Alibaba Case Study: Analyzing Security and Marketing Strategies

This case study delves into Alibaba's security and marketing strategies, crucial for its success as a leading online business. It evaluates Alibaba's security policies, including authentication, authorization, data protection, and non-repudiation measures such as firewall securities and privacy policies for user data. The case study critiques the security of payment methods like MasterCard, Visa, and bank transfers, highlighting both their global accessibility and potential risks of fraud and hacking. Furthermore, it identifies Alibaba's marketing strategies, such as providing free information to suppliers, establishing an e-commerce search engine through Yahoo, offering communication forums, and rewarding frequent clients. These strategies have contributed to Alibaba's ability to attract and retain customers in the competitive e-commerce market. Desklib provides students access to similar case studies and solved assignments.

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A CASESTUDY OF ALIBABA SECURITY AND MARKETING STRATEGY
A case study is factual information on the development of a company over a period of time. To
obtain the information, research has to be carried so as to find fact about a business ("Alibaba
launches $15bn programme", 2017). A case under studies can be about an organization,
individual or a certain event. E-commerce business is a business that carries its activities and
transactions online. Buying and selling of goods could be done through internet or other
computer networks. Such businesses do all the marketing, attracting and retaining customers,
making business partners as well as educating their consumers online. Such businesses also have
to take precautions and lay strategies on how to secure the business as it can be easily exposed
(Kim & Yan, 2015).Alibaba is an example of online businesses.Alibba.com is based in China
and was founded in the year 1999 by Yun Ma. It is now among the leading online based business
in the world, composed of seven business groups.it makes it less difficult for anyone to purchase
or sell anything online anywhere in the world (Zeng, Tan, Li & Huang, 2018). Both wholesale
and retail trade can be carried out online through Alibaba.
Security strategies
Alibaba is a business that operates online where there are threats of insecurity such as hacking.
Hacking is whereby weaknesses in a computer or network is identified and taken advantage to
gain unpermitted access ("Journal of Family Business Strategy: 2012 Call for Papers", 2012).
Due to the internet operations by the Alibaba groups of business, they get exposed frequently to
the outside world, privacy can be invaded, commitment of fraud and stealing of data from their
servers ("Journal of Family Business Strategy: 2013 Call for Papers", 2013). This can cause

millions of money and even the falling of business due to such issues. This business company
has put into consideration the key requirements to ensure that there is security which are as
follows: authentication, authorization, data protection, and nonrepudiation (Peters, 2014). There
are firewall securities to monitor all activities in and out of the network.it then weighs whether to
allow certain traffics based on the set security rules.
Privacy policy
When one is registering to be a user of Alibaba cloud platform, personal information about the
individual or organization is required for recording and communication, additional information
can also be taken from time to time (Peters, 2014). Alibaba has security measures for such
information but does not guarantee total security because any information shared online cannot
be 100percent secure. A user provides information at their own risk hence Alibaba is not
responsible for anything that happens although it tries to the best level to protect data ("Alibaba
launches $15bn programme", 2017).
Payment methods
The payment methods that Alibaba allows are: MasterCard, visa, maestro, western union, bank
transfer, and web money and qiwi wallet. this payment methods are advantageous in a way that
they can be used anywhere in the world for example if anyone has MasterCard and lives in UK
then moves to Africa, he or she can still use card to purchase goods from Alibaba (Peters, 2014).
Alibaba also gives a customer security for his or her money because during the process of
ordering the products, money is not transferred at firs until the process is complete ("Alibaba
launches $15bn programme", 2017). Once goods have been delivered and the consumer finds

that they are not the goods ordered for, there is a chance to return goods for delivery of the
correct orders.
It is also risky using these methods because a buyer can easily be conned or the money is stolen
by hackers before it reaches the company’s account. One could be paying money to the wrong
website if not careful enough. When using g MasterCard, one should be extra careful not to
expose the card number and security code to somebody else who can use the card to purchase
goods from Alibaba without the owners information.
Marketing strategies
At the beginning, Alibaba brought free information to suppliers entering the market and that is
how it was able to attract suppliers ("Alibaba launches $15bn programme", 2017). They were
able to access online services for free and information.by taking over yahoo in China, this
business has been able to create an ecommerce search engine for Alibaba by establishing its own
Yahoo system. Because of this system, the company is able to secure a larger communication
space in the world hence gaining popularity among consumers who turn out to be their
customers. Alibaba also provides forums for their clients to communicate at any time such as the
yahoo messenger and communication services like blogs (Peters, 2014). This strategy helps to
maintain clients and attract more. To get more customers, Alibaba offers gifts to frequent clients;
this make customer’s use this platform frequently.

References
Alibaba launches $15bn programme. (2017). Physics World, 30(11), 11-11.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/2058-7058/30/11/20
Journal of Family Business Strategy: 2012 Call for Papers. (2012). Journal Of Family Business
Strategy, 3(1), 52. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jfbs.2012.02.002
Journal of Family Business Strategy: 2013 Call for Papers. (2013). Journal Of Family Business
Strategy, 4(3), 227-228. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jfbs.2013.08.001
Kim, S., & Yan, A. (2015). Factors Affecting the Intention to Use of Alibaba Mobile Payment
Service: A Case of Chinese Users. The Journal Of The Korea Contents Association, 15(12),
517-524. http://dx.doi.org/10.5392/jkca.2015.15.12.517
Peters, G. (2014). WOMEN IN BUSINESS. Business Strategy Review, 25(3), 43-43.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8616.2014.01092.x
Zeng, J., Tan, S., Li, B., & Huang, J. (2018). Large-Scale JPEG Image Steganalysis Using
Hybrid Deep-Learning Framework. IEEE Transactions On Information Forensics And
Security, 13(5), 1200-1214. http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/tifs.2017.2779446