Lenovo buys Cloud Farm, the next outlet in Liu's eyes

March 19, 2015, Lenovo holding agriculture plate next, strategic investment cloud farm agricultural power platform, the move is seen as its "Internet +" strategy is an important link.

Mr Liu's creation of Lenovo Holdings in 1984 is now 31 years old. Lenovo Group is the first company to be conceived by Lenovo Holdings. Liu started his business 16 years (2000), has put Lenovo Group Banner to the then Guo Wei and Yang Two young people, the beginning of their own business, starting from the investment business, into the real estate, financial services, modern agriculture and food, modern services and chemical new materials, such as five major areas.

It took Mr Liu 15 years to recreate a company with a market capitalisation larger than Lenovo.

In 15, Mr Liu, Lenovo Holdings expanded into the "investment + industry" model, and is now the largest diversified investment holding company in China. Lenovo Holdings, according to the information that 2013, Lenovo's combined turnover of 244 billion yuan, the total assets of 207 billion yuan, as at December 31, 2014, Lenovo holding the total number of 74340 people.

Into it, Lenovo now has six business sectors, how the six business sectors to form a gradient, how the various gradients synergy? March 19, senior vice president of Lenovo Holdings, chairman and president of the Chen Group and chairman of Fung Lian Group, said in an interview with the 21st century economic reporter, There is a rocket-shaped synergy between these industries.

On the same day, Lenovo Holdings invested in the first six months of cloud farms, the direction is to use the "Internet +" logic to reshape the agricultural market, to create a new agricultural industry ecological circle.

Internet companies, including Tencent and Alibaba, are looking for a "trillion-scale market" in which to lay O2O. Chen says new farming is not just a trillion-dollar market, but a 10 trillion market. According to the data provided by Lenovo Holdings, China's agricultural products and food market is about 10 trillion yuan in 2014, and the agricultural market is over 2 trillion yuan in size.

Trillion agricultural market

"21st Century": Why choose the agricultural market? Is it possible to tell a big story in this industry?

Chen: Agricultural power is becoming the traditional agricultural enterprises and electric business platform enterprises have seized the blue sea, and cloud farms are the industry leader.

At present, the Cloud farm has hundreds of well-known agricultural enterprises settled in, thousands of agricultural brand online, with more than 200 county-level enterprises, 1600 village-level sites, the market covers Shandong, Henan and other more than 10 provinces, including all major agricultural provinces. Cloud Farm online less than a year, the number of registered users has more than million, has been the country's largest online agricultural market, the establishment of the industry's first advantage.

Under the tide of new agriculture of Internet, agriculture is experiencing an unprecedented development opportunity, from the 2.0 times of simple mechanization, to the 3.0 times of agriculture with intelligence, precision and customization.

"21st Century": In addition to online direct agricultural products, cloud farms now have what products and services?

Chen: In addition to agricultural power platform "Cloud Farm" outside, there are agricultural products, "harvest sinks" platform, rural logistics "country goods" platform, technical services "agricultural technology" platform, measuring soil fertilizer platform, rural finance micro-credit and other industrial platforms for agriculture to provide a full industrial chain services.

Agricultural technology is a mobile Internet agriculture technical Service platform, a platform for the communication between the agricultural technician and the farmers, the agricultural technology and the Agricultural Extension Department of the Ministry of Agriculture to reach strategic cooperation, China has 800,000 agricultural technologies will be settled into the "agricultural techniques" for the Farmers Service, the future of the agricultural technical pass will become the important entrance of mobile interconnection.

"Country goods" is China's first rural Peer-to-peer logistics platform, through the original sales logistics model, integration of rural owners and shippers resources, to solve the problem of rural distribution difficulties. Although it has just been launched soon, the current single day has more than 1000 waybill. "Country goods" is the rural version of "Drop a taxi", liberated the rural idle vehicles, fill the gap of rural logistics in China.

"21st Century": why "rural goods", "Harvest sinks", "agricultural technology" is not integrated on a platform, but a stand-alone app?

Chen: The integration has the advantage, may become the high frequency application, to the user's stickiness is high. Separation is low frequency, the use of frequency is not integrated mode. But the integration is too complex, the use of the threshold is very high.

There are two reasons why Chinese farmers use the Internet from 0 to 1, is the education period, not from 1 to 10, or from 10 to 100, each independent up, simpler, easier to use; second, we have multiple points breaking through, we can find which direction can be faster, lower cost of access to users, Each app is the farmer's cultural customs, network use habits of groping.

In addition, the agricultural materials are high-frequency applications, we have 80% of the energy is to do agricultural direct, this is to do the main business, we must do, farmers must buy agricultural materials, need not cultivate, so import the internet consumption habits. Although the front end of our app is independent, but the background is unified, farmers consumption habits established, we can be unified backstage.

Lenovo Holdings in rural

"21st Century": Lenovo Holdings began to layout agriculture in 2010, a lot of mergers and acquisitions, what is the next acquisition target?

Chen: Lenovo holding in the direction of agriculture and food now and future investment will adhere to this principle: focus on discovering, investing in a number of brand-oriented enterprises. A class of agricultural products enter the city, from the field to the table all the links are entered, to solve the problem of safety, quality, there is a hope to become platform-level enterprises, such as the Jia Wo group is such enterprises; the second is the advanced production technology into the village, such as internet finance, intelligent technology, Internet model, cloud farms is such a business, the technology, logistics, The Internet and other urban advanced production factors introduced the countryside.

Future investment in agriculture will go beyond these aspects, specific adherence to four directions.

First, advanced production elements of the original enterprise, such as biotechnology, biological pesticides, medicine, fertilizers, gene breeding technology, and other agricultural logistics, cold chain logistics in rural areas, but the problem has not been resolved, we will use the socialization method to solve the cold chain logistics problems; third, agricultural finance, In addition to the Wing Dragon loan, but also look at several enterprises, internet finance is bound to bring great changes to agriculture; four is the agricultural thing networking and intelligent technology, now the traditional agriculture, or thousands of years of pattern duplication, the future of automatic water recharge technology, GPS, satellite remote sensing, intelligent technology, change the way agricultural production.

Through the above four aspects, the purpose of Lenovo Holdings is to create a new agricultural ecological circle. We invest in a few enterprises a year, long-term adherence, five years, within ten years can build an ecological circle.

"21st century": How much will Lenovo's fund invest in modern agriculture?

Chen: In addition to Lenovo Agriculture and Food Group, there are June Lian, Hong Yi, billions of yuan a year is there. The premise is that there are good enterprises, now do not lack of money, lack of good business.

"Armed Forces linkage" mode

"21st Century": Lenovo Holdings is a diversified holding company, how is the current layout? Why is agriculture particularly valued?

Chen: Lenovo Holdings now includes it, real estate, financial services, modern services, modern agriculture and food, chemical new materials, six major sectors, since 2009, Lenovo began to focus on the field of modern agriculture, hoping to create a new industrial sector. In the relevant areas, Lenovo Holdings has now laid out three companies, including the Jialong group, the HSBC Group and the financial services sector of the wing Dragon Loan. The business model of Jia Wo Group is "from the field to the table", to provide consumers with safe, high-quality brand agricultural products; Fung Lian Group is mainly engaged in deep processing of agricultural products, to provide consumers with high-quality beverages; Pterodactyl Loan is one of the first explorers and current market leaders in Peer-to-peer industry in China, focusing on "three agriculture", With the city O2O innovation model, the realization of financial resources to the countryside into the village.

"21st century": Lenovo holding so much business between how the linkage, play the advantages of Fleet war?

Chen: From the timeline, is the multistage rocket mode, the profit business will provide a variety of support for the new business, including financial, strategic and brand support.

From the horizontal view, is an armed Forces linkage mode. From the division of Business layout, Lenovo Holdings is divided into three major sectors: core asset operation, Asset Management, Lenovo star incubator investment. Lenovo Holdings of Lenovo Group, the branch of the land, consumption and modern services, chemical materials, modern agriculture are classified as core assets, and with asset management (Hong Yi Investment, June Lian Capital), Lenovo star incubator investment to form a good interaction.

We take the CEO club as our link, we meet regularly and share with each other. In addition, Lenovo will provide members with brand and strategic support, management and cultural sharing, capital and resource docking, all-round support and power to assist member enterprises.