On April 10th, Jack Ma posted on the Alibaba intranet titled "To Reform and Innovation", highly affirming the courage of the new management team composed of Chairman Cai Chongxin and CEO Wu Yongming, stating that Alibaba has returned to a healthy growth track and supports continued reform.
A reporter from China Business Daily learned from Alibaba that this is the first time in five years since Jack Ma's retirement that he has shared his thoughts on the company's reform, innovation, and future prospects in a lengthy manner. "The core change of this year is not to catch up with KPIs, but to recognize oneself and return to the customer value track," Jack Ma said in an internal statement.
In addition, Jack Ma praised the courage and effectiveness of the company's new management reform over the past year. "Facing problems and the future, believing in young people, fully empowering the young team, and making decisive and clear choices about what we want and don't want."
With regard to the future of the industry, Ma Yun judged that "the time span of three to five years is like a century for the Internet field, which is enough to bring about earth shaking changes." He said: "We should not only have the courage to admit and correct yesterday's problems in a timely manner, but also face the future and reform." Ma Yun also encouraged employees to innovate at the right time, and constantly do what others dare not do, do not want to do, and have not done.
According to insiders at Alibaba, Jack Ma signed the flower name "Fengqing Yang" in this post, with a firm and optimistic tone as always. "Although Teacher Ma is not in a specific management position, as the founder, he always stands up at the most critical moments of the company's development, providing employees with guidance and encouragement."
Another person close to Alibaba pointed out that Jack Ma's move is not only encouraging Alibaba employees, but also praising a series of reflections on Cai Chongxin's previous interview, providing the greatest support and echo.
Previously, Cai Chongxin accepted an interview with Nicolai Tangen, Chief Investment Officer of Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund, to review Alibaba's past and gains and losses.
"Thank you to Joe (Cai Chongxin) for his courage and responsibility. Making mistakes is not scary, no one is not afraid of making mistakes, what is truly scary is not knowing, not admitting, and not correcting mistakes," Jack Ma said in an internal post.
Cai Chongxin said in the aforementioned interview that the key to Alibaba's backwardness in the past few years is that it has not stood on the side of consumers, and there are still significant organizational problems. Currently, Alibaba Group CEO directly serves as Taobao CEO to solve these problems.
"To some extent, we smashed our own feet and didn't really focus on creating value for our users," Cai Chongxin clearly stated. "We know Alibaba is lagging behind because we forgot who our true customers are. Our customers are people who use our app for shopping, and we haven't given them the best experience."
"As part of the restructuring, we have brought in a new CEO. I am the chairman, and the CEO is 12 years younger than me. He is very user centered, focusing on products, interfaces, and user experience. This is the most important for us," said Cai Chongxin.
Alibaba is undergoing changes, and Cai Chongxin said, "The first thing we do is admit our mistakes: we may not have focused on user experience in the past. The second thing is to reorganize our personnel and change the organizational structure that aligns with our strategy."
In his view, dislike of change is a very common problem in large companies. People don't like change, they don't want to change their jobs, and they are afraid of being fired. Then you need to integrate the company's direction into your organizational structure.
"You should define the direction and then set up the organization of the company. The CEO of our group is also the direct CEO of Taobao and Tmall. His direct subordinates today are very different from his direct subordinates three months ago," said Cai Chongxin.
The full text of Jack Ma's intranet is as follows:
To reform and innovation
——Written on the first anniversary of Alibaba's restructuring
In the past few days, many people have sent me a video of Joe's interview, and someone told me that this video is a big scale of our past mistakes:) Yes. Thank you to Joe for his courage and responsibility. It's not scary to make mistakes, no one makes mistakes, what's truly scary is not knowing what's wrong, not admitting it, and not correcting it.
In the past 25 years, Alibaba has achieved many successes, innovations, and leadership; But we have also made countless mistakes in the past 25 years, and we will continue to make mistakes along the way in the next 77 years. Facing problems calmly is not to deny the past, but to responsibly seek the path to the future. Don't complain about the past, don't complain about others. Times have changed. We must keep up with the times, not only be brave enough to admit and correct yesterday's problems in a timely manner, but also reform towards the future. This is the reason why we keep moving forward.
Last year, I wrote on the intranet: Alibaba will change, Alibaba will change. Over the past year, Cai Chongxin and Wu Yongming have led Alibaba with admirable courage and wisdom to carry out a series of future oriented changes.
The core change of this year is not to catch up with KPIs, but to recognize oneself and return to the customer value track. We are taking action against big companies, going back from a slow decision-making organization to putting efficiency and market first, and making the company simple and agile again. The new management team faces problems and the future directly, trusts young people, fully empowers the young team, and makes decisive and clear choices about what we want and what we don't want. Our idealistic sentiment and mission to make the world no difficult business will never change, but in the past year, the new management has made various changes, not only breaking through the fixed strategy of yesterday, but also building the future of Alibaba.
For a long time, from B2B to Taobao, to Alipay, to Alibaba Cloud, our innovation has never been to pursue higher profits, but to make ourselves live in the era of rapid change; Our innovation is not about changing others, but about changing ourselves; Our innovation has never been to surpass our competitors, but to catch up with the future. Innovation is not about keeping up with fashion, it is a test of your true survival ability. It requires you to subvert your cognition from the bottom of your heart, always challenge yourself, and constantly do things that others dare not do, do not want to do, and have never done before
Faced with this era of tremendous technological change, the three to five year time span for the Internet field is like a century long, enough to have earth shaking changes. I believe that three years from now, e-commerce will definitely not be the most popular e-commerce today... What's important is not who to catch up with today, but how to improve the consumer experience of tomorrow's e-commerce... The AI era has just arrived, and everything has just begun. We are at the right time!
This year, amidst numerous doubts and pressures both inside and outside, I witnessed the birth of a strong and brave Alibaba team. When it comes to reform and innovation, the biggest fear is turning reform and innovation into slogans. Reform and innovation are painful, because reform comes at a cost, and innovation is something that needs to be honed step by step and oneself. The change and restructuring of the organization involves every employee. Thank you to all Alibaba people for their efforts and responsibilities this year. Thank you and your family for choosing to believe and persist in the constant changes, even in the decision-making process of IPO or not. Salute to you, it is your persistence that has enabled Alibaba to return to the track of healthy growth.
The path of reform and innovation will never be accompanied by applause, because it is our favorite bad habits that we change, and it is our vested interests that we change... The road is long, but walking together will not be lonely. In the future, we need to be more proactive and rapid in changing ourselves. We need greater efforts in reform in order to establish a vibrant future for Alibaba. Come on, Alibaba!