Tencent Founder Pony Ma Emphasizes Costs and Efficiency, Points Out Severe Internal Corruption

According to a report by Jiemian News on December 22, Tencent recently held an online internal staff meeting to discuss reducing costs and increasing efficiency. About 100 employees attended the meeting, during which firm founder Pony Ma delivered a sharp speech, pointing out the problems with the company’s internal management, games business, WeChat video channel and other businesses.

Tencent‘s core objectives in the past year have been to reduce costs and increase efficiency. In this process, the tech giant has focused on its main business and reduced its peripheral businesses that did not adapt to the current and future development stages. “It is not cost-effective to spread too many non-core businesses, and it is necessary to continue the strategy in the future,” said Ma.

In view of Tencent‘s platform and content group (PCG), Ma believes that time is running out for some businesses. Taking Tencent News as an example, Ma thought that the team needed strong changes, otherwise, it could face cuts. As for the internal reform of PCG, Ma said that some pressure needed to be put on the team so that it can think and act from the perspective of entrepreneurs. Regarding the adjustment of the PCG next year, Ma stated that there might be no need to reduce staff, but the remaining team should do more meaningful things.

Regarding Tencent‘s cloud and smart industry group (CSIG), Ma said, “CSIG has done a lot of things to obtain great revenue. But, it is actually useless, and it still depends on the product to win.” Ma also expressed strong opposition to traffic purchasing, saying that Tencent increased its internal audit this year, and found that a large number of problems lay in traffic purchasing. He believes that Tencent‘s advantages lie in the collaborative office tools such as the enterprise version of WeChat, VooV Meeting and Tencent Docs, as well as the closed-loop business of individual consumers and enterprises connected by mini-programs.

According to an investigation in the fourth quarter, Ma admitted that corruption within Tencent is severe. “The internal corruption is really shocking, involving some managers. This year, Tencent introduced digital capability into anti-fraud by collecting reimbursement within the company and the data of external suppliers. Therefore, most low-level problems can be found. We will continue to build this capability next year.”

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Finally, in the gaming and WeChat video channels, Ma commented, “In the long run, the approval of domestic games will definitely be tight, so Tencent Games must focus on high-quality products. The most eye-catching business of WeChat is video, which is basically the hope of the whole company. However, how to do a good job in e-commerce is a challenge for it.”