Jifei Technology: Promoting the intelligent transformation of agriculture

Established in 2007, Jifei Technology is a smart agricultural technology company with the mission of "improving global agricultural production efficiency" and building an "unmanned" agricultural ecosystem. Since its establishment 13 years ago, Jifei has independently developed and manufactured Jifei agricultural drones, Jifei remote sensing drones, Jifei agricultural unmanned vehicles, Jifei agricultural autopilots, Jifei agricultural Internet of things, Jifei intelligent agricultural systems, Six smart agricultural product lines run through the entire agricultural production cycle. Jifei Technology brings technologies such as drones, robots, automatic driving, artificial intelligence, and the Internet of Things into agricultural production. By building an unmanned intelligent agricultural ecology, agriculture has entered the 4.0 era of automation, precision and efficiency. At present, Jifei Technology has successfully applied plant protection drones and robot technology to more than 430 million mu of Chinese farmland, serving more than 8 million farmers.

Gong Quqin is Co-founder & Vice President &CMO of Jifei Technology, a member of the WEF Davos World Economic Forum, a member of the National Geographic Grosvenor Council, the cover character of Forbes China "30Under 30", and the drone personnel qualification expert of the Civil Aviation Administration of China Group member, representative of agricultural science and technology of AFF Asian Financial Forum, consultant of CSAM United Nations Center for Sustainable Agricultural Mechanization.

In September 2013, Gong Quqin joined Jifei Technology as a co-founder, responsible for corporate strategy, globalization and marketing. In October 2016, Gong Quqin led the team to set up the Jifei Academy to cultivate a new generation of Chinese professional farmers by combining online knowledge services with offline training. There are more than 60,000 agricultural talents in Jifei College. Through the teaching of high-tech agricultural technology and the transmission of the concept of sustainable development of agriculture, they will become future agricultural elites.

Focus on award-winning management practices

Innovative technologies in the field of agriculture are emerging frequently, and artificial intelligence in particular has become one of the important variables affecting digital agriculture, precision agriculture and smart agriculture. As a representative enterprise of drones that has been focusing on the agricultural field for a long time, Jifei Technology is applying AI technology "cross-border" to farmland: Jifei Technology has released the latest products designed to solve the pain points of agricultural production, such as agricultural unmanned aerial vehicles. vehicles, autopilots, and smart farming systems. It is completing this important transformation: from fertilization and sowing to the whole process of planting management, from intelligent hardware to digital agriculture platform, to realize the transformation from drone application to promoting agricultural intelligence. Through technological innovation, Jifei Technology replaces labor with machines, replaces manual experience dependence with AI scientific guidance, and empowers agricultural production.

Dialogue with award-winning companies

CEConlines: At that time, what was the opportunity that drove your company to implement the practice of "promoting the intelligent transformation of agriculture"? What kind of internal and external environment was the company in when the practice was launched?

Gong Quqin: Jifei was a drone company at the beginning of its establishment and is the world's leading supplier of commercial drone solutions. Our users will transform drones into various uses. At that time, we saw that the product entered the agricultural field, so we conducted market research on this trend. In 2013, we went to Xinjiang. When we saw the problems faced by cotton farmers, we wondered if we could use drones to help them solve some problems. , This is the earliest thinking about the development of Jifei's agricultural direction.

Later, with the popularity of extremely flying agricultural drones, we have become more and more aware of agriculture. We believe that our technology can be used in more aspects of agriculture, not only for spraying medicine, but also for sowing, fertilizing, Understand the growth of plants, and apply our control technology to unmanned vehicles and agricultural autopilots, so that these devices can drive themselves. These hardware devices generate a lot of data, and we have artificial intelligence, agricultural brains, and a platform to integrate these data, which will further promote the intelligent development of agriculture.

CEConline: How does this management practice relate to your company's corporate strategy or your long-term future plan?

Gong Quqin: The company is composed of a group of geeks who love flying. Everyone hopes to benefit the society with the technology they love. This idea has not diminished in the process of company development and transformation, but has gradually become clear. In the subsequent development process, we believe that technology can change the status quo of agriculture, so we gradually launched more product lines, allowing the company to naturally transform from a drone model supplier to an agricultural technology company. Agriculture is currently a low-lying area of technology. The aging and hollowing of rural areas are so serious that it is an inevitable trend for scientific and technological products to replace manpower in the future.

CEConline: What measures has your company taken to promote the implementation of this management practice? What obstacles did you encounter in the process of advancing, and how did you solve them?

Gong Quqin: To complete the transformation, the first step is to cultivate and adjust the talent structure. Internally, the company is to let the original technology enthusiasts find new application scenarios. The transformation is not difficult. The key is to explain the long-term value of doing this to investors. China's agricultural reform started very late and lagged behind other countries. Agricultural reform itself is a matter of entrepreneurship. Therefore, during the transition period, there were many external explanations, such as the government, the media and the public.

The second point is the rearrangement of sales channels. Agriculture is a channel-based industry, and Jifei is transforming into an agricultural technology company, and it is necessary to re-deploy sales channels. More than 75% of China's cultivated land is concentrated in the hands of small and medium-sized households. To reach them, it is necessary to use the existing agricultural network. Therefore, we need to penetrate the sales channels into local agricultural machinery stores and agricultural materials stores. Because the channels are different, the speed and method of penetration are also different, which is very different from the consumer market, so it is an important step in our strategic adjustment.

The third point is the adjustment of research and development direction. Before Jifei, it was mainly based on the research and development of UAV flight control technology. After entering agriculture, it involves not only flight control, but also the field of crop science, such as how to spray evenly, how to atomize and attach better, how to do high-precision navigation, etc. , and even the study of crop science, such as how crops need to be managed.

CEConline: Up to now, what positive impact has this management practice brought to your company's business development, especially in terms of performance, and what achievements have you achieved?

Gong Quqin: After determining the development direction as agricultural science and technology, Jifei updated its mission and vision. Its mission is: to improve the efficiency of global agricultural production; its vision is to build an agricultural ecosystem that meets the development needs of mankind in the next 100 years, so that people around the world can obtain sufficient, abundant and safe food.

At the end of 2019, Jifei released other products besides agricultural drones, including agricultural unmanned vehicles, tractor automatic driving, agricultural Internet of Things products, agricultural remote sensing drones, and farmland management systems. 6 product lines to become a veritable agtech company.

After the transformation, in 2020, Jifei's business was not only not affected by the epidemic, but grew at a rate of 253%, and entered a new stage of explosive growth.

CEConline: What is the focus of your company's management optimization and upgrading in the next stage? Faced with the current complex economic situation at home and abroad, how will your company respond?

Gong Quqin: Jifei's current business is still mainly domestic. However, as our product line becomes more and more abundant, the international market will also become an important market for Jifei in the future. To expand the international market, we must understand the differences between domestic and foreign countries, whether it is production methods or cultural ideology, and then require us to have good cultural understanding and local market research capabilities.

At the same time, technology localization will definitely become a trend. Some technologies developed in China may not be applicable locally. China has strong manufacturing capabilities, and Jifei has very strong R&D capabilities. These two aspects are combined. , so that we are very confident in the future development of Jifei.

Reviewed by experts

Wang Sai

Partner of Kotler Consulting (KMG), well-known growth strategy expert

Jifeicong From drones to agricultural drones, to agricultural technology, gradually build their own ecology and promote the intelligent transformation of agriculture. Through various adjustments in human resources, sales channels, and R&D direction, Jifei has gradually improved the integration and integration of its strategic management. I believe this will form a strong boost for its future market expansion.

Wang Shaokai

Hejun Consulting Senior Partner, Director of Group Strategy and Group Management and Control Research Center

It can be seen that Jifei Technology has the ability to "unmanned" "The ambition to carry it through to the end, to use technological means to directly pull the agricultural industry under the labels of "backward" and "traditional" into the era of intelligence, this may be the most domineering declaration of the times by the new entrepreneurs Gong Quqin; ten years later Looking at it again, agriculture may be just one of the many battlefields of Jifei Technology.

Xie Zhaohui

Founder of Zhixue Consulting and Chinese Partner of Balanced Scorecard

Founded by "Flying Geek", empowered by technology Agriculture, the dream of a century-old agricultural ecology, starts with "UAVs", extends the development of unmanned vehicles, agricultural autopilots and other businesses, promotes the "AI" agricultural cross-border, and uses the accumulated "smart data" platform to empower Intelligent development of agriculture in the future. It has strong reference significance for the "digital-intelligence" transformation of China, a big agricultural country.

Yang Bin

Founder of Analysys, co-founder of Analysys Math

"Food is the sky for the people", and agriculture is the survival of human beings fundamental. In the past 7 years, under the leadership of Mr. Gong Juqin, Jifei Technology has brought technologies such as drones, robots, autonomous driving, artificial intelligence, and the Internet of Things into agricultural production. The 4.0 era of automation, precision and efficiency. Jifei Technology has benefited 8 million farmers. In the future, it is expected that more advanced technology products of Jifei Technology can go global and realize the great vision of "improving global agricultural production efficiency".

Ye Xiaosong

President of Xiamen Economic Management Consulting Association, founder of Hill Consulting, founder & Chairman of Yin Consulting Group

From a group of love A drone company founded by flying geeks, with the vision of becoming the world's leading supplier of commercial drone solutions, to transforming into agricultural technology, with the mission of "improving the efficiency of global agricultural production" and the vision of "building a drone that meets the needs of human beings." Develop the agro-ecosystems needed for the next 100 years so that people around the world have access to adequate, abundant and safe food." Behind this transformation, after seeing the user's application scenario, we saw a more meaningful and broader market prospect.

Technology changes life, and technology is for the better benefit of society. Guangzhou Jifei Technology Co., Ltd. is the best practice.