Chapter 4 〇3. Ma Yun: Those who stand upside down see the predicament

In the eyes of people on earth, Ma Yun is a different kind from Mars, and Ma Yun is also very suitable for this role. He has mentioned this point of view on many occasions.At the same time, the many spirits advocated by Ma Yun under the Alibaba Group are also in line with this positioning: he likes to break the rules, reverse thinking, anti-dogma, and unexpected. When the situation was good, he asked the Alibaba people to prepare for the winter... These weird things that seemed to be jokes in normal times became life-saving truths when the crisis came.Perhaps as Jack Ma said: When you stand on your head, you can see a different world.

After Ma Yun graduated from Hangzhou Normal University majoring in English in 1988, he taught at Hangzhou Dianzi University (now Hangzhou Dianzi University). In 1995, Jack Ma came into contact with the Internet for the first time when he visited the United States, and founded the website "China Yellow Pages" after returning to China. In 1997, he joined the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation of China and was responsible for developing its official website and online trading market for Chinese products. In 1999, Ma Yun formally resigned from public office, and together with 18 of his companions founded an e-commerce company - Alibaba, independently designed a Chinese-style e-commerce model - B2B, and achieved commercial success.Afterwards, a series of e-commerce products and business models were successively created—C2C Taobao, Alipay, which solves payment tools, etc., and in 2005, it acquired the world famous search engine company—Yahoo’s Chinese branch.

With a series of commercial successes, Alibaba has become a world-renowned Internet e-commerce company, with 12,000 employees and a turnover of more than 2 billion, and it has realized collectivization. In 2007, the B2B company under Alibaba Group went public, and its market value once exceeded 20 billion U.S. dollars, making it the largest Internet listed company in China. Along with the success of the Alibaba website, Jack Ma has always been a representative of entrepreneurs with an unconventional spirit with a "contrary" business thinking.Under the current economic crisis where "the life of the world hangs by a thread", the business logic of this kind of thinking is more worthy of interpretation and reference.

Opinion: Over the past few years, we have made many mistakes. Others have to make these mistakes one by one. These mistakes are our wealth.The key is to dare to face failure!I never dared to call myself a success.If we must say success, it should be said that I have successfully overcome many difficulties.Facing challenges every day and overcoming difficulties becomes my greatest sense of accomplishment. No enterprise will have smooth sailing in its development-enterprises can make mistakes, the key lies in the state after making mistakes.Faced with the failure that almost ruined the future of Alibaba, Ma Yun adjusted the strategic direction in time on the one hand, corrected mistakes, and made timely and thorough changes; on the other hand, Ma Yun paid more attention to encouraging employee morale in the face of disasters caused by mistakes , to ensure the combat effectiveness of the team: "We must rely on the team to break through the darkness, and the team that can withstand the blow is the best. We must say 'I can' in the most difficult time."

background of the crisis In the early days of Alibaba’s entrepreneurship, Ma Yun made major decision-making mistakes, that is, excessive pursuit of internationalization and premature overseas expansion.Ma Yun once said: "Failure on the Internet must be caused by yourself. Either the brain is hot, or the brain is not hot, and it is too cold." Shortly after Alibaba received a $5 million investment from Goldman Sachs, in 2000, Masayoshi Son's SoftBank invested another $20 million.Therefore, Ma Yun, who had just received 25 million US dollars, was also hot-headed-this year, Alibaba proposed a strategy of vigorous internationalization.Ma Yun’s slogan at the time was: “Eastern wisdom, Western operation, facing the big market all over the world.” He emphasized: “In terms of company management, capital utilization, and global operations, we must unambiguously fully Westernize. "

In order to meet the requirements of internationalization, Alibaba put its headquarters in Hong Kong from the beginning, and soon developed to dozens of people.Among them are senior management talents from multinational companies, as well as international talents from prestigious universities in the United States. Their annual salaries in US dollars are all above 6 figures.At the same time, in order to build a world-class website, Alibaba has placed its server and technology headquarters in Silicon Valley, the birthplace of Internet technology.Alibaba's U.S. R&D center soon gathered many top tech experts from Silicon Valley, and their expenses were higher than those of the more than 200 people in the Hangzhou headquarters.

The year 2000 was regarded as a critical year for Alibaba to expand overseas markets. In January, Masayoshi Son received US$20 million, and in February, Jack Ma led his team to Europe. "Fight one country at a time. Then go to South America. Then go to Africa. In September, put the flag in New York and Wall Street: Hey! Here we come!" These were the bold words of Jack Ma back then.In order to occupy the world's largest market, Alibaba established the British (European) office and Korean office after Hong Kong and the United States.There is a tendency to plant "red flags all over the world".

However, on September 10, 2000, people did not see the flag of Alibaba on Wall Street, but they heard Jack Ma announce that Alibaba had entered a state of high crisis. In fact, judging from Alibaba's operational capabilities, capital and vision in 2000, the aggressive internationalization strategy was nothing less than a disaster.Internationalization is not a random strategy.Internationalization requires the backing of money and strength, as well as the local market share.Successful companies in China, such as Haier, Lenovo, TCL, etc., all achieved success at home and occupied a considerable market share in the country before starting to internationalize.Yahoo and eBay in the United States also first occupied the American market and then expanded to the world.It is the general law of enterprise development to first go local and then go international.Alibaba's strategy of going beyond the local market and going directly to the international market obviously violates the laws of the market.

In one year of overseas expansion, the monthly expenses of all these websites in Hong Kong, the United States, Europe, and South Korea are astronomical figures, and all these websites have no income but no income.Alibaba burns nearly $1 million a month.By the end of 2000, when the dot-com bubble burst, Alibaba had only $7 million left on its books.According to the burning speed at that time, it could only last for more than half a year.When the dot-com winter hit, all the new investments promised by venture capitalists fell through.Alibaba's almost crazy overseas expansion had to stop. Still, Alibaba is not dead, thanks to Jack Ma and the company turning around before they made a mistake. On September 11, 2001, the second day after West Lake Discussion of Swords ended, Ma Yun, who had just been talking in front of the crowd, announced to the key executives of Alibaba that the company was in the highest level of emergency as soon as he returned to the company.The top executives at that time quickly held an emergency meeting in Wangzhuang by the West Lake and proposed a B2C strategy: Back to China Back to Coast Back to Center.The entire Alibaba B2C plan includes two levels: throttling and open source.

At the "Zunyi Conference" known as Alibaba, the throttling plan of "removing stations and layoffs" was determined.At that time, Alibaba had five battlefields: mainland China, Hong Kong, the United States, Europe, and South Korea, but only one of these five bullets could win, and that was the mainland, or Hangzhou.Although the implementation process was extremely difficult, many employees in overseas departments shed tears when they left Alibaba, and Ma Yun, who was emotional, was also very frustrated because of layoffs and brain drain. It was implemented, not only to block others, Ma Yun, Cai Chongqing, etc. also cut their salaries in half, and proposed a zero budget in the company: no money is spent on advertising, and they can only stay in Samsung hotels for business trips.The effect of the big ban was immediate.Alibaba's monthly cost immediately dropped from 1 million to 500,000 US dollars, winning a precious one-year respite!

The next question is, how does Alibaba make money? More than a dozen possible profitable projects discussed in the "Zunyi Conference" have been put into operation and practice, and "Chinese suppliers" have finally been identified as actual operational projects. To this day, adjusting overseas expansion, holding the Zunyi Conference, and proposing Back to China as a turning point in the development of Alibaba is still of far-reaching significance to Alibaba: it has avoided the death of Alibaba, and allowed Alibaba to recognize the rhythm and pace of overseas expansion. The point of time; it allows the gap between the reality and the ideal to the greatest extent, allowing the company to roam above the technology, and its fate depends on the result of the use of the technology; most importantly, it turns a potential big setback into a reality In addition to avoiding the complete failure of Alibaba, it also used a setback of organizational adjustment to test the cohesion of Jack Ma and his team.In the course of Alibaba's development, Ma Yun himself admitted that he made many mistakes, admitted that mistakes are inevitable in business, and regarded these mistakes as valuable assets.Ma Yun said: "We have made many mistakes in the past few years, and others have to make these mistakes one by one. These mistakes are our wealth." To discover mistakes in time and transfer the execution and decisiveness of discovery is also the life of the enterprise. When hanging by a thread, get rebirth with greater wealth. As Jack Ma himself said: "Today is cruel, tomorrow is even crueler, and the day after tomorrow is beautiful. But most people will die tomorrow night, and only true heroes can see the sun the day after tomorrow." Opinion: There is not only one road to Rome.Chairman Mao was able to come up with creative military theories such as encircling cities from the countryside, and we can also use them.We will go to the countryside and strengthen ourselves where the enemy's defense is weakest. In the development of enterprises, competition has always existed.Healthy competition will stimulate the potential of enterprises.In the face of strong competitors, it is the key to find a more effective way to deal with local conditions and combine our own advantages.In the competition between ants and elephants, although "ants" are small, they firmly believe that there is not only one road leading to Rome in the world. Instead, they use "inverted thinking" to find the key point where the enemy's defense is weakest. background of the crisis In February 2003, about 10 Alibaba employees were called to Ma Yun's office one by one, and a document was buckled on the desk.Ma Yun told them that the company has a secret task that they need to complete, and if they are willing to do it, they can sign the document.You can leave the office if you don't want to.But in any case, a promise of secrecy must be made.I don't know if it was because of the aura at the time or because of everyone's trust in the company. Everyone signed the document in a daze. After that, these 10 people disappeared mysteriously for a while until May 10, 2003. Taobao.com It was officially launched, which allowed the core team that made Taobao to end its "mysterious disappearance".Taobao is the starting point of a new journey for Alibaba. In fact, Ma Yun has been paying attention to eBay in the United States. "Only eBay, although it grows on the other side of the earth, is the same animal as me. eBay has been ahead of Alibaba for four or five years. If they are given another two or three years, they will It is impossible for us to resist when we enter China on a large scale." "As CEO, I am not only pointing out a bright prospect for everyone, but also seeing clearly that there are many disasters in the journey forward, and you must eliminate these disasters." For a long time, the division of the so-called e-commerce B2B, C2C, and B2C is considered, but in fact there is no huge difference between the three.Once the American eBay, which has almost the same platform as Alibaba, suddenly starts to do B2B, it will be a huge threat to Alibaba.Alibaba has to play the right defense when eBay in the US hasn't seen it yet.Someone once asked Ma Yun, who used to like to fight against injustices: You are so thin, how could you beat others? Ma Yun said: "The key to fighting is not size, but surprise. Be fast." best defense. Taobao is a product of this attack.Although Ma Yun had foreseen the danger as early as possible and took defense in the shortest possible time, one can imagine the difficulties faced by the ant-like Taobao in the face of the "elephant" eBay.This year, eBay adopted an advertising blocking strategy, and all major portal websites signed exclusive agreements with eBay, that is, they do not accept advertisements from similar websites.That is to say, the few delivery targets selected by Taobao at the beginning were basically bought by eBay long ago. When Taobao had just announced its establishment and needed to increase its popularity the most, and when everyone was about to take advantage of the momentum to make a big splash, this blow made them "overwhelmed and overwhelmed". Not only to foresee risks, but in the face of difficulties, the leader's momentum and determination are the decisive factors to strengthen employees' beliefs and solve problems.How to turn defeat into victory in a confrontation with disparity in power, Jack Ma's strategy is to use inverted thinking to win by surprise.Ma Yun quickly convened a Taobao staff meeting. At the meeting, he said that now that the enemy has taken action to kill us in the cradle, we must find other ways.At this time, Taobao began to take an abnormal path of "encircling the city from the countryside".Using outdoor street sign advertisements, print, radio, TV, subway, bus, etc. to promote, especially the personal website alliance for promotion, the effect is huge.After occupying these advertising platforms, websites with greater influence soon began to give in.Because they saw the power of Taobao - under the guidance of Ma Yun's abnormal road of "there is not only one road leading to Rome in the world", the embattled people disappeared. Viewpoint: A team that can withstand blows is powerful.The crisis is training the company's immunity. Different companies respond very differently at this time. The key is to see who enters the adaptation stage at once, learns to get along with disasters, and at the same time finds opportunities. Natural disasters and man-made disasters are irresistible. Under unpredictable and inevitable circumstances, how to face crises and how to turn "danger" into "opportunity" mentality are the qualities that entrepreneurs need to possess.When Alibaba was attacked by SARS, Jack Ma understood: in terms of momentum, he wanted to stabilize the overall situation, and in terms of strategy, he wanted to find opportunities in the crisis. background of the crisis In the spring of 2003, SARS ravaged China, causing panic among the people and shocking the whole world.For a while, people's fear of "SARS" reached a climax, and people who had any connection with the word "SARS" were shunned by everyone. Afterwards, people knew that in that disease, Hangzhou was considered to be the city with the best preventive measures. in a state of high tension.At that time, the media reporter described: "The hotel opened the front hall and the back door to the maximum for ventilation. In April, there was still some cold wind passing through the huge store with no one there. It almost felt like a ghost store." At such a critical moment, Alibaba became famous, and it was related to SARS, which everyone shunned. At that time, Guangzhou had been clearly designated as an epidemic area, but Alibaba's China supplier project had promised to participate in the exhibition with its customers, so it still sent employees to participate in the Canton Fair.This hard-working employee had obvious cold symptoms when he returned to Hangzhou from Guangzhou, but because he had not finished some work, he insisted on going to work at the unit and had contact with some colleagues.Soon, this employee was diagnosed as a SARS patient, and Alibaba was quickly identified by the municipal government as a key prevention target——Alibaba became so famous that many employees dared not even say that they worked in Alibaba. As the leader of the company, Jack Ma is under a lot of pressure - he not only has to apologize to people in various companies, explain that Alibaba will take measures to strive for understanding, but also bears the anger of other companies in the same building, facing the company's employees Accusations from relatives and friends: Why send employees to Guangzhou at such a time?Worse news came one after another-Alibaba's office area was completely blocked, and all employees were quarantined at home. Ma Yun must have suffered pressure and panic, but he chose to suppress these emotions. At the critical moment, he stabilized the overall situation with a firm and optimistic mood-he sent an open letter to all employees. "Today, Alibaba is facing the biggest challenge since its establishment!... I am proud of having such young people, and I am proud of being able to work in such a company! I also hope that Ali's family and friends Young people like you. Applause for intervening in the young team that accepted the challenge! Because you did not choose to panic, retreat and be pessimistic! This is the role of Ali’s values! In this extraordinary period, please use the collective wisdom of Ali people, on May 15 Before (or longer), whether you are in the company, at home, or in the hospital, please bear in mind the mission and values ​​of Ali people, and go all out to serve our customers while fully ensuring the health and safety of yourself and others .” Undoubtedly, Ma Yun’s letter played a role in stabilizing the morale of the army and boosting morale. During the time when Alibaba was quarantined, more than 500 households all worked at home, and they worked step by step from 8:30 in the morning to the evening. No one complained. The customers who called in did not find anything unusual.In an interview, Ma Yun showed his mentality of "finding opportunities in crises": "I think this is a challenge. I first gave myself a good reason: you don't always want to deal with natural disasters such as fires and earthquakes." A man-made military exercise? If you can’t make up your mind, I will give you a resolution now. One thing is for sure—if there is another SARS or another emergency, our company will be able to withstand it in the whole of China, because We have experience." Not only from the mentality of "finding opportunities in the crisis", during the SARS period, Alibaba also found "opportunities" in business.Under the shadow of "SARS", all walks of life have been affected to varying degrees. Exhibitions are postponed, merchants are discouraged, orders are cancelled, and the situation is in crisis.However, Alibaba took advantage of the situation and "made the market by taking advantage of the situation." Alibaba, which has always been low-key, stepped up its publicity efforts and launched an advertisement of Alibaba "TrustPass" on CCTV's set to promote the characteristics of Alibaba's merchant website. The characteristic of fetters.In this battle, Alibaba has won.Due to the isolation of distance, employees have regained the sense of "team". At the same time, the advantages of e-commerce have been affirmed because of this epidemic, and the turnover has grown very rapidly. For any company, SARS is a challenge, but for Ma Yun, it has become a good opportunity to unite people's hearts.Alibaba used actions and facts to realize its own concept of facing the crisis: "Our view of the crisis is that there are opportunities in the crisis; we hope to say: 'I can!'"