The power center of Alibaba (BABA. NYSE, 09988. HK) is further approaching CEO Wu Yongming. On December 20th, Alibaba announced that Wu Yongming, Chairman of Taotian Group, will also serve as CEO of Taotian Group. Dai Shan, former CEO of Taotian Group, will assist in the establishment of Alibaba Group Asset Management Company.
With Wu Yongming's dual focus on Taotian and Alibaba Cloud, the formation of Alibaba's focus on strategic core business development has been basically formed.
Alibaba believes that this will help to lead Taotian's transformation with technological innovation, ensuring the group's unified command and high-intensity continuous investment in the two strategic focuses of e-commerce and cloud.
At the same time, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Alibaba Group, Cai Chongxin, proposed in a letter to all members that since Wu Yongming took over as CEO of Alibaba Group for three months, he has comprehensively promoted the reform of a younger management team. Next, Alibaba will fully utilize a young management team trained and emerging at the grassroots level to create an innovative environment for young people.
Wu Yongming Further Centralizes Power
This personnel adjustment occurred 20 days after the market value of Pinduoduo (PDD. NASDAQ) in the US stock market surpassed Alibaba for the first time.
Prior to this, an Alibaba employee posted on the intranet lamenting: "It's hard to sleep at this moment, and I can't even imagine that the market value of Pinduoduo has directly reached $185.5 billion, which is only $8 billion compared to our $194.3 billion. It's really surprising.". That inconspicuous person is about to become a big brother.
On November 29th, Pinduoduo surpassed Alibaba in market value and became the most valuable Chinese concept stock in the US stock market.
Alibaba Group founder Jack Ma also made a rare statement: "I believe today's Alibaba people are all watching and listening. I firmly believe that Alibaba will change, Alibaba will change. All great companies are born in winter. The era of AI e-commerce has just begun, and it is an opportunity and a challenge for everyone."
Alibaba launched organizational change in March this year, and Cai Chongxin and Wu Yongming officially took over as the Chairman and CEO of Alibaba Group in September. Subsequently, Wu Yongming announced the establishment of two strategic priorities: "user first, AI driven", and conducted business analysis around these two priorities, reshaping business strategic priorities, and carrying out reforms to rejuvenate the management team.
In November, at Alibaba's quarterly performance conference call, Wu Yongming first disclosed a new strategic plan to the outside world, clarifying Alibaba's important priorities for the next 10 years as three directions: technology driven internet platform business, AI driven technology business, and globalized business network.
He announced that for its core business, Alibaba will maintain long-term focus and high-intensity resources and research and development investment, while each business will be based on independent business units, facing the market independently.
At the end of last month, Wu Yongming made judgments and trade-offs on Alibaba Cloud's strategic direction, determined that Alibaba Cloud will implement an AI driven and public cloud priority strategy in the next five years, and made significant adjustments to the business management team.
It is reported that Alibaba Cloud has established a dedicated Public Cloud Business Unit, led by Liu Weiguang; Establish a hybrid cloud business unit, led by Li Jin. In addition, the overseas business units previously led by Yuan Qian have all reported to Wu Yongming.
At the same time, under the coordination of Wu Yongming, an Infrastructure Committee has been established at the Alibaba Group level to coordinate the planning and construction of the entire group's underlying technological infrastructure, with the goal of improving operational efficiency and creating economies of scale. The Infrastructure Committee includes Alibaba Cloud CTO Zhou Jingren, Alibaba Partner Jiang Jiangwei, Alibaba CTO Wu Zeming, and Dharma Institute President Zhang Jianfeng.
Regarding other organizations of Alibaba Cloud, the supply chain; IDC, website; Telemarketing; Wang Lei is responsible for the service and CIO line; Zheng Junfang is responsible for the Business Intelligence Line, Strategic Investment Line, Sales Management Department, Price Management Department, and Strategy Department, with both reporting to Wu Yongming. Jiang Jiangwei is responsible for the Alibaba Cloud Infrastructure Business Unit, and Tang Hong is responsible for the Product Architecture and Stability Department. Both parties report to Zhou Jingren.
Now, Wu Yongming is once again serving as the CEO of Taotian Group. From then on, Wu Yongming will concurrently serve as the CEO of Alibaba Group, Taotian Group, and Alibaba Cloud Intelligent Group.
In response to this, Cai Chongxin explained in a letter to all staff, "Having Wu Yongming concurrently serve as the number one position on Alibaba Cloud and Taotian will help lead Taotian's transformation with technological innovation, and ensure the group's unified command and high-intensity continuous investment in the two strategic focuses of e-commerce and cloud."
Daishan completes the mission of Taotian
Regarding Dai Shan, former CEO of Taotian Group, Cai Chongxin evaluated her in a letter from all employees: Dai Shan, as a member of Alibaba's 18 founding teams, has been working hard on the front line of the company for more than 20 years and has put in tremendous effort for the establishment and growth of the company.
In 1999, Dai Shan founded Alibaba with Jack Ma, starting from the grassroots customer service and sales. She led the legendary "China Supply Iron Army" and served as the Group's Chief Talent Officer and Chief Customer Service Officer.
At the end of 2021, Dai Shan was appointed as the President of Alibaba's Domestic Digital Business Division, representing Alibaba in charge of major businesses such as Taobao (including Taobao, Tmall, and Alibaba Mama), B2C retail business group, Taocai, Taote, and 1688.
The Chinese commercial sector led by Dai Shan is regarded as Alibaba's "money bag", accounting for over 60% of Alibaba's total revenue and contributing almost all of its net profit. It is a financial support for businesses such as cloud computing and entertainment. However, looking at the entire industry, the three country killing pattern of "cat and dog competition" in the e-commerce industry has been replaced by warlord separatism. New forms of e-commerce are constantly emerging, and live streaming and short videos bring interest to the rise of e-commerce. The revenue growth of Alibaba's e-commerce business is also slowing down.
At that time, Hu Qimu, the chief researcher of a digital economy think tank, said in an interview with Time Weekly reporters, "From an industry observation perspective, the penetration rate of e-commerce has already been relatively high. Dai Shan took over Alibaba's domestic e-commerce sector at this time, and her main mission is not to increase growth, but to optimize inventory."
Therefore, Dai Shan proposed that Taobao and Tmall should shift from trading to consumption, helping businesses turn "traffic" into "retention" and achieve sustainable long-term business.
In March of this year, Alibaba launched the largest organizational restructuring in history, with "1+6+N". Under the Alibaba Group, six major business groups and multiple business companies were established, including Alibaba Cloud Intelligence, Taobao Tmall Business, Local Life, International Digital Business, Cainiao, and Da Wen Yu. Among them, the newly established Taobao Tmall Business Group was led by Dai Shan.
In May, Jack Ma convened a small-scale communication meeting with the business leaders of Taotian Group, including Dai Shan. Jack Ma mentioned in the meeting that Taotian Group is currently facing a very serious situation, even using Kodak and Nokia as examples: a company can go from being a benchmark in the industry to dying in six months to a year, and this speed may be even faster in the internet industry.
Jack Ma pointed out three directions for Taotian Group: returning to Taobao, returning to users, and returning to the Internet. Afterwards, Taotian Group quickly responded by canceling the P-sequence internally and establishing a KA service department. The heads of the content, users, merchants, and other operational departments began reporting directly to Taotian CEO Jiang Fang.
At the same time, Taotian Group has launched a new round of pursuit for AI e-commerce. According to media reports, AI has become a keyword throughout Alibaba. After sorting out its AI business, Taotian Group has consolidated approximately 20 teams into 4 and released its own large model product, "Turing," internally.
"Creating a more interesting and cost-effective universal Taobao must be driven by technology," Dai Shan said during the November quarterly earnings conference call, stating that investment in AI is continuing to increase. One is to increase investment in AI tools for businesses, helping them do business more easily and efficiently; The second is to become a content platform and use AIGC technology to lower the threshold for creation.
"In the process of Taotian Group's comprehensive return to users, the internet, and universal Taobao, Dai Shan has completed her mission." Cai Chongxin said internally that preparing for the group's asset management company is a new business function after Alibaba's transformation, which requires a spirit of exploration and strong organizational structure capabilities. Dai Shan will fully leverage her expertise to continue creating value for the company.