Source: Gelong Hui

The past year may be a key year in the history of BABA: this year, BABA established the enterprise management idea of "capacity building + value creation" and clearly put forward the idea of "creating value above business". And take "always rooted in the real economy" as the value landing point.

In the face of various uncertainties in the external environment, anchor "strengthen confidence, respond positively, and be yourself". At the end of the year and the beginning of the year, we adjusted the organizational structure and raised the flag in the new year with the new keyword "Jin".

As the platform economy ushered in winter to spring, the value of a number of enterprises is being reassessed both inside and outside the industry, of which BABA's share price has skyrocketed to $116 from $88 on the last trading day in 2022.

However, putting aside policy and market sentiment, enterprise development is the absolute truth and the source of all value creation. As Zhang Yong, chairman of the board of directors and CEO of BABA Group, said, "BABA is more convinced that only development is the last word, and many of the problems encountered today can be solved." He stressed that 2023 is the key year for the shift from strategic determination to seizing the opportunity for development, and all Ali people should use their enterprising spirit and concentrate their efforts.

2023 is just the beginning. From a long-term perspective, understanding a series of key choices made by BABA in the past year is more helpful to grasp BABA's future.

01 tamping the "internal strength"

BABA has three business strategies plus an ESG social responsibility strategy. Among them, cloud computing, consumption and globalization are "two vertical and one horizontal".Consumption and Cloud ComputingOne horizontal is globalization. Over the past year, under the traction of the three major business strategies, BABA has continuously carried out self-upgrading and organizational adjustment, resulting in a lot of key innovations.

In January 2022, BABA announced the new organizational structure of China's digital commerce plate. On the basis of Taobao and Tmall dual-brand operation, a new industrial operation and development center, a platform strategy and operation center, and a user operation and development center have been established.

For BABA, this is not just a simple merger of the industry operating capacity of Taobao and Tmall, but an upgrade of the service capacity of consumers and merchants. After this adjustment, Taobao has formed a unified platform mechanism, the shopping experience of consumers is more simple and smooth, and the development and growth of small and medium-sized businesses are also more deterministic.

Over the past year, around the "consumer experience enhancement", Taobao Tmall action constantly. In the last week of December 2022, the clothing industry, which had been merged for a year, was re-split. Non-standard categories such as Taobao clothing and Chao play, lamps and lanterns were incorporated into the newly established "characteristic growth center"; the food and fresh industries were merged into B2C business groups.

These changes serve not only the improvement of consumer experience, but also the improvement of business growth efficiency. On the basis of anchoring the greatest advantage of "consumer mind", how to meet and create new user needs and value has become the exploration that Taobao Tmall needs to continue to explore in the new year.

Overseas markets also move frequently around user experience and high-quality supply. After Jiang Fan took over the overseas digital business sector, he carried out a series of combing and relayout, completed the integration of a number of overseas businesses, and developed new business forms in many countries.

Under the new strategy, BABA's overseas business is moving forward steadily. Organizationally, Jiang Fan unifies all the teams of Taobao Tmall overseas, Lazada's cross-border business and AliExpress's cross-border business into AliExpress.StrategicallyAliExpress launched an adjustment program for sellers and launched a new AEmall track to support high-quality sellers. AliExpress launched a new "full escrow" business similar to its own model, which opened in December; Lazada adjusts its management team; and Miravia, an European localized e-commerce platform, is officially launched and will expand its national sites in the European market one by one starting from Spain. On January 17, AliExpress launched a "buy and pay" service overseas, which was piloted in the European market.

Ali Yun, the "second growth curve", is also making progress in the process of change. As the earliest cloud service provider to enter the field of cloud computing in China, Aliyun has already achieved a breakthrough from 0 to 1. With the gradual progress of the "calculation of the East and the West" and the layout of multi-level data centers, Aliyun has also ushered in an important opportunity for high-quality development.

At the same time, Aliyun also focuses on the ecological construction of overseas markets. In 2022, Aliyun added six new data centers in overseas markets and set up another six overseas service centers to improve service and delivery experience in overseas markets.

During the year, Aliyun also ushered in a major adjustment of the organizational structure. Among them, Zhang Jianfeng will no longer serve as the president of Aliyun Intelligence, but will continue to serve as the president of the Dharma Academy, focusing on cutting-edge science and technology exploration, and will continue to be in charge of flat head and Smart Internet. While Zhang Yong, chairman of the board of directors and CEO of BABA, will also serve as the intelligent president of Aliyun, and will be directly in charge of nails.

With regard to the new changes, Zhang Yong, president of Aliyun Intelligence, stressed in an email to employees that Aliyun not only needs to continuously pursue the advanced nature of technology, but also needs to be advanced in operation and management to serve customers with the cloud computing operating system with independent research and development and continuous leading technology. it is also necessary to form another set of intelligent operating system that can support the efficient operation of Aliyun organization. Can also take the lead in the world.

With Zhang Yong in charge, Ali Yun was raised to a new strategic height. It can be predicted that Aliyun's integration and utilization of resources within the group will be smoother in the future, and it will also be able to better grasp the digital and intelligent strategic opportunities in international and domestic markets.

There is an endogenous thread of BABA's own in a series of business changes. From the author's point of view, based on scientific and technological innovation and strengthening capacity building, we can promote the high-quality development of the company. In the future, with the growth of BABA's core business and the continuous release of the ability to reduce costs and increase efficiency, various business areas of the group will show a clearer strategic blueprint.

02 be a "good company"

At the end of August last year, BABA released the ESG report, which puts forward specific requirements and goals for enterprise development in the following seven directions: repairing the green planet, supporting employee development, science and technology to serve digital life, promoting the high-quality development of small and medium-sized enterprises, promoting social inclusion and resilience, public welfare, and data security.

Zhang Yong said that he hoped that society would get to know BABA through two reports, one is the financial report and the other is the ESG report, and proposed that the boundaries of corporate social responsibility should be broader.

This year, BABA continued to serve the epidemic prevention and supply under the epidemic environment, help small and medium-sized businesses, and promote the revitalization of villages through the combination of platform and technological advantages.

In early 2022, supplies in some areas were tight. A number of businesses under BABA have jointly participated in the livelihood guarantee of many cities. Zhang Yong said that he will give full play to his professional ability and fulfill his social responsibility, and contribute to the protection of people's livelihood and the fight against the epidemic.

Take Shanghai as an example, Box Horse, Da Runfa, ele.me, Cainiao, etc., have repeatedly deployed thousands of delivery workers and warehouse workers from various places to support Shanghai to provide food and other necessities for Shanghai users. For special groups such as the elderly living alone, families of infants and young children, people with disabilities and patients with acute illness, ele.me opened a special line service for "emergency special needs" in Shanghai. Under the group purchase and self-service mode, Hema provides guarantee for the supply of daily necessities for more than 6000 communities in Shanghai.

By the end of the year, the spring tide of Spring Festival transportation has brought great pressure on epidemic prevention in rural areas where medical resources are relatively weak. On January 7, 2023, BABA announced a donation of 125 million yuan to equip each of the more than 600,000 village clinics across the country with two oximeters, basically achieving full coverage in China's rural areas.

In view of the urgent needs of online and offline small and medium-sized businesses, industrial belt factories, and foreign trade enterprises for business recovery, Taobao Tmall, BABA International Station, Express, and other businesses have launched a number of measures to help businesses better grasp development opportunities and enhance business confidence.

"BABA will always take root in the real economy, make good use of digital technology to help small and medium-sized enterprises and accelerate industrial change," Zhang Yong said at the Wuzhen Summit of the World Internet Conference in November last year. "

Not long ago, on the CCTV "Dialogue" column, Zhang Yong once again mentioned that "the biggest opportunity in 2023 is to take root in the real economy."

Behind these ideas and actions, all point to the fact that BABA not only promised to be a "good company", but also gradually found the yardstick of "good". This enables BABA to resonate with the development goals of the country and society in addition to being a successful business organization, which is also the meaning of the enterprise's pursuit of "high-quality development".

Now, with the policy signal and the external environment getting better, what is the driving force for the endogenous development of enterprises in 2023? This problem also has to be re-examined by the market and challenged by external competition. However, BABA has undoubtedly made a good start.

Edit / Viola