What are the main paths for implementing Internet Plus?

Since the beginning of this year, following the proposal of the “Internet Plus” action plan in the Government Work Report, a series of related policy measures have been rolled out one after another, from the “Guiding Opinions on Internet Plus Action” to the “Opinions on Vigorously Developing E-commerce to Accelerate the Cultivation of New Economic Drivers”, from the “Guiding Opinions on Promoting the Healthy and Rapid Development of Cross-border E-commerce” to the “Internet Plus Circulation” Action Plan launched by the Ministry of Commerce, all of which have put forward new ideas for China's future economic development around “Internet Plus”. How to better grasp the development trend of “Internet Plus” and implement the development ideas requires our in-depth thinking.

I

“Internet Plus” is the practical application of the Internet mindset of connection, openness, collaboration and sharing, and is also the integration of product value and user value. It has established a new economic philosophy oriented toward consumers, reshaped a new ecological environment for China's industry, commerce and foreign trade and economic development, and produced a qualitative change of cross-boundary integration. In the future, China's “Internet Plus” will mainly present 5 major development trends.

First, “Internet Plus” will penetrate into all traditional industry sectors. Its model lies not only in traditional enterprises using Internet technology to transform production processes, but also in generating more new production, circulation and business models that integrate and promote each other between the Internet and traditional industries.

Second, “Internet Plus” will give rise to the O2O omni-channel integration model. Online services will promote fundamental changes in the real economy of offline production, sales and services. Relevant institutions predict that in 2015, the O2O market scale of China's catering industry will reach 120 billion yuan, and the O2O scale of online education will reach 123.7 billion yuan.

Third, the comprehensive service industry of “Internet Plus” will rise. These comprehensive service enterprises, by integrating the industrial chain, trade chain, regulatory chain and data chain, will develop from the original information and transaction services toward areas covering payment, logistics, credit, product quality insurance and finance, providing all-round integrated services for full-process online transactions.

Fourth, the industrial chain of “Internet Plus” will be gradually improved. Platform e-commerce and self-built websites will develop in coordination, various platforms will be further integrated, service functions will be gradually improved, and more manufacturing enterprises will establish full-industrial-chain production and marketing models with the Internet as the carrier.

Fifth, e-commerce will achieve considerable development. China's e-commerce will enter a stage of service intensification and industrial chain coordinated development. E-commerce enterprises will continue to innovate in business models and technological products, e-commerce will improve substantially from scale to quality, and a comprehensive e-commerce service system will be gradually established.

II

The elevation of “Internet Plus” to a national strategy means that this new economic form will become a new engine driving China's economic development and thereby promote China's reform and opening up and marketization process. Of course, as an emerging and rapidly developing field, the development of “Internet Plus” will inevitably face various contradictions in its growth and needs careful support. According to the analysis results of big data models, the impact of “Internet Plus” on China's commercial work includes:

First, it advances reform and opening up and the marketization process. Implementing the “Internet Plus” plan, transforming traditional thinking with Internet thinking and transforming traditional government affairs with e-government, can break through reform bottlenecks and comprehensively advance the reform of the government management system. Through various business model innovations, it advances the marketization process, improves the input-output ratio of opening up, and maximizes the benefits of opening up.

Second, it promotes the building of a modern commercial circulation system. “Internet Plus” is integrated into all fields of production, circulation, consumption, domestic trade and international trade, shifting from product orientation to consumer orientation and changing traditional business models and circulation models. From online to offline, “Internet Plus” closely connects producers and consumers, links domestic production and circulation with overseas production and trade into an integrated chain, and truly realizes the formation of a unified large market between urban and rural areas and a unified large market at home and abroad.

Third, it promotes the realization of the “Made in China 2025” plan. “Internet Plus” will drive China to upgrade from low-end processing and manufacturing in the industrial chain to the middle and high end of the industrial chain. As the industrial Internet penetrates into equipment manufacturing and industrial fields such as new energy and new materials, it will also drive the development of China's middle and high-end manufacturing. In the next 10 years, changes in supply chains will reshape the global production and trade landscape. China can, by virtue of the “Internet Plus” industrial upgrading model, enhance its position in the global supply chain and comprehensively build a new production and trade landscape as a manufacturing powerhouse.

Fourth, it improves the quality and efficiency of China's services. “Internet Plus” can promote technological upgrading and enable people to obtain more direct benefits in fields such as livelihood, medical care, education, transportation and finance. In addition, by providing full-process services such as overseas promotion, transaction support and online payment, it can reduce service costs and improve the export competitiveness of China's service trade.

III

“Internet Plus” is a “C-driven-B” business model centered on consumers, and is a deconstruction and reconstruction of traditional production and trade methods. Implementing the “Internet Plus” action plan requires proceeding step by step and advancing gradually according to the economic development characteristics of countries and regions, with particular emphasis on using “Internet Plus” to transform and upgrade traditional industries, rather than merely developing the Internet platform economy. Specifically, the commercial field can start from the following aspects.

First, create a market-oriented development atmosphere and ecological environment. Establish and improve support systems such as laws and regulations, supporting policies, intellectual property protection and technical standards. Promote e-government in processes such as registration, approval and taxation, form the upgrading of government management under “Internet Plus”, and regulate the competitive order of “Internet Plus” innovation and entrepreneurship.

Second, promote the healthy development of various “Internet Plus” model innovations. Encourage technological innovation and model innovation in various models such as the Internet of Things, industrial Internet, agricultural Internet and Internet finance. Establish self-regulatory industry standards and rules to regulate industry development. Encourage the absorption and introduction of various types of capital and encourage private capital investment. Promote the establishment of “Internet Plus” entrepreneurship parks and incubators, and support manufacturing in using Internet platforms for entrepreneurial and innovative development.

Third, promote the transformation of traditional manufacturing through “Internet Plus”. Use “Internet Plus” to advance the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries and develop green manufacturing and smart manufacturing. Encourage crowdfunding and crowdsourcing models for transforming traditional industries; develop new manufacturing models such as Internet-based personalized customization, crowdsourced design and cloud manufacturing, and promote the formation of R&D, production and trade methods based on dynamic perception of consumer demand. Encourage the development of information service industries and collaborative innovation platforms such as technology development, consulting and design, and operation and maintenance services that promote industrial modernization and informatization.

Fourth, use “Internet Plus” to build an upgraded version of modern agriculture. Accelerate the construction of rural Internet infrastructure and vigorously develop high-quality, efficient, green and safe new agricultural products, new models and new business forms based on “Internet Plus agriculture”. Establish national and regional agricultural big data research and application centers, and build a network traceability and supervision system for agricultural product quality and safety. Promote the O2O model of “Internet Plus” rural education and training. Promote the joint building of an “Internet Plus” agricultural standards system with “Belt and Road” countries.

Fifth, build a modern circulation system led by “Internet Plus”. Fully implement the “Internet Plus” circulation action plan, use “Internet Plus” to promote the reform of the traditional commercial circulation system, develop smart circulation, and build a modern circulation system. Establish an operating mechanism for integrated domestic and foreign trade enterprises that conforms to international rules, advance the construction of commercial big data, and improve the internationalized operation level of China's commercial circulation industry.