Wang Chong, a thinker in the Eastern Han Dynasty, once wrote in "On Balance": "Those who wade in shallow water see shrimp, those who are quite deep observe fish and turtles, and especially those who watch dragons." This phrase was later extended to mean that only by daring to take risks and work hard can it be possible to achieve greater achievements. Only those who enter the deep water can get dragons.
Under the great changes in a century, it has become a consensus that the construction industry will end its rapid growth. In the face of difficulties, the determination of "fine management" of construction enterprises is unprecedentedly firm. Yuan Zhenggang, Chairman and President of Glodon, said that the digital transformation of the construction industry is moving towards a "deep water area", and the digital transformation with the goal of refined management will be a "new model" for the development of the construction industry.
As a "deep companion" of digitalization in the construction industry, Glodon is well aware that in order to enter the "deep water area", it has to work the hardest and "gnaw the hardest bones". In recent years, Glodon has spent a lot of energy to expand the cost business to the new cost business; At the same time, the construction business changed the "playing method", further dismantled the scene, and formed a refined management solution at the post level, project level and enterprise level; The design business has been reshaped with an "all-in-one" mindset, opening a new chapter in the digital design business.
In order to deeply empower construction enterprises, Glodon launched the All in AI strategy. Today, Glodon has carefully polished "one horizontal, one vertical and one AI" to build and build the company's core technical barriers.
Where the ambition goes, the water strikes three thousand miles. Glodon is forging ahead and turning its vision into a magnificent prospect.
Brave to change, new branches in traditional fields
Two sets of data provide a perspective on the current situation of China's construction industry. One group is: since 2016, the average profit margin of the domestic construction industry has continued to decline, falling to 2.64% in 2023; The other group is: the mainland's construction information investment only accounts for about 0.08% of the total output value, which is lower than that of developed countries. According to data from the China Industrial Internet Research Institute, the digitalization of the construction industry ranks second to last among all industries, and there is great room for improvement.
How to interpret it? Low profit margins are forcing construction companies to take the initiative to change, and "digital transformation" has become the "thick cotton clothing" they urgently need. In addition, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council adjusted the main assessment indicators of central enterprises to "one profit and five rates", and the central state-owned enterprises in the construction industry have shouted the business goal of "increasing the profit margin by 1% in three years". But on the other hand, the digital transformation of the construction industry has not been in-depth before, and there are many misunderstandings and blockages.
When the whole industry began to seriously think about how to achieve refined management with the help of tools, Glodon, a leading enterprise in construction digitalization, was given higher expectations. Danger and opportunity are in front of Glodon at the same time.
Yuan Zhenggang said that the digital transformation of the construction industry is only now truly moving towards the "deep water area". At this stage, Glodon not only positions itself as a software company, but also deeply accompanies, not only answering questions for enterprises, but even helping enterprises cultivate talents and deeply help customers solve change problems.
Glodon was born 26 years ago with the goal of "getting budget workers out of calculators" and relied on budgeting software to gain a strong foothold. Until now, Glodon has been among the best in the global cost field.
As the "cornerstone business" and "first growth curve", Glodon's cost business continues to demonstrate its strong vitality and scalability. The reason lies in the company's right and right critical deployments. In 2017, Glodon started the "second venture" and implemented cloud transformation for its cost business, and since then, its cloud pricing and cloud calculation businesses have continued to grow steadily, which has rejuvenated the vitality of Glodon's cost business. In 2022, Glodon upgraded its cost products to digital new cost solutions in a timely manner to help the main cost business open up "new space" for growth.
Wang Lei, general manager of Glodon's engineering data product line, said that the company's cost products focused on cost management in the transaction stage, but after the upgrade, the underlying logic of the new cost products has changed dramatically. The new cost product can not only meet the precise estimation of investment and limit design in the early stage of the project, but also support the actuarial and dynamic economic analysis of the construction plan cost in the early stage of project implementation and the process cost. By helping enterprises build a professional engineering data center, comprehensively manage project achievement data, precipitate enterprise experience data, and provide external data comparison rulers, the cost management of the whole process of the project is more refined and the profit is guaranteed.
"Under the target cost, let the project achieve the best value, and with the support of data and AI capabilities, the management and operation level of the enterprise can be improved, and the value space will be released, and the growth potential of the new cost business in the future is huge." Wang Lei said.
Many brokerages such as Ping An Securities believe that the digital new cost business will be the ballast stone of Glodon's business development in the long term in the future, which is worth looking forward to.
Into the deep water, stumbling on the "1% profit margin"
Construction digitalization is a blue ocean of 100 billion yuan that is broader than the cost, and the construction business is the "second curve" created by Glodon, and it is also the key to its decisive future. If you want to sail a great ship, you must wade into deep waters.
Wang Pengyi, vice president of Glodon, said that in the current environment, the most urgent demand of construction companies is to deliver on time and improve profits. The solution to the demands is also clear – deepening digital transformation. Glodon clearly understands that the digital construction site with automatic collection and empowerment operations, digitalization + industrialization empowerment production, and lean integration empowerment management is a "course" that construction enterprises must make.
This is another more difficult but more valuable way to "play", so that the digitalization of the construction site returns to the business itself, and returns to the lean management driven by customer needs and focusing on the core scenarios of the construction site.
At the beginning of this year, Glodon quickly adjusted the business strategy of the construction business, focusing on materials, personnel, equipment, schedule management and other links, focusing on the rigid demand project-level standardized products represented by materials, labor services, schedules and tower cranes, and increasing the coverage and penetration of the majority of small and medium-sized projects through customer centralized procurement.
Wang Pengyi said that at present, single-line applications such as materials and labor services have been implemented on a large scale, "We have chosen a difficult road, and it is a generational difference." ”
In Yuan Zhenggang's view, the essence of digitalization is: data + connection + algorithm. Glodon began to think about the issue of "connection" more than ten years ago, and in 2023, Glodon Construction Business Platform (GBP) will be released, so that there will no longer be an "island" for digitalization. Relying on this platform, Glodon has created a multi-service integrated solution, and at the same time opened up platform resources to help ecological partners and enterprise customers achieve business success.
At the same time, Glodon attaches great importance to the development and application of AI in the industry, continues to strengthen the investment in generative AI research and development in the construction field, and releases the AI large model AecGPT, which uses AI to reconstruct the whole life cycle of building software products. Applications such as AI takeoff, AI zebra progress, AI material management, and AI safety have further opened up the imagination space of construction business.
Zheshang Securities said that with the refined management of the project as the core digital construction product matrix, and the deep cultivation of the project-level and post-level markets, it is expected to become the growth engine of Glodon in the 100-billion-level construction market.
Independent innovation, restart growth
From a global point of view, in the field of architectural design, Glodon belongs to the "latecomer". According to Yuan Zhenggang, Glodon established a design software team in 2015 and officially released a digital design product set in 2022. This product set is a design software designed for Chinese people, based on independent intellectual property rights graphics platform based on the full professional BIM (Building Information Modeling) forward design solution products.
"Without self-developed BIM design software, we can't go abroad and compete with international design leaders." This is the original intention of Glodon to make design software.
Yuan Zhenggang also said, "At the beginning of Glodon's design software, the clear purpose was to achieve 'integration', so that the design can be connected with the cost and construction stages to form a whole. This is also what customers want most. Because design is the first part of the project, 80% of the cost of the entire project is determined at the design stage. ”
In his view, in the digital transformation of the design stage, the domestic BIM forward design has realized the integration of collaborative design, design cost, design and construction, and realized the double improvement of design quality and design economy. This "integration" is the core competitive advantage of Glodon compared with other international design software companies. "This is our own domestic design software, which will truly achieve positive design and 'one model to the end', and will gradually go to the world in the future." Yuan Zhenggang said.
Diao Zhizhong, the founder of Glodon, once said: "The endgame of an enterprise should match the endgame of the industry. "In the long run, Glodon's digital strategy is in line with the long-term development trend of the industry. This giant ship is galloping towards the "deep water" of digital transformation. As long as you grasp the direction, follow the goal, and sail indulgently, you will definitely see the "dragon" and return to the fast growth channel. Text/Li Shiyi
National Business Daily