Digital Technologies Promoting the Innovation and Development of International Enterprises

On the evening of May 28^th, co-hosted by the Marketing and Communication office with Alumni Office of the School of Economics and Management of Tongji University, and assisted by the German Alumni Association and the British Alumni Association of Tongji University, the “Cloud” Wisdom Gathering Forum of Alumni – Digital Technologies Promoting the Innovation and Development of International Enterprises was successfully held.

Our speakers, outstanding alumni from China, Germany and UK, gathered online, bringing a knowledge feast featuring wisdom and thought confrontation for more than 100 listeners. The event is also a gift from the School of Economics and Management for the 113^th anniversary of Tongji University.

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The event officially started after a brief and powerful opening speech given by Mr. Cheng Guoping, Dean Assistant of the School of Economics and Management. Professor Xie En, Deputy Dean of the School of Economics and Management, served as the host of the event. Professor Shi Qian, Deputy Secretary of CPC (in charge of work) and Vice President of the school, addressed the event.

In the address, Professor Shi noted:

“Today, global economy is in recession; China’s economy is also facing great pressure. In this circumstance, how to break the situation needs to be considered. At the just concluded NPC and CPPCC National meetings, President Xi Jinping pointed out the direction of future economic development. Once again, he emphasized the importance of vigorously promoting technological innovation and accelerating the development of strategic emerging industries such as digital economy and intelligent manufacturing.

The theme of today’s lecture is very in line with the practical needs. The three alumni invited have both international vision and local experience. They not only witnessed the digital wave, but also experienced and participated in it. The three alumni have profound insight into the digital development and future application trend of their fields, and have accumulated rich practical experience. I believe their sharing tonight will certainly inspire and benefit you.”

Dr. Hong Zhong

Executive Director of Sino-German Science and Education Park, Heidelberg, Germany

Data becomes a new raw material for chemical products.

The first speaker, Dr. Hong Zhong, is now the Executive Director of Sino-German Science and Education Park in Heidelberg, Germany. He studied in Germany for many years after learning from Professor Jiang Jingbo, former President of Tongji University. Dr. Hong Zhong was once Global Senior Vice President and Chief IT Architect of Evonik Industries AG. He led the formulation of the group’s digital development program.

In the keynote speech of “Digital Transformation Leading the Innovation and Transformation of International Chemical Enterprises”, Dr. Hong Zhong took the case of Evonik, an international chemical enterprise, as the starting point, elaborating how traditional enterprises achieved digital transformation in detail. Dr. Hong Zhong stressed that traditional enterprises, limited by the “burden” of their main business, face more difficulties in the process of digital transformation than those start-ups without any “burdens”. However, once traditional enterprises achieved digital transformation, they can use it as a powerhouse and new growth driver for enterprises.

“Evonik Industries AG provides special chicken feed methionine for chicken farms. In order to accurately grasp the feed consumption amount required by chicken farms, the group has established a special digital platform with various data provided farms. The platform can deliver feed accurately according to the scale of the farms, the growth cycle of chickens and recent weather changes. With the accumulation of various data, the platform has gradually become one of the important business revenue sources of Evonik Industries AG.”

The successful digital transformation of Evonik Industries AG has “turned data into new raw materials for chemical products”, thus changing the development direction of the industry.

Dr. Hong also looked back at the origin and nature of industry 4.0 and the wave of digitization. He pointed out that technological revolution constantly triggered the upgrading of the industry, making the whole human society always in dynamic adjustments. Nowadays, the digital wave has swept every field of our life. The emerging new things are challenging people’s old beliefs, reshaping people’s perception of the existing world, and also greatly affecting people’s imagination of the future world.

Dr. Wu Yijiang

Innovation Department of Cisco Systems, UK

Director of Innovation Insight

The pragmatism tendency of the British innovation system

The second speaker, Dr. Wu Yijiang, is a Bachelor of Engineering from Tongji University, and a Master of Engineering, a Doctor and Post Doctorate of Management from Imperial College London. Dr. Wu is currently the Director of Innovation Insight of the Innovation Department of Cisco Systems, a global leading network solution provider. With over 15 years of working experience in the UK, Dr. Wu has been at the forefront of the digital wave and has been deeply involved in many aspects of the scientific and technological innovation of the UK.

Dr. Wu first introduced the management framework of research and innovation of the UK, as well as the industry strategy funds of 22 vertical markets in the UK. Closely related to people’s lives, these funds provide specific policy guidance and financial support for UK’s scientific and technological innovation. For example, smart provision for the aged in the health sector – how to increase the average life span of the British people by five years by 2050; automatic driving technology – the British government and enterprises jointly released the 2030 Road Map of Automatic Driving Industry, so as to popularize of automatic driving technology in people’s future daily life.

Dr. Wu Yijiang pointed out that the reason why British high-tech innovation companies can “blossom” in many fields is that the country emphasizes innovation, embraces changes, and provides an open and transparent environment on both the institutional and financial levels to promote vigorous development of innovation, giving full play to its potential. Later, Dr. Wu introduced five representative scientific and technological innovation projects in the UK, and specifically explained the “pragmatism” tendency of the British innovation system; Whether it can solve practical problems and bring about a better future for mankind is the most important wind vane.

Finally, Dr. Wu launched the ONE4CITY one-stop smart city solution integrated portal website to strengthen Sino-British scientific and technological innovation cooperation. Based on the massive database of emerging science and technology solutions in the UK, ONE4CITY systematically presents the solutions, technologies and modes of British scientific and technological innovation under the framework of future cities, serving as an index and guideline in the current Sino-British cooperation in the field of scientific and technological innovation. Recently, ONE4CITY has been appointed by the European Institute for Innovation and Technology to conduct systematic research on the application and business models of AI solutions across Europe.

Mr. Pan Xiaozhen

President of GOLDENHOME

GOLDENHOME is “armed to teeth with informatization”.

The third speaker Mr. Pan Xiaozhen, an undergraduate student majoring in architectural management in Tongji University, founded GOLDENHOME from scratch after graduation. With over 20 years of development, GOLDENHOME is now a professional service provider of domestic high-end integrated cabinets and customized furniture, and was successfully listed on the A-share main board on May 12^th, 2017.

While telling the story of the digital GOLDENHOME, Pan Xiaozhen stressed that due to the natural customized gene in the cabinet or home furnishing industry, the GOLDENHOME can be regarded as “half an Internet enterprise” from the very beginning. In the era of manual workshop, customization purely depends on experienced masters. When it comes to large-scale production, customization depends on digitization completely. Therefore, for its own survival and development, GOLDENHOME have “armed itself to the teeth with informatization”. Since the launch of the industry’s first “industrial flexible customization system”, GOLDENHOME have established a big data analysis system, GIS design system, agile supply chain system, workshop numerical control system, mobile service scheduling system and GIS ecosystem of data acquisition.

Based on China and looking at the world, Mr. Pan said frankly that compared with customized home furnishing enterprises in the United States and Germany, GOLDENHOME needs to catch up with them in terms of IT and industrialized equipment, but the company is in a leading position when it comes to the “integration of informatization and industrialization”.

As a local entrepreneur, Mr. Pan hopes that GOLDENHOME can contribute golden wisdom and Chinese wisdom to the digital transformation of China’s and even the world’s home furnishing industry during its process of digital transformation.

The sharing of the guests inspired the enthusiasm of the audience. Here are the highlights of the Q&A.

-Dr. Hong Zhong-

Q：What can China learn from German industry 4.0?

A: As we all know, China is a big manufacturing country, while Germany is major manufacturing power. The advantages of German manufacturing lie not only in technology, but also in the stability of its technology. For example, they can ensure that no matter who the cook is and whether he is good at cooking or not, their instant food products tastes almost the same. In this way, they can ensure the stability of technologies, which is worth learning for our manufacturing industry.

-Dr. Wu Yijiang-

Q: While building a smart city, how did Britain manage to achieve data sharing and public privacy protection at the same time?

A: First, by policy. GDPR has strict and meticulous regulations on the processing of personal data. There are certain boundaries for organizations or institutions which want to obtain or use the personal data it holds. Once the boundary is crossed, the punishment is quite serious. Second, by culture. Most British people attach great importance to privacy and will do whatever they can to protect their privacy and personal data.

-Mr. Pan Xiaozhen-

Q: In the process of GOLDENHOME’s digital transformation, do traditional management ideas such as lean production still have value?

A: Nowadays, the home furnishing industry attaches great importance to informatization and smart technologies, which is indeed a good way to upgrade technologies. However, the essence of the home furnishing industry is still a manufacturing industry. Core elements such as continuous improvement and lean production will not change and should not change. For GOLDENHOME, both informatization and lean production should be given enough attention to and cannot be ignored.