On September 26, 2024, the manufacturing digital talent standard jointly formulated by Midea Group and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology was officially released. In line with the implementation of the standard, the two parties have jointly established professional courses and training programs such as digital basic knowledge, digital product and tool skills, data analysis and interpretation, etc., aiming to cultivate students' ability to read, use and use data. After taking the relevant courses and passing the exam, students can obtain an authoritative certificate of national certification.
As one of the formulators of this standard and curriculum, Midea Group has more than ten years of digital transformation practice, and has accumulated a lot of experience in cultivating digital talents while promoting business development. In the past three years, Midea has carried out the digitalization of all employees internally, and so far more than 160,000 people have taken relevant courses, and nearly 20,000 people have passed the digital talent certification. These new digital talents have exported more than 3,800 innovation cases, saving more than 100 million yuan in operating costs for enterprises in one year.
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Motivation: Promoting comprehensive digitalization urgently requires the support of a large number of talents
"Midea must not only compete in the real world, but also compete in the digital world, so as to establish a competitive advantage with a time difference." Fang Hongbo, chairman of Midea Group, once said that the essence of transformation is to transfer people.
In 2022, on the occasion of the decade of digital transformation, Midea did two things related to digitalization. The first thing is that Midea released the "Digital Beauty 2025" strategy, proposing a series of goals such as building the brain of digital beauty and 100% business digitalization, which has attracted widespread attention. To achieve the corresponding goals, it is inseparable from the support of talents. As a result, in the same year, Midea launched the work of "full digitalization" internally.
"After more than 10 years of practice, most of the business processes are online, and a large number of data assets have been accumulated, but we are facing new challenges that the data cannot be fully utilized." Qin Xuewen, director of data products and applications of Midea Group, said that the demand for digital talents in the group and various business divisions is very urgent, and so many needs cannot be supplemented only by external recruitment, but also hope to be cultivated internally, so the project of digitalization of all employees has been launched.
According to reports, the project is aimed at all employees of Midea, and sets up professional courses and training programs such as digital basic knowledge, digital product and tool skills, data analysis and interpretation. On this basis, Midea has also set up a certification system for the digital capabilities of employees and teams, which is divided into individual certification and team certification. Among them, the personal certification follows the principle of "being able to see (understand data), being able to use (solving problems with data) to using data (helping the business solve important problems)" has three levels, and the highest level is level 3.
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Results: More than 160,000 people took digital courses
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At the beginning of the project, it was a challenge to get more employees to actively participate in learning. To this end, Qin Xuewen led the team to communicate and cooperate with the human resources department first, and could give some honors at the group level, such as a medal on their internal platform after passing the second-level talent certification.
In addition to spiritual encouragement, Qin Xuewen and his team visited and communicated with various business divisions one by one, striving for some material incentives. "With the development of Midea today, digital ability should be a necessary skill for employees, and digital ability can be considered as one of the conditions for employees' job performance or promotion." Qin Xuewen said, "After the practice of the first half year, everyone slowly began to develop the habit of active learning, and then it snowballed and reached an exponential growth." ”
The data shows that Midea's digital talent training in 2023 will be fruitful. With 160,000 students taking online courses and offline training camps, nearly 20,000 digital talents have been trained, and more than 3,800 practical cases have been used to solve practical business problems, of which 70% are self-service analysis cases and 30% are special application cases.
Among these digital talents, their majors include history, English, medicine, industrial design, etc., and their positions come from finance, sales, R&D, planning, etc. Some of them have grown rapidly into the youngest engineering ministers in four years, and some have been promoted three levels in two years by virtue of their digital thinking and digital ability.
In the first half of this year, Cao Can, the informatization specialist of Midea's washing machine Wuxi factory, also passed the certification of digital level 2 talents. "When I visited the factory, I was shocked by the big screen, which showed the production status of the whole process of the order, which felt very advanced." He recalled, "So when I joined the company, I took the initiative to apply to join the information team. Since the content of the work is highly related to digitalization, Cao Can's understanding of the digitalization of all employees is also more profound, and she believes that this is a forward-looking attempt.
"Although many front-line employees and production team leaders did not have much understanding of digitalization, in the process of promoting the digitalization of all employees in the group, they have gradually deepened their understanding and application of digitalization, and used digital tools to do on-site management." Cao Can said, "It can really improve the work efficiency and quality of employees, and for individuals, it can also add some career development advantages." There's a strong atmosphere now, and in the office or on the production line, people talk about digitalization every day. ”
In addition to the three major goals of Midea to promote the digitalization of all employees, the most important goal is to promote the realization of data business. Luo Ruifeng of Midea's Household Air Conditioning Division has also passed the certification of digital level 2 talents. When he served as a manufacturing cost specialist, he initially built a digital framework for cost management at the factory end, and centralized management and display some core key indicators, so that business colleagues could see the development trend very intuitively. In addition, he hopes that through digital means, a complete set of financial management system will be precipitated internally, which will help financial management and talent training.
"From a data mover to a decision-maker, digitalization has helped us complete this identity shift." Luo Ruifeng said that he hopes to use digital means to help grassroots financial personnel participate more in the operation and management of enterprises, and truly achieve the integration of industry and finance.
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Empowerment: Export digital talent standards for the manufacturing industry
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Nowadays, Midea employees all have their own digital cockpit, but colleagues at different levels will see different data. In addition, overseas factories and production bases are also being rolled out one after another, and some basic courses are currently recorded in English, so that overseas colleagues can also learn related knowledge.
In November 2023, Midea was recognized by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology as a "Digital Transformation and Artificial Intelligence Industry Talent Base". "In fact, many companies have declared that they want to become a base for industrial talents, and the reason why Midea successfully applied is that Midea is in the position of the main chain of the industrial chain and has enough experience in talent training." Qin Xuewen analyzed that the chain owner has the responsibility to promote the development and training of talents in the industry, and at the same time, through the cultivation of this talent, the upstream and downstream enterprises have developed, which is also beneficial to the ecological construction of the United States, which is a win-win attempt.
Now, the manufacturing digital talent standard jointly formulated by Midea and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has been officially released. Under the guidance of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Midea Group's digital team has established a professional curriculum system and recorded detailed course teaching content, and students can obtain the authoritative certification of junior, intermediate and senior digital talents after learning the corresponding courses and passing the exam.
Facing the future, Midea will steadily promote the data empowerment business, strengthen the construction of the digital talent system, strengthen the combination of digitalization and actual business, and carry out data empowerment around core business scenarios such as R&D, marketing, supply chain, overseas markets and ToB fields, so as to enhance the competitiveness of enterprises in the digital era. At the same time, Midea will continue to summarize the practical experience of digital transformation, continue to improve the curriculum system and content, cultivate more digital talents, and help the transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry.
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