Plagiarism is not easy: the original is called plagiarism and changes are called imitation.

Tencent plagiarism can succeed, MediaTek plagiarism can succeed, Hisense plagiarism can succeed, why the cottage slowly died? Plagiarism is also a technology live moderator: Rao Yufeng "Entrepreneur" editorial department planning: Rao Yufeng "Entrepreneur" editorial guest: Gao Xiang China Europe International Business School Shao Shuai President of Beijing Hua Pulantai Information Technology Co., Ltd. (left)

Sun Hong General Manager, Beijing Jiuhe Shangpin Technology Co., Ltd. (middle)

In the autumn and winter of 2009, the Italian fashion brand Dolce & Gabbana showed a lofty trousers, while Armani, another world-famous fashion brand in Milan, had a similar appearance on the 2008 show. Armani angered and accused Dolce & Gabbana of The designer plagiarized his work. In the face of accusations, the two designers performed very calmly and rebelliously. The prototype of this design appeared in a Japanese designer's work as early as in 2007...

Actually, not only the fashion industry, but also the global outlook, the “shanzhai”ization has become a phenomenon: after a new technology or a new product emerges, several similar followers will emerge immediately in the market. Just as the Hanwang e-book is for Amazon's kindle, the various group-purchasing websites for Groupon... If it does not exceed the scope permitted by law, is this not a shortcut? However, as the saying goes, "theft is also a good idea." If you are a start-up entrepreneur, when you see other people's new products and new technologies, how can you learn and imitate your talents without violating the law and maximizing your profits? On the other hand, when you become the leader of the industry, how can you guarantee your leading position and not be copied or surpassed by later ones?

More than one entrepreneur told the “Entrepreneur” that whether plagiarism or imitation is not a simple effort, it is not an easy task to reproduce its own competitiveness.

I read 300 poems of Tang poetry and I will not be able to do poetry. Moderator: In China, "shanzhai" has become a phenomenon, but how can we grasp the degree of plagiarism and imitation?

Shao Shuai: As a child, when we learned ancient poetry, we heard one sentence: “If you read 300 poems of Tang poetry, you will not be able to do poetry.” The reason is that learning Chinese is started from memorizing other people's things. In this way, learning or imitation is a required course. Learning from others is learning what others have already done. After all these things have been learned to do higher and deeper things, you can walk out of your own path.

Because it's not meaningful to repeat the way others have walked from scratch. For example, if we do a light bulb now, even if it gives you 50 years, you may not be able to study how to make electric lights before Edison, but you You can directly study how to design the shape of the light bulb, how to make it more functional, how to achieve more energy-efficient effects, and so on.

So no matter what you want to do, there is always a process of imitation in the early stage. The imitation is to create something new.

Sun Hong: When it comes to the issue of “shanzhai”, we must first admit that many of China’s technologies are indeed many years behind foreign countries. How do we compete with others under such circumstances? I think that imitation is the best way to improve competitiveness in a short period of time. However, “copying is also a good idea”, and good plagiarism is to infuse something on the basis of copying others. In 2007, we decided to imitate PPG in preparation for the MASA MASO brand.

Before that, I myself have been in the apparel industry for many years, doing traditional processing and sales. In fact, for some time the price of our T-shirts can be sold like BOSS and BURBERRY, and even some categories can exceed them. But to be honest, our brand is not as good as they are. With more foreign brands gradually entering the Chinese market in recent years, we are under increasing pressure.

After analyzing the status quo, we can easily find that the biggest problem is pricing, and the one that affects pricing is the channel. If you don’t have your own channels, you have to accept the conditions of others. The single store’s turnover is no better, and you can only A part of the profit is, so if the channel can change, it will be a very good breakthrough. At that time, the PPG model just happened to be able to intensify in a large scale on a new channel. This gave us a lot of inspiration.

In-depth study of the PPG model, we have found a lot to learn from the point, such as more focused on the Internet instead of high-cost direct mail, more accurate, better product quality, faster update, category more Rich and so on. What PPG is most worth learning is that his model can be expanded in new channels. It can quickly meet the consumers in the country. It takes more than the traditional way to open a store than a store. Branding is much better. He has no stores, no inventory, product turnover is very fast, prices do not need to be set too high, as a person who has been in the traditional clothing industry for many years, these features of PPG gave me a great inspiration.

I admit that we first tried to imitate PPG. The aged VANCL was just like us, but we were not blindly copying. During the survey, we also discovered the fatal weakness of PPG and we expected his failure. So we are launching We made a lot of reforms in our own brand. This is why PPG is dead now and we are still alive. From the beginning of 2008 to the current two and a half years, our company's basic position and strategy have not undergone major changes.

Liu Dijun: When starting a business, everyone's ideal is to find the Blue Ocean, but finding the Blue Ocean is very difficult, and if you want to stay in the Red Sea, the competition with the industry will inevitably be fierce. The result will be blood flow and peer competition. There will certainly be many "plagiarism" issues in the process.

To take someone else's stuff intact is called "plagiarism," and "learning" or "imitation" refers to making changes on the basis of it. Regardless of whether "plagiarism" or "learning" is used, I regard this behavior as a positive effort. The starting point is still to develop the company in a direction of better renewal.

“Copying” is a technical live moderator: Everyone thinks that it is necessary to imitate in the early stage of business. Why is there a difference between the two? Tencent, for example, many people call it the “Enemy of the Commonweal” of the entire Internet. What kind of core competitiveness does he form in order to “copy” repeatedly?

Sun Hong: Simple "plagiarism" is not a matter. It is important for you to learn and imitate others while also seeing where the other person's shortcomings are and where your own strengths lie. There are some models, in fact, there is no technical difficulty, disruptive technology or product development is an increasingly broad market, the biggest problem may be the time for you to enter, too early you become a martyrs, into Too late has no chance. In other words, “copying” also requires brains to learn from other people’s innovations. It is not the purpose of copying, and it is the ultimate goal that can be used by me.

For example, the group purchase model is particularly hot now, and our website is learning.

The general group purchase model will do a lot of different products, and our group purchase will only be our own products. On the one hand, we can borrow the concept and momentum of group purchase, which will play a good role in promoting our sales. On the other hand, we will do websites. The main thing is how to attract customers and stick to customers. With the “group purchase” model, we provide customers with a very interesting and attractive way of interaction and communication. One is that the price of things is really cheap, and the second is group purchase. It created a very strong atmosphere for everyone. This activity was only effective within the prescribed time and everything was limited.

The facts show that group purchase does bring a good user experience to our users. Imitation is ultimately for our own development. Such “plagiarism” has purpose and therefore makes sense.

Liu Dijun: Regardless of who you imitate, if you are 100% sure he is seeking death for himself, first-timers have a first-mover advantage and are more competitive. Therefore, even if it is "copying," there must be differences. These "differences" are better called "innovation."

Some people say that the most important thing for companies is capital, technology, and talent, but I think these points are actually relatively easy to obtain. Talents need not be mentioned. They can be recruited. Many people think that technology is the hardest, but in fact, technology can be used by people who understand technology. Second, you can buy technology. Funds are the same. It is difficult to find money, but after all, it is difficult. There are VCs, PEs, banks, and many other ways you can find them. Only "innovation" is difficult to get from others.

In fact, there are too many examples of people who are latecomers to the company. For example, one company that did MP3 was listed on NASDAQ very early and did a great job, but it was soon surpassed by another company in the country. The reason is that the products of the two companies are very close, but the advantage of latecomers is low cost. The same products are sold much cheaper than you, and of course they can quickly occupy the market.

Another example is MediaTek, which is well-known to everyone. He didn't start with mobile phones at first, but since he started to make mobile phones, he has learned and inherited everything from other companies. When the technical advantages are not obvious, he While copying other people’s things, they are doing business model innovation: Companies that work with him don’t need to pay expensive entry fees, and they don’t have to wait long for the technology to lift the ban. He’s done everything and you only need to Make a shell, draw a mark, and then you can take it and sell it. The result is that so far all the big international companies have been beaten by him.

So I think that the highest realm of imitation is "I have no people, and people have me." Compared with others, you have to have differences and have advantages in order to win the competition.

Sun Hong: Actually, many of today's well-known companies started from imitation, and Hisense did so. In order to imitate Samsung, they bought several Samsung TVs in 1995. Now you can find traces of Hisense imitating Samsung. For example, if you compare the two types of products, you will find that the menu settings of Hisense TV are the same as those of Samsung, including the round face that appears when you wait.

However, Hisense is now a well-known large company, indicating that he is capable, because good copying is also a capability. The first is the need for keen observation. One is the observation of consumers. To understand their needs, one is to observe the competitors. Secondly, the company must be able to copy these things with the original company. Stuffing is perfect, and it can make the entire enterprise run smoothly. This requires the company itself has a strong foundation.

For example, Tencent, he also plagiarized other people's things, and most of them succeeded, first because his customers are very sticky, and secondly, his entire company's genes are healthy and there are no financial problems, so he can continue to advance. The second place in the same industry is now not exactly a measure of his size.

Shao Shuai: So to deal with the problem of plagiarism, I have been convinced that a company only knows exactly what it is that it is used to copy others. It is very clear about the development plan for the next 5 to 10 years after it has been copied. You copy other people. May be successful. "Shanzhai" is not a funny thing. What is important is that after "shanzhai", you can find your own way and then you can have your own innovation.

"Always imitation has never been surpassed"

Moderator: Once the "king of the king" MediaTek has successfully climbed to Taiwan's new "stock king." Now that he has become a subject for everyone to learn and imitate, another issue will be involved. When you become a pioneer or pioneer in a field, how can you “be imitated and never surpassed”?

Sun Hong: In order to guarantee their own competitive advantages, enterprises must ultimately rely on their own innovations. This innovation can be technical, can be product, can be managed, and can be market or channel.

Liu Dijun: In order to prevent others from copying, the only way is that you can guarantee that your technology will never leak, and no one else can develop your technology - but this is easy to say, and in fact it is very difficult, especially in China.

The feasible solution may be: You are always changing, there is continuous innovation. If you can make a certain technology or product to the extreme, before others learn your previous technology, you already have better new technology introduced, then others' plagiarism will be meaningless, or you can keep on Scale up and reduce costs. For some high-tech products, this approach can avoid imitation by others. Why the cottage machine is slowly dying now is because when the cottage wants to imitate you, your scale is large enough and the product is cheap enough. The cottage machine is not competitive at all.

In short, the first is to continue to innovate, and the second is to continue to reduce costs through economies of scale, so that latecomers want to overtake you.

Shao Shuai: Focus on the ultimate product, you are not afraid of someone to plagiarize.

The more and more detailed division of industries is definitely a trend in the future. For example, our company is in a subdivided area. There are almost no companies in the market. We only do one thing. If we use guns as an analogy, we only do Launch a shell with a distance of 500 meters and a lethal radius of 20 meters. We will not do anything bigger or smaller. Do something for yourself, and then make it the ultimate, so that if someone else wants to plagiarize you, the cost will be very high and it will be uneconomical.

Of course, if the market demand in the future is large enough, there will certainly be latecomers and plagiarists in the industry. But I don’t think it’s terrible, because if someone plagiarizes, it means that you are doing well. Second, it shows that the industry is promising, and if you are misfortune to be surpassed by others, it only means that your homework is not yet solid enough. Look for more reasons from yourself.