China-based Alibaba Group Holding Limited (Alibaba), the world’s largest retail platform as of 2017, started off in 1999 as an e-commerce company involved in overseas and domestic wholesale trade. It went on to expand its business to include consumer e-commerce, online payments, online technology marketing, a web browser, logistics, mobile apps, online entertainment, social networking, etc. Being active in so many spheres meant millions of transactions, buyers, and sellers. Alibaba captured data about the buying / selling habits, transactions, orders, etc. of these buyers and developed data mining capabilities to recover such data and build profiles of the buyers. The data thus collected was shared with the sellers to help them bring out better products for the customers and tweak their products based on demand. This led to the building of a big data driven marketing platform called Alimama, which helped advertisers with digital marketing efforts. The next step was cloud computing through Aliyun and a cloud computing platform through which customers were provided with customized landing pages and choices that suited them the most. Alibaba used these big data capabilities to develop a credit scoring system to provide financial assistance to merchants who had no credit history and to venture into micro lending and credit scoring services. It went on to develop a fraud detection management system from its huge data sources to identify suspicious activities and fraudulent users online and immediately take counter measures. Another major use of big data was in the area of detecting and blocking counterfeit and pirated goods. Big data was also used in several other areas like smart traffic management, stock market predictions, etc. As the Chinese economy grew, it became one of the largest in the world and the most advanced mobile economy. Alibaba then set its sights on international markets. Setting the agenda for Alibaba’s future, Jack Ma, its founder and Chairman, wanted to build capabilities that would enable the company to venture into global e-commerce in a big way and help six million small businesses sell their products to 1.2 billion customers outside China. In the process, by 2036, Alibaba wanted to become the fifth largest ‘economy’ in the world. Will big data help Alibaba fulfill its ambitions?

IT and Systems Case Studies | Case Study in Management, Operations, Strategies, IT and Systems, Case Studies

IT and Systems Case Studies Case Studies | Case Study in Management, Operations, Strategies, IT and Systems, Case Studies

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Issues

The case is structured to achieve the following teaching objectives:

	Analyze the retail strategy of an online marketplace.
	Evaluate the Core Competencies of a big data driven online marketplace
	Appraise evolution of the Big Data business model

Contents

INTRODUCTION

INCEPTION AND GROWTH

THE MAKING OF A BIG DATA BEHEMOTH

TAKING BIG DATA TO THE NEXT LEVEL

LOOKING AHEAD

EXHIBITS

Keywords

Alibaba,Big Data,Artificial Intelligence,Data-Commerce,Retail Strategy in e-commerce,Core competence market matrix,Data monetization,Business metamorphosis,Big Data Business Model – Maturation Index,Chinese global competitors,Big data analytics,Technology as a Strategy,New Retail

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