Cross-sector competition a trend in new economy: CEOs

Competition among companies will no longer only exist in the same sector, as the integration of technologies, data and capital can enable a company to enter in a new field more conveniently, a CEO said at the Newtop 100 CEO Summit 2018 in Beijing on Friday.

Li Zhigang, CEO of Newtop 100, a company focusing on in-depth reports on business leaders in the arena of new economy, namely, those with new technologies or emerging business models, said an instant-noodle company's competitor would not be another instant-noodle company but food delivery companies.

There are mainly two kinds of cross-sector businesses, he said.

"The first one is focusing on its core business. For example, e-commerce giants such as Alibaba and JD.com have entered in the field of offline retail store, with the essence of their businesses remaining retailing and the trading scenario changing

"The other one is based on customers' needs. Take Meituan-Dianpin for instance. It's business has expanded from group-buying to movie ticket sales, to six, seven or even more completely unrelated sectors, such as hotel, tourism, food delivery and transportation

"Why can the company operate those businesses well when they cross together? Because it satisfies the needs of users as they want a one-stop app to help them solve all problems," Li said.

In Li's view, cross-sector competition will make the "heavy company" and high-tech company two major trends in the future.

A "heavy company" has three features: it has deep control of the supply chain; it is labor-intensive and it is driven by technology, according to Li.

Several startups in various fields have already been transforming themselves into "heavy companies", he said.