Wu Yongming holds three CEO positions at Alibaba, and the younger generation will take the position

The major adjustment at the level of Alibaba Group has come to an end for the time being.

Text丨Guan Yiwen Zhu Yingli

Editor丨Guan Yiwen

Wu Yongming has become the busiest CEO of a large Internet company.

He began his handover in June, officially served as CEO of Alibaba Group and CEO of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Group in September, and today, December 20, he succeeded Dai Shan as CEO of Taotian Group - Wu Yongming held three CEO positions at the same time.

"LatePost" learned that 1 month ago, Wu Yongming held a management meeting and made it clear that he would continue to serve as the CEO of Cloud Intelligence Group and would not find a new CEO for the time being.

Cloud and domestic e-commerce, Alibaba's two core businesses, have been handed over to two managers independently since Alibaba's president was set up at the end of 2021 to respond to business changes more quickly, and this state has lasted for two years.

Now that the two major businesses are back in the hands of one person, one Ali person stressed, "This is not a step backwards. In Alibaba's external narrative, the purpose of this arrangement is to ensure the group's unified command and high-intensity investment in the two core businesses of e-commerce and cloud.

There have been some signs of this. On November 16, when Wu Yongming described Alibaba's strategic priorities, he said that he would maintain a high level of resources and R&D investment in the core business, and the "core business" here is cloud and e-commerce.

As one of the 18 Arhats, Dai Shan has been on the front line of the company's business for more than 20 years, and now she has left her position as CEO of Taotian Group, which she took over for two years, to join the newly established Alibaba Group Asset Management Company, where she helped build and build the team.

This is where Dai Shan's strength lies, she is familiar with the entire Ali network and can play a role in building the team. Many Taotian employees believe that this may be a way for Dai Shan to gradually fade out of the front line of business.

In the past, Alibaba's territory expansion was too large, and there were many assets in urgent need of spin-off, revitalization and combing, and the main goal of the new asset management company was to optimize the return on capital and enhance shareholder value.

2023 is a chaotic year for Alibaba. In the past, Ali was keen to embrace change, but only once a year. This year's Ali has changed so frequently and dramatically that there are few in the world – basically once every few months.

The "1+6+N" major changes, the announcement of independent financing and listing plans of each business group, the handover of the position of CEO of the group, the abandonment of the complete spin-off of Alibaba Cloud, the suspension of the listing of Freshippo, and the change of ownership of the CEO of Taotian Group today.

A number of Alibaba employees said that in the past few months, there has been a lot of internal discussion, and they are always waiting for the next round of changes.

It is understood that after Wu Yongming takes over as CEO of Taotian Group, a large-scale personnel adjustment will be carried out, which will involve the core management of Taotian. However, the major adjustment at the level of Alibaba Group has come to an end.

It's hard for an elephant to turn around, but today's Ali has reached the point where he must change, and change itself represents new possibilities. Change also comes with risks, it takes time, a huge change in organizational thinking and Xi, a strong determination of managers to reform, and more importantly, the trust of employees.

Many years later, we look back at Ali's 2023 and hope that this chaotic year will be a worthwhile year for Ali.

Why Wu Yongming?

Since September this year, a number of Alibaba people have told us that there have been internal rumors that Taotian Group is going to change the CEO, and who may be the replacement?

He is now the CEO of Alibaba International Digital Business Group, responsible for the overseas expansion of Alibaba's e-commerce business, and is the youngest partner of Alibaba. In the evaluation of employees, Jiang Fan is smart enough, has strong product ability, and is simple and direct.

Jiang Fan has worked on Taobao and Tmall for more than 7 years, including 4 years directly managing Taobao, leading and participating in Taobao's "All in Wireless" mobile transformation. After taking over Ali International Digital Business, he quickly went overseas to investigate and sort out the business, forming a pattern of 2 domestic cross-border businesses (AliExpress, International Station) + 4 overseas local businesses (Lazada, Miravia, Trendyol, Daraz), and launched a fully managed, semi-managed, and self-operated model.

But at present, the competition of overseas e-commerce is in full swing, Temu, SHEIN, TikTok e-commerce are expanding wildly, an Ali person said, the overseas battlefield is very important, for Jiang Fan at this stage, the rapid expansion of Ali's overseas e-commerce business, gain a firm foothold and find their own advantages, is his more urgent task.

LatePost understands that Alibaba's partners have discussed the choice of Dai Shan's successor many times since November, "but there are not many options." ”

Who will take the No. 1 position of Taotian Group is a complex issue, behind which not only the successor's business ability and strategic vision should be considered, but also whether he has military achievements, whether his qualifications are sufficient, and whether he can fully mobilize the group's resources are also important considerations.

All things considered, Wu Yongming may be the most suitable candidate at this stage.

The status of "one of the 18 founding team members" guarantees the legitimacy of Wu Yongming's return to the helm of Alibaba in a short period of time. In the existing pool of partners, he is one of the few people who understands product, technology, and operation at the same time, and can coordinate the overall situation.

More importantly, perhaps he is deeply trusted by founder Jack Ma. In 1997, a year before Alibaba's founding, Wu Yongming followed Ma Yun's entrepreneurship, and after he faded out of management in 2015, he continued to serve as Ma Yun's special assistant.

Mr. Wu stepped out of Alibaba's front-line operations in 2015 and was an investor nine months ago.

In less than a year, he has become the CEO of Alibaba Group, the CEO of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Group, the chairman and CEO of Taotian Group, and he is also a director of Alibaba Local Life Group and International Digital Business Group, which is almost the shortest time in Alibaba's history to return to the core of business.

After taking over as CEO of Alibaba Group, Wu Yongming has repeatedly emphasized the importance of AI, and the entire Alibaba has also focused on AI in a short period of time.

But in addition to these, Wu Yongming, who has reappeared in the public eye for less than half a year, the new leader of Alibaba, still has a vague impression on employees. More time, Wu Yongming is still learning about the business, and he frequently communicates with potential business leaders and holds meetings with business executives.

A month ago, Wu Yongming held a management meeting and made it clear that he would continue to serve as the CEO of Cloud Intelligence Group and would not find a new CEO in the short term. One participant recalled that the audience burst into applause.

At the end of November, Wu Yongming internally sorted out the strategic direction of Alibaba Cloud, determined that Alibaba Cloud will implement an AI-driven, public cloud-first strategy in the next five years, and made drastic adjustments to the business management team, including the establishment of the Infrastructure Division, Product Architecture and Stability Department, Public Cloud Business Division, At the group level, an infrastructure committee has also been set up at the group level, which is managed by Wu Yongming, focusing on coordinating the planning and construction of the underlying technical infrastructure of the whole group, so as to ensure the close linkage between the group's businesses and Alibaba Cloud.

E-commerce and cloud are two of Alibaba's largest and most complex businesses, and a Taotian employee believes that how the new CEO allocates energy and takes care of the business is a difficult point, "Even Daniel Zhang has not directly managed the two major businesses." ”

Dai Shan, and the two years she took over Taotian

"Assisting in the establishment of the group's asset management company" is regarded by Alibaba employees as a way for the group to let Dai Shan fade out of the front line of business.

As one of Alibaba's 18 founding team members, Dai Shan has been in the frontline business for more than 20 years, working in sales and managing functional departments, and has doubled revenue and profits in two years while leading the B2B business group, which has been in the spotlight.

Employees describe her as "like a sister", with the warmth of a female leader, her subordinates believe that she will give decision-making space and believe in professionalism in employing people, and more people believe in her loyalty, original intention, and determination and courage to reform Taobao and Tmall as a founding team member.

In just six days after taking office, Dai Shan broke up and integrated the two core business groups of Taobao and Tmall into "Taobao", forming three centers of users, industries and platforms, and then stopped the development model with the goal of GMV growth, unifying the consensus that the "first customer" is a consumer rather than a business, and the daily active user indicator has also become the first goal of the user center.

She asked the integrated Taobao to become simpler, cut a wide variety of marketing IPs, and change the complex full reduction activities to direct price drops - everything is for the consumer experience, which is understandable, and user experience is what Taobao must do and make up.

But "user experience" may not be a strategy that will allow Alibaba to continue to win. The basic principle of a good strategy is to "build on strengths and avoid weaknesses", i.e., a strategy designed to amplify strengths while making weaknesses less important.

In the two years since she took over Taobao and Tmall, Dai Shan has faced fierce competition, during which Alibaba's market value has been overtaken by Pinduoduo.

At an internal meeting in May, Jack Ma talked about Taotian's strategic landscape, and he believes that Alibaba should not focus only on Pinduoduo and Douyin in terms of business ideas.

It was also at this internal meeting that Ma Yun believed that the competitive environment of Taobao and Tmall had reached a very severe point, and the speed in the Internet industry might be even faster. He also proposed three directions for Taobao and Tmall: "return to users, return to Taobao, and return to the Internet".

Soon, Dai Shan officially announced that Taotian Group's strategy was adjusted to "user first, ecological prosperity, and technology-driven", which is inseparable from the "three returns" mentioned by Jack Ma.

For example, "ecological prosperity" corresponds to "return to Taobao" - focusing on small and medium-sized businesses, emphasizing the introduction of new merchants, and using Taobao as an endless pedestal, and "technology-driven" is related to Taobao's positioning as an "Internet platform", and also involves the innovation that new AI technologies may bring.

This year's Double 11, Dai Shan announced that this year's Double 11 has achieved an overall increase in the number of merchants, buyers, orders and turnover. Compared to the tightness of 2022, Dai Shan has noticeably become more relaxed. Not only did she participate in the Tmall 11.11 party, but she also drew a prize worth 50,000 yuan for the media at close to 12 o'clock on the evening of November 11.

In this most difficult battle, Dai Shan alone is no longer enough, and in Tsai Chongxin's all-staff letter announcing Dai Shan's resignation, he affirmed her hard work, saying that she "has paid a lot of effort for the establishment and growth of the company".

The replacement of the No. 1 position is just the beginning, and the younger generation will take the position

According to "LatePost", Taotian Group will soon make a new round of adjustments around the level of CEO-1.

It is clear that it is no longer enough to simply replace the number one position.

In any large company that has been established for many years and has a bloated hierarchy, it is inevitable that the entropy of the organization will increase.

The actual role of some middle and senior managers is more like that of a KPI casher and does not think about the real long-termism. After the manager is promoted to the top level, he will gradually get farther and farther away from the front-line business, and need to rely on the middle-level report to make business judgments; the middle-level management is easy to report good news but not bad news out of self-protection, and finally fall into the atmosphere of "from victory to victory" from top to bottom.

An Ali person said, "Instead of pinning hopes on AI to subvert e-commerce, for Ali at this stage, the effect of centralizing and streamlining low-level high P may be more significant." ”

At Alibaba, high P usually refers to managers with a rank of P9 and above. They are good at forming teams and accumulating resources, and can expand their territory during the business growth period; when the business is maintained, many of them are easy to fall into the situation of involution and turf, and their function is to upload and distribute, neither make important decisions, nor do front-line business, and are often ridiculed by employees as "weekly report summary".

Young people are seen as Ali's hope and the key to the next adjustment. Wu Yongming became the new CEO of Taotian Group, which also kicked off the next more thorough rejuvenation.

In the first all-staff letter to officially become the CEO of Alibaba Group, Wu Yongming emphasized that he would let the post-85s and post-90s as the main managers within 4 years to refresh the business management team. Today, the chairman of the board of directors of Alibaba, Tsai Chongxin, also made it clear in his all-staff letter that he would "fully use the young management team that has been trained at the grassroots level and has emerged".

Taotian's middle managers have been replaced in large numbers over the past year. In the technical team, almost all the P9 in the testing position and front-end position have left; in the functional department, most of the P10 (senior directors) in the CCO (chief customer officer) system have left, and the P9 (director) has also left; in specific industries, many middle managers who have served for many years have also been replaced, such as the heads of the pet industry and the clothing industry have been replaced by post-90s newcomers.

Liang Hongliang (nickname: Xiang Qiu), head of the merchant platform, Wang Tingxiang (nickname: Shaoyou), head of shopping and user operations, and Xu Haipeng (nickname: Jiuding), head of user operations, were promoted to report directly to the CEO, which was also seen by many employees as a performance of promoting young managers.

"Rejuvenation" is also more strictly enforced on the recruitment side. An Ali employee who is recruiting new people for his team said that when hiring P7, they will pay more attention to candidates under the age of 30, and P6 will focus more on candidates under the age of 27.

But the flip side of "rejuvenation" is the invisible pressure on older employees in the organization, who fear that the fate of being replaced will one day befall them. When age has become an important criterion for selecting talents, what are the other criteria? A veteran employee said, "What standard of the old people is not wanted by the company, and how to deal with the old people who have made contributions needs to be explained clearly." ”

The challenges facing Taotian Group are not only business, but also the problems that Wu Yongming has to solve and the interests to balance may be far more than he imagined.

Image source: Visual China