Chapter 3101: 20,000 People

The next morning, Boss Ma invited Boss Zhou out for tea.

We won’t talk about the meeting this time.

It was decided last night.

When inviting foreigners, it’s best to be as restrained as possible and just invite the founder of Uber. As an international online ride-hailing giant, Uber has also launched business in China and participated in the ride-hailing war.

However, when it comes to the ability and determination to burn money, it is not that interesting for such foreign companies to compete with local companies.

This Internet Conference is a grand event.

All well-known domestic Internet entrepreneurs were present, and even many big names from non-Internet industries were present, such as Mr. Zhang from Haier and Mr. Li from Geely. They were also actively following the Internet and leading their companies to transform to the Internet.

Later it became increasingly difficult.

Except for people like Lao Zhang who like to join in the fun, most of the respectable people don't go, and they even end up asking internet celebrities to speak. The foreigners who came to participate have also changed from some real industry bosses to black brothers who are just pretending to be numbers.

Zhou Buqi is not optimistic about this kind of thing.

"How's the micro-business thing going?"

Boss Ma said he didn't care on the surface, but in fact he cared more than anyone else. In the e-commerce industry over the past many years, micro-commerce can be said to be the product that worries him the most.

Zhou Buqi said: "It has been conveyed in the meeting."

Boss Ma asked tentatively: "Have you really given up?"

Zhou Buqi said with a smile: "Isn't that what you mean? You have said it back and forth four hundred and eighty times over such a trivial matter."

"Mainly because I'm afraid that you don't understand and take the wrong path." Boss Ma shook his head, with a serious look on his face, "I've heard it all. There are not only fakes in WeChat business, but the key is that there are many big scammers hidden there. , this is not a good sign.”

Zhou Buqi said calmly: "There's nothing to worry about. I'll beat him to death with a stick. From now on, no one can post micro-business advertisements in Moments."

Boss Ma was very happy and said with a smile: "So, if you want to build a great company, you really need a great structure."

Zhou Buqi said angrily: "You are happy too soon! Even if I don't do some things, someone will definitely do it!"

"There are some things you can do that others can't do."

Boss Ma is not worried about this at all. What he is afraid of is not the micro-business, but the micro-business under Zhou Buqi.

Zhou Buqi waved his hand and said, "Forget it, let me ask you something. How did you pass the 20,000 people mark?"

"ah?"

Boss Ma was slightly startled.

Zhou Buqi said: "The total number of employees in Alibaba has already exceeded 20,000, right?"

The more employees there are, the more complex it is to manage.

This is not a linear multiplication, but an exponential increase. For large companies, 20,000 employees is a hurdle. Almost all companies will have some management crises when they reach this threshold.

For example, Baidu began to call on the wolf spirit in order to break through the bottleneck of 20,000 people. Another example is Huawei, in order to improve work efficiency and fighting spirit, it organized an event where 7,000 people resigned and then competed for new positions.

Alibaba has a sales team and customer service team of several thousand people. As early as four or five years ago, the total number of employees exceeded 20,000.

Boss Ma nodded, "Well, this is really a troublesome matter."

Zhou Buqi asked: "What did you do?"

Boss Ma was unambiguous and pointed at himself, "Start with me."

"you?"

"When there is a problem in the company, the first one to take action must be the one with the most power. The greater the power, the greater the responsibility. I have already resigned, do you know?"

"Is this enough?"

Zhou Buqi knew that he had resigned from his position as CEO of Alibaba long ago and gave it to young people.

Boss Ma said: "The most important thing is actually to create an atmosphere of crisis within the company and not let everyone have a comfortable and stable mentality. I fired all the Eighteen Arhats and then re-employed them through competition."

"What's the use of this, formalism."

Zhou Buqi doesn't agree with this.

After the layoffs, several people actually lost their jobs, which was indeed a deterrent and could create a sense of crisis. After they were dismissed, they were all recruited back and made partners again. This was just a formality.

Boss Ma continued: "The dismissal or retirement of some key positions and senior executives must be high-profile, so that everyone can feel the sharpness of the knife. In addition, grassroots positions must be fully outsourced to create a larger job uncertainty.”

Zhou Buqi laughed and said, "It's just the fear effect!"

"You can say that." Boss Ma looked at him strangely, "The total number of employees of Ziweixing has not reached 20,000?"

"It's coming soon. It will probably arrive in a few months."

Zhou Buqi does not currently encounter any major internal management difficulties, but he has to prepare for a rainy day. The plan he adopted was fragmented management, part of which was managed by the human resources department of the headquarters, and part of which was managed by the human resources subsidiary.

Boss Ma said in surprise: "Why are there so few people in Ziweixing?"

The other three major competitors of BAT had more than 20,000 employees a few years ago.

Ziweixing has the largest business and the highest market value.

The number of people is the smallest?

How?

Zhou Buqi smiled and said: "Improve business efficiency and reduce trial and error costs."

"How to reduce it?"

Boss Ma was very confused about this.

No one is perfect, so who can be without mistakes?

Especially for large companies, many correct decisions are drawn from countless trials and errors. Trial and error will have costs, and will face a lot of waste of manpower and material resources. There are so many people in large companies, but in fact, only a few thousand people can really play a practical role in the business. Most of them are doing trial and error, and are doing some wrong instructions issued by senior management.

In fact, the salary expenditure ratio of domestic companies is very low.

No company collapsed because of the salary of employees, but because of the high trial and error costs caused by wrong decision-making.

Zhou Buqi said: "Be decisive! Just like WeChat business, there are many supporters in Ziweixing who believe that we should take one step at a time and extend the time span. This is conventional logic, right? But if we listen to them, the cost of trial and error will increase. In order to do WeChat business projects, we may have to recruit thousands of new people for this, and in the end, it will only be a mess. All these people will be laid off."

"Is that so..."

Boss Ma smiled.

However, another sentence he said was right, that is, if a company encounters difficulties in operation and management, the first thing to change is to change the CEO.

Zhou Buqi has already arranged everything.

Next summer, he will resign from the CEO positions of both Ziweixing and Ziweixing International, giving them to Zhang Yiming and Kurian.

Boss Ma said: "The huge trial and error cost is actually the biggest competitive advantage of the domestic Internet industry. Compared with Silicon Valley giants, the proportion of salary expenses of domestic technology companies is very low, and the proportion of trial and error costs is very high. Trial and error... In fact, it is like doing experiments. Only by repeated experiments and repeated demonstrations can we polish out the most market-recognized products."

"Yes."

Zhou Buqi nodded.

I agree with this.

Before, Ziweixing and Ziweixing International were actually taking shortcuts. They relied on Boss Zhou to give the results directly. They did not need huge trial and error costs to invest, and could directly get the best experimental results. This naturally allows you to spend the least money and use the least people to do the biggest things.

It won't work in the future. The role of foresight is getting smaller and smaller. Both companies need to gradually move towards the conventional operation route.

Zhou Buqi is also very self-aware.

The shortcut is almost over.

The bonus period is almost over.

There is only one short video business left for him to show his skills.

Next, we can only adjust the position of the CEO and rely on them to experiment and move forward by trial and error.