are Shenzhen's most valuable assets. When we studied Shenzhen's innovation, we also felt that one of the core elements of Shenzhen's innovation is entrepreneurship.Entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial spirit are the driving force behind Shenzhen's innovation.

What is entrepreneurship? I think there are three main aspects of entrepreneurship:One is innovation.Innovation is the soul of entrepreneurs, but entrepreneurs are also the soul of innovation.The second is to persevere.Running a business is not a 100-meter sprint, nor is it an instant success. Running a business is a marathon. It may take ten years to sharpen a sword, but it may not be able to produce a sword after ten years of sharpening. I have told you before that it takes ten or twenty years to run a business well, and it may take thirty or forty years to achieve perfection. Everyone will ask: Mr. Song, how did you calculate it? I said I didn't calculate it, but I did it. The businesses I have run have lasted for thirty or forty years. Perseverance is a very important point in the entrepreneurial spirit.The third is responsibility.Marketing has no borders, but entrepreneurs have a motherland. As entrepreneurs, they must have a strong sense of patriotism and social responsibility.

In addition, I like a sentence about "entrepreneurial society". How should our society be composed? Mr. Drucker said that everyone wants high welfare, but high welfare is a society that breeds lazy people and is unsustainable. He believes that a healthy society is an entrepreneurial society, where everyone creates wealth, and more wealth will naturally bring welfare. If people do not create wealth and seek welfare, they may not be able to survive in the end.

Entrepreneurship is not only related to the rise and fall of an enterprise, but also to the healthy development of an economy and society. Therefore, entrepreneurship is very important and we should build an entrepreneurial society, and Shenzhen is such an entrepreneurial society.

Revelation 4: Private enterprises have strong innovation vitality and need to be carefully nurtured.

In Shenzhen's innovation process over the years, both state-owned enterprises and private enterprises have played an important role. However, if we look at Shenzhen, private enterprises have indeed grown from nothing to something, from small to large, from weak to strong, and have played a leading role in the development of Shenzhen. Leading companies such as Huawei, Tencent, and BYD are not only leading companies in Shenzhen, but also leading companies in related industries across the country, and even world-class companies. This is particularly clear in Shenzhen, which has done a lot of work in protecting and nurturing entrepreneurs.

Revelation 5: Make good use of capital leverage to promote innovation and entrepreneurship.

Innovation is inseparable from capital. In his book The Theory of Economic Development, Schumpeter wrote that "innovation is a new combination, enterprises are the subject of innovation, entrepreneurs are the soul of innovation, and capital is the lever of innovation for entrepreneurs." Without capital, entrepreneurs cannot innovate. In this regard, we can see that capital has played an important role in Shenzhen's innovation.

Shenzhen currently has 560 listed companies. I have been to Yuehai Street in Nanshan District, where there are 107 listed companies. Therefore, over the years, capital has played a very important role in Shenzhen's innovation, and we must attach great importance to capital.

When I visited some provinces and cities before, some leaders told me: Mr. Song, we lack technology and funds. I said, I want to correct them. First, we lack innovation culture. With innovation culture, we will have technology. Second, we lack capital, not just funds. You can just borrow funds from banks, but you have to pay them back. Capital is the lever for enterprises and entrepreneurs to be truly innovative.

Revelation 6: Attracting talents is important, but using talents is more important.

We can speak for this from our own experience. For example, we can feel it from Dean Hai Wen and Academician Liu Ke. Dean Hai Wen was originally the vice president of Peking University. Later, he came to Shenzhen and founded the HSBC Business School. I have been to many business schools in the world. In comparison, I think the HSBC Business School is very good in terms of design, environment, equipment and facilities. It can even be called a first-class business school. Talents like Dean Hai Wen, Shenzhen not only attracted him, but also supported him and built a platform for him to achieve success.

We should not only attract talents, but also use them. For example, Academician Liu Ke used to be an entrepreneur and a scholar. He is also a foreign academician from Australia and a world-renowned energy expert. He has deep experience and unique and profound insights into energy. He was also introduced by Shenzhen to become the founding dean of the School of Innovation and Entrepreneurship of SUSTech. Later, they invited me to be a distinguished professor. From them, we can see that attracting and using talents is very important. The book also talks about many examples. Today, the two of them are here, and we can feel the importance of attracting and using talents even more.

We all know that talent is important, but some places introduce talent in a way that is like Ye Gonghaolong. For example, they introduce many well-known experts and academicians, but are they used well? Have they created a good environment for them? Have their abilities and values ​​been fully utilized here? This is worth our deep consideration. Shenzhen not only creates a good environment for talents, but also builds a stage for talents to play their roles.

Revelation 7: Complete the industrial chain and drive innovation and prosperity.

Innovation requires a chain. The book cites a case in which a software engineer from Silicon Valley in the United States went on business trips to Shenzhen many times. After seeing a wide variety of mobile phone accessories in Huaqiangbei, Shenzhen, he actually bought a motherboard, battery, handset, display, sensor, etc., and then assembled an Apple mobile phone that was popular at the time. From this case, we can see that Shenzhen has a complete industrial chain around these products.

The industrial chain is crucial. When we talk about IT in Silicon Valley, the industrial chain in this place is very complete, and many companies gather here. In fact, Shenzhen is also very complete. Shenzhen's industrial chain is also very complete. Now there is a "chain leader system" for key industrial chains such as 5G, intelligent connected vehicles, and artificial intelligence. That is, the city leaders personally serve as "chain leaders" to promote the coordinated development of upstream and downstream industrial chains, production, supply and marketing, and large, medium and small enterprises, to supplement, strengthen and extend the chain, and create an industrial chain with international competitiveness.

Therefore, we can see that these innovative and high-tech enterprises are not isolated, and they cannot be established by just setting up a few enterprises at random. They must have the cooperation of the industrial chain. This is also an important inspiration for Shenzhen's innovation.

Revelation 8: To run education well, we must pay attention to “structure”.

Education is very important because it is the foundation of innovation. There is a man in the United States named Vannevar Bush, who was originally a member of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. After World War II, the United States found that most of its technology came from Europe. How could the United States have its own original technology? The then President of the United States asked Vannevar Bush to write a report, which we have now translated into the book Science: Endless Frontiers translated by CITIC Publishing Group.

What does this book talk about? It talks about how the United States must do a good job in education and basic research if it wants to develop in technology. If Shenzhen wants to become a world-class innovation center and China's Silicon Valley, it must also attach importance to education and basic scientific research. Mr. Ren Zhengfei said that what we lack are mathematicians, physicists, and chemists. We in China must work hard to change in mathematics, physics, chemistry, neurology, brain science, etc., so that we can stand up in this world.

Shenzhen has also put a lot of effort into education in recent years. I remember that Shenzhen University was the first to be established, and then many research institutes from other schools were introduced to Shenzhen. Later, several well-known universities including the Southern University of Science and Technology were established, and so on.

Schools are vital to the economy of a place. This includes not only the research of science and engineering, but also these institutes and business schools. In fact, whether there are good business schools is also very important for the economic development and enterprise development of a place. Some local governments have realized this, while some have not. So,Education not only cultivates talents, but is also the foundation of innovation.

Revelation 9: Broaden your horizons and organize innovative resources globally.

Innovation resources should be self-reliant and self-reliant, but innovation should also be open, and we should use the world's innovation resources for our own benefit. We should not only increase independent innovation, but also increase integrated innovation, and introduce various resources. For example, Huawei has more than 100 R&D centers around the world, and outstanding talents from all over the world can be used by Huawei. For this reason, we see that Shenzhen not only needs reform, but also needs to open up, and the key is reflected in the aspect of openness.

Revelation 10: Establish a sharing mechanism to achieve win-win results for all parties.

Sharing mechanism is also very important. I published a book last year called "Sharing Mechanism". Sharing is necessary for economic development and business development. In the past, it was more called incentive mechanism, but later I elevated it to sharing mechanism. In other words, today, to run a business, you must not only have entrepreneurial spirit and be a good leader of the enterprise, but also mobilize the enthusiasm of the majority of employees. How can we mobilize? This requires a mechanism.

What is a mechanism?Mechanism refers to the relationship between the company's benefits and the employees' interests. If there is a relationship, there is a mechanism; if there is no relationship, there is no mechanism.Today, we see that employees, cadres, and technicians in enterprises are not only workers, but also important human capital. Drucker talked about knowledge workers, and Ren Zhengfei talked about knowledge capitalism. Therefore, when we make enterprise allocations today, we cannot only see the role of financial capital, but also the role of human capital.Both human capital and financial capital need to share the wealth.

Huawei has entrepreneurs like Ren Zhengfei with entrepreneurial spirit, and a sharing mechanism that brings people together. Ren Zhengfei told me, "Old Song, I call you sharing." I said it's fine to share or not, anyway, there must be such a mechanism so that everyone can contribute their efforts. This is something that must be taken seriously when running a business.

I recently went to Pingyao Piaohao in Shanxi Province, which is today's bank. The mechanism of Pingyao Piaohao 200 years ago was that shareholders were silver shares, and the shopkeeper, accountant and clerks were personal shares. How was the year-end distribution divided? Silver shares got 50%, the shopkeeper and accountant got 25%, and the clerks got 25%. 200 years ago, Pingyao, Shanxi Province, actually established a banking system covering major cities across the country, relying on the mechanism.

The mechanism is to start from human nature. What do people think and what do they need? I often tell youThe essence of management is actually to fully mobilize people's enthusiasm, and to mobilize people's enthusiasm is actually to make good use of the mechanism.In an enterprise, even a god cannot do the job well without a mechanism, but with a mechanism, there is no need for a god to run the enterprise.

Innovation is the driving force of an enterprise, and mechanism is the vitality of innovation.Without a mechanism, innovation cannot be achieved. This is how the relationship between them is connected.

For this reason, when we run a business, we cannot just look at the factory buildings, equipment, products, and cash. The most important thing is to look at the people, their hearts, their inclinations, and how human nature works. The mechanism answers this question.

The above is the main content of my sharing today. In addition, you may be particularly concerned about a question: Shenzhen does have some special features, so are these innovative experiences and inspirations from Shenzhen suitable for learning and replicating in other places? Regarding this question, we thinkInnovation is actually not that magical. Innovation can be learned, and Shenzhen’s innovation experience and inspiration can also be learned and replicated.The original intention and significance of writing this book is to break through the mysterious window paper of innovation, summarize these particularities into generalities, find the laws and underlying logic behind innovation, let everyone learn together, and thereby promote and facilitate innovation and development in other regions.

Finally, I hope you like the book "Innovation Highland". It took a lot of effort to write this book. In fact, it is difficult to write about Shenzhen, and it is also difficult to write about Shenzhen's innovation and entrepreneurship, because Shenzhen is so profound, and the innovation and entrepreneurship stories of Shenzhen companies are too heavy. The three of us spent three years and may not be able to dig out all of them, but we did our best. I also hope that everyone will work together in the future to gradually make it more perfect and write a better book!