Why was Dai Shan chosen?
Original | Noise Reduction NoNoise (ID: forjingyijing)
Author | Laura
When the great power of an empire falls on women, certain stereotypes always come to mind. Most likely, she will have these keywords: strong, decisive, wind and fire... In short, she is no different from successful men except for gender.
Giving up one's femininity seems to be a VAM agreement that women have signed with success.
Dai Shan did not. She is a Hainanese, Cancer, petite and gentle in temperament. She was only ranked among the "Eighteen Arhats" because she was a student of Jack Ma and followed her teacher to start a business.
The fate of this entrepreneurial team, which exists like a legend in the business history books, has long been written. "Your ability can only be at the middle level," Ma told his followers early on, "Ali will still bring in executives from outside in the future."
Later, more than half of the 18 people's names disappeared in this fateful arrangement, and the rest, bearing the aura of legend, rose and fell in different sections of the Ali Empire.
Among them, there are many high-profile people whose stories are known to the world, such as Peng Lei, who is ranked as Ali's "organization minister" and "Queen of Alipay"; Jiang Fang, the "anti-corruption queen" who resigned because of the thorough investigation of the "fraud gate" incident, which forced CEO Wei Zhe and COO Li Xuhui to resign.
But these auras did not belong to Dai Shan before, the most powerful woman ali has now.
01 The Last "Eighteen Arhats"
Successful entrepreneurs often can't escape the fate of loneliness. They will look around at some point and see that all they see is fresh faces.
I'm not sure if Ma will have such moments, but at least, the loyal student Dai Shan, an Alibaba 11 employee, has been following him.
Back in 1999, Dai Shan, who knew nothing about the Internet, chose to believe Ma Yun, the last student Ma yun taught. A monthly salary of 500 yuan, more than 16 hours of working hours a day, a box lunch of 3 yuan a year... During the days when the Eighteen Arhats were in the lakeside garden, the clearest record of Dai Shan was the wish: "When I have money, I will buy a room full of plum vegetables."
Choosing the right person at the right time, and then paying a long time, Dai Shan finally waited for the compound interest of time.
Alibaba's listing has turned her into a "rich man", and in this recent organizational restructuring, she has been responsible for "China's digital business sectors" including Taobao, B2C retail business groups, Taocaicai, Taote and 1688 , which contribute 65% of Alibaba's revenue.
In addition, she became the first of the four presidents under the Daniel Zhang, and the last "Eighteen Arhats" to remain in ali's power center. She managed to get rid of the fate of being the middle level at the end of "Luohan's" career, although in the long days, she did move from middle and high level positions.
At Alibaba, Dai Shan has worked as a full-time customer service, sales director, group chief talent officer, chief customer service officer, and president of the B2B business group. She likes to go out of her way to preach Jack Ma's entrepreneurial dreams on various occasions – although there may not be so many young people who believe in dreams now.
She herself chose to believe in her dreams when she was young; 22 years later, she became a mother of two children, a female executive at an Internet company with a personal fortune of more than $1.1 billion, and a trustee of Ali's lifeblood.
Even for a company like Alibaba, which was known for its dreams in the early days, such luck is really rare.
Ma Yun's "glass of wine release" to the founding team occurred in September 2009. He arranged for these elders to collectively resign and re-compete, and 11 entrepreneurial elders, such as Sun Tongyu, Lou Wensheng, Jin Yuanying, and Sheng Yifei, were washed out of the list of "partners", leaving only Ma Yun, Cai Chongxin, Wu Yongming, Jin Jianhang, Peng Lei, Dai Shan, and Jiang Fang.
In the next 11 years, Ali swelled from an e-commerce platform of 17,500 people to an Internet giant of 250,000 people. The 7 people who remained also gradually took a clear path.
Cai Chongxin has always been an invisible presence with deep hidden merit and fame; Ma Yun directly retired in 2019; Wu Yongming, a technology master, first served as the chairman of Ali Health, and then shifted his focus to investment; Jin Jianhang withdrew from the ranks of partners, and Jiang Fang switched between integrity, customer service and HR systems, far from the first-line business.
Of the 7 people, only two have come to the core of power because of their business. The first is Peng Lei, who transferred from the HR system to Alipay in 2010, and later took charge of Ant Financial Group. The other is Dai Shan, who turned from the customer service department to take over the B2B business group in 2017.
However, in March 2018, Peng Lei was suddenly transferred to the CEO of Southeast Asian e-commerce company Lazada, and quickly stepped down nine months later. After 2019, Peng Lei's name and angular face rarely appear in the technology Internet world, and the angular face that does not look good.
Only Dai Shan has been quietly rushing to the "front line".
"The company let me do sales I do sales, let me do customer service I do customer service, I don't think too much, just willing to do it happily." 」 The sense of trust, built on the basis of teacher-student friendship, is manifested in her as resolute obedience and execution.
In public reports, Dai Shan's few rebellions against Ma Yun occurred in 2014. Because of some resistance to the new appointment of her chief customer service officer (CCO), she approached Ma Yun and complained that she did not like to do backstage, just answered the phone, and it was worthless. The outcome of this chat can be imagined, and the reluctance finally gave way to obedience.
The obedient Dai Shan is a Cancer, and the tone of Ali's 22 years is "stability". At that time, AliExpress and other B-series businesses were under pressure for performance, and she comforted her subordinates that Ali did not have the life of getting rich overnight. The B business is an old duck pot, which should be stewed slowly and endure loneliness.
She endured loneliness and became the last "eighteen arhats" who remained in the center of power on the front line.
02 There are not many people with heavy burdens
Why was Dai Shan chosen to take over Taobao? Some people familiar with Ali commented, "Good generals are like clouds are bubbles, and there are not many executives who can take on heavy responsibilities internally."
"Traffic King" Jiang Fan was originally the most suitable candidate. In 2013, Wu Yongming helped Ali acquire the "Friendship Alliance" founded by Jiang Fan. Jiang Fan after 85 then entered Taobao and soon became sharp. His contributions to innovative businesses such as HandTao and Taobao Live Broadcasting have been deeply appreciated by Daniel Zhang. The US group Wang Xing saw that the hilarity was not a big deal, and directly predicted at that time: in the future, There will be a war between Jiang Fan and Huang Zheng of Pinduoduo.
However, the glittering star has lost its reputation in the "Peach Incident" in 2020 and has been removed from the ranks of "partners".
There is a shortage of good generals, but there is no relaxation in the war. On the business side, after the traffic peaked, the growth rate of Taobao and Tmall business declined. Especially this year's double 11, Tmall GMV growth fell to single digits for the first time, only 8.5%, the lowest in 13 years. Externally, it is also not careful, and douyin kuaishou is stepping up its attack on the hinterland of Taobao, and the competition is fierce.
At this time, Daniel Zhang can only improve productivity by changing the relations of production.
Among Alibaba's partners, Yu Yongfu, who is highly valued, is "fighting fires" in the life service sector at this time, within this sector, Ele.me's market share has shrunk, and internal turmoil has been continuously turbulent; Fliggy is squeezed by the US group, and Hema is like an octopus, multi-headed attack and repeated trial and error in the business model.
Another new generation, Fan Luyuan, the "father of the balance treasure", was ordered to rectify the great cultural entertainment. A few years ago, when Ali did not have a "prince" and only a "prince", Yu Yongfu had planted a heel in the big entertainment. Youku fell behind in the competition, entertainment continued to lose money, when Ali had to beat Yu Yongfu into the "cold palace". Fan Luyuan's rectification is uncertain.
Among the people who can succeed Jiang Fan, there seems to be no more suitable than Dai Shan.
The first is Ali Values Online.
Some people close to Ali revealed a detail that after Dai Shan returned from maternity leave, she once cut a financial business for small and medium-sized enterprises with annual profits of billions of yuan, on the grounds that it did not conform to Ali values.
A subordinate thanked more than a dozen colleagues for their assistance in the work report and sent a group email. After reading the email, Dai Shan replied directly: "Please leave the time to express your gratitude to the customer." Seriously, sending such a war report, you need to @ a bunch of people, can not leak, can not be wrong, this time is better to leave it to yourself, to the customer. ”
Since the ants' listing was suspended, Ali is no longer the Internet giant who "looks at everything smoothly and fights everything right". Especially after the "807" incident, Ali's values have been attacked internally and externally, and cracks need to be repaired urgently.
The second is to have a business foundation.
Since taking over the B series business in 2017, Dai Shan's territory has also become larger and larger. In March 2020, Taote, which belongs to the B2B business group and was born to defend Pinduoduo, was launched, becoming one of the fastest growing businesses in the Alibaba e-commerce market. The community group buying that allowed giants such as Meituan, Pinduoduo, Didi, and Ali to compete with each other was eventually integrated into Dai Shan's "sphere of influence".
Dai Shan also has a direct intersection with Taobao. After 2009, she worked in Taobao's human resources department, during which time Taobao CEO was Lu Zhaoxi. From Sun Tongyu to Lu Zhaoxi, Zhang Jianfeng, Daniel Zhang, Jiang Fan... The position of the top of Taobao is not easy to do, and Dai Shan should have been mentally prepared for it.
Empathy as a founder will also set her apart from professional managers.
When ZTE was sanctioned, the white-haired founder Hou Weigui ran for the company's photo, which was once screened on the Internet. Dai Shan was touched by the three words "founder" at that time, and she left a nostalgic text when sharing this group of photos: "The founder is that once your company encounters problems, you will return."
She most likely thought of Ma Yun at that time. In the end, Ma Yun did not return, but the student showed unshirkable determination to take on more responsibilities.
This is a kind of inertia. After Ali went public that year, some of the "Eighteen Arhats" gradually retired, and Dai Shan was always active in the front line of business. According to media reports, in order to understand the business that has just been taken over, she almost had a car accident. At that time, the group went to the village taodian in the mountains of Hunan and visited 7 customers in succession. On the way back, a car of people discussed that the business was too focused, and almost crashed into the large truck that was driving on the way.
Afterwards, some people joked that this may be the most expensive van running on the road in Hunan.
03 Female perspective
In the evaluation of Dai Shan, Daniel Zhang also used a word: a unique perspective of women's experience.
This is an interesting observation angle. Women tend to be more delicate and more concerned about the feelings and experiences of those around them. When Dai Shan was doing human resources work, she accurately read about the loneliness of Lu Zhaoxi, the CEO of Taobao at the time.
At that time, Lu Zhaoxi had just parachuted in from Alipay, and he was always alone in the office, his brows locked. The CEO's loneliness is lethal, and Dai Shan soon found that the subordinates had accumulated a lot of dissatisfaction, and the atmosphere of the whole Taobao was not quite right. Later, she designed a "naked meeting" for Lu Zhaoxi and his subordinates to open their hearts, and arranged for employees who dared to express themselves to express themselves directly.
At an annual gala called "Let Dreams Connect," she designed the opening scene to let Lu Zhaoxi land slowly as a pilot, which was his personal dream.
Respect for individual dreams, and in this regard, female managers have a more obvious advantage.
Female identity, for the business that Dai Shan took over, may also become a positive. After all, women are the "basic disk" of Taobao and Tmall users, and in the refined links such as business operation and user service experience, the keen female perspective is a plus.
But after all, it is the basic disk, and Dai Shan, the elder who has never fought a large-scale hard battle, has undoubtedly attracted questions.
At a time when a giant company is entering a critical change, can the use of elders be effective? There is no standard answer to this question.
For example, Lenovo, which has recently been in turmoil, has been in a slump because of strategic swings and huge losses brought about by the acquisition of Motorola, resulting in the mobile phone business always stagnating. Yang Yuanqing once sent the veteran Qiao Jian to take over and gave enough resources. Qiao Jian had excellent performance in lenovo market and human resources positions in his early years, but in the mobile phone business, the executive was helpless and finally had to return to the CMO position.
There have been successes.
Peng Lei, one of Ali's "Eighteen Arhats", parachuted into Alipay in 2010 to clean up the mess. At that time, Ma Yun scolded the poor experience at the Alipay annual meeting, "Rotten, too bad, rotten to the extreme!" If you don't pay attention to it, this is Alipay's memorial service!" As a result, Peng Lei led Alipay to counterattack and left a solid basic disk for the Ant Group.
Back to Dai Shan, the answer is still uncertain.
But at least, for alibaba's overall image as a company, pushing Dai Shan to the core of power, it's not a bad choice.
From the perspective of internally calling her "MM", Dai Shan should be a more popular executive. She is petite, affectionate, and a soft-hearted mother, who often takes her eldest daughter to Ali's activities, and will also be angry about the "needle eyes" of the red, yellow and blue kindergarten children, calling "want to beat people".
Authenticity and responsibility are the qualities of her personality that she personally values.
And the human touch is another weapon that Ali urgently needs to reshape at present in addition to commercial achievements. After all, the core of all commercial competition, in the end, will become human competition.