As we all know, at the end of March, Alibaba officially announced that it will carry out “1+6+N” organizational reforms, and will establish Alibaba Cloud Intelligence, Taobao Tmall Business, Local Life, Cainiao, International Digital Commerce, and Big Entertainment under the Alibaba Group. And other six major business groups and a number of business companies. At the same time, these six major business groups can all be listed independently through financing.
At that time, it aroused the attention of the entire industry. They thought that it would take at least a long time for a group as large as Ali to carry out such reforms. Unexpectedly, only a few dozen days later, this reform would be implemented.
A few days ago, after Ali released its financial report for the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2023, this “1+6+N” change has been implemented. The six business groups set up boards of directors respectively to make independent decisions facing the market.
Not only that, Cainiao Group and Hema began to plan to go public, Cloud Smart Group was also spun off to be listed independently, and overseas digital businesses also started external financing.
These six major business groups all have their own boards of directors. In their daily work, they will take on more responsibilities, and even be responsible for their own profits and losses. They are no longer under the Alibaba Group as before. In other words, there is indeed the possibility of eating from a big pot.
You must know that in the past, Alibaba was a group, while Taobao and Tmall had high income and high profits. They were real cash cows. The milk produced by this cow was to subsidize and support other business groups.
But now after the split, it may be different. Other business groups have to consider their own survival issues. Taobao Tmall’s milk may not be given to them, at least not so easy to drink.
Under such a change, the entire Ali Group no longer has a chief helm like Ma Yun or Zhang Yong before, such as Zhang Yong, who is currently the chairman of the cloud intelligence group (including cloud, AI, Dingding, etc.) And CEO, the power has shrunk a lot.
Of course, Ali has also maintained the voice and control of the group’s veterans over the sub-business through some organizations, but it is obvious that it will never return to the era when Ma Yun or Zhang Yong had the role of the chief helm.
Some people believe that such a split of Ali will help to increase the enthusiasm of each business group. After all, after being responsible for its own profits and losses, without the blood transfusion of Taotian Group, other business groups will be under greater pressure and will be more active in creating value.
On the other hand, everyone thinks that the valuation of Alibaba in the past is actually the valuation of Taotian Group. The valuation of other businesses has not been taken into account, and now such a split will help Alibaba revaluate.
Of course, what will such a split bring to Ali, only time will tell.
Original title: Ali’s big spin-off, no more general helm like Jack Ma