While the spin-off of the business group can stimulate the initiative of various sectors, Alibaba also seems to be avoiding its own groups from fighting in silos. Jack Ma: I firmly believe that Ali will change, and Ali will change.
Reporter丨He Qian.
Ali has once again undergone major personnel changes. On December 20, Alibaba announced that Wu Yongming, CEO of Alibaba Group and chairman of Taotian Group, will also serve as CEO of Taotian Group, which means that Wu Yongming will also be the CEO of Alibaba Group, Taotian Group, and Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Group.
Compared with the past to stimulate combat effectiveness by spin-off business, Alibaba pays more attention to the synergy between e-commerce and technology. Nowadays, Daniel Zhang, Xu Lei, Dai Shan and other older generation of e-commerce people have faded out of the power center, and the giants caught in multiple competition have to reawaken their entrepreneurial passion in their intertwined bodies.
Lao Chen completed his mission.
At the same time that Wu Yongming is also the CEO of Taotian Group, a reporter from Beijing Business Daily learned that Dai Shan, the former CEO of Taotian Group, will assist in the preparation of Alibaba Group Asset Management Company.
According to Chairman of the Board of Directors of Alibaba Group, Joe Tsai introduced in a letter to all employees, in order to optimize the return on capital and enhance shareholder value, the Group's Capital Management Committee authorized the establishment of an asset management company. Dai Shan will assist the Group in the establishment of Alibaba Group's asset management company and the establishment of a professional management team.
In the process of Taotian Group's comprehensive return to users, the Internet, and the omnipotence, Dai Shan has completed its mission. In the letter, Tsai described Dai's accomplishments during her tenure as CEO of Taotian Group. There is no doubt that this mission has also consistently implemented Ma Yun's will to "return to the **".
The scene of the helmsman leaving is familiar. Just six months ago, Alibaba announced that Daniel Zhang would step down as chairman and CEO of Alibaba Holding Group, and that Tsai Chongxin and Wu Yongming, who were part of Alibaba's "Eighteen Arhats", would take over as chairman and CEO respectively. In September, Wu Yongming not only continued to serve as the chairman of Taotian Group, but also served as the chairman and CEO of Alibaba Cloud.
Looking back on the nearly two years that Dai Shan has been at the helm of Alibaba's domestic digital business sector, since January 1, 2022, Dai Shan has not only sorted out the business lines again and accelerated the full integration of ** and Tmall in the background, but also stopped the platform's GMV-oriented business logic and pulled it back to the track of user and merchant experience.
In March this year, Ali split its business into six business groups and a number of business companies such as Tmall Business and Local Life with "1+6+N" organizational reform, allowing it to face market competition independently. Since then, Dai Shan, who has served as the CEO of Taotian Group, has not only successfully realized the independent operation of the group, but also clarified the three development directions of "user first, ecological prosperity, and technology driven".
This also follows the two strategic focus directions of "user-first and AI-driven" proposed by Wu Yongming in September. Obviously, before fading out of the center of power, Dai Shan had paved the way for Wu Yongming by straightening out the organizational structure of Alibaba's domestic business.
Technology leverages business.
At present, Wu Yongming has become the "key gentleman" of Alibaba's two heavyweight businesses. In Tsai's words, Wu Yongming also serves as the CEO of Alibaba Group, Taotian Group, and Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Group, which will help lead Taotian's transformation with technological innovation, ensure that the group focuses on core strategic e-commerce and cloud, and forms a unified command and high-intensity continuous investment.
While the spin-off of the business group can further stimulate the initiative of each segment of the business in the self-financing situation, Alibaba also seems to be avoiding its own groups from fighting on their own. Through the core role of Wu Yongming, the integration and opening up of resources to form a unified command structure may better stimulate the synergy and imagination between businesses.
For example, the integration of Taotian business scenarios and AI technology. An obvious change is that during this year's "Double 11", AI applications such as **Aski, Wanxiangtai Unbounded Edition, and Alimama Bailing were unveiled. Taking **Q&A as an example, this product is **APP on the original search function, through a deep synthesis algorithm to provide users with more conforming goods and content that are more in line with consumer Xi. Not only that, on the merchant side, on the eve of "Double 11", more than a dozen free AI tools were also released to merchants to optimize functions such as store opening and product mapping.
Based on technical capabilities, in recent years, the first-class store consumption line and the presentation of the front-end of the business have also continued to change quietly, and the user's consumption data preferences will be more accurately captured and analyzed by the merchant, so that the latter can maximize reach and transaction with less operating costs. AI may become one of the ways for Taotian Group to tap business growth points. According to Lei Feng, Taotian Group's large-scale model research will focus on two scenarios: "search and promotion" (search, advertising, and recommendation) and the content of shopping.
It is foreseeable that Wu Yongming, who picks both ends, will further promote the integration of Ali's business and technology. In an all-staff letter released in September, Wu noted that Alibaba will increase strategic investment in three types of businesses: technology-driven internet platform business, AI-driven technology business, and global business network.
The serious homogeneity of the traditional Internet model has moved towards stock competition, and new technologies represented by AI and artificial intelligence are becoming a new driving force for global business development. At that time, Wu Yongming emphasized in the letter that Ali must transform itself in order to find the key to the future.
Focusing on the future of industry competition, Zhuang Shuai, an expert in the retail e-commerce industry and founder of Bailian Consulting, affirmed the advantages and opportunities of Taotian's leading technology, but he also pointed out that in the next stage, AI technology can bring new changes, but this cycle is not clear at present, and it also needs to be driven by increased investment from industry leaders.
The giant blade is inward.
Within Alibaba, employees often refer to Wu Yongming as "Wu Ma". According to the data, Wu Yongming, who is from a technical background, has successively served as the chief technology officer of many important businesses such as B2B and Alipay, and also created the Alimama platform and promoted the group's wireless. In addition, Wu Yongming also has a deep investment background.
Obviously, upward, as a veteran of Alibaba, Wu Yongming has won the trust of Ma Yun. Downward, based on his personal prestige and network influence in the group, Wu Yongming, who is familiar with the retail business, can also immerse the decision-making will of the upper level into business collaboration. However, letting the henchmen take such a big spot, it can also be seen from the side that the e-commerce giants are seeking change. In the third quarter of this year, compared with the bright international business and logistics business, Taotian Group's revenue growth in the third quarter fell to 4% from 13% in the previous quarter. It can be seen that in the past two years, the structure has been drastically adjusted, and it is still difficult for Ali to get rid of the stubborn entanglement with his peers.
Previously, in response to employee remarks, Ma Yun responded on the intranet, saying "I firmly believe that Ali will change, Ali will change", and congratulated his opponent Pinduoduo on its decision-making, implementation and efforts in the past few years. Also standing up for reflection is Liu Qiangdong. After the employees pointed out the company's problems such as "low price mentality is difficult to land" and "poor departmental linkage", Liu Qiangdong also responded to his poor management in the intranet, and blamed himself very much, and mentioned that the organization is now huge, bloated and inefficient, and it does take time to change. "But no matter what, I'm not going to lie flat. He said.
The rapid growth of traffic in the past is no longer repeated, and if the giant company wants to turn around, respond to the continuous encroachment of forces such as Douyin, Kuaishou, and Pinduoduo with a more flexible attitude, and prepare for the uncertainty of the future market environment, its adjustment road is still arduous. Not only readjusting the business direction, since the beginning of this year, Daniel Zhang, Xu Lei, Xin Lijun, and Dai Shan have withdrawn one after another, and the e-commerce giants have made a decisive decision in the personnel structure to clear the way for the founder's will.
Perhaps, an effective way to re-stimulate the aging body is to make room for youthful blood. Tsai Chongxin said that in the future, Alibaba will fully use the young management team that has been trained at the grassroots level and has emerged to create their own innovation environment for young people.
However, some employees expressed their worries on social **, saying that people and things in large companies are intertwined, and it is difficult to cure them without a strong medicine, and they are more worried that the new CEO is a good gentleman, who not only takes care of the emotions of the elderly but also promotes the progress of the company.
Taotian Group and even the entire Ali are carrying out in-depth adjustments, including business structure, organizational structure and other aspects, this personnel change means that Taotian Group will continue to promote adjustment, and do not rule out reversing the unfavorable situation of Taotian Group in the development process with greater efforts and greater actions. Shen Meng, director of Xiangsong Capital, told a reporter from Beijing Business Daily.
Be more resolute and make more decisive trade-offs. At Alibaba's latest earnings conference, Wu Yongming proposed that for the core business, Ali will maintain long-term focus, maintain high-intensity resources and R&D investment, continue to improve user experience, ensure that products and services always follow user needs to iterate and evolve, and maintain long-term vitality and competitiveness. For non-core businesses, the value of these assets will be realized through earning as soon as possible or through a variety of other capitalization methods.
In other words, although e-commerce giants have a long way to go to reform themselves, the unprecedentedly fierce competitive environment can no longer tolerate their hesitation.
Editor丨Yang Bo.
*丨Beijing Business Daily, Weibo @ Rural Teacher Spokesperson-Ma Yun Screenshots, pictures provided by enterprises, Yitu.com, and screenshots of Alibaba Group's official website.