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"What do you mean?"

Zhou Buqi thought he had misheard for a moment.

Tang Binchen said: "A commercial committee of the European Union has launched an investigation into Helo. It is not verbal, but formal. They have sent a notice to the company. They said that we should be prepared. Maybe next month, their investigation team will come."

"Really?"

Zhou Buqi opened his eyes wide. This was completely contrary to the current situation he had and some basic judgments on the situation in Europe.

Tang Binchen said in a deep voice: "I didn't believe it at first. I thought it might be a misunderstanding or a formality. But after contacting several people in the EU, I found that this was not a formality at all. This is true. They really want to launch an investigation. This is related to a major digital strategy of the EU recently."

"Well, the digital single market."

After Zhou Buqi came to the UK, he also received many invitations and notifications from the EU, which was about Europe's establishment of a single digital market.

This is indeed a major breakthrough.

If the EU really launches this mechanism, it will be a huge progress for the development of Europe's economic structure.

Because Europe is too rich.

It has been developed for decades.

The general environment of love of leisure and hate of work is very serious.

The so-called love of leisure and hate of work is not only the mental state of employees, but also the mental state of enterprises.

Many large European companies have a history of decades or even hundreds of years.

For example, Volkswagen, LV, Ericsson, IKEA, GlaxoSmithKline, Total, etc. are not only giants that dominate the world, but also world-class companies. After decades of luxury and extravagance, these companies are just like people, immersed in the current good life and can't extricate themselves. It's really too difficult to change.

Therefore, the digital transformation of European companies has encountered great difficulties.

It's basically the same as Japan.

They all want to maintain the status quo.

They are not interested in changing.

This is not just the technology industry.

The current European market can be said to have been hit by foreign companies in an all-round way. Those foreign companies, relying on more advanced digital management systems, can have lower costs and cross-space management advantages across many European countries.

With digital management, product managers can command product updates in Spain, Portugal, and Italy from France, online meetings, video exchanges, and real-time communication.

It not only saves the high cost of constant business trips in traditional multinational management, but also greatly improves operating efficiency.

Therefore, Europe's economic structure must be reformed.

It is necessary to innovate in the direction of science and technology and digitalization. Only in this way can we keep up with the new era and survive in the competition of foreign companies.

Some data companies have analyzed that if the EU's single digital market is built, it can save the EU more than 500 billion euros in market operating costs each year. With low costs, European products will naturally be more competitive in the world.

Zhou Buqi is very familiar with this.

Because in later generations, the domestic economy also fell into a panic recession under the upside-down situation, and similar policies were introduced to deepen the construction of a unified domestic market. The two are not similar, but exactly the same.

Zhou Buqi smiled and said, "Europeans are really slow to react. I think the biggest stimulus is Geely's acquisition of Volvo."

Tang Binchen said, "Yes, it's Volvo! You are so accurate. I found the Vice President of Commerce of the European Union and talked to him twice. He specifically talked about Volvo. I was really stimulated. Europe is impacted by the United States, and those Europeans can actually accept it. After all, the United States is strong enough to attract global talents. The real shock to them was Volvo."

Zhou Buqi smiled, "Yes, China used to be the worst student among the worst students. The big companies here in Europe, when they went to China to develop, they were treated as VIPs everywhere. They could make a lot of money and return with a full load by just making some small gadgets. Now it's different. We are the host now!"

"We didn't talk about macro issues. The main thing is the outstanding achievements in reducing costs and increasing efficiency."

Tang Binchen has worked in Europe for so many years and has a great feeling that the waste here in Europe is too serious. Too many social resources have been thrown away like garbage.

A very important part of the domestic economic difficulties is that state-owned enterprises have too many social resources but do not know how to use them. They would rather leave them in the warehouse to rot than lose them to the private sector and be accused of losing state-owned assets. Europe has basically disbanded all the former large state-owned enterprises. The current economic difficulties are mainly due to social waste. They are used to a rich, decent and easy life. They don’t care about small things at all and just throw them away.

And all the waste of production materials will eventually be reflected in the price of the product.

The more waste, the higher the price.

The less competitive it is.

Diligence and thrift are traditional virtues in China for thousands of years. Such virtues give domestic private enterprises a huge advantage in competition.

The less waste, the lower the price!

Tang Binchen said: "Volvo has been losing money for many years. Later, it was sold to Ford in the United States, hoping to use the American way to lead Volvo out of the predicament. As a result, Ford failed and still could not solve the problem of Volvo's high costs. It lost money for more than ten years. Ford had no choice but to sell it to Geely. Then came the shock to Europe. After Geely bought Volvo, it took only one year to turn losses into profits. The key strategy was not to lay off a large number of employees, but to make adjustments in the management system and business structure, which greatly reduced operating costs."

Zhou Buqi was very familiar with this. When Geely wanted to acquire Volvo, he specifically consulted him. Opinion, said: "There is no doubt that in terms of digital operation of enterprises, our domestic companies are the best in the world! The most typical example is Huawei. Huawei's entire digital system was bought from IBM. But now look, in terms of digital management, is Huawei stronger or IBM stronger? To be frank, IBM is not even worthy of carrying shoes."

"Well, American companies are also seriously wasteful. They are better than European ones, but not much better. If Europe wants to enable local companies to reduce costs and increase efficiency in digital construction, it is better not to choose the United States between China and the United States."

Tang Binchen does not like to look at business strategies from the perspective of political speculation. He is a science student and is not good at these things.

Zhou Buqi nodded, "That's very strange. The EU didn't investigate Qualcomm, but suddenly investigated Helo. What does this mean? Thirty-six strategies? Repairing the plank road in the open, crossing Chencang in secret? Using us as a cover?"

"That's not very clear. Anyway, after the notice was issued, it had a very bad impact on the company. Many people were very worried, which seriously affected the internal atmosphere and morale of the company, as if we had made some mistakes." Tang Binchen shook his head, "The specific situation is not clear at the moment. Aren't you going to participate in the EU's activities? Go and find out."

"They are investigating Helo, what are they investigating?"

"There are mainly two aspects. One is data privacy, to see if we have leaked user data."

"No?"

"No! We strictly enforce this aspect, and the intensity is very strong."

"Then it's not a big problem!"

Zhou Buqi was still relatively relaxed. He subjectively believed that the EU's investigation of Helo this time was probably just a trial by fire, for the US technology giants to see.

Tang Binchen said: "Some time ago, the media exposed that the sale of user data in the Internet industry is very popular, and the EU is very vigilant."

"Only laymen are vigilant."

Zhou Buqi deeply disagreed.

Who can protect personal privacy on the Internet these days?

It's just wishful thinking.

Some evil companies do sell user data in their hands. This kind of thing is not only common in China, but also in Europe and the United States. But in fact, even if Internet companies do not do evil, they cannot protect it well.

Physically isolating the data center in the local area is at most an excuse to attract investment in the local area.

The best way to protect yourself is to stay away from the Internet.

Tang Binchen continued, "The second point is that Helo, an instant messaging tool, provides many functions that bypass operators. This will have a great impact on the economic benefits of operators. The EU may hope to find some solutions." "Operators? That's impossible!" Zhou Buqi became serious and not so easy to talk to. "We must fully cooperate with the EU to protect user privacy and do it to perfection. We must not give in to the operator! We can't let Europe's local protection hurt our core competitiveness!"