Alibaba Group

At Alibaba, strategy and organization go hand-in-hand. Every year we change 'the organizational structure in tandem with changes in strategy. Jack Ma, Chief Executive Officer of Alibaba Group, stared through the fog at the cable stays of the Hangzhou Bay Bridge whistling past on his drive to the offices of Taobao ("hunting for treasures"), Alibaba's online marketplace for Chinese retailers and consumers. The longest transoceanic bridge in the world had a long gestation period: the feasibility studies took a decade. and even after their approval the plans changed to connect the northern end of the bridge to Jiaxing, rather than the Jinshan suburb of Shanghai as initially planned. When the bridge was opened to the public …show more content…

Ma wondered whether such steps were appropriate for Alibaba Group. He would need to decide soon on the best course of action. . Opening up of China and Emergence of Small Businesses
After 19 years as China's paramount Leader, Deng Xiaopeng passed away on February 19, 1997 and Jiang Zemin emerged as his successor. The China that Jiang inherited was much changed from the country Deng took command of in 1978. Over two decades of economic and political reforms,
China's gross domestic product (GDP) grew at a 9.5 annual rate and its economy became the world's third largest when adjusted for purchasing power.P Per capita income more than quadrupled, foreign direct investment boomed and trade increased from 10 to 45 of GDP, making China the world's seventh-largest exporter. China's growth since the late 1970s lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty; in fact, China alone accounted for over 75 of the world's poverty reduction over the last 30 years.' The World Bank referred to China's achievements since the reforms as "a tremendous success.:"

As ideological barriers fell, small businesses flourished. When China's economic refnT1ns hpu;)n the political climate was openly hostile to private companies which, as a result, were extremely limited in scale. The 14th Party Congress in 1992 all but