Jack Ma Alibaba – Individual Reflection
Current role and organization:
Jack Ma was the executive chairman of Alibaba; one of the world’s largest e-commerce business. In September 2019, Jack Ma headed over the chairman role to Alibaba CEO Daniel Zhang but will continue to serve in advisory functions and as a lifetime partner of the Alibaba Partnership. After retirement, he had plans to devote his effort and time to philanthropy, education and environment (Doebele 2019). The Alibaba group operated as a holding company that provides e-commerce, internet infrastructure, internet content services and online financial services through its subsidiary worldwide. Moreover, Alibaba plans to augment its cloud business due to increase demand for online service being a rival to Amazon (Bary 2020).
Work history:
Due to his educational background, Jack Ma failed to land a job in KFC or police force. He started his career being an English teacher at Hangzhou Dianzi University for $12 a month. In 1995, on his trip to US, he started his work being a website designer when he came across computers and internet. From 1998-1999 he was the head of internet company located in Beijing which he left to avail economic opportunities from internet. In 1999, he founded Alibaba B2B e-commerce business with investment from 17 friends and later it was raised by Softbank and Goldman Sachs. Then in 2003, to raise funds he developed Taobao as B2C online shopping. He also founded Alipay in 2004, and avoided transaction charge to beat eBay (Zietalmann 2019). Being the executive chairman of Alibaba; the world largest e-commerce business, he has resigned from his post further devoting his effort to education and philanthropy.
Educational background:
In his early childhood, he failed twice in his primary school examination and thrice in middle school exams. He had a constant improvement in English, but he was weak in math that couldn’t let him clear university entrance test. After that, he managed to get admission in Teacher’s College-the least reputed university in his city where he attained a Bachelor degree in English (Mishra 2019).
Family background:
Jack Ma; a Chinese philanthropist and business tycoon was born on September 10, 1964 in Hangzhou, region of China (D’Onfro & Stone 2014). He grew in a poor household where his parents worked as traditional musician and story teller to support the family. Jack Ma has a wife name Zhang Ying, who he met in his University and wed after graduation. His wife has been a constant support to him in business ventures. He has total of three children with the first one a boy, name Ma Yuankan born in 1992.
Industry involvement:
AliBaba Research Fellowship and Alibaba Innovative Research program are significant ways to collaborate between academia and Alibaba group. It is to overcome technical challenges faced by Alibaba’s business assisting the researcher to accrue their industrial experience. Alibaba has productized a service call Alibaba Cloud that offers cloud-storage and serving tier to users. It has largest IPO and has beaten Walmart in global sales. Also, it has range of functions in service provider, manufacturers, logistic companies, data driven network of sellers and more (Zeng 2018).
References
Bary, E 2020, ‘Alibaba makes ‘major strategic move’ with $28 billion cloud investment over next 3 years,’ Market Watch, 20th April, viewed 21 April <https://www.marketwatch.com/story/alibaba-makes-major-strategic-move-with-28-billion-cloud-investment-over-next-3-years-2020-04-20>
Doebele, J 2019, ‘Jack Ma Outlines Bold Vision For His Philanthrophy Foundation,’ Forbes, 2nd December, viewed 21 April 2020 <https://www.forbes.com/sites/jdoebele/2019/12/02/jack-ma-shares-his-plans-for-education-philanthropy-in-china/#593ecff5c7fc>
D’Onfro, J and Stone, M 2014, ‘The Inspiring Life Story Of Alibaba Founder Jack Ma, Now The Richest Man In China,’ BUSINESS INSIDER, 3RD October, viewed 21 April 2020 <https://www.businessinsider.com/the-inspiring-life-story-of-alibaba-founder-jack-ma-2014-10>
Mishra, K 2019, ‘Who is Jack Ma? What’s his background? How did he rise to become such an important figure?,’ Quora, 18th July, viewed 21 April 2020 <https://www.quora.com/Who-is-Jack-Ma-Whats-his-background-How-did-he-rise-to-become-such-an-important-figure>
Zeng, M 2018’ ‘Alibaba and the Future of Business,’ Harvard Business Review, September, viewed 21 April 2020 < https://hbr.org/2018/09/alibaba-and-the-future-of-business>
Zitelmann, R 2019, ‘The Jack Ma Story: Why Thinking Big Is More Important Than Technical Knowledge, Forbes, 4th November, viewed 21 April 2020 <https://www.forbes.com/sites/rainerzitelmann/2019/11/04/the-jack-ma-story-why-thinking-big-is-more-important-than-technical-knowledge/#5c5a22e4419c>
Reflection
The major challenge after the group formation is to organize the work so that it can be completed on time. To attain this target, the most important is to conduct one on one session so that the process gets down-to-earth. Technology is a drastic and dynamic change that modifies our actions in a particular environment. Earlier, for group projects most of us used to plan a meeting outside the class premises, but now technological advancement has got it trouble-free to communicate in online environment. As most of our classes are online due to COVID-19 pandemic at present, all students are well adapted to participate online and to pool resources collaboratively for effective group projects.
For my Leadership course, I had to form a group of 5 to complete a project and make efficient use of the teamwork and leadership strategies studied. After the group formation and topic decided, had to divide the task in sections so that each team member can work according to their suitability. To assess the report at the end, I developed a timeline so that each section could be allocated specific completion time. I thought that allotting each part would create conflict as one or two might want to do the same, but I was proved wrong as everyone distributed the work with mutual concern. My task was to analyze case background that involved identifying the current role, organization, work history, educational and family background and industry involvement. I chose this as I was fascinated to know that how rejections, challenge and failure serve as opportunity to boost your career. Also, how leadership skills can embrace productive results in an organization.
We all decided to use zoom meeting for 15 minutes a day to convey our ideas, thought and monitor the work progress. Being able to lead and direct everyone’s effort, I used organizational, follow up and scheduling skills to perform well on individual assigned parts. Rather than publicly criticizing the mistakes of my mate in his assigned section, I should have asked her privately to correct it reminding myself that we all do it often. It could instill his self-confidence and a motivation to work well.
In the group discussion, few of the members got into long stories restricting other member to speak. Regarding the things we learned, there was supposed to be everyone input by short statement. We gather the ideas and learning, but jotting down each by one could have been more meaningful. Despite of minor flaws faced, I never expected that using online channel to prepare project would work efficiently. What matters the most is what we leant from our group experience, on the scale of making decision and handling exceptions. Even though the report was broken into sections; discussion and doing research if one ran into difficulty was a proficient way to get the crux of each part. I believe that if you posses good team skills then working in group can enhance competencies, knowledge and empower the group as whole.
