Alibaba is already the world’s biggest online shopping company, but founder Jack Ma has even bigger aspirations for the company. Ma recently unveiled an ambitious plan for the company that will make it reach around the globe and create 100 million new jobs. Also it will create a more equitable world by transforming the global economy.
Alibaba founder sets lofty goals
Though Ma’s goal for the company appears overly ambitious for now, the goal is part of the mission statement that the visionary executive chairman of the $261 billion company has. In a letter to shareholders, Ma outlined the achievements that the company has made in the past financial year, including a gross merchandise turnover of more than $195 billion (RMB1 trillion) as well.
“We have more than 430 million annual active buyers, which means one out of every three individuals in China has made a purchase on our retail marketplaces,” Ma noted. Though he was proud of all the online shopping achievements that Alibaba made, he said, “We want to do far more.”
Ma said the benefits of globalization had not been spread evenly but that digital disruption will bring us closer to a level playing field for young people and small businesses. Alibaba is not only making an attempt to shift buy/sell transactions from offline to online or change conventional digital marketing models to squeeze out a little additional profit, but it is also working to create a fundamental digital and physical infrastructure for the future of commerce, said Ma.
Using computing and data for transformation
E-commerce is becoming a “traditional business” at a very rapid pace, and soon pure e-commerce players will be faced with tremendous challenges. Ma said this is the reason they are changing, and, “It’s why we strive to play a major role in the advancement of this new economic environment.”
Ma said he would bring about a transformation in manufacturing, retail, financial services and entertainment. For this, he will get help from computing power and data, which will serve as the new “technology breakthrough” and “the new ‘natural resource.'” Ma believes the current changes in e-commerce already incorporate these developments. Alibaba is fully determined to meet all the upcoming challenges on its way to achieve the goal.
A major share of all Chinese online sales, about 60%, is accounted for by the Alibaba group of companies, which was founded in 1999. This year it even overtook Walmart as the world’s largest retailer.
