To achieve high KPI, there are two simple ways: on then one hand, Baidu could attract new signups by holding offline promotion activities and giving subsidies (around 9,000 per day); on the other hand, Baidu could give doctors RMB 30 for each new signup when they encourage patients to register in both online and offline channels (around 5,000 per day).

　　In other words, Baidu could easily increase its hospital registration volume through the above two ways.

　　However, after they’ve attracted almost all the traffic in 2015, Baidu stopped putting more subsidy in the business in 2016. Since then, Baidu Doctor accepted over around 1,000 new orders from both APP and PC end every day. “That year, we achieved high KPI through money-burning strategy,” a former employee at the business division revealed to TMTpost.

　　Around the 2016 Spring Festival, Baidu changed the general manager of the business division. Last March, the business division changed its positioning into “getting through and perfecting resources and services in the sector”.

　　Based on the new positioning, the new general manager adjusted the structure of the business division a couple of times, which turned out to backfire, as many employees believed.

　　Previously, the business division was divided into four divisions, product, technology, operation and market, and employees at all divisions managed the product together. After the adjustment, however, “battle zones” were added to the business division, and “online hospital registration” became only one of the battle zones.

　　In other words, the general manager had to manage not only four divisions, but also employees, specialized in marketing, technology, product and operation, in different “battle zones”.

　　Chen went through all these adjustments and turmoil. When an employee belonged to two divisions, business would naturally overlap.

　　“Since every employee’s KPI was counted by the boss at the original division, head of different ‘battle zones’ found it extremely hard to give orders,” he explained.

　　Worse still, there was a “commissar” for each “battle zone”. While the “commander” was in charge of daily operation, the “commissar” checked the “commander”. As a result, the entire business division was divided into various “battle zones” and managed by heads from different business segments.

　　“We’ve lost the battle even before it started,” a former employee at the business division told TMTpost with a sigh.

　　Being caught in an awkward position for 764 days

　　However, different from what many outsiders believed, there was no direct connection between the dissolve of Baidu Health Business Division and the “Wei Zexi Incident”.In fact, the “Wei Zexi Incident” affected the Baidu search business, not Baidu Health Business Division.

　　Baidu Health Business Division was established to “build up a new shield for Baidu”. In fact, Baidu seized the right timing to establish the business division.

　　“The attack time has come. We need to focus our business and integrate our organizations to improve efficiency,” Robin Li, founder, board chairman and CEO of Baidu Group, came up with the slogan in the internal letter about the structural change in 2015.

　　In January that year, Baidu went through a major structural change, made clear the position of three vice presidents (Zhang Yaqin, Li Mingyuan and Xiang Hailong), integrated business segments and divisions into three business divisions, Search Service Group (SSG), Mobile Service Group (MSG) and Emerging Service Group (EBG).

　　Search business was at the core of Baidu and was quite lucrative business; MSG undertook Baidu’s mission in the next five to ten years; Zhang Yaqin was in charge of the emerging service and responsible for “Baidu’s development in the next one to two decades”. Some of the major business scope of the ESG included: education, health and internationalization, etc.

　　It wasn’t coincidental that Baidu attached so high importance to health.

　　Based on the annual financial report of the year 2014, Baidu’s search business had reached a bottleneck. While Baidu’s online marketing revenue increased by 40 per cent year-on-year, the total number of customers rose only by 8 per cent. Obviously, customer growth slowed down under the bidding model and baidu need new customers desperately.