Tsai: Alibaba is lagging behind

If there is one word to describe the road that Alibaba has traveled in the past five years, "lost" may be the most appropriate.

Whether it is Alibaba's stubborn continuation of its strategy in the Internet era, or Alibaba's strategy for new areas, we can feel this very clearly.

It wasn't until the veterans represented by Tsai Chongxin and Wu Yongming returned to the helm of Alibaba that the lost Alibaba finally began to find its own new direction.

We can see a hint of this from a recent interview with Tsai Chongxin, chairman of the board of directors of Alibaba.

According to Tsai, "When we look at internal insecurity and reflect on the situation of the past few years, we find that we are falling behind because we have forgotten who our real customers are. Our customers are users who shop using our app and we don't give them the best experience. So in a way, we're kind of self-defeating and don't really focus on where the value is, where we can provide it. 」

I have to say that Tsai Chongxin dared to speak out about the current Alibaba, and he was somewhat courageous in such a crisis that Alibaba was encountering.

However, through such a statement by Joe Tsai, we can also see that Alibaba is clearing the layers of fog that has been haunting it in the past and finding a new direction of development.

Therefore, we can boldly imagine that Alibaba will start a self-redemption and rediscover the former self.

The five years since Jack Ma left Alibaba were the five years that Alibaba was lost.

It is obvious that in the past five years, Alibaba has not really found a way to develop in line with the current market and fully exert its own value, thus bringing Alibaba's development into a dilemma.

Recognizing such a loss and finding a way that is truly suitable for Alibaba's development may be the key to Alibaba's true leap through the cycle and usher in a bottoming out.

Blindly obsessed with the Internet, lacking the courage of a strong man to break his wrist

When Jack Ma stepped down as chairman of Alibaba's board of directors and Daniel Zhang truly became the helmsman of Alibaba, what we saw was Daniel Zhang's series of transformations and upgrades to Alibaba.

I have to say that these reforms of Daniel Zhang have indeed solved Alibaba's problems to a certain extent.

For example, the flattening of the organization, for example, the aggressiveness of going overseas, for example, the segmentation of business modules.

However, although Daniel Zhang's reforms have alleviated Alibaba's difficulties and problems to a certain extent, just adhering to the reform under the Internet mechanism will inevitably fail to fundamentally solve Alibaba's difficulties and problems.

As a result, we see that even though Daniel Zhang has carried out a series of transformations on Alibaba, they still have not regained confidence in Alibaba in the capital market, and still have not allowed Alibaba to reverse the reality of losing in the domestic market.

Pinduoduo's market capitalization surpasses Alibaba's, and the business represented by local life is constantly encroached upon by competitors, all of which tell us that Daniel Zhang's reforms cannot fundamentally solve Alibaba's dilemma and problems.

In essence, Daniel Zhang's reforms are still obsessed with the mechanism of the Internet, and are still only superficial integration of traditional businesses, rather than fundamentally reshaping and rebuilding Alibaba.

As a result, we have seen that when more and more players begin to deploy AI models, and when more and more players begin to try a new path of digital and real integration, Alibaba seems to be following the trend and lacks the posture of the former leader.

Obviously, such an approach that is only limited to the Internet cannot bring real and lasting development momentum to Alibaba, and cannot truly solve Alibaba's dilemma and problems.

As a result, we see that Alibaba is still falling rapidly in Daniel Zhang's reforms, and it has completely lost its previous magic.

Therefore, for Alibaba, how to find ways and means to get rid of the shackles of the Internet, with the determination and courage of a strong man, and constantly use new technologies and new models to inject new vitality into itself, is the key to truly bring Alibaba's development into a new stage.

Blindly emphasizing the role of capital ignores where the real value lies

Looking back at Alibaba's development and growth, we can never deny the decisive function and role played by capital in it.

It can be said that the development history of Alibaba is a concerto that resonates with capital at the same frequency.

Whether it is the wonderful capital story between Alibaba and SoftBank, or Alibaba's continuous expansion and enrichment of its own ecosystem with the help of capital operation, we can see that capital plays a pivotal role in it.

It has to be said that capital has made Alibaba, and Alibaba has also brought returns to capital.

As a result, we see the strong flavor of capital in Alibaba's development process.

However, what we also need to see is that we blindly amplify the role of capital and blindly focus on capital in the focus of development, while lacking the ability to combine with the industry and provide value for users.

Even if it is a strong capital force, there will inevitably be a day when it collapses.

If we look for the internal reasons why Alibaba was lost in the past, blindly emphasizing and amplifying the role of capital, blindly looking for the possibility of development by extending the boundary and expanding the ecology, ignoring the users and ignoring their own value, is an important aspect worthy of our attention.

When the dividends of capital are no longer available, especially when the way of capital transfusion is unsustainable, what we see is that the previous capital-led development model cannot deliver development momentum to Alibaba, and the capital operation model that once brought growth momentum to Alibaba has also begun to encounter more and more problems.

What we see Alibaba has begun to withdraw from its previous investment targets, and what we see Alibaba has begun to focus more and more on the e-commerce industry itself, all of which are manifestations of Alibaba beginning to abandon its capital-led development model and regain its own value.

It is foreseeable that in the future, Alibaba can only truly bring Alibaba's development to a new stage only by finding ways and methods that are in line with the current capital development model and continuously using capital to deliver energy for its own development.

In the post-Internet era, the fault line is obvious, and the dividends of new technologies have been missed

It is almost certainly yes, and the internet age is fading away at a speed that is visible to the naked eye.

Whether it is the dilemmas and problems that a series of Internet players have begun to encounter on the battlefield of the Internet, or the accelerated evolution of AI models represented by ChatGPT and Wenxin Yiyan, we can see that the Internet era is gone, and a new era dominated by AI is coming.

However, even in this context, Alibaba is still supporting the Internet-led development model, and lacks the ability to use new technologies to transform and reshape its own business.

Looking back at the past innovations of Alibaba's business model, almost all of them were derived and developed based on Internet-based technologies and models.

Live streaming and Taobao special editions are all the same.

While these Internet businesses and models can bring some growth to Alibaba, they have never been able to bridge perfectly with the new technologies that are already booming.

As a result, when Internet technology and models cannot deliver traffic to Alibaba and make Alibaba continue to exert its own value, the value and significance of its existence begin to become less and less.

If we see Alibaba as a leader in the Internet era, then it is more like a follower in the new technology era.

As a result, when players began to use new technologies such as AI and big data to open new development windows for their own businesses, what we saw was that Alibaba was still rampage under the mechanism of the Internet, until it fell into the competitive arena again and again.

Therefore, if we want to look for the manifestation of the dilemmas and problems encountered by Alibaba, the obvious fault line before and after the Internet era, and the failure to find the way and method of perfect bridging between new technology and the Internet is the key to its development really entering a dead end.

If you want to find a breakthrough in Alibaba, constantly using new technologies to find new breakthroughs for the development of e-commerce business may be the way to break the situation.

As a result, when Tsai Chongxin and Wu Yongming took the helm of Alibaba, they began a new revolution that fully embraced AI.

Whether it is the addition of AI elements to Alibaba's various business lines, or Alibaba's empowerment and transformation of the upstream and downstream of the industry with the help of AI, all of them are a direct embodiment of such a phenomenon.

When Alibaba finds ways and means to combine with new technologies, especially when it can use new technologies to continuously transform its traditional business, its development can truly get rid of the shackles of the Internet and truly enter a new cycle.

The organization is rigid, and the progress of the team rejuvenation is slow

When Tsai Chongxin and Wu Yongming began to take the helm of Alibaba, what we saw was that a series of organizational structure adjustments, represented by Dai Shan's resignation, Yu Yongfu's resignation, and Hou Yi's retirement, began to be staged.

If we analyze and summarize the appointment and adjustment of these personnel, it is undoubtedly another aspect that deserves our attention the most, such as turning inward, renovating the organization, constantly engaging young people, and constantly bringing young people to the forefront.

Therefore, if we are looking for another reason why Alibaba is lost, the rigidity of the company's organization and the resulting reduction in efficiency may be another important aspect that deserves our attention.

Similarly, when we look back at the series of reforms carried out by Daniel Zhang, it is not difficult to see that Daniel Zhang only reformed based on the previous personnel and organizations, but did not really fundamentally transform Alibaba's organization itself, which is the key to Alibaba's continuous inefficiency and loss of organizational vitality.

On the surface, Daniel Zhang has made a series of changes to Alibaba, but these changes have not fundamentally changed Alibaba's organizational rigidity and old reality.

As a result, these changes of his began to fall into difficulties and dead ends again and again.

For Alibaba, how to break the organizational and personnel deadlock that has been formed in the past, truly let young people go to the front line, and truly take on the responsibility of front-line competition, and truly let Alibaba's organization rejuvenate and vitality, is the key to ensure that Alibaba is renewed.

It is foreseeable that with the development of Alibaba's younger cadres, Alibaba's stagnant situation in the past will be broken, Alibaba's organizational vitality will be re-stimulated, and new kinetic energy will be released.

As a result, Alibaba will no longer operate and develop based on the previous model and mechanism, but will begin to have new momentum for operation, and Alibaba's development will also open a new stage.

epilogue

There is no doubt that the past five years have been five years lost for Alibaba.

In such a five-year period, Alibaba has lost its position as a leader and has become a follower.

In-depth analysis of the reasons, it is not difficult to see that it is just stubbornly clinging to the past, forgetting who you are, and especially ignoring your greatest value to users, which is the key reason for this.

So, when Tsai Chongxin and Wu Yongming began to take charge of Alibaba, a new self-redemption began to be staged.

When Alibaba re-examines itself, especially when it begins to abandon more and more old conventions, a new life may be able to really take place, and a new upgrade led by AI e-commerce may really appear.

-ENDS-

Author: Meng Yonghui, senior writer, columnist, industry research expert, well-known KOL, digital economist.