More Chinese companies are moving their businesses online by embracing the industrial internet amid the novel coronavirus outbreak, helping bring about work and production resumption in a more convenient manner.

"Our offline stores have seen a significant drop in sales due to the epidemic, and more customers are now shopping online, which made us realize the importance of changing our sales model," said Yang Xuewu, general manager of Chongqing Ciqikou Chenmahua Food Co., Ltd., a time-honored food brand in southwest China's Chongqing.

Last December, Alibaba Cloud, the data intelligence backbone of Chinese tech giant Alibaba, expressed its willingness to help the food company realize intelligent transformation through industrial internet technologies provided by its Feixiang Industrial Internet Platform.

After moving Chenmahua's sales channels to the cloud, Feixiang analyzes customers' tastes and preferences based on its big data, so that the food company can formulate production plans according to sales volume. Thanks to this intelligent system, Chenmahua can implement digital warehouse management and is able to hold little or no on-hand inventory stock.

The system has played a vital role in helping the company further understand customers' needs and roll out corresponding production plans, Yang said, adding that it also accelerates the company's work and production resumption amid the epidemic.

Zhou Feng, a design engineer with Hengtong Optic-Electric Co., Ltd. (HTGD) in Suzhou, east China's Jiangsu province, has also moved his work online since the epidemic outbreak.

"We learn about a customer's needs online, and provide technical solutions for our manufacturing sector after completing the design online," Zhou said. HTGD can then complete an order by coordinating with departments in charge of purchase, production, storage and products delivery, the designer added.

He also noted that HTGD and its upstream and downstream enterprises resumed work and production on Feb. 10, and recovered 60 percent of their production capacity even though less than half of their employees had returned to work.

Zhou attributed this success to the industrial internet platform based on 5G and artificial intelligence technologies launched by the industrial park where his company is located.

Through the platform, seven upstream and downstream enterprises in the industrial park have implemented data sharing and coordinated management of orders, production process, procurement and products delivery.

Wang Ping, a professor with the Chongqing University of Posts and Telecommunications, said that cloud services help enterprises bring about digital and intelligent transformation, embrace the industrial internet, improve innovation capacity and management efficiency, as well as reduce production and operation costs.