The picture shows Yang Dan, deputy chief engineer of Changhong Group, speaking about Changhong's Internet transformation at the 2014 Home Appliance Forum and Internet Transformation Report conference
Our reporter Dan Lu
2014 is a key year for the home appliance industry to fully accelerate the Internet transformation。In order to realize the subversion and reconstruction under the Internet thinking, home appliance enterprises have made a series of adjustments in strategy, products, marketing, etc., among which, the centralized appearance of Changhong CHiQ's full line of products has opened the screen of Internet transformation of home appliance industry, which has triggered the active follow-up of many enterprises in the home appliance circle。
At the "2014 Home Appliance Forum and Internet Transformation Report Conference" held by China Electronics Newspaper recently, Yang Dan, deputy chief engineer of Changhong Group, shared Changhong's Internet transformation experience。In the coming year of 2014, Changhong has realized the all-round transformation from product design to manufacturing, from marketing means to brand remodeling, from organizational structure adjustment to information platform construction, and has become the most distinctive banner in the collective transformation of home appliance enterprises to the Internet。The landing of CHiQ series products is only the "initial experience" of Changhong's exploration of home Internet, and in the future, Changhong will focus on continuing to tap user needs, looking for "killer" applications of smart home appliances, and ultimately create a super integration based on smart home。
Take the Internet as the direction
Changhong Nirvana transformation
"Home appliance companies are asset-heavy enterprises, it is not like the Internet companies can easily turn around, our turn is Phoenix Nirvana.。This may not be a problem in Internet companies, but it is a big problem in home appliance companies。When talking about the opportunities and challenges brought by the Internet to home appliance companies, Yang Dan was blunt。
According to the newly released "2014 China Home Appliance Enterprise Internet Transformation Report", from 2004 to 2014, China's home appliance market created "sales scale growth of 95% and annual compound growth of 7.An impressive score of 0%"。However, as the market enters a period of adjustment, the era of sustained high growth of the whole category of home appliance industry has become a thing of the past, and the overall growth has entered a state of low speed or even stagnation。Since 2013, letV, Millet and other Internet companies high-profile "kill" into the home appliance market, an Internet transformation drama began to brew in home appliance companies。
Yang Dan to the "China Electronics News" reporter introduced: "As a computing company to do music, CD no longer;As computing companies made mobile phones, MOTOROLA and Nokia disappeared。What about a computing company entering the home appliance market？The truth is, from Microsoft's Venus project to Apple's Apple TV to Google TV, computing companies have been trying to get into home appliances without success。However, the arrival of the Internet era has made home appliance companies begin to reflect, and actively embrace new business formats, and try to transform。Among them, Changhong also experienced the process of "Phoenix nirvana"。
In the past 10 years, domestic home appliance enterprises have won by scale, gained advantages in market share, and brand concentration has become increasingly high。Changhong is also a beneficiary。As Yang Dan said, "the transformation of asset-heavy enterprises is not easy", and the transformation of Internet thinking is needed in product design, manufacturing, marketing, enterprise management and other aspects。In the full embrace of the Internet transformation，Changhong has established intelligence, network and collaboration as the "new three-coordinate strategy";Promote the product manager system，Zhao Yong, the chairman of the company, became the largest product manager of CHiQ project;Realized the transformation of product design and manufacturing concept from the past "engineer thinking" to "user first"...At the same time，Changhong also launched the implementation of big data, cloud platform and other core supporting projects，Trying to build a new business model of "terminal + data + content + service"。This is undoubtedly a big subversion for the traditional home appliance manufacturing industry。
CHiQ landing
Redefining smart appliances
"The home appliance industry gives consumers the impression that the traditional product industry, in order to do a good job in the Internet era, the brand's rich product line and its own positioning is very important.。Changhong made CHiQ brand, which is a free-spirited, Internet characteristics of the brand。In Yang Dan's view, the launch of CHiQ brand is changing consumers' understanding of Changhong, and also reshaping Changhong's brand image。With the landing of CHiQ series products, Changhong is redefining smart home appliances。
Yang Dan told reporters that manufacturing-based enterprises emphasize class and ethics, while the Internet emphasizes grassroots and challenges authority, and advocates personal freedom。This difference poses a challenge to the design and manufacture of home appliances, especially smart home appliances。Yang Dan said: "When Changhong makes products, it considers what services the product can bring to the main consumer group now, and defines the product by service. At the same time, this service must also take into account terminals, communication pipelines, etc.。”
For example, on the refrigerator, Yang Dan said: "How many things are put in the refrigerator at home, after a period of time we may not know, that is, we have asymmetric information inside the refrigerator.。This requires us to make information symmetrical, so that information can flow quickly。This is a business entry point。Another example is air conditioning, Yang Dan said: "The air conditioning we produce should create a controllable room environment, such as the grasp of air temperature, humidity, particles, etc.。At the same time, it also has energy-saving functions。He said: "Life is a continuous process, do not think that we buy smart products at home, our life is smart.。”
It is based on such considerations, at the beginning of this year, Changhong has launched China's first three-play integrated smart TV CHiQ TV, which realizes watching at any time, classifying and taking away.Then it released CHiQ refrigerator equipped with cloud image recognition technology;This was followed by the introduction of CHiQ air conditioners with human state sensing technology。The landing of a series of CHiQ products has allowed Changhong to redefine smart home appliances, and triggered the "CHiQ phenomenon" in the home appliance circle.。According to Yang Dan, the current activation rate of CHiQ series products has reached 50%, and the sustained active rate is about 30%, which is at a high level in the industry。
However, it can not be ignored that although home appliance companies have launched a variety of smart home appliance products including TVS, refrigerators, air conditioners, etc., whether they can truly gain consumer recognition and bring intelligent life experience to consumers has yet to be further verified by the market。In Yang Dan's view, the main problem of smart home appliances at present is the lack of "killer" applications。Zhang Hong, deputy director of the China Institute of Electronic Technology Standardization, also told reporters that an important reason why smart home appliances are not attractive is the lack of "killer" applications, product design engineers to develop "killer" applications from different angles, which is the key to determining whether future products can seize the user。For the future product direction, Yang Dan's idea is very real, "The main thing is to lay a good foundation of the existing architecture, continue to research and tap consumer demand, and timely find the 'killer' application.。”
Start with the smart home
Create super convergence
"Our products focus on smart families, evolve to smart communities and smart cities, and the entry point is the smart community, the smart city is up, and the smart family is down.。According to Yang Dan's introduction, the introduction of CHiQ series products is only the first step of Changhong's home Internet strategy, and in the long run, Changhong's ultimate goal is to create a super integration based on smart families。
The concept of smart family has been proposed for a long time, and several domestic and foreign electricity companies have also launched smart home appliances, trying to create an interconnected and mutually controlled smart family。But in Yang Dan's view, home appliances to achieve intelligence, not only need an operating system to install software according to the user's ideas, there is also a cloud behind the software, the cloud will record the user's operating behavior, and then push some precise things。In addition, there is another important point, that is, what kind of ecosystem should home appliance companies unite to create。"The current smart family is still in the Warring States era and has not yet achieved integration," he said。”
Yang Dan also told reporters that the focus of smart home appliances is to solve the interaction problem, one is the interaction of a single machine, and the other is the interaction of the APP itself。If smart home appliance manufacturers have some innovations in interaction, information separation, connection and storage of home terminals, such family life will gradually change user habits, and gradually allow users to have a strong connection between life and terminals。
At present, Changhong is developing an APP platform based on the interaction between home appliance products。According to Yang Dan, Changhong's products focus on smart homes and evolve to smart communities and smart cities。He said: "We spent four years to do a completely open APP, in which the application platform has a basic service is property, can solve the access control, group purchase and other problems.。Through this platform, users can enjoy smart property, and new services and products can be implanted on this basis。In this way, the products provided by Changhong are not only home terminals, but also service-based terminals。In addition, Changhong offers community - and city-based services that also allow others to come in。What Changhong wants to do is to stick users with the platform。When there are 100,000 or 10 million individuals or families, it will complete the super integration that Changhong wants to do。”