Analyzing Alibaba's Leadership, Innovation, and Business Strategies

This case study examines Alibaba's approach to innovation and leadership, highlighting the company's business model, technology adoption, and strategies for connecting manufacturers with global customers. It identifies key leadership challenges related to governance structure, shareholder concerns, and diversity, along with innovation challenges such as motivating employees and fostering collaboration. The analysis uses theoretical frameworks to assess Alibaba's unique profit model and credit support services, emphasizing the importance of setting aspirational goals and embracing a culture of experimentation. The study concludes with practical next steps for improving customer service through AI and refining image search applications, reinforcing Alibaba's commitment to digital transformation and enhanced customer experiences. Desklib offers this and many other solved assignments for students.

Alibaba company

Contents
1 Business case for innovation....................................................................................................2
1.1 Justification for prioritizing innovation in the organization.............................................2
2 Leadership challenges..............................................................................................................3
2.1 Leadership Challenges and steps to overcome them........................................................3
3 Use theoretical frameworks......................................................................................................4
3.1 Innovation challenges.......................................................................................................4
3.2 main challenges for the organization................................................................................5
4 Use theoretical frameworks......................................................................................................6
4.1 A framework for innovation.............................................................................................6
4.2 Organizational priorities in relation to leadership and innovation....................................7
5 Next steps and conclusion........................................................................................................9
5.1 practical next steps............................................................................................................9
6 References................................................................................................................................9
6.1 Appendices......................................................................................................................11

1 BUSINESS CASE FOR INNOVATION
1.1 JUSTIFICATION FOR PRIORITIZING INNOVATION IN THE
ORGANIZATION.
Alibaba is one of the largest e-commerce company which has active buyers for its websites who
are able to handle the translation of the revenues, with year-to-year performance. The
attractiveness and the potential of the business model of company include the visions about
enabling the small enterprise to leverage innovation and technology. The company Alibaba
Group holds one of the powerful computing network and wealth of data. It works on building the
computational network with the cloud-based stream process platform. The company has been
able to work on different research and development goals where the data is able to drive the
efficiency through artificial intelligence technologies like machine learning, deep learning and
moving for the neural networks with a rapid migration process.
The artificial intelligence, augmented reality with the facial recognition helps in handling the
connection of the internet vehicles. Hence Alibaba could work on the digital innovation with
efficient pumping and rapidly commercializing the new technology ideas, with services and
ventures (Taran, Nielsen, Montemari, Thomsen & Paolone, 2016). The company needs to work
on connecting the local Chinese manufacturers with the potential customers who are ordering
overseas. Alibaba includes the complex, fully integrating and then handling ever-growing
ecosystem for digital services with innovative new technologies. It will help in offering the
customers with a seamless and evolving digital immersion experience that is set across the
different channels and online platforms. The understanding of Alibaba is to handle the

complexity with fully integrating and handling ever-growing ecosystems of digital services. It
works on offering the customers with digital immersion across the different channels and the
online platforms (Van Waes, Farla, Frenken, de Jong & Raven, 2018).
2 LEADERSHIP CHALLENGES
2.1 LEADERSHIP CHALLENGES AND STEPS TO OVERCOME THEM
The leadership challenges of Alibaba Group are:
a. The governance structure is novel and unprecedented. The company has problems with
the partnership and how it can work on preserving the cultures which are shaped by the
founders.
b. The shareholders are also a concern for certain investors where the governance experts
generally wonder about the independence and efficacy. There are business leaders who
are working on similar phrasing and focus on the long term rather than the short-term
whims which are related to the shareholders (Jørgensen, S. and Pedersen, 2018)
c. There is a diversity of gender in the management team which is found to be better from
the one with some big companies, that are settled in the Silicon Valley sector. Jack Ma,
the business leader and CEO of Alibaba Group has been a relation-oriented person with
the participative leadership that helps him in working over the decision making and then
taking the opinions of the people in consideration.
d. The leadership influences on the followers are generally about the ways of managing the
business. The achievement of the oriented leaders help in motivating the employees with
the inspirational leaders by inspiring them to follow the dreams (Kuo & Wu, 2016).

Concerning the strength, he has been able to empower the nature that he used for motivating the
employees in the organization. He also had problems about being too friendly or emotional
which can be seen as a negative factor at certain times. He has been creative and time respecting
person who works on creativity and innovation in order to overcome the leadership challenges.
3 USE THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS
3.1 INNOVATION CHALLENGES
With the changing times, Alibaba has been working on handling the e-commerce players who
are facing tremendous challenges with moving to tap more group that will help in transforming
the business in China. Alibaba indicates about the groups with growth that will help in
transforming the retail industry with repositioning itself as a service provider for building digital
and the physical infrastructure (Edison, 2016). The challenges are related to different factors
which includes the discussion on technology, fashion, entertainment and the goods. The focus is
on how the Chinese e-commerce giant will make different acquisitions and investments in U.S.
market share. Alibaba is one of the largest operator of e-commerce in China where the rampiring
up of efforts are mainly to expand the offerings beyond the domestic market.
3.2 MAIN CHALLENGES FOR THE ORGANIZATION
a. The employees are not motivated for the innovation and there are certain inventor
incentive programs which are unstructured. At times, these programs can help in
encouraging the employees to spend time to think about new ideas that could be a boon
for the company (Gander et al., 2017).

b. With any other organizational initiatives, there are innovation strategies which includes
the operational implementation with innovation effort risk misalignment.
c. The lack of collaboration is a major problem for the organization. Hence, it is important
to understand the importance of collaboration with the industry partners so that the
company can earn profits.
In order to overcome the problems, there is a need to focus on improving the options and then
evaluate the competitive companies with their products and customers. It will also help in
analyzing the problems with variables and values that could be a major potential cause of
classifying the decision criteria (Zhu, Song, Ni, Ren & Li, 2016). The solutions need to be
analyzed with focusing on the pros and cons that will help in handling the business data analytics
tools for the small vendors. Alibaba also focus on handling the evolvement of rapid change to
digital commerce with enabling interactions of business, people and things through digitization.
The company offers a wider range of e-commerce which is rapidly working to handle the digital
commerce with enabling interaction of business through digitalization technologies. It will be
also effective to gain the critical volume with better efficiencies to achieve a transformation to
digital commerce.
4 USE THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS
4.1 A FRAMEWORK FOR INNOVATION
Alibaba has been one of the stable company in the market with:
a. The unique business model

The company provides the services for the small enterprise and the individuals which helps in
emancipating the productive forces of the small enterprise and then offers a diversified
consumption for the consumers. The company has been able to provide a major focus on the
services to small enterprises that will help in creating values as well.
b. The Unconventional Profit Model
Alibaba is one of the company which charges for the services that are given to the customers in
marketing and the other technical support. It generally contributes for a larger and the robust
market share that helps in bringing profits to the customers from the advertisements and the other
keyword biddings (Yablonsky, 2018). The removal of the intermediate feels and then allowing
the sellers to register for free is one of the activity which helps in culturing the online transaction
habit.
c. Reliable Credit and support services for the customer
Alibaba needs to work on helping the people for creating the model among the customers where
the sellers are mainly on the eCommerce platform and who are also requested for passing a test
for online certification. This tends to reduce the illegal transactions where the sellers are then
supervised for the different platforms at different times. The new patterns of transactions
includes the factors where Alibaba has been involved in handling the transaction patterns and
creating value for the customers as per the needs.

4.2 ORGANIZATIONAL PRIORITIES IN RELATION TO LEADERSHIP AND
INNOVATION
The leadership can help in setting a vision of future where the employees are working on
creating a status for setting aspirational goals which are challenging for the employees to reach a
higher level. The research is about how the social influence can aid and support the others when
it is about the accomplishment of a particular task (Demirkan, Spohrer, and Welser, 2016). The
research is about the ongoing centuries where the patterns are based on the trait-based
perspectives that includes the research techniques which needs to handle the intelligence,
dominance, and the adaptability with self-confidence. The innovation helps in revealing about
how the product development, technology and the entrepreneurship will dominate the policy
disclosures.
The experts have been able to identify the different product innovation where the survey is about
how the business impacts the globalization and the knowledge revolution. It will bring the
additional values and then widen the employment base as well. The standards are set for
transforming the sourcing of input products that are coming from the market with handling the
delivery that is set for the output of products. The innovation is to create a tool which will be
important for determining about whether one can respond as leaders and innovate accordingly.
The recommendation for the innovative culture includes:
a. Embracing the innovation as top team where the personal goal is to attend the meetings
and then focus on promotional forms with improving the company strategy. The
reflection is about the behavioral reinforcement that will help in understanding the
change and engaging the middle management.

b. There is a need to turn the selected managers to the innovation where there is a need to
focus on the improvement of the coaching and the facilitation skills that will help in
building the capabilities of the people who are involved in the innovation effectively.
c. Creating opportunities with the experimentation will help in the achievement of a proper
organizational approach (Wind & Rhodes, 2017). The goal is to focus on the positive
experiences which makes it a difference to build the organizational capabilities and
confidence. The innovation comes with the positive experience that makes the difference
to build a better organizational capability and confidence.
Alibaba has been working on the integrated ecosystem with the excellent service quality that is
derived through employing the use of the mobile terminal domains. It include the expansions of
the core business for different domains like the advertising service logistics network. The
company has been able to provide the services with the mobile terminal to handle the integration
of comprehensive data resources that covers the different aspects of customer daily lives. It is
mainly through properly handling the acquisition of the software companies set in different
domains. China has the largest e-commerce company which presides on the collection of the
online platforms. The payment services of Alipay help in creating the lucrative online retail
ecosystems in the world.
5 NEXT STEPS AND CONCLUSION
5.1 PRACTICAL NEXT STEPS
The company needs to focus on how the customers are able to work on the big platform. They
need to also refine the image search applications which requires a deep learning for delivering

the better results. This would also require the detection of the specific features which are
associated to the product and helps in reducing the number of false hits. Hence, the platforms are
to be specific which includes how the products are handled without any brand. Alibaba has been
working on a similar technology to push the product recommendations. The company is working
on improving the customer service where Alibaba is handling the AI chatbot that is for the
merchants who are on the platform. The customer service does not have any of the increased
headcount mainly because of the transaction quality that tends to be increasing. Hence, it mainly
relies on the artificial intelligence that is based on the technology of voice-recognition and the
natural processing.
6 REFERENCES
Demirkan, H., Spohrer, J.C. and Welser, J.J., 2016. Digital innovation and strategic
transformation. IT Professional, 18(6), pp.14-18.
Edison, H., 2016, November. Software Product Innovation Through Startup Experimentation in
Large Companies. In International Conference on Product-Focused Software Process
Improvement (pp. 751-756). Springer, Cham.
Gander, B., Lazenby, B., Duffett, C., Richards, G., Hoddenbagh, M., Kristmanson, M., Dusome,
R., Linkletter, S. and Cohn, S., 2017. Ottawa: Rise of a Smart Community. In Smart Economy in
Smart Cities (pp. 79-107). Springer, Singapore.
Jørgensen, S. and Pedersen, L.J.T., 2018. The Seven Steps of the RESTART Framework.
In RESTART Sustainable Business Model Innovation (pp. 13-21). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.

Kuo, C.L. and Wu, Q.Z., 2016, December. How Do Alibaba Penetrate into and Benefit from the
Internet Finance Sector Successfully? An Ecosystem Perspective. In the Proceedings of the 16th
International Conference on Electronic Business (ICEB 2016).
Taran, Y., Nielsen, C., Montemari, M., Thomsen, P. and Paolone, F., 2016. Business model
configurations: a five-V framework to map out potential innovation routes. European Journal of
Innovation Management, 19(4), pp.492-527.
van Waes, A., Farla, J., Frenken, K., de Jong, J.P. and Raven, R., 2018. Business model
innovation and socio-technical transitions. A new prospective framework with an application to
bike sharing. Journal of Cleaner Production.
Wind, J. and Rhodes, K., 2017. The Revolution in Innovation Management: The Challenge for
Legacy Firms. In Revolution of Innovation Management (pp. 221-257). Palgrave Macmillan, London.
Yablonsky, S., 2018. A Multidimensional Framework for Digital Platform Innovation and
Management: From Business to Technological Platforms. Systems Research and Behavioral
Science, 35(4), pp.485-501.
Zhu, X., Song, B., Ni, Y., Ren, Y. and Li, R., 2016. Seizing Innovation Opportunities.
In Business Trends in the Digital Era(pp. 213-225). Springer, Singapore.
6.1 APPENDICES