Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba Holding, held a meeting with e-commerce executives and told them to refocus on Taobao, as per a report in LatePost. Taobao is an Alibaba-owned online shopping platform. The informal meeting reportedly took place in the month of May. Ma also told his executives that they should focus on consumers to weather the effects of the slowdown in the Chinese economy.
The meeting came a few weeks before Alibaba’s announcement on Tuesday (June 20) about the reshuffle of its top management. The current head of Taobao, Eddie Wu Yongming, will take over as Alibaba’s CEO on September 10.
Current CEO Zhang Yong will step aside and will run Alibaba Cloud. Joseph Tsai will serve as chairman of Alibaba.
During the meeting with Taobao and Tmall Group executives, Ma said that it would be a mistake to take Alibaba’s pre-eminent position in the Chinese e-commerce market for granted. He said that the company should remain alert for business failure risks.
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To make his point, Ma cited examples of Nokia and Kodak.
Nokia, formerly the biggest mobile-phone maker in the world, fell off the top charts as it did not align with the advent of smartphones. Kodak, the film giant, was unseated due to digital photography. Ma cited these examples to drive home the point that market leaders can quickly get displaced from their top positions.
Jack Ma reportedly said Alibaba has to “go back to Taobao, go back to users, and go back to the internet”.
South China Morning Post, a news outlet owned by Alibaba, reported that ‘Going back to Taobao’ may mean a pivot to small and medium merchants.
Jack Ma has stepped down from corporate roles in Alibaba but remains somewhat of a ‘spiritual leader’ of the business empire that he built from scratch.
He reportedly said in the meeting that Alibaba should remain an internet company and the focus must be on user experience.
Sweeping changes at Alibaba
If the reported meeting between Jack Ma and Alibaba execs did take place, it happened at a time the group was undergoing huge changes.
Alibaba is breaking its huge empire into six independent entities.
Alibaba breaking up is one of the most significant overhauls of a leading Chinese tech firm.
The business empire hit on hard times as Chinese authorities slapped tighter restrictions on the tech sector in the country. Earlier this year, weak consumer spending resulted in Alibaba recording its third consecutive quarter of single-digit growth.
(With inputs from agencies)
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