Question

In your own words, write about 200 - 400 words explaining why Alibaba is one of the most successful corporations in the world and what is their plans to keep on being a successful business for the upcoming years

Answer 1

In the same way as eBay, the Alibaba Group, which matches buyers with sellers, has developed into an internet game. Created in 1999 by Jack Ma, it has a US$ 233 billion market capitalization on the New York Stock Exchange and in its most recent financial year had revenue of over 100 billion Chinese yuan ($19.5 billion). The company's websites promote business-to-business transactions, business-to-consumer transactions, and consumer-to-consumer purchases, and offer more than the eBay and Amazon joint US e-commerce giants. As remarkable as these figures are, Alibaba has meant something else for many Chinese citizens-a way out of poverty and into ownership of companies.

Some of the main aspects that the company managed in its early years was to lower the barrier to small and medium-sized companies entering for export markets. Instead of investing thousands of dollars building a website and seeking distribution outlets, the Alibaba platform covered those costs and the company also offered training for new users. The company launched what is known as the "Taobao University," which gives tuition to anyone who wants to learn how to sell and operate an e-commerce business. This explains how to use the network and how to create a strong brand, and how to use social media.

Alibaba is what is known as a digital multi-sided platform (DMSP), which is described by the authors as an IT-enabled commercial network of suppliers, intermediaries, and customers that facilitates value-creating transactions between these different entities. Amazon and eBay also constitute DMSPs. They tap into the Apple ecosystem when a customer buys an iPhone or an iPad and starts downloading music, movies and games from the Apple store. Similarly, when they start transacting on Alibaba or eBay, they're buying into those ecosystems.

Over the past two years, Alibaba has introduced more than 200 million users to its Chinese retail marketplace, and 130 million active users to its foreign marketplaces. The business is now penetrated in the developed areas of China by 85 percent, and penetrated by 40 percent in less developed areas, which still indicates significant room for development.

Alibaba's digital infrastructure has become more influential and the company aims to use its more developed channels to exploit the large number of customers to help expand the fairly new areas. There are several cross-selling opportunities between business segments, such as Taobao's core retail marketplace, Ele.me food delivery platform and Alipay's digital payment tool. "Competition would be hard to keep up with,

Alibaba's video streaming website Youku saw an increase of 46 per cent year-over-year in paying subscribers, led by its increased original content quality. Alibaba also owns an online ticketing platform called Damai for live events, which has more than 70 percent of China's market share as of 2018. Alibaba aims to provide online infrastructure for China's "under-digitalized" entertainment industry, offering support services such as financing, manufacturing, distribution and place management.