Abstract

This case discusses the success of Alibaba.com Corporation (Alibaba) in China under the leadership of Jack Ma (Ma), its founder. It talks about the transformation of Alibaba into one of the most successful e-commerce companies in China and also analyzes its business portfolio. The case explains in detail the rationale behind Ma starting an e-commerce website and his efforts to bring about the growth of the company. Alibaba had emerged as the largest e-commerce company in China. The company tailored its strategies to meet the needs of the customers and made a mark because of its understanding of the Chinese language and culture. However, some experts have also raised doubts over the sustainability of Alibaba's business model. The case highlights how Ma successfully competed with foreign e-commerce companies like eBay Inc. (eBay) by establishing a rival website, Taobao.com, in the online auctions market. However, Alibaba lagged behind in the Chinese web search market despite acquiring Yahoo! China's operations in 2005. Moreover, with Baidu.com (Baidu), China's leading search engine announcing its plans to foray into the rapidly growing e-commerce market in 2008, the competition was expected to intensify for Alibaba. After a successful IPO, the company was preparing to strengthen its competitive position in China and also to provide tough competition to other Internet and e-commerce companies in the global arena.

Learning Objectives

The case is structured to achieve the following Learning Objectives:

• Understand the issues and challenges faced by a Chinese Internet/e-commerce company in growing its business.
• Study Alibaba's business model and see whether it is sustainable.
• Study how Alibaba achieved a balance in catering to global customers while customizing its practices to suit the needs of its Chinese customers.
• Understand how e-commerce companies operate in emerging markets
• Examine the challenges faced by Alibaba in expanding its business globally.

Keywords

Competition, Strategy, Business model, Innovation, Entrepreneur, Market leader, Global expansion, e-commerce, Small and Medium Enterprises, B2B, B2C, C2C, Web search market, Initial Public Offering, Alibaba, Taobao, eBay, Baidu, Google, China