Editor's Guide ： For the definition of middle stage , You may have heard many versions , But you can really understand Zhongtai , And for your own use ？ The author shared some concepts about Zhongtai and his cognition of Zhongtai as a whole , I hope we can reach an agreement , And summed up several key points in my work , Share it with you .

I have done it myself 5 More than years , I plan to summarize and resume some business development and personal growth in the near future .

Before that , First, I will briefly introduce some concepts about Zhongtai and my principled views on Zhongtai as a whole , So that readers can align cognition .

One 、 Introduction to the concept of Zhongtai

1. The definition of middle stage

The above is the definition of Zhongtai in Baidu Encyclopedia , After reading , It can be seen that 2 Core information ：

① flexible 、 Fast 、 Avoid repeated construction 、 Improve efficiency , These keywords can be understood as “ High reusability enables cost reduction and efficiency improvement ”.

② The middle stage is the product of the contradiction between the front stage and the back stage , It is the balance between business sense and technicality .

here , Remember first “ Reuse ” The word , This is the most essential point of Zhongtai .

2. The story of Zhongtai

Next, let's talk about 2 About Zhongtai is widely known 、 The most popular story , Let everyone feel more intuitively what is called Zhongtai .

The story 1： Game company Supercell

The summary of the story is ：

supercell The game company , Fewer members , But it can quickly produce popular products . The essence is that their company is structurally , Many capabilities of the game kernel 、 Materials and other abstractions precipitate into public capabilities , Then small upstream teams can quickly try and make mistakes at low cost , Quickly find the needs of market users .

then , Alibaba's senior management team was inspired by this , Opened the well-known “ Big, middle and small front end ” Organizational reform .

2 Companies are real , But is there really a story behind it , But I don't know .

The story 2： US combat mode

This story is easier to read , It is the combat form of the US Army , Combine the flexibility of the frontline personnel with the powerful firepower of the rear sea, land and air , Maximize the advantages of both .

In fact, I think it may not be just the US Army , It is estimated that most armies should be in this form , After all, the cost of rear firepower is high , It is impossible to match every front .

above 2 A little story , True or false , In fact, it is to let everyone feel , The characteristics of midfield ： flexibility 、 reusability , And cost reduction and efficiency improvement .

3. Various concepts of the middle stage

Next , Popularize some middle platform concepts .

Look at the name of Zhongtai in the figure below , You must have seen it somewhere more or less 、 I heard of .

however , It is interesting to , These words , It has just been put together into a military combat system .

ad locum , Let's not worry about the sea, land and air , Or the headquarters of the weapons base , Just focus on one core ：“ No matter what it is, Zhongtai , In fact, they all focus on certain functions , Concentrated sedimentation construction , Form reusable capabilities in corresponding fields , Then serve the upstream user object , So as to achieve the purpose of reducing cost and improving efficiency ”.

Two 、 My understanding of Zhongtai

Ok, You have basically understood the concept of Zhongtai .

So if a company wants to make a decision and start to be a middle office , What aspects of cognition are needed ？

below , I make some descriptions from several dimensions , It is also the experience that I have combed and summarized since reviewing the practice in China and Taiwan , Hope to have reference significance for you .

PS： Zhongtai appears in the following text , Unless otherwise stated , All in particular “ Business Center ”.

1. The essence of business in the middle

The steps of what Zhongtai is doing are basically the same ：

① Extract business commonalities , Abstract precipitation ;

② Middle stage architecture design 、 Building ;

③ Transform the old business access , Drive new business access .

Sometimes the abstract precipitation is not necessarily the system capability , It may be the data standard , It may be an efficiency tool , In short, as long as it is common or needs of multiple businesses , It can be abstracted and precipitated into centralized construction .

The purpose of the construction of Zhongtai is 4 individual , It's from teacher Zhong Hua 《 Enterprises IT Architecture transformation ： Alibaba's China Taiwan strategic thinking and framework battle 》 A Book , Reduce complexity 、 Reusability 、 agility 、 Unified data .

Service access , It is divided into old service access and new service access . If it is a post convergence construction , There must be old business transformation and access , It's a painful process （ The follow-up meeting will be devoted to explaining a case about the linkage between the transformation of the bottom layer of commodities and the transformation and access of the whole company's business ）, So during the construction of Zhongtai , Be sure to minimize this situation , Or achieve a lower impact on the upstream .

From my own experience , To obtain the 2 Some enlightenment ： The first is when you find that there are signs that a certain ability needs to be more professional , Start as early as possible ; The second is to leave a certain framework scalability in the system architecture , Sometimes it may cost a little more , However, it is worthwhile to lengthen the cycle . Grasp these two points , You need to gradually find your feelings in daily practice .

2. Be a middle stage 2 There are two key conditions

1） Business has the same attributes but diversified , Innovative business continues 、 high frequency

Business is the same as attribute ： It means that the general attributes of each business should be the same , For example, there are various modes of taxi 、 express 、 All free rides belong to the same property , There will be a big difference between takeout and wine travel . There may be children's shoes here to ask , Then the takeout and wine tour of the same company don't need to be a middle platform ？ I think the necessity is weak , Maybe some shared services can be built between the two , For example, user account system and some back-end infrastructure , But for the business in the middle stage , There will be no value of abstract precipitation .

diversification ： Diversity does not contradict the same attribute , It's like a special bus 、 express 、 Windmills are different forms under the same attribute , For example B2C、C2C、B2B And other forms are also diversified . Because only diversity , Your samples will be rich , You have the necessity of abstract precipitation , Otherwise, there are few forms , In fact, it's not about the middle stage , It is more like a business background with directional support .

Innovative business continues 、 high frequency ： If the diversification of stock is limited and stable , You are only suitable for planning the middle stage early in the morning , But for the post construction stage （ Postposition refers to the convergence of various businesses into the middle stage ） It's really impossible . Because the revenue the company sees is limited , It just solves the stock problem , And it also costs a lot of organizational adjustment costs . Only by allowing Zhongtai to support an endless stream of new businesses , In order to gradually reduce the marginal cost , To achieve the goal of being an integral part of the middle stage ROI The highest .

2） Zhongtai is a form of organization , Involving resource distribution , And collaboration issues , Need company CEO、CTO Make decisions and stick to

Be the middle stage , In addition to saying that the business form should meet the above requirements , Another key point is needed , That is the need for the head of the company 、 The second leader makes decisions .

Because of the middle office structure , Itself is a form of organization , Separate the supporting functions of each business and concentrate some of them in a unified place for construction , Therefore, the core also involves the distribution and allocation of resources . That's natural , The problem of collaboration will be extended , Cooperation between business and middle office , It must not be as handy as internal business collaboration . The difficulties in the middle stage that will be mentioned later , It is precisely more from this problem .

3. The development orientation of Zhongtai

1） Zhongtai is an asset to the company , Not resources

Most of the time , The company regards R & D as a resource , Especially in the middle and back office . But what I want to say is , Zhongtai is an asset , It's not just resources . While doing business support, Zhongtai , More things need to be done are precipitation . These precipitates , It could be the system , It could be a process , It could be experience , It could be people , None of this will disappear with each project , Will become an important asset of the company .

2） The primary responsibility of the middle office is to support the business , The second is self-development （ application > Precipitation ideas ）

Zhongtai should develop , To precipitate assets , But it must be on the premise of supporting important businesses . There is no hair in the skin , Only provide business value , Can have its own value and resources . When Zhongtai is doing system design , Balance also needs to be considered , Too much front and heavy design , Will produce misplaced investment , Resources cannot be realized ROI Maximize . The best way , That is, the business alternates with the middle office , It is necessary to keep proper postposition （ Observe the maturity of small samples ）, Also keep in front （ Insight into the business , Forecast change , Make design reservation ）.

3） Zhongtai can't do all the needs , Limited resources must give full play to their maximum value

As a middle stage , Often face hundreds of business needs . Can we meet these needs ？ Of course not. . China and Taiwan resources must be limited , Although the scale of Zhongtai may be very large , But your relative business needs will certainly be more .

therefore , The middle stage can't do all the needs , There must be a trade-off between needs , The conventional approach is value judgment + Blocking judgment . Value judgments are well understood , Is to do the company's strategy oriented 、 Important projects of important business , Only in this way can we maximize ROI. And blocking judgment , That is, when the service has been connected to the central station , Even if business is not very important , As far as possible, the middle office also needs to ensure some ability support that can block the business , Don't let business stagnate . And other needs , Capable of business closed loop , Try to keep the business closed-loop .

Such a principle , It will certainly make some businesses feel “ unequal ”, But this may be a natural contradiction , In particular, the bandwidth of the middle station itself is narrow , When there is no room to move . And solve this contradiction , In addition to maintaining good communication , More, we need to rely on some symmetrical mechanisms to transfer contradictions out , The follow-up meeting will issue a document on the cooperation mechanism between the middle office and the business .

4） The business center is the business department , We should have the thinking of doing business

Business is not a pure technical department , Nor is it a functional department , It's the business department , We need to have strong development thinking . Our internal and external environment , Our current main contradiction , We plan where to go , These all need the business thinking to give the answer . From the earliest to the present , I will divide my business experience into 4 Stages of development , Subsequent articles will be launched one after another .

4. China and Taiwan implement the main policy

1） The essence of Zhongtai thought ： Reuse & Data sharing

Reusability is easy to understand , A lot has been described above ; Data sharing , In fact, convergence business commonality should sink the middle ground , Underlying services and attributes generated in the database , And if there is no middle stage , It requires a high cost to carry out the two-way interworking of each business stack .

2） The ultimate goal of Zhongtai ： Improve efficiency

Why is it great efficiency , Because more often , We are looking at the efficiency of a single dimension , For example, a project 、 The benefits of a product . But in fact, a lot of investment from China and Taiwan cannot be measured in this way , We need to look at it from the two dimensions of space and time .

Space , In other words, Zhongtai has invested a lot of projects , Not directly affect the business , It may look like Zhongtai has made something by itself , But in the end, the business still benefits .

And time , Sometimes the things made by Zhongtai have some pre reserves , It may not be able to play a significant efficiency role in a short time , But stretching to the long term , It really works .

therefore , The purpose of Zhongtai is to improve the whole （ Business + Zhongtai 、 Now? + future ） Great efficiency .

3） The principle of building China and Taiwan ： flexible 、 Efficient 、 Stable

flexible ： It means that the services provided should be flexible , On the one hand, mature ability should be as easy to assemble as building blocks , On the one hand, the whole framework has business + China and Taiwan jointly build .

Efficient ： The middle stage is the center , It will be the only way to realize the response of all upstream business requirements , So the efficiency of the center is particularly critical .

Stable ： Similarly, the middle stage is the center , Services and data are centralized , If something goes wrong in the middle stage , The upstream will be greatly affected .

5. The quality requirements of being a middle office staff

1） The middle stage is the core center , Chinese and Taiwanese people should have a strong sense of responsibility and professionalism

The structure of the middle stage , Realize the business capability , From the previous closed loop , Into the current business + China and Taiwan jointly complete . The perfect cooperation mechanism , It's impossible to solve all the problems , And then , We must play a human role , To carry out “ Grey areas ” Complement of . The business I will talk about later BP Role is the embodiment of taking the initiative to fill the position in the middle stage .

meanwhile , Central flexibility 、 Efficient 、 Stability requirements , Let us feel the great responsibility , And I want to do these things well , It requires the professionalism of Chinese and Taiwanese . Therefore, generally, the requirements for core positions in the middle stage are higher , In terms of job qualifications and recruitment difficulties .

2） Every Zhongtai is different , There is no beacon , Chinese and Taiwanese people need strong self drive and flexible thinking ability

I have also learned about the construction experience of several medium-sized enterprises in the industry before , It is found that the routes and Strategies of each family are different . Some may be at the beginning of the company's business development , Has already begun to build Zhongtai , Some are after the business matures , Convergence construction platform ; Some start from the technical middle stage , Then push the business in the middle , Some start directly from the application layer , And then sink the service to do better .

The situation in each company is different , Can't generalize , The road others have taken may not be suitable for themselves , Be flexible . So taking the middle stage is actually quite confused , Most of the time, we just need to explore and develop by ourselves , All we can do is not wait , proactive .

6. The advantages and difficulties of being a middle stage

Some key perceptions of being a middle platform have been introduced , Then I think you have a more comprehensive understanding of the advantages of Zhongtai , May have sharpened their fists , Want to try .

Wait a minute , I'll pour some cold water on you first ,oh, No , It should be said to be ice water .

I was talking about , The middle office is an organizational form involving the change of resource allocation principles , The middle office turns the implementation of closed-loop business into business + China and Taiwan jointly build , The common function of each business of Zhongtai sedimentation is centralized construction .

These situations , In fact, it will cause the following contradictions , Let me list some key ：

• Contradiction between business requirements and implementation priorities
• The contradiction between business and the responsibility boundary of the middle office
• The contradiction between the business needs of China and Taiwan and the allocation of their own construction resources
• The contradiction between short-term value and long-term value
• Space time reasons , The contradiction that it is difficult to measure value
• Zhongtai drives the contradiction that the whole is beneficial but the part is not profitable
• The bottleneck of middle office resources and the long schedule of complex functions , Cause the contradiction of business black box understanding
• In business cooperation owner The contradiction of consciousness
• ……

These contradictions , It will bring many difficulties to the business and the daily work of both China and Taiwan , These difficulties are actually the biggest thing to be solved in the development of China and Taiwan .

As long as you are firm, Zhongtai is suitable for you , The middle stage can bring great efficiency improvement , Even if there are thousands of difficulties , Conquer it too .

The resistance and long , Yes, it will be .

author ： The reduction is simple and far , WeChat official account ： Product gossip （life_pm）

This paper is written by @ The reduction is simple and far Original release to everyone who is product manager , Without the permission of the author , Prohibited reproduced .

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