Sangfor Technologies Inc(300454) (300454. SZ) fell into huge legal and moral disputes after it was revealed that the developed system products can help enterprises monitor employees’ turnover intention. However, a few days later, after deleting the official publicity for the product, the company delayed to make an official response.
Internet people told the reporter of Huaxia times that it is an unspoken secret of the industry to be monitored by the company. The Sangfor Technologies Inc(300454) 2020 annual report shows that the revenue of related products exceeds 500 million yuan a year.
publicity page deleted
With the news of Zhihu’s layoffs, a behavior perception system that can get the idea of employees’ job hopping in advance attracted attention, and then Zhihu claimed that the system had never been installed and used. It is understood that the monitoring system page is consistent with the product introduction page of a software ” Sangfor Technologies Inc(300454) behavior perception system ba” developed by Sangfor Technologies Inc(300454) in 2017, which makes Sangfor Technologies Inc(300454) fall into the cusp of public opinion.
Previously, Sangfor Technologies Inc(300454) official website and official account show that “behavior sensing system BA” can help enterprises monitor employees’ work situation and risk of leaving. Details of employees with turnover intention can be provided, including employee name, position, IP and other details; The number of times employees visit job search websites, chat keywords and resume delivery can be seen at a glance through the system.
According to the official website of Sangfor Technologies Inc(300454) before fermentation, the successful cooperation cases of the monitoring system include China Everbright Bank Company Limited Co.Ltd(601818) Shenzhen Branch, Sina and East China Normal University. At present, the relevant introduction pages cannot be found or deleted by search.
According to the national intellectual property official website, Sangfor Technologies Inc(300454) submitted a patent application for “a method, device, equipment and storage medium for turnover intention analysis” on March 19, 2018, which can obtain the online behavior data in the employee terminal, judge whether the employee has behavior data related to turnover intention, and analyze the results. In September of that year, the substantive examination of the application took effect, and the status was not updated after that.
The inventors of the patent are Cai Jiapo and Li Yuanhui. Public information shows that CAI was one of the objects of the equity incentive plan of Sangfor Technologies Inc(300454) as a core technical business personnel at the end of last year.
The company’s 2020 annual report shows that the sub products of behavior perception system appear in the list that the revenue of a single product accounts for more than 10% of the company’s revenue in the current year. Based on this calculation, the revenue of the product in 2020 will at least exceed 545 million yuan.
After the continuous fermentation of the incident, a Sangfor Technologies Inc(300454) salesperson confirmed that the product can help enterprises judge employees with turnover intention, which is used by many companies.
Some investors asked about the legitimacy of the product on the interactive easy, but did not get a reply from the company. On February 15, the reporter of Huaxia times sent an interview letter to the company asking about the legal, moral hazard and income of the system products, but no reply was received.
the heart of the industry is not publicized
Sangfor Technologies Inc(300454) so far, there has been no official response, which may be related to the existence of relevant cases in the industry. Many employees of Internet companies told reporters that although monitoring was not explicitly pointed out, it was an unspoken secret of the industry. The company will use crawler software, purchase information from headhunters and other methods to obtain the trend of employees. HR will list key personnel according to the monitoring results for further action.
According to the website of the State Intellectual Property Office, in December 2018, Taikang Insurance Group Co., Ltd. applied for a patent for the invention of “method, device, medium and electronic equipment for analyzing the working state of employees”. This invention needs to obtain the social data of employees, including the chat records generated when the employees use the company’s internal chat software, Use these data to understand the working status of employees.
In addition to Sangfor Technologies Inc(300454) , other security software companies in China have also developed similar behavior awareness systems.
According to the official website of Qi An Xin Technology Group Inc(688561) (688561. SH), the online behavior risk perception analysis solution can monitor employees’ violations of the company’s management regulations, the use of non work related applications during working hours, frequent access to job search websites (non recruiters), the use of illegal applications and other behaviors, and provide evaluation reports.
The network security situational awareness delivery scheme developed by Venustech Group Inc(002439) (002439. SZ) can realize management capabilities such as overall website operation situation monitoring, exposure or internal asset identification monitoring.
Dbappsecurity Co.Ltd(688023) (688023. SH) developed the screen capture and disclosure traceability module of Mingyu host security and management system (EDR) to capture and trace the screen display of terminal equipment (PC, laptop, smartphone, large screen, etc.). The system hides the invisible security identification information in the screen of the terminal device in real time, extracts the screen capture or screen capture files, obtains the security identification information, and accurately locates the source of the screen capture or screen capture.
performance is lower than expected
According to Tonglian data, Sangfor Technologies Inc(300454) ‘s main businesses include enterprise network security, cloud computing and it infrastructure, products and services of basic network and Internet of things. Since its listing in 2018, Sangfor Technologies Inc(300454) performance has been rising.
However, according to its performance forecast for 2021, the net profit decreased by 61.82% – 70.22% year-on-year, mainly due to the slow growth of revenue, increased investment and the decline of overall gross profit margin. This performance made China International Capital Corporation Limited(601995) say in its research report that it was “lower than market expectations”.
In the last three months, more than 20 institutions have given buy and overweight ratings, with an average target price of more than 270 yuan. However, since the second half of 2021, the share price of Sangfor Technologies Inc(300454) has continued to decline. On February 14, Sangfor Technologies Inc(300454) hit a 52 week low of 142 yuan per share, and the total market value fell to 60 billion yuan.
At the same time, the number of shares held by the fund is also declining. According to the fund’s four seasons report, by the end of last year, 79 funds of 27 fund companies held Sangfor Technologies Inc(300454) shares, holding a total of 14.02% of the circulating shares, the lowest level in the four quarters of 2021. The reason is that, taking the pioneer of China Europe times, who newly entered the top ten shareholders of the company in the third quarter of last year as an example, if it has not been sold so far, the cost floating loss of 1.6 billion has exceeded 600 million yuan.
A person in the network security industry told the Huaxia times that Sangfor Technologies Inc(300454) ‘s flagship product is network security, mainly government customers. The company has been a leader in the industry for many years, but with the rise of emerging companies, its traditional passive defense technology has also encountered the problem of difficult transformation.
