Alibaba needs "Wu Ma" this tough person

Author | Liu Baodan

Just two days after taking over as CEO of Taotian, Wu Yongming swiftly rearranged the management team, replacing a large number of executives with young talents born in the 1980s and 1990s, demonstrating his determination to reform Taotian.

On the afternoon of December 20th, news of the adjustment of Taotian's core management personnel spread among the employees. According to Wall Street News, Wu Jia, Chu Duan, Jia Luo, Dao Fang, Yi Man, and Shao You have been appointed by Wu Yongming to be in charge of core businesses such as products, Taobao, Tmall, and live streaming. The internal communication has been completed and they have officially taken office.

This "march at full speed" style of personnel changes involves almost all of Taotian's core executives, which is also extremely rare in the history of Alibaba, showing Alibaba's style of doing things becoming simpler, more direct, and more aggressive under the leadership of Wu Yongming.

Three months ago, Wu Yongming, as Alibaba's CEO, issued a company-wide letter for the first time, setting a clear goal of rejuvenating the management team, aiming to have post-85s and post-90s as the main managers within 4 years. Now it seems that the groundwork for today's personnel adjustments has been laid.

Currently, the new generation of Taotian's core managers are all young talents. Some internal employees estimate that the new core management team is nearly 10 years younger than before, and they all have achievements to their names.

As the CEO of Alibaba, Taotian, and Alibaba Cloud, Wu Yongming has made great efforts in talent deployment. In addition to internal transfers within Taotian, he has also recruited talents from other business departments.

Wu Jia, a post-85s talent, was recruited by Wu Yongming and will be responsible for Taotian's User Platform Division and Alibaba's Mommy Division, the latter being the core source of profits for Taotian. As a campus recruit who joined Alibaba in 2010, Wu Jia is best known for his achievements in creating Quark. Since 2021, he has served as the President of Alibaba's Intelligent Information Business Group.

Internal sources at Alibaba said that after taking up the position at Taotian, Wu Jia will continue to serve as the President of Intelligent Information.

Chu Duan, the current Chief Operating Officer of Ele.me, will also be transferred to Taobao, where he will be in charge of Taobao Business Division, Taotian Merchant Platform Division, and Taotian Customer Satisfaction Division. Chu Duan joined Ele.me in 2021 and helped stabilize the business in the face of declining trends through activities such as free orders. In addition, he is also one of the founders of Xianyu.

In addition to being young and accomplished, Wu Jia and Chu Duan also share a common trait, which is their emphasis on products. Quark and Xianyu are the most popular products among young users within the Alibaba system, with a simple and user-friendly design. This also means that the Taobao app may follow the same style and "reduce the burden".

According to internal sources at Alibaba, the Taobao app carries a variety of businesses, and with the addition of various functions over the years, it has become bloated. In recent years, both users and merchants have criticized the products of Taobao.

By transferring elite talents from other departments to Taotian, Wu Yongming's latest move indicates that Taobao, as Alibaba's core business, is gaining more importance, which also shows Wu's determination to focus and make choices. One of Taobao's most skilled operations, which requires more extensive experience, has also been entrusted to the younger generation by Wu Yongming, who has integrated the scattered functions.

Specifically, Tao Fang, the head of Taobao Live, has also taken over the Taobao Content team, integrating live streaming with short videos and other content. Yiman, who was mainly responsible for self-operated business, has expanded to the M2C business unit. Jialuo and Shaoyou, both born in the 1980s and have worked at Taobao for many years, have taken on the responsibilities of Tmall and clothing respectively.

An employee of Taobao described the overall change in the core management team as a "bomb being thrown into a calm lake, and many people who used to lie flat have stood up." The severe competitive situation facing Taobao has not changed, but what is different is that hope has begun to grow.

With the completion of the new generation of Taobao's core management team, insiders at Alibaba believe that the largest organizational transformation in history, which lasted for more than half a year, may have come to an end. The new management team, led by Wu Yongming, will now be immersed in intense market competition.

In the past few years, Alibaba's market share has been gradually eroded by new forces such as Pinduoduo and Douyin, and Alibaba's market value has been surpassed by Pinduoduo. Wu Yongming's immediate task is to defend Alibaba's market position and prevent the situation from further deteriorating.

The strategic direction is already very clear. On November 16th, Wu Yongming disclosed the new strategic blueprint to the outside world for the first time. Taobao will adhere to the business development strategy of "putting users first, promoting ecological prosperity, and driving by technology." Alibaba Cloud will no longer pursue complete separation and will firmly implement an AI-driven, public cloud-first strategy.

With the deep collaboration between Taobao and Alibaba Cloud, Taobao will enhance its market competitiveness through technological innovation, and Alibaba will take a big step towards the era of AI e-commerce. To this end, Alibaba emphasizes that it will maintain a high level of resource and research and development investment.

Wu Yongming is also prepared for a fresh start. In the all-staff letter of personnel appointments, he stated, "Face the reality and start anew." He has emphasized more than once that turning the page to zero and awakening the mentality of starting a new business.

According to insiders at Alibaba, as an Alibaba partner, Wu Yongming has been engaged in investment business for the past eight years, which is relatively far from Alibaba's core business. He has observed the company from an external perspective as an investor. Now that he has returned, he has no so-called burden and can carry out reforms boldly.

After more than 20 years of development, the e-commerce industry is entering an unprecedented reshuffle stage. As Jack Ma said, the era of AI e-commerce has just begun, which is an opportunity and a challenge for everyone.

Now, this opportunity has fallen into the hands of Wu Yongming, who was one of the earliest followers and most trusted partners of Jack Ma. Whether he can regain the lost glory of Alibaba not only affects the future of Alibaba, but also will reshape the landscape of the Chinese e-commerce market. For this, he must take a gamble in order to have a chance to turn the tide against the wind.