Chapter 5 Chapter Four: The Swordsman, the Competitive Thinking of Forgetting Both Things and Me

Where there are people, there are rivers and lakes, and where there is life, there is competition.In the face of fierce market competition, Ma Yun has the same insight as Huang Rong, and also has the fear of being alone and afraid of losing competition without rivals... But Ma Yun is always so relaxed, humorous, light-hearted and unrestrained. This is not because he is bullying and confident, but because he has always maintained a mentality of forgetting both things and me.This mentality allows him to walk in the cruel competition with ease. Dugu Qiubai is probably the most famous unappeared character in Jin Yong's works, and he has been mentioned in other books.He has the legendary "Nine Swords of Dugu", which is so invincible in the world that he can't get it if he wants to be defeated. He once wrote on the stone wall: "For more than 30 years in the rivers and lakes, kill all enemies, defeat all heroes, and the world is even more invincible. I have no choice but to live in seclusion in the deep valley and take the eagle as my friend. Woohoo, I want an opponent in my life but I can't get it. It's really lonely and embarrassing." He walked around the world alone with a sword in his hand. The sword blared in the air, so he had no choice but to bury the sword and spend the rest of his life with the divine sculpture.He has fully realized the universe in the sword, but he is lonely and helpless, happy and sad, sad and sad.

From the loneliness and helplessness of Dugu Qiubai, we can experience the pain of losing ourselves because we can't find an opponent.If a hero cannot find an opponent, he loses his goal in life, motivation, and passion.The same is true of doing business. Ma Yun often said that Alibaba has no competitors; he also said that Alibaba has been alone for 5 years. This is not because Ma Yun is arrogant, but because at the beginning of the rise of the Internet industry, everything was brand new, there was no fixed model, and there were no successful precedents.Many entrepreneurs are groping.At the same time, the Internet industry is changing rapidly, and everyone is desperately adapting and rushing forward.At this time, everyone is on the same runway, but everyone's goals are different.Therefore, they cannot be called competitors, or in other words, they cannot see who their opponents are.

Faced with this situation, Jack Ma has his own way of coping: without planning, just running forward.The network is high-speed, if you stop to study the plan, you will be quickly left behind, and the opportunity will be fleeting, so the more detailed the plan is, the faster it will fall.An assistant once made a plan to study competitors. Jack Ma rejected it immediately after reading it. "When the starting gun is fired, you don't have time to watch how your opponent runs." At that time, China's Internet industry was mainly imitating the American model.However, Jack Ma believes that those who learn from competitors win, and those who imitate competitors die.Therefore, in China's Internet industry at that time, Alibaba's model was unique, and naturally Alibaba had no so-called competitors.

In fact, this is not absolutely the case. For example, Alibaba has competed with professional websites such as ChemNet.However, these websites are not successful, and they lost in one round of fighting.Alibaba has also competed with the overseas B2B website "Global Sources".However, the latter mainly targets large enterprises, while Alibaba targets small and medium-sized enterprises, so strictly speaking, "Global Sources" is not a competitor. Therefore, it is not untrue that Ma Yun said that Alibaba has been alone for 5 years.Strictly speaking, Alibaba has actually not encountered competitors of the same magnitude and in the same field.During this period, Alibaba was mainly racing against itself. At the same time, it was also looking for cross-industry competitors, such as GE and Microsoft. However, it was not so much competition as learning from them.

However, the situation changed completely after 2003. In 2003, when Ma Yun launched the C2C website Taobao, eBay, the leader in the C2C field at that time, quickly regarded it as Alibaba's challenge to eBay. Whitman, eBay's global president, immediately stated: "It can only survive for 18 months at most." But the result is just the opposite, eBay lost to Taobao in the Chinese market. If Taobao was caught by surprise this time, and there was some fluke factor in its victory, then after Alibaba acquired Yahoo China in 2005, it faced a more powerful opponent.At that time, Ma Yun had a premonition that Alibaba would face very brutal competition in the next three years.Because they have alerted a terrible opponent eBay - the world's leader in the field of e-commerce.Alibaba also got into trouble with Google, the fastest growing company in the world.In addition, various domestic Internet companies, such as Sina, Sohu, Netease, and Tencent, also regard Alibaba as a competitor.With these competitors, it seems that Alibaba will no longer be alone, and this is the situation that Jack Ma has been looking forward to.

Jack Ma sees competition as a process of self-improvement.Just like the descriptions in martial arts novels, an excellent competitor will always get some extraordinary epiphanies when fighting against masters again and again, so that the realm of martial arts will continue to improve.Ma Yun is a person who is very good at choosing good competitors and learning from them.The greatest value of competition is not to eliminate opponents, but to develop oneself.Treat your competitors as a sharpening stone, and you will sharpen faster and brighter. eBay's strong position in the global C2C market and its ambitions for the Chinese market made Jack Ma list it as a competitor.If the e-commerce industry wants to see a hundred flowers bloom, it must allow multiple Internet companies to develop together and learn from each other.Only competition can lead to faster development.The development of other companies has provided Alibaba with experience, lessons and resources. Similarly, the growth of Alibaba will also bring benefits to other companies.

No opponent does not mean that the opponent does not exist, but that one has not found an opponent and does not know the opponent, so it is naturally difficult to win.Ma Yun regards competitors as "competitive teammates", and is good at learning from his opponents' strengths and making up for his own weaknesses. This will surely enable Alibaba to prosper in the fierce competition. Huang Yaoshi is called Dongxie in the Chinese novel. In addition to his high kung fu, he is also resourceful and calculating.He and his wife studied Qimen and Bagua together, and arranged Peach Blossom Island into a large formation that combined the nine palaces, eight trigrams, yin and yang, and five elements.On Peach Blossom Island described in Jin Yong’s novels, Huang Yaoshi’s living room is built with the modeling elements of the Eight Diagrams of the Book of Changes. evil".On the open space of the island, Huang Yaoshi used wooden stakes to set up a gossip array with organs.

Huang Yaoshi designed the maze on Peach Blossom Island to be unpredictable, confused many opponents, and made himself famous all over the world.Huang Yaoshi is a smart man, he confuses the opponent first, disrupts the opponent's combat deployment, disturbs the opponent's mood, and makes him appear defeated before he makes a move. For a long time after Ma Yun started his business, the Alibaba model he advocated was not favored by everyone, so he had no obvious competitors.In the first 6 years of Alibaba, in the words of Ma Yun, "enter the village quietly, and don't shoot people."Later, when the market gradually matured and Alibaba began to make money, many competitors entered this field one after another, and Jack Ma began to feel the pressure of competition.However, he learned one of Huang Yaoshi's tricks in the rivers and lakes - putting on a gossip.From B2B to Taobao, and then to Alipay, there are surprises every time. At first, the outside world thought it was impossible, then surprised, and then dumbfounded.When everyone suddenly realized that they wanted to catch up, Ma Yun had already gone far.

In order to achieve unexpected results, Alibaba pays great attention to confidentiality. In 2003, Alibaba entered the field of C2C personal online e-commerce, which is a successful case of confidentiality work.The project has been strictly confidential from the beginning.All internal employees who participated in the project must sign a non-disclosure agreement, promising not to disclose the project they participated in to anyone else within 6 months, not to friends, family members, colleagues or even superiors. Taobao officially started operation on May 10, 2003.It was not until two months later, on July 7, 2003, that Jack Ma officially announced an investment of 100 million yuan in Hangzhou to make Taobao the largest personal online trading platform in China.The vast majority of employees didn't know the story behind Taobao's scenes until this time, which shows that the project's confidentiality work is extraordinary.

When Taobao was established, eBay and EachNet tried their best to block it.After paying twice as much as normal advertising costs, eBay EachNet reached an agreement with China's top portal websites including Sina, Sohu, and Netease TOM, prohibiting these websites from producing any relevant publicity and advertising with eBay's competitors. Promoted activities. In this regard, Ma Yun's response strategy is to promote offline and "encircle the cities from the countryside".The so-called offline promotion is to make a big publicity on the advertising boards of buses and subway platforms, and even in movies.And the strategy of "encircling the cities from the countryside" is particularly clever. eBay controlled the "big cities", and Taobao went to the "villages" to engage in "guerrilla warfare".The so-called "rural" refers to personalized niche websites corresponding to portal websites.Ma Yun led the Taobao team to negotiate with the alliance of webmasters of small sites on the Internet one by one, and quickly won a batch of site advertisements, and the cost was not expensive.Ma Yun dominated the "rural" battlefield, and later fought all the way back to the city from the third and second lines, and finally won the portal website.

With the strength of eBay, it is not impossible to win these small websites, but they disdain to play with these "bandit army" on third-tier websites.And it is precisely where these "enemies" are weak that Ma Yun has successfully opened up his own base. Cooperating with these devious strategies are the smoke bombs released by Jack Ma.As early as the end of 2004, Jack Ma told the media that he admired eBay and Shao Yibo when he participated in the "2004 CCTV China Economic Figure of the Year" selection.He even compared Taobao to a tricycle, while eBay is an armored vehicle. Whether it is management, capital, talents, or the understanding of future e-commerce, eBay must be stronger than Taobao, but its grasp of the Chinese market and the Chinese people must be Taobao is strong. After defeating eBay China in the first round, he said sarcastically: Taobao survived because the opponent made too many bad moves.In fact, it was mainly because the other party was confused by Ma Yun's surprise again and again. In 2005, Jack Ma even declared that he would defeat Google. At this time, Google was no longer "sleeping" in China, but began to actively "join the WTO".Ma Yun is full of confidence in defeating such a powerful opponent. Ma Yun said: "A competitive market is a more interesting market. Today you throw a firecracker, the other party throws a bomb; tomorrow you throw a firecracker, the other party thinks it is a bomb, and it is a false alarm; Firecrackers, if you pick them up and play with them, they will be crippled even if they don’t die.” Shopping malls are like battlefields. If you can catch them by surprise, you will be able to defeat majestic opponents. Guangmingding, the Holy Land of Mingjiao, once had an earth-shattering duel.At that time, the six factions were besieging and suppressing Mingjiao, and the forces of all parties were like jumping beams and clowns, taking advantage of people's danger, insidious and vicious, which made people despised.Zhang Wuji was young at the time, so he was afraid of this scene.It wasn't until his grandfather Yin Tianzheng was in a critical situation that he didn't think much about it. He stepped forward, outnumbered, and single-handedly against all martial arts masters. When Ma Yun faced eBay back then, Taobao was a rising star, and there was a big gap with eBay, a world-class giant, but he still competed head-on with the strong, which was quite like Zhang Wuji fighting alone. In the entire C2C field in the world, eBay is the undoubted leader.But in Asia, the world's leading online auction house, it has struggled, particularly in Japan.After the defeat of Japan, Whitman, the president of eBay, "had a fall, learned a lesson", and made up his mind to win the Chinese market. In the Chinese market, eBay's trick is to acquire local companies, and it has taken a fancy to China's eBay. In 2002, eBay acquired 33% of eBay's shares for US$30 million; on June 12, 2003, it acquired the remaining 67% of eBay's shares for US$150 million, and officially entered eBay.After the completion of these two acquisitions, the new company eBay EachNet has an absolute advantage in China's C2C market. At that time, Ma Yun, who was also engaged in e-commerce, had been paying attention to eBay.And from the perspective of enterprise development, after Alibaba gradually takes shape, Jack Ma must lay out his own business and need to comprehensively plan the future of the enterprise.At the end of 2002, Jack Ma suddenly realized the threat he was facing: On eBay, which is known as a C2C website, a large number of large transactions appeared.He judged that this was likely to be a business-to-business transaction. On July 7, 2003, Jack Ma officially announced an investment of 100 million yuan to start Taobao.This means Alibaba will go head-to-head with eBay.According to eBay's model, merchants need to pay product registration fees, display fees and transaction service fees to operate on its online platform.This is also the prevailing game rule.However, Taobao did not play its cards according to common sense. From the very beginning, it adopted a completely free strategy, and it was tit-for-tat with eBay EachNet.Under the pressure of Taobao, eBay EachNet had to lower its product registration fee on February 2, 2004. This was the first time that eBay EachNet "cut prices and made profit" after adopting the charging strategy.It can be seen from this that Taobao's publicity campaign and free strategy have created a certain psychological threat to eBay EachNet. In addition to price wars, Taobao and eBay also conducted a series of confrontations such as advertising wars, psychological wars, and tool wars.After more than two years, Taobao has captured half of China's C2C market.Thus, unwilling to lose, eBay EachNet entered the B2B market, thus gradually evolving the C2C offensive and defensive battle between Taobao and eBay EachNet into an e-commerce battle between Alibaba and eBay EachNet. Taobao announced in October 2005 that it would continue to be free for 3 years. This move put more pressure on eBay and EachNet.So, in January 2006, eBay EachNet finally canceled the transaction service fee.It took two and a half years, and it can be regarded as a real experience of the power of Taobao's free.But everything has come too late, eBay EachNet will pay the price for its mistakes in the Chinese market.As of the end of 2005, eBay and EachNet's market share dropped to 29.1%, while Taobao accounted for 67.3%.Compared with 2003, Taobao has completely reversed the pattern of the battlefield. In the fourth year of the war, that is, in July 2007, Taobao had gained more than 80% of the market share.Whitman finally lost to China, and Jack Ma won another big victory. Taobao's victory is not just the success of the free strategy.In fact, eBay EachNet itself had some major missteps. eBay's global strategic positioning is to provide customers with an international trading platform for personal e-commerce behaviors. This positioning requires eBay EachNet to "provide an online trading platform that is both local and global, both local and global."However, this positioning is not suitable for China's home market. eBay itself did not realize this, but simply copied the American model to China based on its successful experience in the global market.It realized its mistakes too late, which gave Jack Ma a chance to come back. In the confrontation with eBay and EachNet, Ma Yun was not afraid, but took the initiative to seize and even create favorable conditions, step by step, steadily and steadily, and gradually seized market share from his opponents.Although there are strategic mistakes in eBay and EachNet, it is more about Ma Yun's thinking of using small to fight big, strategies of making use of strengths and avoiding weaknesses, and the belief of daring to challenge powerful enemies. In the middle, Feng Qingyang lived on the cliff for decades and didn't want to see anyone. Later, he pointed Linghu Chong, and he said to Linghu Chong: "The most powerful moves in the world are not in martial arts, but intrigues and traps." Qing Yang taught Linghu Chong the sword skills, he has 360 changes in one sword, this kind of martial arts should be regarded as supreme. Feng Qingyang taught Linghu Chong the swordsmanship, and he had another kind of mastery. He believed that "the way of swordsmanship is like flowing clouds and flowing water, and you can go wherever you want." What he taught Linghu Chong was that sword moves are dead, and people are alive. The highest state of using sword moves is from having moves to not having moves.In other words, don't stick to it, but adapt to the circumstances.A person must learn, let alone be bound by what he has learned.If any speech is regarded as dogma, then these speeches will become the greatest bondage. Feng Qingyang is Ma Yun's favorite martial arts character. On the Internet, he used to use the pseudonym Feng Qingyang, pouring water, posting posts and having fun with netizens.He himself highly admires Wushu's no move wins with move.When he entered the search engine market, he used Feng Qingyang's "kung fu" to recruit impermanence, and he just stirred up the search market. Alibaba's acquisition of Yahoo China is undoubtedly a legend in the Internet industry.But Yahoo's foundation was already huge before it was acquired.At that time, there were different opinions in the industry about Alibaba's intention to acquire Yahoo China.But Ma Yun's idea is very clear, after the merger, Yahoo China will be adjusted and return to the search field.Yahoo has search technology, while Alibaba's advantages and resources lie in the accumulation of e-commerce.Ma Yun wants to use search to add icing on the cake to e-commerce. For him, occupying the search field is equivalent to completely blocking the entire shopping street.This is a brand new search plus e-commerce model. There are two main reasons why Ma Yun wants to lead the transformation of Yahoo China: First, in the competition of portals, it is difficult for Yahoo to win when it competes with local portals that are familiar with China’s national conditions; second, from the perspective of profit model, Alibaba The source of profit is still very limited, plus Taobao will be free for another 3 years, and allowing Yahoo China to return to search can avoid the risks brought by a single source of profit, so as to achieve a breakthrough in the source of profit. Three months after Alibaba successfully acquired Yahoo China, the new homepage of Yahoo China has become a simple page, and the dazzling homepage of the past no longer exists.The image of the portal website that Yahoo China has insisted on for seven years has been completely subverted, which also marks that its future business focus will fully return to the search field.Since then, one portal website has been lost in China's Internet industry, and a spoiler focusing on the search field has been added. In order to complete this transformation, Jack Ma spent a huge amount of more than 110 million yuan in more than half a month to carry out large-scale publicity.He also established a search technology research and development team in the United States, consisting of more than 30 top Chinese scientists. In 2006, between Alibaba and Yahoo China, the first comprehensive integration of specific businesses was carried out.The original 3721 Internet real name was changed to "Alibaba Internet real name". The 3721 Internet real name business is the core asset of Yahoo China and one of the important sources of cash flow.The full range of products of the original real-name system, that is, online real-name, real-name URLs, and real-name search are all included.The purpose of this move is to complete the integration of all B2B businesses. In May 2007, Yahoo China officially changed its name to China Yahoo, and Yahoo completely changed its surname.Of course, this kind of title battle is by no means what Jack Ma cares most about. What he cares most about is the complementary business models of Yahoo and Alibaba. Through the understanding of Alibaba's growth path and the mission of "making it easy to do business in the world", we will find that Yahoo's focus on search also serves the ultimate goal of "making it easy to do business in the world". It is found that eBay's situation in the United States is becoming more and more embarrassing. Although there are many sellers on eBay, all the sellers' money is invested in Google.A large number of enterprises not only invest in advertising on Google, but even open stores directly on Google. If you Google it, you will find that there are all stores opened by eBay sellers.This is also the fundamental reason why Google can become the most "lethal" and "destructive" company in the Internet industry in the world.To some extent, the emergence of Google-style e-commerce in China is almost inevitable.It is precisely based on such long-term considerations that Jack Ma has added a search engine team under his banner.Alibaba's future model is the "Google+eBay" model. In addition, Alibaba has another huge advantage, that is, its B2B business can be completely integrated into the "Google+eBay" model.In Ma Yun's vision, there are two forms of e-commerce, one is Taobao, and the other is search engines.It is hard to say which mode will win, so Ma Yun will do both, no matter who wins in the future, he will win without losing.Alibaba can provide a variety of e-commerce services, including B2B, B2C, C2C, and search engines, so it has the capital to launch a package with a variety of e-commerce services, while its competitors cannot do this. Undoubtedly, after Ma Yun combined the advantages of Yahoo search and Alibaba's e-commerce, he formed the "Google+eBay" model, which will cause even greater waves in the search market. In Jin Yong's martial arts novels, the "Tai Chi" and "Tai Chi Sword" created by Zhang Sanfeng are soft and natural, smooth and coherent, and their power is invisible, which coincides with the highest state of life enlightenment.Tai Chi Kung Fu emphasizes the laws of coordination and natural laws, telling martial arts practitioners to forget about themselves and integrate themselves into the opponent's movements, not preemptively, but to follow the opponent's movements accordingly.The basic point of view of defeating the opponent is to follow the rules and make use of strength. Someone once asked Ma Yun who is Alibaba's biggest rival, and Ma Yun said without hesitation: Wal-Mart.Jack Ma, who has personally performed Tai Chi Kung Fu on stage, obviously understands the essence of Tai Chi. He is approaching the retail giant Wal-Mart through e-commerce, which is a bit of a taste of using Tai Chi to push his hands. One is an e-commerce website, and the other is a retail giant. It seems that there is nothing to do with each other. Is it wrong for Jack Ma to regard Wal-Mart as his biggest rival?of course not.The business that Alibaba is engaged in has similarities with Wal-Mart, but most people can't see it. The main business of Wal-Mart is to provide specific tangible products and services to downstream consumers by integrating the entire supply chain.The main reason for its success is that it strictly controls the cost of every link in the supply chain.Effective management of the entire supply chain enables Wal-Mart to have greater control and stronger competitiveness.Ma Yun foresees that in the future, Wal-Mart's procurement and sales chain can be completely placed online.If one day in the future, Wal-Mart suddenly decides to enter China's B2C e-commerce field, Jack Ma will have to face this terrifying globalized business behemoth. Ma Yun can predict the enemy's opportunities first, so he must be prepared in advance.He drew such a blueprint for Alibaba: use Alibaba as a platform to break through all obstacles between B2B, B2C and C2C, and gradually integrate the sales centers, personnel centers, technology centers, payment centers and financial centers of small and medium-sized enterprises. Put it all on top.By that time, Alibaba has undoubtedly become a virtual business kingdom, with its own currency, its own operating system and its own rules of the game.This dream may seem unattainable to outsiders, but Ma Yun and his partners have been working hard and fighting for it down-to-earth. As an attempt, Ma Yun began to consciously guide Alibaba buyers and sellers to Taobao since 2005, and encouraged Taobao shopkeepers to purchase goods from Alibaba and then sell them to downstream consumers.He hopes to use this to break the boundaries between B2B and C2C and realize the integration of the two. Taobao launched "Taobao Mall" on May 10, 2006, also out of the same idea.This is a B2C trading platform, where the super brands in the best-selling commodity categories on the online auction site are recruited, so it has become a paradise for big brand merchants.This is an excellent strategic layout for Ma Yun to open up B2B, B2C and C2C, and it can also solve the problem of Taobao's profit model. As of 2006, many well-known brands including Motorola, Adidas, and Apple iPod have opened special stores on Taobao.Some manufacturers have also launched customized products specifically for Taobao's B2C platform, such as Asustek Computer, Disney Home Appliances, and Mark Faye.Therefore, Taobao employees can confidently say that they have what Wal-Mart has, and they also have what Wal-Mart does not have. In Japan in 2008, Ma Yun first proposed the "New Business Civilization Theory", "Alibaba strategy, big Taobao strategy, we all revolve around the construction of this ecosystem. The construction of business civilization is the integrity system, ecological chain, sharing Spiritual construction, as well as the so-called global vision and sense of responsibility.” The imaginary enemy of Ma Yun's series of actions is of course the retail giant Wal-Mart with an annual sales revenue of nearly 400 billion US dollars. It is worth noting that during the economic crisis that began in the second half of 2008, Wal-Mart's large-scale industrial production model has revealed its drawbacks.Zeng Ming, chief of staff of Alibaba, said, "After Alibaba's B2B and Taobao are connected, a new industrial chain may be formed, moving from traditional industrial civilization to a new commercial civilization." It is said that Jack Ma already has a specific timetable for defeating international competitors: "We are confident in surpassing Amazon and eBay, and on this basis, we are also confident in competing with Google. If these two can surpass If so, it will naturally surpass Wal-Mart.” Ma Yun's huge impact by perfecting "Taobao" far exceeds the huge benefits he has obtained. This is a huge strategic victory for him.He made the retail industry as perfect as Wal-Mart through e-commerce, which seems to have confirmed the slogan "There is no difficult business in the world". In the movie, Ouyang Feng, a Western poisoner, practiced the Nine Yin Scriptures by mistake and went into a rut, causing him to walk on his head with his arms close to his sides, standing upright, walking with his hands like a zombie, which is actually faster than ordinary people walking with their feet Fast, go up the mountain and climb the peak higher and higher, faster and faster. The connection between Ouyang Feng and Ma Yun lies in handstands. The difference is that Ouyang Feng becomes more confused the more he stands on his head, while Ma Yun becomes more sober the more he stands on his head.If Ma Yun exported his passion and dreams through the temperament of an old urchin, then he realized his dreams through Ouyang Feng's handstand.Ouyang Feng travels quickly by standing on his head, crossing mountains and mountains; Ma Yun stands upside down to see the world, looking at problems and finding directions from different angles and thinking.Only in this way can the enterprise develop faster and go further. Ma Yun's handstand is "innovation" in the words of Schumpeter, "subversion" in the words of Tom Peters, "only the paranoid can survive" in the words of Andrew Grove, and "innovation" in the words of Liu Chuanzhi. "Rewrite a cookbook".Although the words are different, the truth is the same. Handstand is not only spiritual, it is also a unique corporate culture in Alibaba.Everyone who enters Taobao, regardless of fat or thin, tall or short, must learn to stand on his head against the wall within 3 months.Men need to hold the inverted position for more than 30 seconds to pass the test. The requirements for women are slightly lower, ten seconds is enough, otherwise they have to pack up and leave.It is said that this rule set by Jack Ma has recently spread in the workplace.And the "China's first-class business university" under planning - Hupan College is likely to replicate this inverted culture. Japanese movie star Yumiko Araki was Jack Ma’s boyhood idol. When Yumiko Araki visited Alibaba, Jack Ma and Alibaba’s employees welcomed her in a handstand.At this time, "handstand" has become a form of entertainment for Alibaba from top to bottom.Later, Ma Yun issued a death order: "Everyone, regardless of gender, must learn it." Therefore, "handstand" has become an essential skill for Alibaba employees. Alibaba requires employees to stand on their hands for many reasons: first, it is medically proven that insisting on inversions is good for health; second, if you can’t do it at the beginning, you can do it with the help of others, this is the process of teamwork; finally , When standing on your head, people's thinking will change, and they will no longer be afraid of powerful things. The unique practice of "seeing the world upside down" makes Ma Yun's way of doing things completely different from ordinary people.He does not fear the strongest industry leaders in the world, but treats them as equal competitors.Because "handstand" makes them look as normal as themselves. Ma Yun has always been a maverick.Since learning English hard at the age of 12, Jack Ma has adopted the concept of "never be the majority".In business, Ma Yun's way of thinking is also unique. At the beginning of 1999, when Ma Yun visited the Great Wall, he saw traces left by many graffiti, such as "so and so came here for a visit".From these graffiti, Jack Ma saw the early prototype of BBS. Reverse thinking can constitute the core competitiveness.Ma Yun has a mantra: Look at the world upside down, everything is possible.Relying on handstands alone is obviously far from enough, but Ma Yun’s reverse thinking has the rules of the Internet age: learn to look at problems from the perspective of customers, not just from your own perspective. Sometimes, the customer is the boss; sometimes, Customers are employees.For managers, most people’s thinking is to consider issues from a personal standpoint first. If you change your thinking and learn to think from the company’s standpoint, it will be easier to make yourself stand out. "Handstand" makes Jack Ma and his team look at things differently, especially in the process of confronting eBay. eBay has always made money by charging sellers.Ma Yun announced that the new Taobao is completely free.On the grounds that China's C2C consumer market is very immature, Ma Yun has prepared 5 years of funds to support Taobao's free policy.He focused on improving the industrial chain of information flow, capital flow, and logistics.Ma Yun was not afraid of his opponents, he dared to show his sword when he faced a narrow road, which benefited from his inverted thinking.He despised his opponents strategically and paid attention to them tactically, so that the nascent Taobao saw the Chinese market clearly, instead of blindly imitating eBay, an industry giant, and finally came from behind and won. Qiu Qianren is a character in Jin Yong's novels. He is the leader of the Iron Palm Gang, a big gang in the south of the Yangtze River. In the book, Qiu Qianren's martial arts is extraordinary, but he appeared late, and he didn't make an official appearance until the Beggar Clan's Junshan Conference.Before that, his brother Qiu Qianzhang had been pretending to be his name in vain, bluffing and deceiving in the world.Even Huang Rong always thought that Qiu Qianren was a big liar who deceived the world. On Tiezhang Mountain, she mistook Qiu Qianren for Qiu Qianzhang, and suffered a big loss and almost died. Perhaps Qiu Qianren might not be able to gain the upper hand in a fight with an opponent on a high mountain or flat ground, but if it is on a lake or a river, it is sure to win.His light work will give full play to his advantages, so he will often take his opponents to where he is good at.The same is true of Ma Yun. He compared eBay to a shark in the sea, while Taobao is a crocodile in the Yangtze River.If it is in the sea, the crocodile will definitely not be able to beat the shark, but if the battlefield is in the Yangtze River, then the result is not certain. After studying the growth history of Chinese companies for nearly 30 years, some scholars found that in many industries in the Chinese market, local entrepreneurs had a "critical moment" when they could defeat or compete with multinational companies. Around 1995, Lenovo’s Liu Chuanzhi seized this moment and defeated many international computer companies by holding high the banner of national brands; in the field of home appliances, Haier’s Zhang Ruimin and Changhong’s Ni Runfeng also seized this moment. In another round of price wars, he defeated many Japanese and European and American home appliance companies; in the beverage and food industry around 2000, Wahaha's Zong Qinghou achieved remarkable results by virtue of the innovation of urban and rural channels.Ma Yun's Taobao re-enacted a battle for Chinese people where local companies defeated multinational companies. In terms of absolute strength, the opponent eBay is indeed very powerful. In 2004, eBay's annual revenue was $3.3 billion, while Jack Ma's company's annual revenue in 2005 was only $68 million.Globally, eBay has successively occupied the online auction markets in Germany, France, and Australia, and is also in a dominant position in the markets of South Korea, Singapore and other countries.Malaysia, the Philippines, India, Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia have also become eBay's markets. With such strong capital, Meg Whitman, the head of eBay, is very confident in occupying the Chinese market. She once said that eBay is successful in 27 markets around the world. In China, the 28th market, she will also Follow the established policy firmly. In China, the top websites in almost every field are local companies, such as Sina in the portal website, Shanda in the online game industry, and Baidu in the search engine field. eBay seems to want to break this pattern. But eBay did not take Taobao seriously as an opponent, but challenged it rashly, trying to encircle and suppress it.But Ma Yun knew himself and the enemy, and responded calmly.While eBay carried out a carpet-bombing advertising campaign in major cities in China, Taobao was "hiding in an air-raid shelter" and hiding in its Hangzhou headquarters.They are waiting for their opportunity. The opportunity has come. In September 2004, eBay EachNet decided to realize the official connection between eBay's domestic platform and eBay's international platform.Wishes are naturally beautiful, but major mistakes have occurred during the operation.First of all, some old users are not used to the new business model, and there is a phenomenon of "large-scale relocation".What's more deadly is that after the integration of the entire platform, eBay's system performance is very unstable.Taobao seized these rare opportunities and took advantage of its stable background to "accommodate" a large number of eBay "exiled" users. 2004年9月，淘宝网的成交商品总额达到1.6亿元，10月份一度日成交金额达到创纪录的900万元，11月会员数发展到305万。2004年12月25日，正值圣诞节，马云对外界宣称：淘宝网对eBay易趣的反击进入一个月倒计时。形势完全倒转了过来。 从历史上来看，跨国公司对中国本土竞争对手的态度一般会戏剧般地经历4个阶段：首先是看不到，其次是看不起，再次是看不懂，最后就跟不上了。“水土不服”大概是这些跨国公司失败的关键，eBay同样也不例外。 eBay试图在中国实施其全球的技术平台是一个严重的失误，马云将其比做“在泥泞的小路上驾驶一个高级的引擎”。eBay的领导层或许善于指挥集团作战，但是对游击战却一头雾水。马云还告诫这个C2C领域的老大，应该认真学习一下美国军队的作战史，永远不要在亚洲打一场登陆战。 阿里巴巴这条长江里的鳄鱼，最终赶跑了进入长江的“鲨鱼”，这是攻其不备的效果，也是充分了解国情、适应国情的结果。淘宝完胜eBay易趣并不仅仅靠免费这一招儿，至少还有两个方面值得提及：其一，淘宝在技术层面上更加符合中国消费者的习惯，功能及服务都更为人性化；其二，eBay易趣在竞争中的决策迟钝与应对失误，直接造成了淘宝的速胜。事实上，企业的竞争在一定程度上不是比赛谁做得更为正确，而是谁的失误更少。这也是在淘宝和eBay易趣的争战中最值得商业人士再三研究的地方。 黄蓉应该是金庸小说中最机智的女性。她未经世事就极其聪明，这是来自天生的灵性，而不是历练之后所体现出的经验与智慧。几乎所有人都认为黄蓉是有心机的，其实她很多时候都是随性的，并没有一步步地算计，只是天生的灵气四射，促使她随时随地都可发挥。 黄蓉不但记忆力强，而且判断力也很准确，她能了解人心、洞悉人性。周伯通功夫盖世，却称她为“师傅”；欧阳锋直接被黄蓉折磨致疯；郭靖更是对她唯命是从。江湖人大多不喜欢她的刁蛮，其实是害怕她看穿自己的内心，抓住自己的把柄。她甚至能看到对方即将使出的招数并找出破绽，以战胜对手。 不管是在中作为小丫头的形象，还是后来在中协助郭靖镇守襄阳城，黄蓉都是深入分析，洞察敌情。兵书云“知己知彼，百战不殆”，在这一点上，马云也同样如此，他说自己与竞争对手的最大差别就是他知道对手要做什么。 早在2003年初，马云就感觉到了eBay进入中国的势头和决心。嗅觉敏锐的他预感到，惠特曼最终要构建的是一个打破C2C和B2B之间界限的电子商务平台。如果马云不主动出击，那么阿里巴巴辛苦打下的江山将有可能被蚕食净尽，甚至国内电子商务企业也有可能全军覆没，所以马云决定先下手为强。 中国古代兵家作战就讲究“因粮于敌”，把战火烧在对方的地盘，就能避免己方的损失，给对方造成破坏。马云对此有套通俗的解释：打架就得在别人家里打，打得赢当然好；打不赢也没关系，把别人家里打得乱七八糟，家具都给砸烂了，还是对方的损失大。马云抢先进入eBay的C2C领域，而不等对方积蓄力量来入侵阿里巴巴的B2B，就是基于这种“在别人家里打架”的战略。 马云对eBay仔细研究，充分重视，eBay的任何风吹草动都会引起他的关注。阿里巴巴详细分析了eBay公司所有高层的资料。eBay在世界各地的各种经营方法，擅长的各种管理手段和应招特点，都没有被轻易放过。而且由于eBay已经上市，而阿里巴巴还没有，惠特曼对淘宝的了解远不及马云对eBay的了解多。马云每次都是看准了对方的动机，然后相应作出自己的动作。这种信息上的不对称是马云的重要优势。 作为后起之秀的淘宝，不只是在Alexa排名和在线商品数量方面超越了eBay中国，在交易额、成交率、日新增商品数、注册用户数和网页浏览量等指标上，也胜出对手一筹。 如果说马云料敌先机、应变灵活的话，那么他的对手就弱得多了。由于eBay易趣国际平台对接出现漏洞，造成大量用户流失，公司高层没有反思他们的战略，却决定继续加大广告投入——烧钱！聪明的马云却捡了一个大便宜。 因为淘宝也是做C2C的，eBay的广告轰炸不经意间为淘宝做了一场免费宣传。所以，马云毅然砍掉三分之二的市场预算，并且头七个月冻结了广告费用。eBay巨资投放广告的最终结果是，易趣的用户没有明显地增加，而淘宝却借易趣的“粮食”一天天壮大，不断吸引着用户的眼球。 淘宝和eBay竞争的时候马云投入了1亿元人民币，eBay却投入了1亿美元。eBay显然是把商战简单化为“烧钱大比拼”，而忽略了最重要的决策一关。在当时的中国，1亿元人民币已经相当可观，花1亿美金就近乎意气用事的愚蠢了。eBay花了大量的冤枉钱，阿里巴巴却坐享其成。待到eBay把中国的市场打开了，阿里巴巴就响亮地对外宣布：向淘宝追加10亿元人民币，继续免费三年。 最终的结果，大家都知道。2005年1月，马云公开表示，在中国市场上，阿里巴巴已经超越了eBay。而eBay则用一种特殊的方式向人们宣告了这场战争的结果：2006年12月20日，eBay中国与Tom在线合资成立一家新公司。新公司CEO由Tom在线的CEO王雷雷出任，eBay易趣CEO廖光宇则为合资公司提供源于eBay的管理支持，并继续领导eBay在中国的独立运营。人们可以看出其中的关键点是，在新公司中，eBay和Tom分别在线持股49%和51%。这在某种程度上意味着eBay退出了中国市场。 至此，阿里巴巴与eBay在中国市场的较量以前者的胜出暂告一段落。马云的秘诀在于了解自己、了解对手，常常能预料到对手的下一步动作。而eBay的反应迟钝得多，身为巨头的优势逐渐在不知不觉中丧失。孙子云“妙算多者胜”，兵家如此，商家亦然。