What is the second growth curve?
Its definition is that the innovation along the S curve (the first curve) itself is called continuous innovation, which is a gradual improvement and development on a curve. But if it continues to grow along the same curve, it will inevitably meet the limit point, which will lead to extinction.
Therefore, the second curve must be started before the first curve reaches the limit point. The second curve is also an S curve, which is independent of the first curve.
02
Why should we establish our second growth curve?
Let's first understand the life cycle of an industry.
There is a theory called industry life cycle theory.
The life cycle of an industry refers to the time from its appearance to its complete withdrawal from social and economic activities. The life cycle of the industry mainly includes four stages: infancy, growth, maturity and decline.
Consider the problem from the perspective of the whole industry. The life cycle of an industry can be divided into early maturity and late maturity from maturity. In the early stage of maturity, almost all industries have S-shaped growth curves, while in the later stage of maturity, they can be roughly divided into two types.
Enterprises also have their life cycles. And if an enterprise has been doing one thing and only one industry, then its outcome will inevitably decline. Even perish.
Any system, whether breathing or not, has a life cycle. Living things-plants, animals and humans-all go through the process of birth, growth, aging and death. So is the company.
Such as the history of the mobile phone industry.
In the era of "analog communication mobile phone", Motorola occupied nearly 100% market share. Analog communication mobile phone is Motorola's main business. When the emerging business "digital communication mobile phone" appeared, Motorola chose to protect the old main business "analog communication mobile phone" and give up the emerging business "digital communication mobile phone".
When digital communication technology completely replaced analog communication technology, Nokia, the king of digital communication, ruthlessly eliminated Motorola.
Then, the same thing happened behind Nokia.
In 2008, Apple introduced the iPhone. At that time, Nokia may not have realized that the biggest crisis is coming. IPhone not only has a unique appearance, but also has its own operating system. This also allowed the iPhone to quickly accumulate a large number of fans after its launch. And Nokia's most proud "firmness" has become so insignificant after the iPhone passed the fall test. Because the anti-fall of mobile phones is no longer the core demand of human beings.
At the same time, when Apple launched the iPhone, Google also acquired the Android system. Since then, the mobile phone market has been occupied by Android and Apple's iOS system, and Nokia no longer has a foothold, and it was eventually acquired by Microsoft.
Such as Sohu.
Let's take a look at the history of Sohu.
1995 Zhang Chaoyang, founder of Sohu, graduated from MIT and returned to China as the chief representative of ISI Company in China.
Sohu.com was formally established on 1998.
In 2000, Sohu was listed on Nasdaq.
Twenty years ago, the scenery was boundless.
Sohu. Com was the first Internet pioneer. Now, can we see Sohu?
Few people go to Sohu except some people who know Zhang Chaoyang. com。
For example, education and training industry.
202 1, a "double reduction" document has brought too many changes. Since the implementation of the policy for five months, the teaching and training institutions have announced the suspension of off-campus training services such as offline online courses, campus rent withdrawal, store closure and employee unemployment. As the head player on this track, New Oriental and Good Future have to face great pressure and announce the end of the teaching and training industry.
Zhang Quanling, a former CCTV host and a famous Internet investor, once said a widely circulated saying, "When the times abandon you, I won't even say goodbye to you".
03
But why can some companies last forever?
The life cycle of an enterprise is long and short, and there is a difference between a big company and a startup company.
The life cycle of small and medium-sized start-ups is 3 to 6 years. Generally speaking, the development curve of enterprise life cycle is an arched parabola, which shows that the characteristics of different enterprises in different stages are * * *. For example, large enterprises in mature period often face the situation of weak business growth. At this time, we should consider transformation and expand new business, and each stage has a key node.
Netflix in the United States is the second growth company, that is, Netflix, which made House of Cards.
Netflix was founded by Hastings in 1997, and its business is to rent DVDs through the Internet.
In the United States, renting videos and CDs is a very traditional business. The traditional mode is to pay by the day. If you rent a movie and don't return it in time, you will have to pay the overdue fee.
Hastings saw a document at that time. At that time, 20% of the revenue of the largest movie rental company in the United States actually came from the overdue fines of such users.
Based on this, Hastings founded Netflix. Its model is that users pay monthly, one month 19.95 USD.
The traditional model is how much a tablet costs a day. If you forget it in time, you will be fined. Only punishment, no incentive.
What about Netflix? So much money in a month, you can pay it back in a month, and watch more movies to earn more. The possibility of loss has become smaller, and there is an opportunity, and the user's mentality has completely changed. This is the turning point of Netflix.
Five years later, Netflix went public, and by 20 10, Netflix had 20 million users, which means that 10% of the population in the United States are Netflix users.
The more people watch movies on Netflix, the more they know about users and the more accurate the sources of information they provide. But as we all know, fewer and fewer people rent DVDs, which is a downward trend, and the growth of Netflix will inevitably encounter bottlenecks. So it needs to find a second curve that can continue to grow.
Since 2007, Netflix has started the second curve, online video service, just like Youku and Iqiyi members in China.
For example, Alibaba.
The first stage is the "China Yellow Pages" stage, which belongs to Ali Entrepreneurship Year led by Ma Yun.
The second stage is the "Taobao Tmall" stage, and Ali enters the mature e-commerce field.
The third stage is Alipay, which has become the largest online payment platform.
The fourth stage is the "Ant Financial Service" stage, which is an all-round expansion of Ali's financial system.
The fifth stage is the "Alibaba Cloud stage", and each stage is a leap.
Professor Li Shanyou of Chaos University has been advocating this theory for the past few years.
When a system changes along its own life cycle, we can make predictions according to its behavior pattern. Especially at every stage of the life cycle, there will be problems and difficulties-these difficulties must be overcome before the transition.
Sometimes, the system itself can't solve these problems, and it needs the intervention of external forces to get rid of the predicament.
If you want an enterprise to last forever, you must dare to introduce the destructive thinking of the market into enterprise innovation. We should try our best to find the second curve of the enterprise and dare to destroy its main business.
Times have been changing. If any enterprise is immersed in its current advantages and development, it forgets to add a second development curve to itself. No matter how big the company is, it will only go bankrupt.
We know the life cycle of the industry and the development law of enterprises, but many people never think that we have our own life cycle.
04
Industries that will close down in the next decade and jobs that will disappear.
I once read a report about jobs that may disappear in the future.
One is a cashier. With the unmanned supermarket put into use, consumers can realize self-service payment without cashier. Then, high-speed toll stations, parking lots and other places may no longer need cashiers in the future.
The second is assembly line workers.
The third is individual merchants. Affected by the epidemic, coupled with the growing e-commerce, offline stores and physical stores are decreasing, such as clothing stores, shoe stores and bookstores, which will be less and less.
The fourth is the driver. In 20 18, China officially started driving test of driverless cars. When fully automatic driving comes, drivers will also face unemployment.
The fifth is a reporter. Therefore, it is suggested that students who want to be journalists can consider developing towards editing.
The sixth is a bank teller. With the increasing popularity of mobile payment, it has a great impact on banks. In the next decade, 80% of domestic cash use will disappear, and the disappearance of cash also means that bank tellers will face unemployment.
The seventh is the customer service industry. Many Internet companies, such as Taobao, Didi and JD.COM, have adopted artificial intelligence customer service. AI customer service can basically solve 80% of the problems, and only when it is really not possible will it be transferred to manual customer service. With AI intelligent customer service, there will only be less and less manual customer service in the future.
Did you study hard? Still feel that the above work has nothing to do with yourself?
Whether the above is accurate or not, we can't deny that with the advent of the AI era, technology is becoming more and more developed, and many industries and jobs will be replaced.
Enterprises have their own life cycle, and in this era, how should we weak individuals deal with this era?
Look at the next decomposition.