Exclusive interview ｜ Zhang Yong: Ma Yun came back from a business trip to ask me to take over

“If you are not afraid of the sky, you are afraid of the CFO (chief financial officer) when the CEO (CEO).” In 2007, Alibaba founder Ma Yun said this when he was the judge of “Win in China”. After 12 years, Zhang Yong not only settled the CEO of Alibaba Group, but also took over Ma Yun as the chairman of the board of directors 8 months later.
It’s moment when this annual revenue exceeded 250 billion yuan and a market value of nearly 400 billion US dollars, Zhang Yong’s memory of “Xiaoyaozi”, who has always been logical, is vague. “I can’t remember the specific scenes. He (Ma Yun) returned from the outside every time, two people talked for two or three hours for about two or three hours, (in) “China’s digital economy feast has just begun.” Zhang Yong, wearing a gray button sweater and black jeans, said in an exclusive interview with the First Financial and Economics that the mission followed the company for a lifetime, but there was a new interpretation at different time periods. The essence of the system is to present the content done in the past 19 years. He also said that the best way to empower others is to ignite himself first, try and error first, take on the corresponding consequences, and systematically open the good ability to systematically open to others.

The organization of organizational structure: Before preparing to create more creators for the future
Alibaba has an unchanged mission, called “making the world no difficult business.” Zhang Yong’s era must add a time adverbial- “in the era of digital economy”.
The initial beginning in 2019, Alibaba announced on the basis of the new retail strategy to launch Ali’s business operating system to help the global retail industry complete digital transformation.
. For more than a month before, Zhang Yong officially announced that Alibaba’s latest organization upgrade and adjustment. Regarding the adjustment of the organization, Zhang Yong has his own set of logic -never all the teams will move, but if you stand at a three -year or five -year perspective, you will find that after turns adjustment, all teams have moved. “It must be this year to this stage, what problems to solve, and what to do for the future.”
In recent years, Alibaba is used to the adjustment of the structure shortly after the important node of Double 11, which is the second year or even more for a long time. prepare for. “The most important preparation is organizational preparation.” Zhang Yong believes that after the organization is adjusted, start planning, see people, who is appropriate, the production relationship should be adjusted in time. “This adjustment is also based on the basis for the future.”
The upgrade to the Alibaba Cloud Intelligent Business Group as an example of the Alibaba Cloud Career Group. As a future -oriented social and commercial infrastructure, Yun Yun can better combine.
D. Most companies have dozens of IT systems. Many data cannot be connected, not to mention intelligent data based on data. “Alibaba is also pushing one technology internally. There are many systems and technologies in each company. What are the best ways and means of unified technology? It is Yunhua.” Zhang Jianfeng, president of Alibaba Cloud Smart, said that Yunnan can help companies solve the internal internal internal internal The unified problems and data unified problems of all technologies can only be done on the basis of this. This is a way to fundamentally solve the problem.
“The changes of all organizations are nothing more than two sequence relationships, vertical and horizontal, divided, and combined. Organizational design and transformation, that is, how to divide the vertical and horizontal, how to divide it. If you have accumulated experience and accumulate knowledge, you will close, and you become horizontal. If you want to run fast, you will be vertical. “Zhang Yong revealed that whether it is this Tmall’s change (Tmall business group, Tmall Tmall, Tmall The three major sectors of the supermarket business group, Tmall Import and Export Division), or new businesses such as the Ali Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, etc., are directly reported to Zhang Yong because they can run faster in the future business.
In fact, the organizational adjustment of Ali each year can make the new generation of leaders emerge better, rather than layer by layer. “That is, we mentioned the third row to the second row and turned the division -level unit into a military unit.”
On the Alibaba Internal Network, employees have a lot of labels to Xiaoyaozi. Zhang Yong is the most. Cherish the “creator”. In the past ten years, he has created Tmall and created Tmall’s “Double 11” global shopping carnival. He has led the entire Alibaba’s “Allin Wireless” and new retail in recent years. Now, he influences Ali’s overall strategy and direction in the future with a strong entrepreneur style.
For Alibaba, which already owns more than 80,000 employees, “How to dance”? How to stimulate the creative spirit of employees?
Zhang Yong said to the leaders of the middle and senior levels, “Creative power should start with yourself, don’t just ask your team to create.”
This requirements for himself are to see what new business has every year What new ideas are because of him. “I asked to create this thing, or I organized a game to create this thing. Only in this way can work be fun, otherwise it is good or chairman, just an administrator.”
For the sake of Can introduce more “creators” to join, Ali introduces talents with diverse characteristics every year. Most of them have very good industry experience and their ability to learn and accept new things. “What you already have is your instinct. You need to increase the knowledge and experience of different dimensions. This will naturally integrate with your instincts, rather than deliberately keeping Lao Tzu how to do it. What experience? Question. “
Ali finds some new colleagues every year. Through three or five years, it can become the core of Ali’s future business. This is Zhang Yong’s continued work.
As of September 2018, the number of active users of Taobao Tmall has exceeded 600 million, and has maintained a growth of more than 20 million users in five consecutive quarters.
The huge volume is inseparable from the support of Ali culture. The core culture of Ali is the customer’s first, embrace changes, and employees must take the initiative to embrace changes and fear customers.
Zhang Yong believes that the most difficult point of “customer first” is how to balance between consumer users and corporate customers. “You are a business partner and the industrial chain between different customers, and they have their own relationships. They also have business benefits between them. How do you balance and make a choice.”
chooses Between work. “Someone asked me, Xiaoyaozi, how can you balance your work and life balance? Can I balance my score of 3.5 points and it must not be balanced. I think it has not yet been able to reach, but it is bad. “Zhang Yong believes that work and life cannot be balanced. He believes that the world is fair. In which aspect you have doubled, there are double gains in which aspect.