When SARS broke out in 2003, JD.com, today’s all-powerful e-commerce giant, was just an over-the-counter seller in Zhongguancun. SARS caused the over-the-counter sales to hit the street. Countless such sellers died that year, but JD.com keenly sensed the rise of e-commerce, and began to be "electrically shocked" during the SARS period. It not only saved the dying JD Multimedia , It has opened a new era of business.

It can be seen that every huge crisis contains even greater energy. However, this energy is by no means a patch on the past, but often a wedge that opens the door to a new era.

The recent COVID-19 epidemic has swept across the country. Not only has public health been threatened, but the business and catering industries at the forefront of the economic system have also been greatly impacted. A few days ago, catering giants such as Xibei, Grandma's, Jiumaojiu, and Hometown Chicken have expressed their voices, saying that on the one hand, they will stick to their corporate social responsibilities.

Whether the government will take action or not, we have no chance to say, but a super trend before all commercial, retail and catering giants is very likely to usher in a new era in this disaster.

This super trend is the organizational upgrade from "employment relationship" and "buyer-seller relationship" to "community of interests relationship", which is the historical tide of the comprehensive upgrade of "private enterprises" in the old era to "public enterprises" in the new era.

For a smoother understanding, let us first go back to the catering industry that is in crisis during the epidemic.

Employees are real assets, improper handling is the last straw

Wu Guoping, the founder of Grandma’s House, said in an interview that the grandma’s house now spends 2.5 million yuan every day as soon as she opens her eyes. The pressure is not insignificant, and this is because a large number of shopping malls have already offered rent discounts and subsidies to Grandma’s house.

The biggest part of this is labor costs.

If you lay off employees decisively to stop the bleeding, you can save your life. However, after the epidemic is over, the recovery of personnel will not be achieved overnight. What's more, catering companies are not heavy assets, and employees are the main assets cultivated and accumulated by the company.

If methods such as minimum wage and half salary are adopted, on the one hand, employees may not agree, and on the other hand, it will still cause a de facto mass loss of personnel.

If there is no layoff at all, the cost pressure will be too great, and no one can say when the epidemic will be completely over and when work will be resumed without risk. The risk of uncertainty is too great. It will die of cash depletion, which is what all entrepreneurs don't want to see.

Let employees and users stand with you

The most important role here is "employees". The "employment relationship" between them and the company has lasted for thousands of years: I work, you pay, and it is not my business to make or lose your business. why? Because even if you earn it, you won't share it with me.

This kind of relationship was in the past, in normal times, no problem. When encountering such a crisis, the disadvantages are immediately exposed: what does it matter to me whether you die or not?

Just like in today's epidemic environment, when a large number of companies encounter difficulties and need employees to share, what will employees think?

First of all it must be:

The business is owned by the boss, not mine, so why should I share it?

Although the bosses will feel uncomfortable, under the employment system, the employees' reaction is completely in line with the "rational economic man", and there is nothing wrong with it.

It's just that even if there is no epidemic crisis, in the new digital age and in the new economic environment, such a pure employment relationship needs to be upgraded urgently. For example, Xibei, which was the first to call for help, is a model in the catering industry to share benefits with employees. The famous saying of Xibei founder Jia Guolong is "spend the money". High-tech companies such as Huawei even distribute more than 90% of their shares to their employees.

But even if Xibei Jia Guolong has such a leading consciousness, in the face of such emergencies, he will inevitably encounter the second problem. Employees will think:

I can share it, but I can't share it in vain. At the very least, you must explain to me clearly what benefits it has for me, right?

When we ask employees to share for the company, we are essentially asking employees to sacrifice their own short-term interests, and this short-term sacrifice deserves a "fair" return in the future.

Here, what I mean by the return due in the future is not a quantitative return, such as borrowing money, how much money is paid in the short term, and what percentage of interest will be paid in the future. Because borrowing is not practical in the face of such problems. In reality, when companies write IOUs to employees, it is actually interpreted as "wage arrears", which will only aggravate employees' worries about business operations, and companies are often difficult Give higher interest rates than banks.

The future due return here is a fluctuating value, which is the value growth of a specific part of the company in a specific time in the future. Risks and returns go hand in hand. The return of fluctuating value may be higher than that of borrowing, but it may also be lower. The possible high makes employees motivated to pay, and the possible low makes the company willing to share this part of the value. And who decides whether it is high or low? It is the employees of the enterprise, and it is their efforts that make the enterprise develop further.

On the whole, the crisis is not a bad thing. The wolves take away the weak and sick sheep to help adjust the structure of the flock. Going public is not a panacea for all companies to get out of the crisis. Employees know the real situation of the company better than the analysts of investment banks. Whether they are willing to exchange short-term cash for the value of future company development is the vote of the employees to "build a position". This vote will also speed up the exit of companies that should have been eliminated. Clear, mitigate the impact on high-quality businesses and speed up their recovery.

Blockchain Era: From "Private Enterprise" to "Public Enterprise"

However, at present, enterprises lack a reasonable tool to measure the proportional relationship between the immediate losses of employees and the due benefits in the future. Entrepreneurs can’t find a good method except for borrowing and equity. Borrowing has been stated above, and the transfer of equity has too high transaction costs in terms of decision-making and execution. The loss of equity dispersion is difficult to promote.

At this time, the times are calling for a new upgrade: without interfering with the existing equity structure, without affecting the existing operating system and vested interests, introduce new thinking, technology and tools, and design a more reasonable incentive mechanism. Confirm the right of a specific value at a specific time, and share it with more stakeholders, upgrading a "private enterprise" into a "public enterprise".

Blockchain and tokens are the best answer to this problem.

The unique characteristics of blockchain such as non-tamperable and distributed bookkeeping can reduce transaction costs to complete the confirmation of specific values ​​within the enterprise, and gain trust not limited to within the enterprise; tokens enable value to be digitized on the chain, which can be more The design of the incentive system is flexible, and the degree of fragmentation and refinement is higher; and the automatic real-time execution of smart contracts can make the entire incentive system operate efficiently without relying on personnel, thus having stronger credibility and continuity.

The above passage can be simply expressed as: Blockchain and tokens enable enterprises to have a brand-new incentive method, which is parallel to equity incentives and has a more advanced incentive method. Whoever adopts it first will have the opportunity Win new business competitions.

For example, in catering companies, the long-term idle "brand assets" are tokenized and turned into digital assets that can be enjoyed by everyone. Holding this brand certificate is equivalent to holding a part of the brand and can enjoy the brand. the value of. Since the brand value will fluctuate with the rise and fall of catering companies, the incentive effect is no less than that of equity, and even the operability is much better than that of equity.

Let's assume such a scenario. During the epidemic, a customer recharged 3,000 yuan in their membership card, obtained a voucher, and became a "brand partner". One year later, the number of stores and revenue of this brand had doubled, and he suddenly found that the price of his brand certificate had doubled accordingly, and he could also get the subsidy bonus shared on this certificate.

Suppose this person is replaced by a certain employee. During the epidemic, 50% of the monthly salary will be automatically exchanged for brand vouchers through voluntary salary adjustment. After working for three years, the brand's store size and total revenue will triple, and he will also gain three times. Multiplied value-added and three-year development dividend.

In short, a brand-new incentive method has been born. This incentive method can play the role of equity, but it is much better than the flexibility of equity; The community of interests will completely change the old "employment relationship" and "buyer-seller relationship", and can transform the "private enterprise" that has lasted for hundreds of years into a "public enterprise" through a new way, which will create a new era of business.

Since the birth of human beings, we have been walking on a road of continuously expanding the scale of cooperation. From primitive people hunting in groups, to caravans traveling thousands of miles on the Silk Road to pass on civilization, to Queen Elizabeth creating the world's first company, the way to gather strangers to cooperate has also evolved along the way. The latest evolution is the joint-stock system.

However, even for the latest joint-stock enterprises, the maximum number of people who can collaborate is only a million people. The Internet has already closely linked billions of people together, but there is no matching mechanism for it; public enterprises based on blockchain and tokens are the chosen ones in this historical period.

During SARS in 2003, people remembered the rise of e-commerce;

In the future, when we recall the new crown pneumonia in 2020, we will remember that this is "the first year of public enterprises".