BBA2102 Organization & Management Discussion
Instruction:
- Students must read the case prior to the discussion class
- Students need to write their answer in this assignment sheet
- Each group need to select 2-3 representatives to present their answers in the discussion class of week4
Alibaba: The “Amazon of China”
The biggest U.S. e-commerce site is Amazon.com, which was started in 1994 by Jeffrey Bezos as an online bookstore and now offers an unimaginable stream of products and services that accounts for 50 cents of every dollar spent online in the United States. If there are any Amazon challengers left in online retail, they may be coming from overseas. Consider Alibaba, the “Amazon of China.” This organization is actually the world’s largest and fastest-growing e-commerce company based on the total value of items it sells online.
Alibaba was founded in 1999 to serve as a hub for small businesses to sell online and has grown into a leading global wholesale and retail marketplace and provider of cloud computing, digital media, and entertainment services. In a country with more than 800 million internet users, the company sees itself as “the future infrastructure of commerce” and intends to last “at least 102 years” in order to span three centuries. Hundreds of millions of users frequent its three separate websites, participating in transactions worth about $768 billion a year. That’s more sales than Amazon, eBay, and JD.com (another Chinese Internet retailer) recently earned combined. In addition to its e-commerce sites, Alibaba offers a payment app called Alipay, through which users can pay cab drivers, restaurants, utility companies, and even their landlord. The company also partnered with Ford to develop gigantic vending machines that allow car shoppers to take a car on a three-day test drive. The entire process takes around 10 minutes and customers who want to purchase the vehicle after the test drive can do so on the spot, even if financing is required.
Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba, stepped down as executive chairman in 2018. A former English teacher and now the richest man in China, Ma was rejected a lot in life. The key, he says, is not to let rejection keep you down for long. “Of course, you are not happy when people say ‘no.’ Have a good sleep, wake up, try it again.”
YOUR CALL
Alibaba does not have much of a presence in the United States. Does it make sense for the company to remain focused on its home market of China? Why or why not?