W42 - Learnings from the 2020 Company Communication Meeting

1. “Helping everyone eat better and live better” is an enduring need and a cause we can continually strive for

This brought to mind Meituan’s operating philosophy,Finite games and infinite games. Xing said finite games are played within boundaries, while infinite games play with the boundaries.

James P. Carse introduced the paired concepts of finite and infinite games, helping us reinterpret human activities. Most activities are finite games, bounded and aimed at winning. Some activities are infinite games, devoted to breaking boundaries and sustaining the play.

The infinite game operates at the genetic level: genes always seek inheritance and continuation, and gene persistence depends on biological individuals as carriers. Individuals are destined to disappear; their true role is temporary bearer and transmitter of genes. The game of life uses finite games to realize an infinite game. Every product is similarly a finite-game mechanism to achieve an infinite-game objective.

What I can now perceive from the finite vs. infinite game concept isliving toward death. Thinking toward the end brings you closer to the essence and reduces attachment to any single victory or possession; this is typical long-term thinking. Finite games assume we are immortal; infinite games begin with the acceptance of our mortality.

Meituan’s evolution from a group-buying site into a platform aggregating many services that meet consumer needs exemplifies a process of continually breaking boundaries and pursuing possibilities. Recently, when I opened an order detail in the Meituan app, I saw a dazzling mix of the different service orders I’d used aggregated together. After a moment of surprise came admiration and anticipation.

2. While keeping “customer-centricity,” balance the interests of all stakeholders."Customer-centricity" is not only a value, but also a methodology and our business strategy

The iteration this year that positions “customer-centricity” as our business strategy is particularly apt and worth deeper thought and study.

During the fierce group-buying battles eight years ago, while many competitors and investors fought on price and marketing battlefields, Meituan won a milestone victory by improving user experience and service quality. The industry’s first “refund for expired orders” policy was perhaps the most emblematic instrument of that campaign.

At the same time, beyond the consensus on PC traffic, Meituan vaguely recognized and bet on the mobile side as a “fool’s window.” The greatest advantage of a “fool” window is that almost no one competes to be the fool; when most competitors realize mobile is the future, they are typically one to two years behind us. It was precisely this window that produced massive industry divergence and accelerated structural evolution.

From Xing’s articulation of the “second half of the Internet” to our current plunge into the crowded community group-buying track, from B-side to the lower-tier markets, we are trying to anticipate the next possible “fool’s window.” Deeper-reaching C-side and more upstream B-side moves expand boundaries to find the next growth driver for the whole group.

In today’s business environment, I believe such “fool’s windows” will become increasingly rare or at least harder to spot first. Even if detected, the window of opportunity left to us is short. The reason is large companies’ boundaries are becoming blurrier; exploration of the essence of business has become a consensus, and organizations are more agile than industrial-era companies. Simply put, as we grow into a dragon, competitors in the market also become formidable beasts. Thus some of our strategic directions and tactics have shifted compared to the group-buying wars eight years ago.

Fortunately, we have held fast to the unchanging lever of “customer-centricity.” Do what customers need, not just what we are good at. On the group app discovery page, we didn’t follow the trend and pour resources into live streaming. A former editor-in-chief of Harvard Business Review once said customers don’t want a 5 mm drill bit; they want a 5 mm hole. Being able to distinguish between the appearance of a need and its essence is one of our keys to winning.

A gentleman focuses on fundamentals; when fundamentals are established, the path arises, and with the path come powerful instruments.