Alibaba’s New CEO Eddie Wu: User Focus and AI Drive

On September twelfth, Alibaba Group Holding Limited’s newly appointed CEO, Eddie Wu, issued a company-wide letter asserting the institution of two strategic priorities: customer-first and AI-driven. This is the primary communication to all workers by Eddie since taking workplace on September tenth, clarifying Alibaba‘s strategic focus and motion pointers for the longer term.

Eddie proposed to reshape the precedence of enterprise methods based mostly on two strategic focuses: user-first and AI-driven. Based on this, Alibaba Group Holding Limited will enhance strategic funding in three varieties of companies – firstly, technology-driven web platform companies; secondly, AI-driven know-how companies; and third, globalized industrial networks.

He believes that the normal web mannequin has develop into severely homogeneous and is now going through a state of saturated competitors. New applied sciences, represented by AI synthetic intelligence, have gotten the brand new driving pressure for world enterprise improvement. Alibaba should bear self-transformation in an effort to discover the important thing to unlocking the longer term, persist in its authentic intention of fixing social issues, fulfill its mission of serving small and medium-sized enterprises, and adhere to its imaginative and prescient of being a helpful firm for society.

To create the very best person expertise within the trade, Eddie proposed that “we must open ourselves,” and requested that each one companies proactively undertake a user-centric perspective, searching for the widest doable openness and cooperation, “even including with companies we traditionally consider as competitors”.

In the letter to all workers, Eddie acknowledged that Alibaba will proceed to deepen organizational reforms and strengthen impartial decision-making methods for every enterprise by means of extra versatile and open governance mechanisms. Clear necessities and targets have been set for rejuvenating the administration workforce. Within 4 years, it’s aimed to have post-85s and post-90s develop into the principle pressure in administration, creating mechanisms and a cultural surroundings that enables extra younger Alibaba workers to develop into core contributors.

On September tenth, Alibaba Group Holding Limited accomplished the handover of administration positions. Daniel Zhang stepped down and handed on his tasks. Eric Jing assumed the function of Chairman of the Board for the group, whereas Eddie took over as CEO of the group and additionally grew to become Chairman and CEO of Alibaba Cloud.

As one of many eighteen arhats of Alibaba, Eddie is Alibaba‘s employee number 004. As early as 1996, he fought side by side with Ma Yun. With a technical background, he led the construction of the underlying technology architecture for multiple Alibaba businesses such as B2B, Taobao, and Alipay. After shifting his focus to commercialization in 2007, he led the creation of the group’s core enterprise platform – Ali Mama – and innovatively incubated Mobile Taobao, driving the group’s cellular transformation. Internally referred to as “Wu Mama,” he possesses sturdy management expertise.

Eddie wrote on the finish of the all-staff letter: “I firmly believe that as long as we get back to our start-up mindset, not dwell on the past, and not get stuck in our old ways, Alibaba will be rewarded with enormous growth and create even greater value in the era of AI.”

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Attachment: Eddie Wu’s September twelfth Letter to Alibaba Group Holding Limited Employees

User First, AI Driven: Adopt Start-Up Mindset to Create Even Greater Value

Greetings to all Aliren, that is Eddie Wu.

Today marks my third day as Alibaba Group CEO, and I’m honored to face shoulder-to-shoulder with you.

Times are altering, and so should Alibaba! As the world progresses, Alibaba must evolve even quicker! Over the previous 24 years, Alibaba achieved speedy development by driving the pattern of web know-how. Today, as conventional web fashions develop into more and more homogeneous and face the aggressive pressures of saturation, new applied sciences similar to AI are rising as the brand new engine of worldwide enterprise development.  Alibaba should rework itself to seek out the important thing to the longer term, fulfill its mission of fixing societal issues, serve small and medium-sized companies, and contribute to our society as a optimistic pressure for good.

I wish to share that, trying ahead, Alibaba‘s two fundamental strategic focuses will   be “User First” and “AI-driven.” We will recalibrate our operations round these two core methods and reshape our enterprise priorities. We will reinforce our strategic investments in three areas: 1. Technology-driven web platforms; 2. AI-driven tech companies; 3. Global commerce community.

At the guts of all enterprise is the worth we offer to customers which reinforces person retention. We have to be much more dedicated to a person’s perspective, serve their myriad wants, and at all times put person wants first. More customers will translate to extra market alternatives for companies on our platform. In this new period, in an effort to provide the best-in-class person expertise, we should open ourselves. All of our companies ought to function from a user-first perspective and hunt down essentially the most open and collaborative relationships, even together with with firms we historically think about as rivals. Accordingly, we are going to encourage enterprise collaboration based mostly on market ideas so long as it doesn’t have an effect on strategic synergies.

Over the subsequent decade, essentially the most important change agent would be the disruptions led to by AI throughout all sectors. We have to be decided to reignite our start-up mindset to redefine the user-centric worth proposition in order that we are able to earn the chance to proceed serving our clients within the AI period for the approaching a long time. Each of our companies generates large numbers of use instances; subsequently, we should rework these use instances into functions for AI know-how, driving breakthrough person expertise and enterprise fashions by means of know-how innovation. If we don’t sustain with the modifications of the AI period, we can be displaced.

Our subsequent necessary space of funding is globalization. Globalization is each a chance and a accountability for Alibaba. In reality, our first enterprise as a start-up was a worldwide commerce market. At the time we aspired to be an organization born in China however contributed distinctive worth to the event of the worldwide economic system. Today, with numerous companies and investments already in place worldwide, we are going to mixture our aggressive benefits to make strategic strikes. Importantly, globalization is not only about increasing our personal enterprise traces, however extra about establishing a worldwide commerce community with infrastructure and ecosystems to assist extra Chinese and world SMEs discover alternatives worldwide.

Alibaba will proceed to deepen our reorganization efforts – we are going to undertake a extra versatile and open governance system to strengthen impartial decision-making in our companies and help them to experiment with organizational buildings and enterprise logic tailor-made to their distinctive traits. At the identical time, every of our companies will proceed to have the sturdy backing of the Alibaba holding firm.

Lastly, I anticipate every Alibaba enterprise to have the aptitude to make judgments about important tendencies going past the subsequent 5 years and have the braveness to make early strategic bets and product innovation. We will set up incentive methods based mostly on longer trade cycles. Furthermore, we’re dedicated to the youth motion amongst our management workforce: throughout the subsequent 4 years, we are going to promote these born after 1985 and Nineteen Nineties to kind the core of our enterprise administration groups, and we are going to create methods and preserve our tradition to allow the subsequent technology of Aliren to develop into the core power of Alibaba.

I firmly imagine that so long as we get again to our start-up mindset, don’t dwell on the previous, and don’t get caught in our previous methods, Alibaba can be rewarded with huge development and create even better worth within the period of AI. Fellow Aliren, let’s go exhausting!

Eddie Wu

CEO, Alibaba Group

September 12, 2023