As the tide of reform and innovation surges, what path should Shandong’s state-owned enterprises take?
2024-08-17
한어Русский языкEnglishFrançaisIndonesianSanskrit日本語DeutschPortuguêsΕλληνικάespañolItalianoSuomalainenLatina
Reform and innovation follow the trend
——Practical observations on the transformation and innovative development of Inspur Group
Inspur actively implements the "three-wheel drive" strategy of hardware, software, and cloud computing services, and continues to promote transformation and innovative development. The picture shows the Inspur Yunzhou Operation Center.
Standing on the 37th floor of S01 building in Inspur Technology Park and looking out the window, the mountains in southern Jinan come into view like waves, giving people a feeling of sometimes heroic and sometimes sudden enlightenment.
The tide of reform and innovation is surging, and Inspur is now standing at a new starting point. "The Third Plenary Session of the 20th CPC Central Committee made a systematic deployment for further deepening reform in an all-round way, and proposed a series of reform measures such as building a high-level socialist market economic system and improving the system and mechanism for promoting high-quality economic development. It not only provides guidance and compliance for the reform and development of the group, but also brings many opportunities for the development of the group." Zou Qingzhong, Secretary of the Party Committee and Chairman of Inspur Group, said.
Shandong is a province with a large number of state-owned assets and state-owned enterprises. After experiencing waves of reforms in management methods, enterprise systems, and regulatory systems, the appearance of state-owned enterprises has undergone profound changes. In the new era and new journey, what is the path of state-owned enterprise reform? Inspur Group firmly grasps the principle of "state-owned system, private mechanism, and market incentives", promotes reforms from the system that is closely related to people, stimulates the innovative momentum of cadres and employees, achieves technological breakthroughs in multiple fields, and achieves double-digit growth in operating income and profits for three consecutive years.
Through Inspur Group's exploration and practice of transformation, innovation and development, the reporter captured not only the value judgment of whether to reform, but also the planning and path selection of how to reform and where to reform.
Transform and transform to build a world-class leading enterprise
On July 17, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of Shandong Province announced the first batch of "Top Ten Scientific and Technological Innovation Achievements" of provincial enterprises. Inspur Group took two seats - "Distributed Converged Storage for Key Cloud and Digital Intelligence Applications", which supports new data-centric infrastructure such as cloud computing to become a value production platform, generating direct economic benefits of 2.45 billion yuan; "Industrial Data Chain Network Integration Technology Research and Industrial Application", which successfully built a digital foundation for the Industrial Internet for 32 industries including food, energy, and electronics, serving more than 2,100 large, medium and small enterprises.
However, compared with the considerable market size brought by innovative achievements, Inspur people care more about the market's recognition and judgment: Inspur, which started out as a hardware manufacturer, has now achieved transformation!
"Transformation and innovative development are the inevitable choices for Inspur to break through development bottlenecks, cope with risks and challenges, and achieve long-term stability. Only by implementing the 'three-wheel drive' strategy of hardware, software, and cloud computing services and striving to achieve healthy development of the three major sectors can we ride on the tide of development." Zou Qingzhong said.
Internally, Inspur broke the original four BG (business group) structure, and the business units under each BG were transformed into secondary industrial companies or research institutions. After the business units were transformed into companies, the heads of each company changed from the previous management thinking to business thinking, paying more attention to efficiency, and better meeting the requirements of fierce market competition.
At the secondary unit level, we optimized the industrial layout, increased internal professional integration, established subsidiaries such as Inspur Industrial Internet and Inspur Computer, and established subsidiaries in the fields of smart cultural tourism and smart technology. "Since the beginning of this year, Inspur has sorted out and integrated internal advantageous resources to promote the professional integration of business segments such as smart energy and intelligent production," said Liu Hongbo, director of the Industrial Development Planning Department of Inspur Group.
Externally, Inspur focuses on industries such as computing equipment, software, cloud computing services, new generation communications, big data, as well as application scenarios such as smart cities and smart education, continuously increasing investment in innovation and empowering thousands of industries with digital technology.
These "integrations" and "reorganizations" are aimed at optimizing resource allocation and enhancing the core competitiveness of enterprises. In 2021, Inspur proposed a new strategic positioning: to become a world-class leading enterprise in the new generation of information technology, an excellent service provider for the digital transformation of the economy and society, and a backbone enterprise in the construction of new infrastructure.
The former "workers" have become "partners" of the company in the tide of market reform, and the number of employees holding shares in the group has reached more than 6,000.
All reform explorations and innovative practices have one goal: to enhance the operating efficiency and vitality of enterprises and to maintain and increase the value of state-owned assets. Against the backdrop of a tightening external environment, in 2023, Inspur Group achieved operating revenue of 121.3 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 16.9%; total profit of 4.06 billion yuan, an increase of 14.8%. From January to July this year, the group's revenue and profit growth exceeded 20%.
Remove the "iron chair" and hold the "golden rice bowl"
According to the old idea, if you enter a state-owned enterprise, you basically have a "iron rice bowl". But at Inspur, everyone, from leading cadres to front-line employees, always has a sense of crisis and urgency, and the goals of doing things and starting businesses are broken down to quarterly or even monthly goals.
"The ability and quality of the cadre team determines the strength of the company's core competitiveness. The greatest motivation for cadres is the correct personnel orientation. Using one person well can motivate a large group." Liu Yingjie, director of the Organization and United Front Work Department of the Party Committee of Inspur Group, believes.
On the basis of adhering to the principle of the Party managing cadres, Inspur has given full play to the role of the market mechanism. In recent years, it has clarified more than 20 specific situations of "demotion" by business category and position, and optimized and improved the procedures of analysis, judgment, verification, identification, and adjustment methods, so that cadres can be "demoted" on a basis. The term system and contractual management are implemented for the management members of the affiliated units, and the same is implemented within the scope of management personnel. In layman's terms, the "iron chair" is removed, and the responsibilities, rights and obligations are clearly assigned to people through the signing and strict implementation of the performance responsibility letter, so that they can be rewarded if they do well and adjusted if they do not do well.
"On the basis of the annual comprehensive evaluation, we conduct daily assessments on units with heavy losses or lagging behind in work, and give timely affirmation and encouragement, as well as reminders to correct mistakes. We follow the principles of 'finding the right person for the job' and 'whoever is in charge is responsible' to make adjustments to the cadres who bear responsibilities, so that they can understand the responsibilities and feel convinced of their duties," Liu Yingjie introduced.
By continuously deepening the "promotion and demotion" mechanism for cadres, the cadre team structure of Inspur Group has been continuously optimized in the past four years, with the proportion of young cadres increasing from less than 20% to about 25%, ranking among the best among provincial enterprises.
Cadres are promoted and demoted, and employees come and go. Inspur strengthens employee management according to the three sequences of management, technology, and skills, and facilitates multi-sequence career development channels. "All employees are evaluated and graded into six levels. The evaluation results are an important basis for employee promotion and demotion, salary increase and decrease, and awards and punishments. The labor contract of those who are incompetent for the job will be terminated in accordance with the law." Du Ping, director of the Human Resources Department of Inspur Group, introduced, "This will maximize the stimulation and release of talent vitality and allow market competition to be fully reflected in employment."
Strong exit requires stronger incentives. Inspur comprehensively considers the value of positions and market prices, determines the salary benchmark, and highlights the traction of business objectives. The salary of management members is strongly linked to business performance. According to the principle of "performance increases, salary increases, performance decreases, salary decreases", strict assessment is implemented, and the income gap between different positions at the same level can be up to 20 times, achieving "high standards, strict assessment, high performance, and high incentives".
“Without any unique skills, it’s like building a house on the beach”
In May this year, the world's authoritative QASC Challenge updated its international rankings. Inspur Hairuo's model broke the world record with an accuracy rate of 93.70%, ranking first on the list.
A wonderful debut on a new track! Yan Liang, general manager of Inspur Cloud, introduced that this competition is recognized by the industry as an important yardstick for measuring the intelligence level of natural language processing models. The evaluation results are often the focus of academia and industry, leading the development direction of intelligent technology.
Inspur servers rank second in the world and first in China, and its market share of large group management software ranks first in China. Inspur Yunzhou Industrial Internet Platform has been selected as one of the top ten "dual-cross" platforms in China for five consecutive years... The world has changed dramatically, and few technology companies have been able to stand at the forefront of the times after such a long period of baptism. "Inspur's advantage lies in research and development. Without unique skills, it is like building a house on the beach, which cannot withstand the wind and waves." said Cai Wei, director of the Science and Technology Innovation Department of Inspur Group.
We must rely on ourselves for key core technologies. Inspur has established a rigid growth mechanism for R&D investment, and the "one enterprise, one red line" sets the minimum value of R&D investment for secondary units and includes it in the assessment. In 2023, the R&D investment intensity of Inspur Group will exceed 8%, and this year it will reach more than 9%.
Inspur and alliance members jointly tackled key core and major technologies, and jointly built scientific research exchange platforms, technical laboratories, adaptation centers, etc. to make up for the shortcomings of basic and platform technologies. Cai Wei introduced that Inspur currently has 81 innovation platforms above the provincial level. Since the beginning of this year, it has produced more than 500 "four new" achievements in new technologies, new products, new models, and new standards, and has made breakthroughs in more than 250 key technologies in cloud computing, blockchain and other fields, added more than 3,000 valid patents, participated in the formulation of more than 70 standards of various types, and achieved innovation and iteration in multiple industries.
"For outstanding scientific and technological innovation talents, the group determines the salary and benefits from the highest level according to the corresponding job levels. Through medium- and long-term incentives such as equity incentives, medium- and long-term incentives are implemented for more than 4,000 key scientific and technological employees. Special scientific research achievement contribution awards and "Rising Star Awards" are set up. Outstanding talents who have made outstanding achievements in innovation, market and other aspects can receive a maximum reward of 3 million yuan, and a total of more than 160 people have been rewarded." Du Ping introduced that Inspur has built a scientific and technological talent evaluation system oriented towards innovative value, ability and contribution. For those who have contributed to the transfer and transformation of scientific and technological achievements, a certain amount of transformation income is given as a reward on the basis of completing annual tasks.
At present, the reform of state-owned enterprises has entered the deep water zone. Where will the Inspur go tomorrow? From technology to products to markets, Inspur is optimizing the industrial layout and leading the creation of a shared, win-win, safe and stable industrial ecology. Ma Li, director of the Corporate Management Department of Inspur Group, introduced that as a key enterprise in the new generation of information technology industry chain, Inspur has established a total of 22 industrial alliances with more than 2,000 members since 2021. Among them, through holding, participating in shares, and establishing joint ventures, it has established close equity relations with more than 80 upstream and downstream key supporting enterprises, creating "supporting experts" in key links, promoting the integration and innovation of upstream and downstream industries, large, medium and small enterprises, and promoting the development of industrial chain supply chains.
Today's Inspur is a wave that is more closely connected with the world. Cultivating world-class enterprises with global competitiveness is the goal of Inspur Group and the direction of state-owned assets and state-owned enterprise reform in the new era.
(Dazhong Daily reporter Chen Xiaowan, Qi Huaidong correspondent Gao Yulong)
