Informatization Of Smes In Southwest China: First Seek Survival And Then Seek Innovation.

Small and medium-sized enterprises are a huge group. For Sichuan, they are mainly concentrated in mechanical processing, electronic manufacturing, medicine and construction industry. There are about 1700000 small and medium-sized enterprises in the province, accounting for more than 99% of the total number of enterprises. The number of small and medium-sized industrial enterprises has reached more than 7000, and the added value of small and medium-sized enterprises accounts for about 40% of the total GDP in the province.

Because of the low labor force, many small and medium-sized enterprises have begun to "advance westward", and how to promote the informatization of these enterprises has become the focus of attention from all walks of life.

Editor's note: by using modern information technology, by organizing, integrating and developing information resources, enterprises can greatly enhance the management, operation efficiency and economic efficiency of enterprises, and then enhance their market competitiveness. This is the consensus of the experience and the formation of information construction enterprises.

In China, about 43000000 small and medium enterprises now account for 99.8% of the total number of enterprises in China. Taking industrial enterprises above designated size as an example, in 2005, SMEs achieved a total profit of 796 billion 100 million yuan, paying 607 billion yuan in taxes, and providing 53 million 290 thousand jobs, accounting for 55.4%, 55.3% and 78.5% of all industrial enterprises respectively.

Therefore, promoting the informatization of small and medium-sized enterprises, encouraging and supporting the wider and deeper use of information technology by SMEs will surely push the pformation of economic growth mode from factor driving to innovation driven.

Based on this, in August 2005, the national development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of information industry and the Information Office of the State Council, together with the principles of "government advocacy, enterprise entities and social participation", jointly launched and implemented the "SME Informatization advancement project".

The main idea is that the government should set up a platform to organize and coordinate all social forces to provide support and services for the informatization construction of small and medium-sized enterprises.

The women workers in the production department of the car industry in Southern China have been paying attention to SMEs for a long time. Recently, they dispatched reporters to divide the army three ways, and went to three regions, such as southwest, Southern China and central China, which were relatively concentrated in small and medium-sized enterprises, and conducted in-depth interviews and reports.

First of all, please pay attention to the southwest area.

The women's shoes in Wuhou District, Chengdu, have to go through more than 100 processes. After the workers' hands are processed and processed by computers, the women's shoes with similar appearance are totally different.

Some of them have crossed the sea, and have entered famous brands in Europe and the United States in 1500 retail stores in Europe and America.

Naturally, the price of women's shoes sold in different markets is also very different, because materials, styles, market positioning and brand are totally different.

This is a true portrayal of the production and marketing of shoe industry in most small and medium-sized enterprises in Wuhou District, Chengdu.

The way of production and sale of shoes is no difference from the shoe market that flourishes in Southern China a few years ago. It seems to be a replica of Southern China shoe industry.

In recent years, the competitiveness of the footwear industry in Southern China has gradually declined, and the "East shoe shift to the west" is a foregone conclusion.

Wuhou District, Chengdu has assembled more than 3000 large and small women's shoes processing enterprises.

In Southern China, more than just the shoe industry, more and more SMEs in processing and manufacturing are running away.

However, the small and medium-sized enterprises in Southwest China are born with this trend.

There are now 1 million 700 thousand SMEs in Sichuan.

No matter in terms of quantity or scale, what are the new features of the southwest small and medium-sized enterprises in the fast growing period? What is the new feature on the road of information technology? The rudiment of e-commerce, Chengdu Wu Tian food company, is located in Xinjin County, only 30 minutes away from Chengdu.

This is a company that specializes in processing high and low temperature meat products. The food produced is directly sent to the supermarket, and downstream is a family co production cooperative mainly based on breeding chicken and ducks as a fixed supplier.

In the small and medium-sized enterprises in Chengdu, Wu Tian food, which has been established for only a few years, has great reputation in information technology.

This more than 1000 person processing enterprise, all IT equipment and information system daily maintenance and construction projects are responsible for the group network service center.

The food company relied on the advantages of the group's feed, and the supplier had more than 400 large poultry and duck farms.

Wu Tian food is one of the typical reasons for information technology, which is to establish an e-commerce network platform with suppliers.

The cycle of meat processing is shorter, and Wu Tian food should grasp the supply situation in time and arrange the production plan well.

For example, there are 100 suppliers in a month and 500 thousand chickens on the hurdle. It is estimated that the next hurdle is next month. Wu Tian food will have a plan to organize acquisitions, arrange production lines, and link up with 4 branches throughout the country to plan for supply and marketing tasks.

In the absence of e-commerce platform, Wu Tian food mainly relies on the household product association and the more than 400 breeding households to collect data.

There are many disadvantages in this way of relying on telephone or fax to understand information, and the inaccuracy of data is the biggest problem.

Later, Wu Tian food bought a set of software for about 500000 yuan and revised it according to its actual situation.

This e-business platform is based on the B/S structure and is placed on the public network. If you have a computer, you can log in after you apply for a user name and password.

Once a new breed of chickens and ducks is put on the farm, if they turn on the computer to input data, how many kinds of chickens and ducks, what types, when they want to log in, and fill in the data in the form, then they can concentrate on feeding and wait for the purchase.

For the prevention and control of pests and diseases, large farmers can also communicate on BBS and check relevant information.

Wu Tian Ming, director of Wu Tian food network service center, said: "the biggest advantage of this system is that information is timely and accurate, so that we can timely check the monthly supply situation and achieve meticulous management."

However, at present, only more than 30 of the more than 400 large breeding households have computers, covering only a certain area.

As for the farmers who have not yet covered them, they can only report the output plan to the association or Wu Tian food link.

Du Youming introduced: "this e-commerce platform is supported by the local bureau of information industry. The purchase of computers by the local county information industry bureau is also in accordance with the ratio of three to 1: 1: 1 of the food, government and farmers, which lightens the burden on the large farmers, and plans to directly pull broadband into more than 100 large households next year."

This food company, whose annual sales volume is 350 million yuan, is now in a period of rapid development. The e-commerce platform is only an information project linking the downstream supply chain.

On the above, Wu Tian has its own sales network, monthly sales statistics, and in the enterprise there is an internal information sharing platform, so that the enterprise internal information flow and various instructions, requirements and so on can be sent to the receiver in the shortest time.

In this regard, Du Youming's view is that these systems enable enterprises to dynamically update online sales, order, reconciliation, purchase and inventory information, and strengthen the connection between enterprises and the market.

Wu Tian food is precisely located in the upper and lower reaches of the supply chain, and the entire internal information is unimpeded.

Every year or every other period, according to the needs of large farmers, Wu Tian food and these large farmers signed the purchase price. Even under special circumstances, such as the 2003 SARS period, Wu Tian food can also buy chickens and ducks according to various contract plans to protect the interests of suppliers.

In the field of Wu Tian food group, there are also sales statistics data platform of ERP system and branches.

Although the statistical platform is very primitive, it relies on forms to report to the group, but Du has said that these forms of CEOs are personally passing the purpose, requiring customers to sell more than 30 tons of data to report, why the analysis data decline and rise, so as to make meticulous management.

High sensitivity to cost and benefit is one of the characteristics of small and medium-sized enterprises.

For example, in the information system, the group began to use UFIDA financial software from the DOS era, and entered the group management, and also wanted to use UFG group management software. When it heard that it had to invest 200~300 yuan, it gave up.

Switching to other software is cheap and affordable.

First, seek survival and seek innovation. Chengdu Wuhou District active women shoes processing enterprises have a large number, rapid growth and flexible operation mode.

In the last century, the footwear industry shifted from developed countries to coastal areas of China. In recent years, some enterprises in Southern China began to shift their production workshops to the western regions in order to make use of the rich and cheap raw materials and labor resources in the western region, such as leather shoes in Chongqing area, from over 120 thousand employees, with a large number of skilled and relatively low cost shoemaking craftsmen.

But under such prosperity, there are also many drawbacks.

Some officials believe that Wuhou District has more than 3000 large and small enterprises that manufacture shoes. There are many problems such as the lack of well-known brands, the single product variety and the weak R & D capability of enterprises.

Chengdu, known as "the city of women's shoes", is only a cheap labor force in the shoe industry supply chain. The Chengdu shoes industry is a sizeable enterprise in the footwear industry, with more than 2000 employees, but its annual sales volume is no more than 120 million yuan.

Liu Ying, assistant general manager of the card industry, said that he might be the first enterprise in Wuhou District to use the footwear ERP system, which was developed jointly by the company and software company.

After that, the software company began to promote the ERP system in Wuhou District.

Liu Ying believes that although most manufacturing enterprises have similar processes, shoe management has its own characteristics, so it is difficult to use general products, not to mention the software of foreign companies.

The biggest difference between women's shoes and men's shoes is that there are many accessories, not only many styles, but also many processes.

Don't look at the simple style, but also need more than 100 processes to get offline.

Nowadays, women's shoes are processed according to the order form. Every season, they take samples to order, they will consult with the sellers, and then contact the downstream suppliers to arrange the production.

If the product enters the selling season, a product needs to be pferred or increased output, otherwise the product will not be sold well if the season is missed.

In view of this characteristic, the footwear industry of the card industry mainly applies two information and information systems, namely, production management and distribution system.

The former is applied to four production lines in three branches in Chengdu, while the latter is mainly used in Guangzhou sales center.

Liu Ying said that the two systems are about 1 million yuan.

"If we do not make enough efforts in production, management and distribution systems, we will not be able to surpass our rivals or make them bigger."

Although there is such a sense of information in the card industry, its information system still focuses on internal control, including ERP, supply chain management, OA and finance, but not with upstream and downstream industry chain, let alone computer aided design.

In this regard, Liu Ying believes that in China, the use of computers, especially three-dimensional manufacturing design samples are very few, only in the footwear industry developed countries such as Italy.

The decision support system for market detection, fashion trends and competitors is in the future planning.

Liu Ying said, the company will not just make OEM, but to create its own brand, otherwise, if foreign capital finds cheaper labor and raw materials, Chengdu will lose the shoe market.

It is also the case that the marketing system is placed in the marketing headquarters of Guangzhou.

The small and medium-sized enterprises that share the same idea with the company are not few.

In the implementation of informatization projects, Chongqing actively promotes enterprises to "go out" and directly understand and master the latest international technology, technology and market dynamics abroad.

In 2003, Changan set up an overseas technology development center in Italy, and some enterprises chose to build factories or set up branches overseas.

Lifan's Vietnam engine plant has already been put into operation, and Zong Shen and LONCIN also have large-scale beachheads.

Chongqing Lifan Group brings information into a part of the innovation system, and finds the living space through technological innovation and product innovation. The car launched this year is part of the innovation system.

The production of Chongqing Lifan engine is ranked the first in the country, and information management will play a significant role.

On the assembly line, every process of the engine must be scanned by computer to record the quantity of production and the responsible person.

If there is a problem need to be repaired, it is also through computer scanning, input problem code, waiting for maintenance.

Hu Qiquan, the computer department of Lifan, says that an engine needs 5~6 barcodes and records all kinds of information.

Lifan Group is a large enterprise, but every branch of Lifan is small and medium-sized enterprises, and has corresponding information system.

Hu Qiquan said that in 2000, Lifan began to make web sites, and in the following years established e-mail systems, OA and other information systems.

In 2004, Lifan deployed the group financial software. Now it is an import and export trade system, and various production management systems such as PDM have been launched.

Hu Qiquan visited the design of reverse computer with reporters. This is the recent introduction of computer technology by Lifan, which changed the way of physical model market production and physical objects in the past. Instead, it used computer three-dimensional technology to design models, then looked at the market reaction and then chose the right parts, including engines, tires and so on.