Yesterday we reported about the Taobao spin-off, in which Taobao will be restructured into three companies, including Etao(online shopping search engine), Taobao(C2C) and TMall(B2C). In an email to all Alibaba staff by Jack Ma, the founder and CEO of the Chinese giant ecommerce platform Alibaba which owns Taobao, Ma explained that the spin-off will do great benefits to both the company(or companies after the spin-off) and shareholders.
Here’s the excerpt of the internal letter:
Significance of the spin-off –
• Great changes have been emerging in the global internet and ecommerce landscape. Search, SNS and ecommerce areas are seeing many fundamental transform. The group decides to upgrade the previous “Grand Taobao” strategy to “Grand Alibaba” strategy, through which Taobao can integrate information, logistics, payment solutions, mobile initiatives and cloud computing service as well as share with all the ecommerce players in China with customers, merchants and even upstream industries such as manufacturers. The very core of “Grand Alibaba” is to build an open, collaborative, and prosperous ecommerce ecosystem.
• User needs have changed a lot, that’s why Alibaba has to transform the current Taobao-based consumer platform into some sort of “ubiquitous” consumer platform which achieves win-win between both supplier and consumer. The new platform will be consisted of Alibaba B2B offer and the three new Taobao offers.
• Alibaba has to be creative in enterprise structure to figure out the innovative management thinking and pattern. It’s a tradition at Alibaba to operate the big company as small ones to bring out innovation and help the young grow.
• Alibaba believes that the spin-off can better serve the companies and shareholders in terms of profits. Incorporating Taobao into the “Grand Alibaba” strategy will create massive value for the company itself and also the whole industry, provide the ecommerce players with more opportunities. Alibaba will seek for holistic listing in the future.