Microsoft China's Cooperation Road

"Find, find, find friends, find a good friend, salute, shake hands, we are good friends." This is a nursery rhyme that almost everyone can hum. Friends are very important and indispensable to everyone, so what does "friends" mean to an enterprise?

The relationship between enterprises and shareholders, the relationship with customers, the relationship with employees and the relationship with society are important topics that have been discussed for a long time. In recent years, the relationship between enterprises has attracted more and more attention. The reason is that the competition situation has changed. In the past, the competition between a single enterprise has increasingly become a group of enterprises and another group of enterprises. competition. How to find more "friends" and add weight to the competition has become a problem that every enterprise needs to think about. It's more than just "salute and shake hands".

Chen Yongzheng, CEO of Microsoft Greater China, is a person who knows how to make friends. His handshake is strong, conveying sincerity and enthusiasm. When you ask questions, he will smile at you and nod from time to time; and when answering questions, he will burst into a hearty laugh from time to time, at that time, the surrounding air seems to be driven by joy stand up.

"It turns out that Microsoft's partner strategy in China is a very effective strategy!" "Friends" is translated into "partners" in Microsoft's language system. Chen Yongzheng has enough reasons to be so happy. The three presidents of China before him all hurried away in less than two years, and the CEO who was parachuted from Motorola to Microsoft in September 2003 has Sitting firmly in this position for over 3 years.

At the same time, Microsoft's development in China has also begun to get better: in 2005, Microsoft China achieved rapid growth, and the growth rate was the first among Microsoft's global subsidiaries. In 2006, there was a lot of good news. Microsoft won the purchase order of genuine operating system software from Lenovo, Founder, Tongfang, TCL and other domestic personal computer manufacturers in one go. And what makes Chen Yongzheng smile is not only these achievements in the sales of operating systems, but also in the enterprise-level application market that has always wanted to make a big difference, Microsoft has also begun to make breakthroughs.

Chen Yongzheng believes that all these achievements are largely due to Microsoft's partner strategy in China. The effect of this strategy has also made Microsoft headquarters more determined to further implement it. In April 2006, following the signing of a memorandum of understanding on cooperation with the National Development and Reform Commission in 2002, which promised to actively promote the development of China's software industry, involving a capital of 6.2 billion yuan, Microsoft and the National Development and Reform Commission signed a second phase of cooperation understanding in Seattle, USA The memorandum promised to provide China with a total of 100 million US dollars of software development and service orders in the next five years, and to invest 100 million US dollars in joint ventures and cooperation with Chinese companies, using Microsoft's resource advantages and experience to support the development of Chinese software companies. This shows that Microsoft's partner strategy in China has entered a new stage.

Chen Yongzheng said: "The most important thing for Microsoft's development in China is to establish a sound ecosystem. Microsoft's development and growth in China is inseparable from the support of its partners. Microsoft can only develop if its partners develop."

Determine a strategy, win-win cooperation

Let's go back to the beginning of the story: when Chen Yongzheng was airborne to Microsoft in September 2003, he became the focus of attention from the outside world, and all kinds of rumors were flying. Some people think that the reason why Microsoft hired the former chairman and president of Motorola China is because Microsoft will have a big strategy in the mobile business. Some people think that it is because its strong government relations play an important role, and Rumors believe that the most critical reason is that Microsoft's development strategy in China has been recognized by the headquarters and so on.

People are eagerly watching what is Microsoft's next move in China, but for six full months, Chen Yongzheng disappeared, he does not give interviews, rarely makes public appearances, and people don't know his "Hulu" "What kind of "medicine" is there?

What has he been doing these six months? He spends a lot of time familiarizing himself with the situation, consulting with experts, talking to employees, and communicating with headquarters. "Working with the China Affairs Committee of the US headquarters to redesign a new set of China strategies has been my main work for half a year." Later, Chen Yongzheng revealed the answer.

He knows that he is facing some very difficult problems. For a long time, Microsoft has had a difficult "heart knot" in China: the problem of piracy. Although China is a big country in the consumption and production of personal computers in the world, this is not proportional to the sales of Microsoft's Windows and Office software in China. Microsoft's sales figures in China have always been a secret, but one thing is certain, in a market as big as China, its sales are less than 1% of Microsoft's global sales.

From the establishment of Microsoft's offices in China in 1992 to the development of a large company with thousands of people, the purpose of Microsoft China is very clear and simple, that is, to sell Microsoft products to Chinese consumers. In order to achieve this goal, Microsoft has made great efforts to combat piracy. The tough approach of cooperating with the industry and commerce sector to crack down on piracy through legal means works well in other places, but it is not a good approach in China. Because Microsoft has adopted an inward-looking way of thinking, only seeing its own needs, and doing things according to its own way of thinking, without considering the surrounding environment: For Chinese small and medium-sized enterprises or ordinary consumers, Microsoft's genuine Software is too expensive.

Microsoft's hard-line approach of taking care of itself has not only left an arrogant influence on Chinese consumers, but has even aroused the resentment of the government. Before Tang Jun, the former president of Microsoft China, Gao Qunyao, resigned because it was Microsoft's purchase order from the Beijing Municipal Government.

In addition to adopting corresponding strategies according to the specific local environment, Chen Yongzheng has to face another problem: Microsoft itself is also changing. The release of the .NET platform in 2002 meant that Microsoft's global strategy was being adjusted. It was transforming from a single operating system provider to a comprehensive software provider. Field expansion. In terms of operating systems, Microsoft has always been a leader, almost invincible, but in these new fields it wants to enter, there are already many masters, and it is easier said than done. And from consumer-oriented to enterprise-level users, from product-driven to service-driven, Microsoft must be closer to customers, and some effective ways of doing things may not work.

In fact, Microsoft has already realized that its approach should be changed from the above two aspects, and should not only focus on the sales performance in China. In the tenure of Chen Yongzheng's predecessor Tang Jun, Microsoft has shown this change of consciousness. The most obvious big step is that in 2002, with the support of Microsoft, McKinsey & Company made a white paper and provided it to the National Development and Reform Commission, explaining how China can become a software The big country put forward suggestions, and subsequently signed a memorandum of cooperation with the Development and Reform Commission with a total investment of 6.2 billion yuan, expressing its willingness to vigorously help China develop the software industry.

But more than a year after the signing, the two sides are still "crossing the river by feeling the stones", and Microsoft does not seem to have found a path to implement it. During this period, Tang Jun also implemented the "Spring Farming Plan" aimed at increasing the product customer base and the "Convoy Plan" to build an enterprise-level service network in China. He has begun to set his sights on partners, but in general, he has not gotten rid of the problem of increasing sales. a bondage.

How to solve the problem of piracy? How to develop the enterprise market? How to change Microsoft's image? How to implement the memorandum signed with the National Development and Reform Commission? Faced with these difficulties, after 6 months of thinking, discussion and communication, Chen Yongzheng finally determined a complete set of strategic implementation plans, and the core of this plan is the partner strategy.

He analyzed that Microsoft's business model in China has always been that it does not sell its own products, but sells products through partners. And because of Microsoft's product characteristics, potential customers cover almost all aspects, Microsoft can't have so many manpower to contact so many customers. Under the circumstance that "the flames are high when everyone gathers firewood", should I be busy adding firewood to the fire, or should I make an effort to mobilize everyone? Under this logic, Microsoft must shift its focus from the terminal sales market to its partners, and make great efforts to cultivate and develop partners. First, let the partners win, and then you can win.

So who are the partners? Chen Yongzheng draws a picture of Microsoft's "ecosystem": whether hardware manufacturers, software manufacturers, service providers or channel providers are all assembled in this invisible IT ecosystem, all parties in this ecosystem are actually Microsoft's Partners, only when everyone develops can the tide rise, and Microsoft can develop.

Microsoft has actually benefited from this ecosystem in all regions of the world where Microsoft has developed well, and in China, it is clear that great efforts are needed to improve this ecosystem. According to IDC's surveys and estimates of some Asia-Pacific countries, for every dollar that Microsoft makes in these countries, other companies that sell hardware or software based on Microsoft's operating system, or companies that provide services for Microsoft's software, can earn $12.29. This is the value of establishing a good IT ecological environment advocated and promoted by Microsoft. In China, Microsoft earns $1, and software partners earn roughly $2-3. What Chen Yongzheng has to do can be said to be raising this number.

Find a partner, both sides complement each other

Since it is determined to take the road of common development with the partner, then we must first set a few examples, where to start? Chen Yongzheng decided to start from the enterprise-level application market that Microsoft needs to break through most in China. Soon after he took office, he established a very important department: Microsoft Greater China Partner Division, headed by the experienced Hong Deming transferred from Malaysia. The task of this department is to specifically face larger partners and help them provide larger industrial application solutions to customers.

Under the intense work of this department, in December 2003, Chinasoft became Microsoft's first global strategic partner in China—the highest-level partner of Microsoft. No more than 30, and they are all big companies like Dell and HP. In less than a year after this, Microsoft signed Chuangzhi, Digital China and Inspur at a very fast speed. These four companies became Microsoft's first global strategic partners in China.

Compared with Microsoft's other previous global strategic partners, these four companies are obviously small in scale. Why did Microsoft choose them as partners? What are Microsoft's criteria for selecting partners? Hong Deming said that the leading position in the industry, the size of the enterprise, the distribution of geographical regions, the differences in the industries covered by the business, and the support of the local government are all very important. The condition is complementarity. Microsoft has strong capabilities in platform-level products, but in the enterprise-level application market, when it comes to the in-depth understanding of different industries, these partners undoubtedly have strong advantages. Base.

Wang Hui, Senior Vice President of Chinasoft International, talked about the basis of the cooperation between the two parties. First, Microsoft is more interested in Chinasoft's investment background in state-owned enterprises, and Chinasoft is also a very market-oriented company, and its management mechanism is very important. Flexible, almost entirely relying on the power of the market to develop itself.

Second, Microsoft sees Chinasoft's ability to provide domestic large-scale solutions. Microsoft used to have experience in the sales of operating systems and other products for individual consumers, but in the face of enterprise-level customers, Microsoft urgently needs the help of partners.

Third, the cooperation between Chinasoft and Microsoft, on the one hand, is to see that the .NET platform does have its advantages, and there will be great development in the future, and on the other hand, Chinasoft can also obtain Microsoft's outsourcing business. It can be said that both parties have the resource support that the other party desires, which is an important basis for cooperation.

Microsoft, as a new entrant in the enterprise application market at the time, actually had to gain strength from its competitors. Because although Microsoft's .Net platform has been widely adopted in the global market, the JAVA platform in China's enterprise-level application market at that time had considerable strength, and Microsoft's first four global strategic partners in China used it before. JAVA platform, Microsoft wants its partners to switch from the JAVA platform to the .NET platform, which is not an easy task.

Hong Deming said that we must change the perspective of looking at the problem and stand on the side of the partner to help him analyze and solve the problem. Hong Deming and these partners will make a three-year business development plan to see what the other party needs and what kind of help Microsoft can provide, so that they can see that Microsoft is determined to continuously invest resources to help them grow. Among them, providing software outsourcing business to partners is a very important support provided by Microsoft.

Microsoft is one of the major companies that issue software outsourcing orders in the world. Providing outsourcing services to partners can not only enhance the attractiveness of cooperation, but also help partners grow up. The commitment in the memorandum signed by the National Development and Reform Commission is a good thing.

But the process of helping partners grow their outsourcing business has not been smooth sailing. For example, when Microsoft first contacted Chinasoft, Chinasoft had already regarded outsourcing business as a growth point in the future, and Microsoft China was determined to help it, but found that it was much more difficult than expected at the beginning.

Microsoft headquarters uses public bidding to issue orders, while the Chinese company's main competitor is an Indian company, which has more than ten years of experience in outsourcing and has a great advantage in the competition. After seeing this situation, Microsoft China invested a team of project managers with experience in outsourcing to cooperate with Chinasoft's work, and finally got the order, and finally helped Chinasoft to carry out the outsourcing work and continue to mature.

Microsoft is also careful to leave space for each other when working with partners. For example, in the enterprise-level application market, it is common practice abroad that large consulting companies work with product manufacturers. This situation is not common in China. Partners such as Chinasoft actually hope to undertake consulting companies in this industry chain. Role. Microsoft is very clear about its own positioning, try to let its partners do more services and solutions, and only do platforms by itself, so as not to compete with partners.

Microsoft actually has its own consultant team in China, with 300 consultants, but the main task of this team is to cooperate with partners. There are more than 700 consultants for partners. Chen Yongzheng gave his own consulting team Pay great attention to the assessment of cooperation when setting performance indicators. For example, how many people should be developed in the consulting team every year, and how many of them must be partners. Chen Yongzheng requires that the number of consultants of partners should account for 70% of the entire consulting team.

“If you always hire your own people, why should your partner cooperate with you?” He said, first, let the partner have a job, and second, cultivate the partner’s ability.

After three years of cooperation with these four partners, both parties have tasted the benefits. Partners have achieved rapid growth with the help of Microsoft, and Microsoft has also achieved breakthrough progress in the enterprise-level application market with the help of partners. Therefore, it has strengthened Microsoft's determination to continue. In 2007, Microsoft successively signed two global strategic partners, Zhejiang University Wangxin and Baosight Software, and released the "deep cultivation plan" to provide important partners with technical cooperation, solution reengineering, software outsourcing, patent technology authorization and Licensing, strategic investment and other forms of cooperation provide stronger support.

Look at the long-term, be patient

Microsoft China will change in many aspects and will no longer use sales performance as the main evaluation indicator. The previous evaluation system based on sales performance will be replaced by another comprehensive performance evaluation system that focuses on dealing with partnerships. At the first official communication meeting with the media half a year after taking office, Chen Yongzheng emphasized this.

In the past, Microsoft headquarters seemed to be too anxious about China's sales growth, but the more anxious, the worse the effect. Using some tough measures such as cracking down on piracy, even if the performance grows rapidly in the short term, the effect will not last long in the long run, and may even cause a rebound.

Shifting the focus from sales performance to partners requires patience and a long-term view. Before taking office, Chen Yongzheng emphasized to the headquarters that the president of China should not take the sales performance of one to two years as the only evaluation criterion, but should look at what opportunities he has provided for Microsoft's development in China five years later.

The Microsoft headquarters finally reached a consensus with Chen Yongzheng. In the first year, there is no requirement for business growth, but he is only required to lay a solid foundation for the partner strategy, straighten out the organizational structure, and cultivate the people needed for future development. In an interview with the media, Vice President Kevin Johnson, an important member of the China Affairs Committee at Microsoft's headquarters, even quoted the Chinese story of "a pestle grinded into a needle", and everyone began to really look at the future with a long-term perspective.

Under this premise, the performance appraisal indicators for managers at all levels of Microsoft Greater China to employees have changed. For example, CPE (customer and partner satisfaction) has become an important assessment indicator. Microsoft surveys its partners every year about their satisfaction with Microsoft, and partners' satisfaction with Microsoft's support has become an important factor affecting the performance of each employee. index.

Chen Yongzheng also invites McKinsey and Bain, two well-known consulting firms, to help Microsoft analyze how to develop partners, how to segment customers, and what partners are needed after segmenting customers. One of the important tasks is to help Microsoft to continuously deepen the performance appraisal system, and to link performance appraisal with the strategy of common development with partners.

For example, Microsoft hopes to strengthen the cooperation between sales staff and partners, and it has begun to set up indicators in this regard: every month, it depends on which sales opportunities the sales staff have in the next three months, and emphasizes who is in these opportunities. your partner. In the past, we only looked at some opportunities, but it was not clear who the partners were. Now we not only look at the sales opportunities, but also quickly decide who the partners are, so that other departments know how to cooperate with the partners.

Under such an evaluation system, employees are very clear about what the strategy is and what the leaders are concerned about. Sales is not the only goal. The growth of partners is also closely related to each of them.

Helping partner development does not mean that Microsoft is to be a "philanthropist" regardless of sales performance, but rather to "look ahead". In the long run, the development of partners will definitely bring benefits to Microsoft. Microsoft China's breakthrough in the OEM business is an obvious example.

For a long time, only a fraction of the products of Chinese PC manufacturers were pre-installed with Microsoft's operating system, because Microsoft's genuine version was too expensive. In order to gain an advantage in price, manufacturers do not pre-install software in many cases, because this seems to save a part of the cost, but gradually everyone feels the harm caused by this approach: consumers buy such a machine and go back, often from Pirated software is installed in various ways, and pirated software often has problems, is not safe, and cannot be upgraded, so the situation is that customers often have problems with the installed pirated software, *6*2 But they think it is hardware The problem. Therefore, the customer service departments of various manufacturers are overwhelmed, and they can't tell the pain. In fact, the cost has gone up.

Microsoft saw this situation and saw an opportunity. Their first step was to help each other solve their problems and form a partnership. Microsoft first contacted manufacturers such as Lenovo and Founder, and proposed that Microsoft should take the lead in reversing the situation. So Microsoft took the lead in doing marketing promotions and marketing, telling everyone why they should buy genuine software, where the value is, and also helping partners do a lot of work in distribution. As a result, in March 2005, Microsoft, Founder, Tongfang and TCL jointly launched a genuine value-added plan. In November, Microsoft and Lenovo jointly launched a genuine value-added plan, which worked well. Manufacturers gradually found that doing so was acceptable to users, which eventually led Microsoft to sign a large software order for genuine operating system software purchases with Lenovo, Founder, Tongfang and TCL in April 2006, and the sales of genuine software gradually entered a market. A virtuous circle.

Chen Yongzheng said: He has been emphasizing that genuine is not the purpose, and developing together with partners is the purpose; if the purpose is only to sell genuine, and the relationship between the two parties is over after the sale, then Microsoft will fail. Cooperation with partners must take a long-term perspective, and cannot be tempted by temporary interests.

It is precisely because of this long-term vision that Microsoft has adopted a very positive attitude towards the support of China's software industry. Microsoft has made strategic investments in partners, provided software outsourcing services, and also made hardware purchases in China, fulfilling its investment commitment of 6.2 billion yuan. Before Microsoft and the National Development and Reform Commission signed the second phase of the memorandum of understanding on continuing to strengthen software cooperation, the National Development and Reform Commission said in an official statement that the reason for signing the second phase of the memorandum with Microsoft was that the two sides "successfully carried out the first phase of cooperation, The results were satisfactory to all parties and exceeded expectations.”

Forge alliances to promote industrial development

Microsoft's partner system is quite open. It can be said that it is uniting all forces that can be combined.

"The train is about to leave, so hurry up and get ready. Do you want to get on the train?" For a long time before January 30, 2007, Shen Yuanqing, Senior Director of the Strategic Cooperation Department of Microsoft China R&D Group, had to Do this kind of mobilization.

Shen Yuanqing's "train" is the latest version of the operating system, Windows Vista, released by Microsoft at the beginning of the year. Microsoft not only wants to start the Vista train, but also to all partners related to this - that is, Microsoft's "ecological" Every member of the "system" gets on this train, and everyone moves forward together.

Because the China Technology Center under the Strategic Cooperation Department of Microsoft China R&D Group led by Shen Yuanqing has a mission to make other software and hardware manufacturers more compatible with Vista. So in the Beijing headquarters of Microsoft China Technology Center, you can see this scenario: partners have their own laboratories here, and they work side by side with engineers from China Technology Center to solve technical problems together.

However, not all partners are aware of the importance of this issue and are ready to "get on board" in advance. Since March 2006, the Hardware Innovation Lab of the China Technology Center has been intensively promoting and cooperating with hardware manufacturers. At the same time, it has used the equipment on the market for matching and testing. As a result, many problems have been found, and many manufacturers are not ready.

So the China Technology Center stepped up its efforts. In order to cooperate with the release of Vista, they held more than 500 technical training and hands-on experiments, and invited many OEM partners, independent hardware developers and independent software developers. Test their own product on the Vista platform.

Shin Yuanqing was relieved to see that more and more partners had already boarded the Vista train, knowing that an ecosystem around Vista was entering a virtuous circle. Many partners are also very excited about the release of Vista, because it will set off a wave of development of a new generation of hardware devices.

It can be said that the most important job of the department led by Shen Yuanqing is to let more partners get on the "train" of Microsoft, because the mission of the Microsoft China Technology Center established in September 2003 is to cooperate with partners Cooperation to build a platform for China's IT ecosystem. "Share" is the word they use the most. The technology center has six areas including VIP lecture hall, technology laboratory, data center, training classroom, development laboratory and development studio. In addition to demonstrating new technologies, it also provides technical experience and testing, and they have developed more than 500 cooperative projects with more than 300 partners.

Long-term vision, complementary capabilities, win-win with partners, development together with the industry, building a harmonious IT ecosystem, through the partnership strategy, Microsoft's path in China is getting wider and wider.

The author writes and edits for CEConline Magazine.