Jack Ma: The future has come

Chapter 8 Ali's Next Decade (3)
4.1 million jobs, 1000 million businesses, 20 billion consumers

In the past 15 years, the thing I fear most is to develop Alibaba into fragments.Traditionally, it's better to have everyone under one roof.You know me, I know you; I know what you want to do, and you know what I want to do.However, the Ali Group is getting bigger and bigger, with 15 business departments in the Beijing area alone.They have their own business, including the original traditional Ali business, such as Taobao, Alipay, B2B, and Alibaba Cloud, as well as new businesses, such as UC, AutoNavi, Ali Pictures, and Ali Health.Ali is very honored to have the opportunity to participate in small innovative and start-up companies.

Looking for a New Organizational Model in the Age of Technological Revolution

We will expand in USA, Europe, Japan, Australia, Singapore soon, we will have more and more overseas departments, but unfortunately we lack experience.How to operate, how to manage, I am really at a loss.So, I would like to say to the employees of Alibaba in Beijing and all offices in the country and the world outside of Hangzhou, I am really sorry.Because the organization and management can't keep up, everyone feels that the resources are not enough, and the attention is not enough, and they feel that they are fighting alone.I have seen all kinds of complaints and grievances written by many colleagues. On behalf of the group, I would like to say sorry to everyone.

Not to find reasons for ourselves, the rapid development of a company in 15 years has exceeded our own imagination.

There are already 8000 colleagues in Beijing. What should we do?How can we build a strong management and operation system, so that everyone can get enough support, so that everyone has a sense of belonging and a feeling of truly joining the Ali ecosystem?These questions have actually troubled me for a long time.Chinese companies have relatively little experience in managing national offices or even global offices.I don't think it should be managed like a factory, and I don't think it should be managed like a state-owned enterprise. At the same time, I think that the management of many multinational companies is not right.What exactly is the management model, organizational model, and cultural model that we need to adapt to future development in this period?

Ali is indeed developing too fast, with more and more employees.I think more than 3 people are enough.I've been told that some companies have reached 8 employees.Bless them and hope they do better.

The more employees the better, the more employees you have, the fewer job opportunities you will create for the society.Before, I said that on the day when Ali closed its doors after 102 years, our number of employees could not exceed 5, but now the total number of employees in the companies we own and invest in has more than 3 people. There are still 1.6 people in the budget.The rookie wants to take 5000 people. Overseas has already taken 5000 people, and there is only a budget of 5000 people left.May I ask, how do we persist in the following 87 years?
It doesn't feel right no matter what.Therefore, we adjusted a strategy. When the sales volume of Alibaba's entire ecosystem is less than 10 trillion yuan, our employees will not exceed 5. The sales turnover in 2014 was 2.4 trillion yuan, and we will achieve the goal of increasing by 7.6 trillion yuan in the future.I hope that all our 5 employees at home and abroad will realize this ideal.

There will be at least 1000 million people working in the logistics industry in the future, why only give Cainiao a budget of 5000 people?Because only by doing so, it is possible to create 1000 million job opportunities for the world in the logistics industry.The more people you have, the fewer opportunities you will create for the outside world.We should create jobs for others, this is what our business should do. We will not add a new employee in 2015. Although the group may suffer some losses, income may be affected, business and team performance will also be affected, but we have to organize our team well during this period.

Some departments have too many people and need to be transferred to new departments; some departments have too few people and need to be coordinated from other departments.In the future, Ali will have tens of thousands of employees distributed all over the world. We should consider how to build a good organization to improve our efficiency and use technology and data to create the future.Let's start trying today.

There are more than 8000 employees in Beijing, and the business is relatively scattered. We are exploring and creating a new operation and management model.I hope that everyone will work together to find out a good management model in the next 3 to 5 years, which will not only make us happy, but also make people who join Ali happy in the future.We should work happily and live seriously.The experience summed up by our colleagues in Beijing will one day support our colleagues in New York or Baghdad. This is what we hope to study and think about.

In addition, I would like to point out that since Beijing already has more than 8000 employees, we should consider how to make Beijing the second home field outside Hangzhou.For this reason, in the Beijing area, we must have our own independent business and independent management model.We expect and encourage each company, department and business group to have its own unique culture.No matter how unique the culture is, our goals are all the same, our missions are all the same, and our hearts are all the same.Only in this way can our company go on for a long time without being scattered.

If you ask me, what is the best management and operation model today, which can solve the problem of the coordinated development of our many departments in Beijing?I don't know the answer, but I believe you can find the answer.I believe that after three years of hard work, we can work out the answer to this question together.

Help 1000 million enterprises use seven services

Where does Ali hope to go in the next 10 years?What should each employee do?
In fact, this year, Ali has a lot of reflection. After Alibaba went public in 2014, we thought more about it.Why does our company exist?Why can we still persist for 87 years?We must think clearly about these issues before we can proceed.After listing, the whole world pays more attention to us, and the stockholders pay more attention to us. Analysts will continue to study every action, every performance, and every achievement of us.Stock prices often fluctuate because of our words and actions.We cannot meet the expectations of every analyst, but we must create the future.If we focus on the stock price like a traditional business, and we do what investors want, the company will always be exhausted.

In 2009, on the tenth anniversary of Ali’s establishment, I hoped that in the future we would create 1 million job opportunities for the world, provide a platform for 1000 million companies to survive, grow and develop, and provide consumption power for 10 billion consumers around the world.Today, we changed from 10 billion consumers to 20 billion consumers.

Many people say that Ali invests in this and that, and participates in this and that. It seems that we are everywhere.In fact, it is.I remember that in 2005 and 2006, we once said, "We have made Taobao from nothing, and we hope to make Ali Group from nothing to nothing in the future."This "nothing" is the "nothing" of "everywhere".Our customers can benefit and our SME customers can develop only if we are everywhere.To do this, we have to be everywhere!

People say they can't see through the next 10 years, but it's strange if they can see through. No one understood us 10 years ago.We must have self-confidence and infinite respect for our own strategies and missions. Only in this way can we go on.

So, I think we should be able to help 1000 million companies use our following seven services:

First, Ali's e-commerce services;
Second, Ant Financial Services [7];

Third, Cainiao Logistics Service [8];

Fourth, big data cloud computing [9] services;

Fifth, advertising services;
Sixth, cross-border trade services;
Seventh, other Internet services.

Beijing is home to the workhorse of internet services outside of our top six.I remember when UC first cooperated with us, they asked me why I couldn’t find UC or AutoNavi in ​​Alibaba’s strategy. Alibaba Pictures was not in it, and AliHealth was not in it?I told the UC people that I deliberately didn't let you in.We must prepare for the fact that the world and China will need various data-based services 10 years from now.In the past few years, we have been singing operas. After 5 years or 10 years, we will rely on UC, AutoNavi, Health, and the film industry to sing operas, so we are an echelon combat system.

First, Ali insists on being a platform. Our e-commerce service is a platform. We don’t buy or sell, let alone give away.However, we hope that because of our efforts, all customers can buy things at a cheaper price, sell things more efficiently, and deliver things faster.This is the e-commerce platform we hope to be.

Second, we know that in the entire Internet finance, the most important thing is the data and the credit system.We hope that 10 years from now, small and medium-sized enterprises will no longer be in trouble because they cannot get loans.Our efforts in the past few years are to establish an Internet financial system based on credit and big data, and serve small and medium-sized enterprises in China and the world in the future.

Third, we pin our hopes on rookies.Some people say that Beijing's logistics is fast, but I say that Beijing's fast is not fast, but that Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Tibet, and Yunnan are fast.Now we ship nearly 3000 million packages every day, but the problem we have to solve is not 3000 million packages. The problem we have to solve is how we should deliver 10 million packages a day in 3 years.How can we make online shopping in any part of China and deliver it within 24 hours?How to ensure that the freight will arrive within 72 hours in most countries and regions in the world?This is the problem we want to solve.

Fourth, big data and cloud computing.Everyone is thinking about a question, why does China lack innovation?Innovation requires infrastructure, and future innovation is inseparable from data.With data, innovation, creativity and creation will emerge in an endless stream.

Return a promise to the world with a sense of mission

Our generation may be the luckiest generation in human history.You can talk about smog, about food safety, this dissatisfaction, that dissatisfaction, this depression, that depression, but we are indeed living in the most remarkable era.

This technological revolution is a revolution in IT, data, and the Internet, which has completely liberated the human brain.With the support of this technological revolution, what kind of business organization will be the best 50 years from now?Have you thought about this question?I believe that it is not a simple factory or a simple company, but a new platform enterprise.This platform-based enterprise has assumed social responsibilities, making the business of this world more transparent, more open, more responsible, and more understanding of the spirit of sharing.Human beings have gone through 20 years of Internet development, and the next 30 years will be our real start, and we will truly enter the era of technology.If Internet companies want to live a good, long, and healthy life, they must turn Internet technology into an inclusive technology.We want to turn our cloud computing, big data, and e-commerce into a kind of inclusive technology, so that human society can change and Chinese society can change.Only by doing this can our company have a future.There are not many companies in the world that can do such a thing. In China, if it is not our Alibaba, who else can do it?

It can be said that we are very lucky, but also very unfortunate.Unfortunately, we need to work overtime; unfortunately, our headquarters is in Hangzhou, not Beijing.There are many unfortunate things, but fortunately enough, this era allows us to seize this opportunity.

(End of this chapter)