Concept and characteristics of virtual enterprise

Today's enterprise managers are faced with an unpredictable competitive environment. The reasons for this environment include the rapid development of technology, the globalization of the market and other development trends. The traditional enterprise model marked by Taylor system and Ford system has been difficult to adapt to the new market environment; At the same time, enterprises should keep low cost and short delivery cycle, which challenges the old organizational form. In this case, a new enterprise operation mode-virtual enterprise stands out.

1 generated background

As a special social and economic organization, enterprise is the product of the exchange of history and commodity production. With the transformation from agricultural society to industrial society, enterprises have gradually formed and developed. 19 At the end of the 20th century, a traditional enterprise model marked by Taylor system and Ford system was formed. The economies of scale it brought greatly promoted the development of social productive forces at that time. However, since the 1960s, the environment in which enterprises live has undergone fundamental changes, the market demand has become increasingly changeable, and technological progress has advanced by leaps and bounds. Since 1990s, with the progress of science and technology and social development, great changes have taken place in the world economy. According to the needs of their own production, work and life, people put forward diversified and personalized requirements for the varieties, specifications, patterns and styles of products. Facing the rapidly changing market, enterprises must have high flexibility and quick response ability in order to survive and develop. For this reason, modern enterprises are developing in the direction of simplification and flattening of organizational structure, so there is a virtual enterprise that can combine knowledge, technology, capital, raw materials, market and management resources.

2 the definition of virtual enterprise

The Cambridge Dictionary defines the word "virtual" as "most, if not all". In recent years, "virtual" has almost become synonymous with technology. New words such as "virtual memory", "virtual computer", "virtual reality" and "virtual space" are popular in computer industry. In each of the above examples, "virtuality" represents the important role of information technology. They are: ① Information technology can make the computer run with a larger storage capacity, but it doesn't actually have such a large storage capacity; Information technology can make users fantasize that they exist in any time and space they need. "Virtual enterprise" introduces virtual ideas inspired by technological innovation into the field of histology. This not only means that through technology, but more importantly, through various alliances, virtual enterprises can gather more strength to complete the established goals.

At present, virtual enterprise represents the enterprise model of establishing an organization and reviving it in 2 1 century. Different authors will define virtual enterprise in different forms: 199 1 year. Iacocca Institute of the United States submitted a research report entitled "Manufacturing Enterprise Strategy in the 20th Century" to Congress, which creatively put forward the idea of virtual enterprise, that is, based on the market, establishing dynamic alliances among enterprises, so as to make full use of the manufacturing resources of the whole society.

Most people think that davidow and Malone systematically expounded the idea of virtual enterprise for the first time in their book Virtual Company in 1992. In their view, virtual enterprise is a temporary network composed of some independent companies, including suppliers, customers and even competitors. They form a whole through information technology, enjoy the technology, bear the cost and enter each other's markets. Virtual enterprise has no office center and no articles of association; No hierarchy, no vertical system.

Bourne 1993 believes that virtual enterprises are enterprises that use internal and external cooperation to allocate resources beyond their own. It needs to use information technology to realize large-scale alliance and seize specific market opportunities.

According to Anoni Moss 1994, a virtual enterprise is a network or loose alliance that serves production and management for a specific business goal, and is dissolved after reaching the goal.

Monch 1997 thinks that the definition of virtual enterprise "lacks a generally accepted definition, and it is at the confluence of knowledge flows brought about by the influence of computers and their applications". At the same time, many different words are used in similar organizational forms, all in order to "meet the challenges of the coming information age". Different words express people's exploration of the essential characteristics of the new organizational form. The similarities between these words and definitions are: temporary alliance of independent organizations; Dynamic communication between partners; Taking the needs of end users as the starting point; Combine the main abilities of partners; High utilization of information and communication technology, etc.

According to the definition of Lipnak and stamps in 1997, the so-called "virtual team" refers to "a group of people who are interrelated by cooperating with each other and completing tasks", and they "work beyond time, space and organization with the support of modern communication technology". According to the definition of "virtual team", Ahuja and Carli defined a virtual enterprise in 1998: it is an organizational form divided by geographical location, and its members are bound by a long-term goal and common interests, and communicate and coordinate their work through information technology. The effective management of virtual teams often requires the organic combination and flexible application of various strategies, including talent management, relationship management, work management, knowledge management and technical management strategies; In addition, there must be means to objectively measure the performance of virtual work, such as the measurement method based on productivity and cost.

3 Virtual enterprise operation mode

Enterprise operation mode refers to the forms of expression and operation in all aspects of an enterprise. Including: facility planning scheme, organization form, product structure, production mode, logistics form, sales mode, etc. The operation mode of an enterprise can be varied, for example, the organizational structure of an enterprise can be linear system, departmental system, project management system and so on. The enterprise operation mode has a great relationship with the product type, production mode and surrounding environment produced by the enterprise, and the correct choice of enterprise operation mode plays a decisive role in the operation effect of the enterprise. Virtual enterprise operation mode refers to an enterprise operation mode based on modern communication technology, especially internet technology, which transcends national boundaries and is an inevitable trend of enterprise development. It is an enterprise model that manufacturers cooperate with suppliers, distributors and customers to develop, produce and sell diversified and customized products in time to meet the fast-changing market demand. From the perspective of resource allocation, the operation mode of virtual enterprise is a resource integration body, which comes from different enterprise members and is integrated, with "1+1>; 2 "effect.

The products of virtual enterprises are virtual products (including tangible goods and services). Ideal virtual products can be produced and delivered to customers in time according to their needs; For manufacturers, most products have existed before production, and the design and production methods of products have existed in the consciousness of the work team, in the computer and in the flexible production line. Even if there are no identical products, there will undoubtedly be many very similar products. In this way, manufacturers can improve customer satisfaction with higher input-output ratio.

4 strategic alliance

John, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Apple Computer Company, is often quoted. Sculley's point of view: "When talking about virtual enterprises now, we are only talking about cooperation and outsourcing agreements. In the next 10 or 20 years, we will see industries and companies fall apart and eventually form a real virtual enterprise. Thousands of virtual enterprises will be born. "

Bowen believes that for most advocates of virtual enterprises, the key feature of virtual enterprises is strategic alliance or establishing strategic partnership. Many companies use this strategy to make themselves fast and flexible: ① enter new markets and get in touch with new technologies; (2) Obtain the required technology and professionals from other organizations, individuals and even competitors, and combine them to break down the barriers of the new product market.

5 Virtual communication

An important part of virtual management is virtual communication. As the name implies, virtual communication is the creation, exchange, access, application, distribution, preservation, change and enjoyment of information and knowledge to support work and study. Because communication plays an important role in virtual environment, communication is regarded as a formal job, not an auxiliary job. Moreover, communication plays a complex and important role in virtual combat, so communication becomes very critical and must be carefully planned to ensure the full use of information infrastructure.

6 the essence of virtual enterprise

Through the investigation on virtual enterprise organized by experts, three important viewpoints are summarized. First of all, virtual enterprise is essentially an electronic online organization. Proponents of this view take Amazon.com and eBay.com as arguments, and the survival and development space of these websites comes entirely from the opportunities provided by the Internet. The so-called virtual enterprise or electronic enterprise is relative to the sales model in the traditional entity enterprise environment. Secondly, virtual enterprise is an organizational structure based on cooperative entities. Here, enterprises unite with each other and enjoy expertise, technology, knowledge and other resources, so as to produce unique goods and services or make full use of those unusual opportunities. Thirdly, a virtual enterprise can be an electronic online organization, or a network of manpower, ideas, talents and resources gathered temporarily for a special purpose (Sibbel and House, 1999).

(B) the characteristics of virtual enterprises

Virtual enterprises blur the boundaries of traditional enterprises. Virtual enterprise is not a complete economic entity in the legal sense and has no independent legal person qualification. Some enterprises with different resources and advantages come together to form virtual enterprises for the same interests or goals. These enterprises may be suppliers, customers or competitors in the same industry. This new enterprise organization model has broken the traditional enterprise organization boundary and blurred the enterprise boundary.

1) Virtual enterprises are liquid. The characteristics of flexibility. These enterprises have the same needs. * * * Come together and form an alliance with the same goal. Once the cooperation goal is achieved, the alliance may come to an end and the virtual enterprise may disappear. Therefore, the virtual enterprise may be temporary or long-term, and the participants in the virtual enterprise are also mobile. Virtual enterprise is based on this dynamic structure. Flexible ways to adapt to the rapid changes in the market.

2) Virtual enterprise is the enterprise cooperation based on the developed information network. Information sharing is the key to the operation of virtual enterprises, and the use of modern information technology and communication means makes communication more convenient. Use public data for information exchange, so that all enterprises participating in the alliance can enjoy the design. Production and marketing information, so as to truly coordinate the pace, ensure that all parties can cooperate well, and enable virtual enterprises to integrate a strong competitive advantage.

3) Virtual enterprise replaces serial engineering with concurrent engineering, and decomposes and arranges the work to be done by each participating enterprise. When a virtual enterprise completes a project or task, it decomposes the project or task into relatively independent work modules according to the idea of concurrent engineering, so that all parties undertaking the task can fully mobilize and utilize their own resources without worrying about the leakage of core technology or knowledge. Moreover, each collaboration module can work in parallel, and the host of the project or task can communicate and coordinate continuously by using advanced information communication means, thus ensuring the final connection of each work module. This not only shortens the time but also saves the cost. At the same time, it also promotes the participating enterprises to effectively allocate their own resources and make full use of the overall resources of virtual enterprises.

4) Virtual enterprises generally have advantages in technology. Because the virtual enterprise is formed by combining the advantages of all participants, especially the technological advantages, it is easier to form a strong competitive advantage in the technological development of products or services, so that the products or services it develops are at the leading level in the market, which is incomparable to any single entity enterprise.

5) Virtual enterprise can be regarded as an enterprise network. Every member of the enterprise network should contribute certain resources for everyone to enjoy. The collective competitive advantage and level of enterprise network operation are greater than the simple sum of the competitive advantages and levels of all participants. The above characteristics of virtual enterprises determine that virtual enterprises have strong flexibility and agility to adapt to the market, and the concentration of superior resources in all aspects has given birth to strong competitive advantages and competitiveness.

Therefore, the virtual operation mode of enterprise virtualization is a promising cooperation mode to gain competitive advantage and improve competitiveness in today's rapidly changing market and technical environment, which is being recognized and adopted by more and more enterprises.

(C) the role of virtual enterprises

Virtual enterprise is considered as a form of organization and competition with low cost, high responsiveness and adaptability. Its basic functions include:

1) adaptability, flexibility and adaptability to changing needs and actual conditions.

2) The effectiveness of resource utilization.

3) Business alliances are composed of enterprises with different business expertise.

4) The geographical distribution of virtual enterprise members is scattered.

5) Decentralization.

6) Reduce the appearance of bureaucracy.

7) Be good at seizing opportunities and accepting changes and uncertainties in the environment.

8) Highly utilize IT to support business reconstruction and staff work.

(D) the mode of operation of virtual enterprises

1 virtual production

Virtual production is the initial form of virtual management, which is characterized by outsourcing processing. It means that an enterprise weakens the direct production function of its own products and transfers the production function to other enterprises through outsourcing, leaving only the most advantageous development and marketing functions and strengthening the organization and management of these departments. The most famous example is Nike, which makes sports shoes in America. Nike itself has no production line, but concentrates all the resources of the enterprise, specializing in design and marketing, while the production of sports shoes is carried out according to orders in developing countries with low labor costs. Through virtual production, Nike has become one of the largest sports shoes manufacturers in the world. In recent years, famous foreign electrical appliance manufacturers have also adopted virtual production mode, such as Japanese electrical appliance companies such as Sony and Panasonic. The products they sell in China market are basically produced in Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and other countries with low labor costs, while the company headquarters focuses on the development of new products and the implementation of marketing strategies.

2 Virtual development

Virtual development refers to the joint development of high-tech products by several enterprises in order to gain the same market advantage and seek greater development. For example, several enterprises with their own key technologies and different market advantages form a strategic alliance to develop more advanced technologies for mutual benefit.

At the beginning of 2003, both IBM and AMD said that in order to keep up with Intel's speed, they would jointly develop the next generation of microprocessor technology. The micro transistor technology jointly developed can improve the efficiency of the chip and reduce the production cost of the chip. Cooperation is very important for both parties, because it can improve the competition with Intel. AMD lacks R&D funds owned by Intel, and it is difficult to launch new products quickly without partners. IBM's own microprocessor technology is limited, so it is difficult to keep a leading position in the competition with Intel. This cooperation promotes the two sides to gain a monopoly advantage in chip manufacturing.

3 Virtual sales

Virtual sales refers to the separation of the "property right" relationship between the headquarters of an enterprise or a company and its subordinate sales network, and the virtualization of sales, so that the sales network of an enterprise becomes a sales company with independent legal personality. This virtual sales method can not only save the management costs and marketing expenses of the company's headquarters, but also make full use of the distribution channels of independent sales companies to widely promote the products of enterprises, urge enterprises to devote themselves to the innovation of products and technologies, continuously enhance the competitive advantage of enterprise brand products, and also promote the rapid growth of sales companies, recruit a large number of outstanding marketing talents, and continuously expand the marketing network of enterprise products.

Metersbonwe Bang Wei of garment processing industry? Bang Wei Company is one of the most typical enterprises that implement virtual sales. The company adopts the franchise chain operation mode, and transfers the franchise right to franchise stores through contracts. Franchisees pay 50,000 to 350,000 yuan to Bang Wei Company according to different regional conditions while using the unified trademark, trade name and service mode of Bang Wei Company. As a result, the company not only saved the investment of 1 more than 100 million yuan, but also raised a lot of interest-free development funds through the franchise fee. The company headquarters mainly focuses on product design, market management and brand management. They cooperate with famous designers in Hong Kong, Shanghai and other places to launch about 1000 new models every year, which has achieved good economic benefits.

4 Virtual management

Virtual management refers to virtualizing some management departments in a virtual enterprise. Although the functions of these management departments are retained, their administrative organizations do not really exist within the enterprise, but entrust other specialized companies to undertake the responsibilities of these management departments. For example, an enterprise may not set up a human resources department, and the training of employees may be entrusted to a special training institution. For another example, many foreign-funded enterprises hand over human resources to professional talent management centers, which are responsible for mobilization, job title evaluation and party-mass relations. Virtual management can provide great help for newly established enterprises lacking management experience and talents. Le Kai Company hired management experts from McKinsey and roland berger for strategic planning and management consulting.