ELAU C200/A2/1/1/1/00 SH140/30120/0/1/00/00/00/00/00
On November 28th, Jack Ma rarely responded to employee messages on the intranet, as shown in the screenshot of the response
Previously, two internal network “essays” coincidentally revealed the anxiety of two traditional e-commerce giants.
A JD operation employee posted a thousand word long article on the internal network, stating that JD’s current promotion mechanism is too complex, with poor big promotion initiative, and the implementation of low price strategies is not comprehensive enough… This statement fully explains JD’s current difficulties.
“There have been so many problems, of course, all due to my poor management, and I am very self blaming. However, no matter what, I will not lie flat, and I hope that my brothers will never lie flat.” JD founder and chairman of the board, Liu Qiangdong, spoke from his heart when replying to the employee on the company’s intranet. He also stated, “Changes must be made, otherwise there is no way out.”.
Not long ago, just as the market value of Pinduoduo was approaching Alibaba, some Alibaba employees also lamented on the intranet: “It’s hard to sleep at this moment, and I can’t even imagine that the market value of Pinduoduo has directly reached 185.5 billion US dollars, which is only 8 billion compared to our 194.3 billion, which is really shocking. That inconspicuous person is about to become the big brother.” Faced with the anxiety of the employees, Jack Ma personally responded, All great companies were born in winter… Congratulations to PDD for their decision-making, execution, and efforts over the past few years. Jack Ma also did not forget to state, “I firmly believe that Alibaba will change, Alibaba will change.”.
The source of the two “short essays” is related to “that inconspicuous one that cuts a knife.”. In the third quarter of this year, Pinduoduo’s quarterly revenue was 68.84 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 93.9%, far exceeding market expectations of 54.8 billion yuan.
Shortly after the financial report was released, Pinduoduo, which had already surpassed JD in market value, also left Alibaba’s market value behind and jumped to the top spot in Chinese concept stocks. Pinduoduo only took less than ten years to reverse the market capitalization of JD and Alibaba, and the ByteDance from short video and live broadcast to e-commerce industry also kept up. As representatives of traditional e-commerce, Alibaba and JD.com are under considerable pressure.
“What caused a white-collar worker to change their attitude towards Pinduoduo?” Li Wei, an economics professor at Changjiang Business School, believes that Pinduoduo’s market value surpassing Alibaba is a watershed, and this transformation is also the result of market competition and platform business model strategic innovation. “If established e-commerce companies still turn a blind eye to this and stand in their original vision and strategy, only fueling from the execution level, then the future market will inevitably belong to the new generation of players who truly serve the consumer end.”
I don’t want to be the “second Suning”
Recently, in the controversy surrounding Dongfang Selection, a screenshot circulating online showed that Liu Qiangdong’s Vice President of Human Resources had taken Liu Qiangdong’s autograph to Shaanxi to recruit Dong Yuhui. There were rumors that the two had a smooth negotiation, and there was a high possibility that Dong Yuhui would go to JD.com. There are also rumors that Liu Qiangdong personally went to Shaanxi to secretly meet Dong Yuhui. JD did not respond to this incident, while Dong Yuhui denied it.
However, the lack of super IPs like Dong Yuhui on JD.com is a regret for JD.com, which is eager to focus on live streaming e-commerce. This also shows that JD.com urgently needs talents and vigorously develops new businesses.
In the previous essay, Liu Qiangdong also faced organizational issues directly. “I think this brother said it too well. It can be said that when it comes to the pain points of the company, they are all real problems that need to be changed.” Liu Qiangdong specifically mentioned that the organization is now huge, bloated, and inefficient, and it does take time to change.