For his return to China at the end of March, after more than a year of absence, Jack Ma, the founder of the Chinese digital giant Alibaba, chose discretion. Only a short article published by a school within the Alibaba campus in Hangzhou on March 27 announced its presence in China. We see him in a sweatshirt and white cap, sweatpants, saying a few words of admiration in front of the work of the children.
But, after three years under the radar, including almost a year abroad, the confirmation of the return of the prodigal son of Chinese entrepreneurship was seen as a symbol: scalded by a campaign against the tech giants and by three years of an ultra-strict zero Covid policy that has brought entire swaths of the economy to its knees, Chinese bosses have seen a message of hope. A sign sent by Beijing to try to convince that the country is open for business.
Three days after the former English teacher visited Alibaba’s school, the company makes a major announcement. China’s number one e-commerce company, present in most sectors of the digital economy, which has a turnover of 868 billion yuan (112 billion euros) and is used by more than 900 million Chinese each year, will split its various activities into six independent subsidiaries: the main one for e-commerce, the others for the cloud, logistics, entertainment, international and other local services (meal delivery, card, etc.).
Actor of the digitization of the country
Alibaba Group will become a holding company which will keep a majority of the shares of its subsidiaries. Objective : “make the organization simpler, more agile”justified Daniel Zhang, the CEO of the company, in a video intended for the 240,000 employees of the group, broadcast by state media. “Thanks to these changes, everyone can develop their own strategy, adapted to their battlefield”continued the relative of Jack Ma, who handed over the reins of the group to him in 2019.
Founded in 1999 in Hangzhou, the birthplace of Jack Ma, Alibaba has enabled the emergence of online commerce and greatly contributed to the digitization of the country. But the dynamic start-up has become a giant, with its bureaucratic heaviness, which must defend its positions against a new generation of Web companies: Pinduoduo in e-commerce, Meituan in deliveries and services, and ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, which took the crown of number one advertising in China from Alibaba.
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