Today’s world is transforming from Information Technology era to Data Technology era. In order to help our 2015 MID/MIDG students to better understand how Alibaba Group is leading the Chinese e-commerce development and to learn how “internet +” promotes new theories. Therefore on the afternoon of November 30th 2015, China Case Center Director MU Lin, Assistant Professor CAO Feng organized 30 MID/MIDG 2015 students as well as staff from the center to visit Alibaba Research Center.
Alibaba Group was founded in Hangzhou, China on 1999, and its business arm include e-commerce, supply chain, finance, and cloud computing. The mission of the group is to reduce carriers to do businesses for everyone. Since 2015, Alibaba became one of the leading internet companies among Google and Facebook as the 3rd largest internet company in the world.
The vice president of Alibaba Research Center, Mr. CHEN Jia welcomed the delegation with warm greetings and introduced Alibaba’s concept of “4+3+2” roadmap. He stated “4” represents e-commerce, supply chain, finance, and cloud computing, “3” represents internationalization, ruralization, digitalization, and“2” represents well-being and entertainment. According to the founder Jack Ma, e-commerce is like desert in developed countries while e-commerce is the entrée in China. In 2019, Alibaba will become the number platform for e-commerce and surplus others.
Mr. Chen introduced Alibaba’s business performances using real-time reporting dashboard on the digital screen including e-commerce business, micro-financing business, supply chain business, and cloud computing business. He elaborated Alibaba’s platform 1688 that is focused on B2B while TMall is B2C. Currently, Taobao formed a development agenda to help rural villages’ economic development while keeping villages’ original form. In addition, Alibaba’s famous finance platform Alipay has developed new products such as micro finance loans and micro credits using transactions generated through online sales. The supply chain platform called Cainiao also attracted many businesses and assist Alibaba’s customers in doing business easier throughout China. At last, the cloud computing platform became the number one platform in China four years ago while they partnered with governments across China for economic initiatives.
The secretary general of the research center, Ms. PAN Yonghua introduced to us how Alibaba reduced the barriers during its business transformation. Following her explanation, she shared with us how “internet +” concept is correlated with big data. During the technology advancement process, China became more educated with technology and experienced successful consumer technology adoption process. Thus when information and usage of technology becomes more accessible, many new businesses can be formed. Alibaba strongly believes that the future of governance is the most ecofriendly approach to governance, and Alibaba can play a big role in helping governments to achieve such vision. Alibaba also formed many strategic partnerships with the government. For example, Alibaba helped local governments’ e-commerce businesses, assisted local governments in fighting against counterfeit guided the government in building a e-government platform as a smart city. In addition, Alibaba also helped government in solving social problems such as ticket booking during Chinese New Year. At last, PAN Yonghua concluded her presentation quoting Jack Ma which he said that “During the transformation from IT to DT, in order to become successful, you have to help others first. “
In the end, both faculties from expressed sincere appreciation towards Alibaba and thanked for their warm greetings and wonderful presentation. This filed trip which was organized by the China Case Center helped MID/MIDG students to broaden their horizons, educated students on knowledge in China, experienced Jack Ma’s philosophy in managing a business, and inspired students in putting their lessons learned from class to real practice as public administrators.
