Interpreting Jack Ma's "Five New" Initiatives: New Opportunities Arise from Non-standard Automation Equipment in New Manufacturing
With the advent of the Internet of Things era, the impact of big data has permeated every aspect of life, and societal patterns are beginning to undergo new changes. Jack Ma once mentioned the "Five New" initiatives, namely new retail, new manufacturing, new technology, new energy, and new finance. These five new initiatives will have a profound impact on China's economy, society, politics, and more. Today, we will discuss the new opportunities brought about by new manufacturing.
The new manufacturing that Jack Ma mentioned is based on data, involving manufacturing and non-standard automation equipment. At the same time, Jack Ma highly advocates personalization and customization.
The new manufacturing brought about by data bears similarities to the often-mentioned Industry 4.0 and Made in China 2025. I won't dwell on these here, but will focus on the new manufacturing in terms of personalization and customization mentioned by Jack Ma.
In the fiercely competitive e-commerce retail industry, "differentiated marketing" is what merchants have been striving for, catering to the psychology of a new generation of consumers who pursue personalization. Additionally, the development of the Internet has brought us a brand-new perspective, and the improvement of living standards has also elevated our consumption attitudes, making the pursuit of quality the choice of most people. Therefore, personalization and customization are two inevitable characteristics of future e-commerce development.
For Taobao sellers, the future path of e-commerce brings both opportunities and pressures. Only by adapting to market development and grasping consumer psychology and habits can they better sustain their operations. "New Manufacturing" brings inspiration to Taobao store owners regarding marketing concepts. Personalization and customization are not only reflected in products, but also in services, which can be oriented in this direction.
Personalized and customized products pursue a certain quality and sentiment, emphasizing the perfect fit between users and products. Products crafted according to consumers' actual needs and preferences offer a superior user experience. Often, when users purchase such products, they not only acquire utility but also experience service, representing a higher level of consumption. Sellers can attract a portion of consumers by selling personalized and customized products.
In addition, regarding buyer services, sellers can also achieve personalization and customization in customer service. Especially during holidays and events, customer service representatives can use personalized language when communicating with buyers, such as incorporating popular internet slang and using emoticons. This can make customer service more relatable and warm, rather than appearing like a generic automated response with the ubiquitous "dear". Furthermore, one-on-one customer service is also a manifestation of customization. Nowadays, professional customer service representatives can achieve this, patiently and sincerely addressing customers' concerns, which is what every customer service representative strives to do.
It can be seen that Jack Ma's proposal of new manufacturing is to some extent based on Alibaba's services. Because of this, many entrepreneurs in the manufacturing industry have raised objections to Jack Ma's new manufacturing concept. Zong Qinghou directly stated, "I think that besides new technology, the rest is nonsense." However, Li Dongsheng, chairman of TCL, was more tactful: "Actually, I do agree with the new technology, but I don't quite understand the other 'new' concepts. I dare not say that he is talking nonsense like Mr. Zong, because these 'new' concepts seem to be tailored to his business model, and he hopes that the future business environment will be like this. But for the industrial sector and the real economy, it is not suitable to simply use so many 'new' words and assume that new is always good." Dong Mingzhu said, "Actually, Mr. Zong's expression was very emotional from the bottom of his heart. He was telling the truth. In fact, we think that the 'new' technology we just mentioned is all existing and pre-existing because we are constantly innovating. We are talking about progress as a manifestation of the times, and there is no particular severity to it."
