Flextronics embraces the Internet of Things

hours. Didi is also working on features that will let users compare prices and travel times across different kinds of transport, including buses.

The company has added a carpooling service called Didi Hitch that lets nonprofessional drivers sift through rider profiles and pick a person to share costs with. Hitch drew 3 million users in its first two months and is expected to reach 10 million by the end of the year, according to Liu. She’s also lobbying government officials, most notably in Shanghai, to approve Didi’s use of Uber-style surge pricing and a private fleet of black cars.

Didi says its local expertise gives it the advantage over San Franciscobased Uber, which is valued at $50 billion. “We feel it’s very promising,” Liu says of Didi’s talks with Chinese officials. “We have a very good chance for collaborative reform, instead of disruptive annihilation.” The company, she says, is working with the government to try to reduce traffic and pollution, to help cities including Shanghai adapt their transit management for mobile, and to act as an advocate for taxi drivers. Didi’s 4,000-person ground-operations staff helps drivers negotiate discounts for dining and car washes.

It’s for good reason that the ride- hailing service has taken steps to keep all the local stakeholders happy. China’s municipal governments occasionally issue warnings or carry out crackdowns on car services, although mostly against unlicensed private cars. Earlier this month, the ministries of transport, industry, and public security summoned companies including Didi and Uber to “rectify certain problems,” according to a newspaper run by the transport ministry.

Uber said in an e-mailed statement that it maintains close communication with local officials and is “on par with any other Chinese companies in the industry, meeting all potential required qualifications.”

Just behind the company’s co-CEOs on the Didi org chart, 37-year-old Liu has been a driving figure in its biggest projects of the past year. She grew up the daughter of Lenovo’s founder, majored in computer science at Harvard, then spent 12 years managing Asia investments at Goldman Sachs before joining Didi as its chief operating officer last year. She was named president less than two weeks before the merger with Kuaidi was announced, and one of her first duties was to smooth the transition. “We have to stay highly coordinated,” she says. “You can’t have a bunch of people who are afraid to speak up, but you can’t have people all acting on their own opinions.”

Liu has recruited junior staffers from Bain Capital, Morgan Stanley, and McKinsey and introduced a rotation system akin to the one at Goldman, requiring new hires to work in a number of different departments before they settle into more permanent positions. She led Didi’s last round of fundraising, and is using data analysis to figure out where next to send drivers.

So far, Didi has no plans to move beyond China, says Liu. “India would be the next logical step,” says Michael Lint, a partner at Golden Gate Ventures. “But they would need to invest a significant amount of money to break that market.”

For now, Liu is focused on making the most of her local advantage. Sometimes, though, China’s brutal traffic jams require some unconventional thinking. While heading to a recent meeting with Beijing officials, the traffic brought her car to a halt, and Liu had to sprint half a mile to the subway then grab a nearby rickshaw to make the meeting on time. “It felt like I came out of a boxing match,” she says. Depending on Uber’s next moves, the real fight may just be beginning. —Lulu Chen, with Tian Ying

Digits

Liu, a Goldman Sachs veteran, has introduced a similar rotation system for junior staff

476

The hourslong shutdown also led to 492 delays

Flights canceled in the eastern U.S. on Aug. 15 because of an air-traffic control failure at a Federal Aviation Administration facility in Leesburg, Va., according to the agency. The FAA is investigating whether a recent software upgrade was the cause. The bottom line Didi has 78 percent of China’s licensed-vehicle rental business but is raising billions to fend off Uber.

Hardware The Foxconn Of Bathroom Scales

Flextronics tries to remake itself as a leader in the Internet of Things

“We liked that they were committed to being an innovator” Flextronics has spent 46 years as a low-margin, behind-the-scenes manufacturer of PCs, routers, and other basic electronics, so the Thriller-type jacket sitting in one of the company’s research labs is a surprise. Bright blue instead of Michael Jackson red, the leather coat is dotted with more than 60 sensors and components, including a camera, a glucose monitor, and a wireless phone charger. Nearby, engineers from startups working with Flextronics tap away at similarly flashy gizmos—a headband designed to track moods, a moisture sensor that warns gardeners when they’re drowning their plants.

The gee-wizardry is part of Flextronics’s effort to remake itself as a leading manufacturer for the socalled Internet of Things, the growing ecosystem of devices, sensors, and industrial equipment that connect to the Web. With its PC and printer businesses maturing and customers such as BlackBerry jumping to cheaper rivals like Foxconn, the company, which recently renamed itself Flex, has seen