Department of Management and International Management

BMGT470 – Total Quality Management

Group-Project
Spring 2018 - 2019

Type the Title of The Project

By endorsing our signatures, we herein acknowledge and confirm that each of the following
group members equally participated in preparing and completing the assigned course project
and its presentation. We also hereby certify that the outcome of this report is purely and
entirely our work

Group Members:

Student Name Student ID Signature

Moustapha el samad 51830822

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Table of Contents
I. Executive Summary ...................................................................................................... 3
II. Introduction ................................................................................................................... 4
III. Company’s Profile ........................................................................................................ 5
IV. Problem Identification .................................................................................................. 6
V. Affected Department(s) / Stakeholders ......................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
VI. Literature Review ......................................................................................................... 7
VII. Proposed Solution(s) ..................................................................................................... 8
VIII. Possible Challenges and Obstacles .............................................................................. 9
IX. Conclusion, Summary, and Recommendations........................................................ 11
X. References .................................................................................................................... 12
XI. Appendix ...................................................................................................................... 14

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 I. Executive Summary

Alibaba is an online market place center made by Jack Ma in 1999. The

organization has a three divisions, including, Taobao, Alipay and Aliexpress.
Alibaba's qualities lie in its worldwide impact, advertise position, and high
evaluation. The company has a large scale of operations and can focus on
various sellers and purchasers, this is additionally a quality and makes the
association extremely fruitful. Regarding shortcomings, Alibaba has low brand
acknowledgment and is not sufficiently proficient outside of China to contend
with its overall rivals. Alibaba's openings are extending to new markets, raising
accounts, and development through coordinated effort. We talk about Alibaba's
issues as an association with options in contrast to each issue. Their issues
incorporate, it's wasteful conveyance time, absence of worldwide reach, and
absence of promoting. These issues are making it increasingly hard for the
organization to grow outside of China like its rivals have. We have numerous
choices to help with their issues, be that as it may actualize advancements to
help grow their business to provincial providers in China will help Alibaba's
business-to-business and business-to-customer reach as a company.
the company follows the three steps in our implementation plan which includes
the following; organizing the resources available to better suit the organization's
long term goals, gaining full control of the strategic advancements being made
during the process, and finally following through with the plan in an integral
manner. This will ensure growth for the company especially since they are
competing with other well-known web based business retailers, for example,
Amazon.

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II. Introduction

Alibaba, one of the world’s largest retailers and Internet Companies, was
founded in 1999 by a group of 18 members lead by the current chairman, Jack
Ma. Jack Ma chose the name “Alibaba” because it’s easy to pronounce in
almost every language and it is the name of a globally recognized character “Ali
Baba” from the Arabian literature “One Thousand and One Nights”. It is a
Chinese e-commerce website that supports consumer-to-consumer,
business-to-business and business-to-consumer sales services and provide many
other services to help small business, especially in China, to develop. Alibaba’s
mission is to provide basic internet infrastructure, market reach and equal
opportunity to all the manufactures and businesses to grow and expand
worldwide by leveraging the power of internet. As mentioned in the case study,
Alibaba vision is to build the future infrastructure of commerce and survive for
at least 3 centuries i.e. 102 years. Alibaba has an extremely strong influence in
China and has acted as a gateway to China by providing a platform for Chinese
manufacturers to sell their products to the outside world and enabling foreign
customers to buy from Chinese manufacturers and retailers. However, it is
essential to consider the fact that Alibaba is not performing as efficiently
worldwide as it is performing in China. On the contrary, major worldwide
competitors of Alibaba, i.e. Amazon and EBay, are highly competent worldwide
and this global reach gives them a huge competitive advantage over Alibaba.
Many businesses and customers log on to Alibaba if they want to buy
something from China but if a business or a customer in America wants to buy
some beauty products from Paris then they will prefer Amazon or EBay over
Alibaba.

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III. Company’s Profile

Alibaba Group Holding Limited, incorporated on June 28, 1999, could be a

holding company. Through its subsidiaries, the Company is basically engaged
in online and portable commerce through offering of products, services and
innovation that enable vendors, brands and other businesses to convert the way
they showcase, offer and work within the People's Republic of China (China)
and globally. The Company’s businesses comprise of center commerce, cloud
computing, mobile media and excitement, and other advancement activities.
Through investee partners, it too takes an interest within the coordination’s and
nearby administrations segments. Wholesale commerce in China operated by
the Company includes the China domestic wholesale marketplace (1688.com).
International and cross-border commerce operated by the Company includes the
global marketplace targeting consumers from around the world to buy directly
from manufacturers and distributors in China (AliExpress); a platform within
the Tmall for overseas brands and retailers to reach Chinese consumers without
the need for physical operations in China (Tmall Global), and the wholesale
marketplace for global trade (Alibaba.com)

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IV. Problem Identification
Alibaba has provided a platform to Chinese manufacturers to sell their products
worldwide and to foreign customers to buy Chinese products. It has acted as a
“gateway to China” for foreign brands. Alibaba wants to act as a new entrepreneurial
ecosystem for conducting business practices where it empowers others to sell products
and provide services. It wants to make sure that by using its technology and
innovation, small businesses around the world can compete with huge multinational
corporations. It wishes to make technology more and more inclusive so that every
company can use it to compete with other international firms and expand its business.
Alibaba has a vision to build the future infrastructure of commerce and would like to
last for at least three generations. However, Alibaba is facing a severe global
competition from its competitors like Amazon, eBay and others because these
competitors are performing exceptionally well, which acts as a threat to Alibaba’s
dream of existing through three generations. Alibaba faces numerous threats and
opportunities in this ever-changing global market and in order to remain competitive
it’s particularly essential for Alibaba to understand the changing business
environment, improves its current services, provide new innovative services and
carefully select its next frontier. Some of the reasons why Alibaba’s competitors are
performing so efficiently are mentioned below: 1. Delivery time: E-commerce giants
like Amazon have suppliers from all over the world. As a matter of fact, Amazon is
now trying to develop into a huge empire that controls each and every part of its
operations. Amazon now owns millions of dollars of inventory that makes the delivery
very reliable, which in turn enhances customer satisfaction. This is the reason that
Amazon is now able to deliver products just in few hours of making a purchase order.
Amazon is using its “Same day delivery” component as competitive edge over
Alibaba. On the other hand, Alibaba does not own any inventory but it empowers
other business to use its internet infrastructure and sell their products worldwide
because of which the delivery time for Alibaba’s products is so much higher than the
delivery time of Amazon. It is very important for Alibaba to find a solution to this
problem because this is one of the prime reasons that people are motivated to use
other e-commerce websites like Amazon and EBay.

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V. Literature Review

Alibaba has become the largest online and mobile commerce company
in the world in just a few years and barely anyone expected it to be so
successful. It has provided numerous business opportunities for small
and medium enterprises to leverage the innovative technology to
compete more efficiently domestically and globally. This study does not
attempt to describe Alibaba as a perfect business; rather it discusses the
marketing strategies, promotion, distribution channels and some
important lessons that were carried out by Jack Ma to achieve success
in this complex world of online trading. In this literature review, we
examine a few key factors of Alibaba’s success such as its specific
marketing strategies, various challenges, its strong branding image,
superior customer value proposition, better shopping experience, huge
sales volume and economies of scale.

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VI. Proposed Solution(s)

There are numerous alternatives to cover the loopholes in Alibaba’s business

model, but in course of providing infrastructure to rural areas and more mobility
technology should be implemented in a way that would result in positive effects
for our strategy. Planning is the initial and the foremost stage for the decision-
making in an organization. In all decision-making processes, there is a need for
proper understanding of cause and effect relationship for strategy in regards to
how it will be introduced. Thus, we must consider how much investment the
company must do to introduce e-commerce business to rural suppliers. For the
global expansion of Alibaba.com, following steps should be implemented for
better results: 1. After making a plan, the company must organize all the
resources for better long-term achievement of goals such as expanding business
in rural areas. When this type of expansion is organized, a friendly environment
with the suppliers, buyers and most importantly stakeholders will be created. 2.
After the organizing stage, Alibaba again has to keep control over all the
strategic advancements so that planning for a better future is efficient and
effective, with lower risk of crisis. 3. After the controlling stage, the plan to
expand in rural areas should be implemented in an integral manner so that
Alibaba gains the maximum global share. All these steps will certainly help
Alibaba to grow, and will also help it to achieve its goals and mission in a
sustainable manner.

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 VII. Possible Challenges and Obstacles
Alibaba says counterfeiting could be an issue for all e-commerce companies, which as it were
a minuscule extent of exchanges lead to customer complaints approximately fakes. “Like all
global companies in our industry, we must proceed to do everything ready to halt these
activities,” a representative said. He included Alibaba has made it simpler for brands and
others with a record of true blue demands for the evacuation of encroaching postings to
utilize a simplified framework to speed up such take-down claims.

STRENGTHS WEAKNESSES

1. Global influence: Alibaba is one of the largest
retailers and e-commerce businesses in the world
and it has successfully captured a major share of e-
commerce market in China, which is one of the
largest economies in the world.
1. Inefficient: Alibaba is not efficient
enough outside China to compete with
the global competitors and adapt to the
requirements of a new market. Even
Alibaba’s delivery services are awful as
compared to its competitors.

2. Low brand recognition: Competitors of

Alibaba like Amazon and EBay have a
2. Market position: Alibaba has a very strong and better global recognition that Alibaba
stable business position worldwide. making it hard for Alibaba to be
globally successful.

3. Better Competitors:Major competitors

3. High Evaluation: Alibaba’s IPO on New York
Stock Exchange in 2014 was the world’s largest to
date.
OPPORTUNITIES
like Amazon or EBay are introducing
new services and improving their
existing services continuously to
motivate and attract new markets
whereas Alibaba has not been very
successful in this area.
THREATS

1. New markets: Alibaba has an enormous 1. High competition: Alibaba is facing

opportunity to grow and capture new markets huge global competition from Amazon
by understanding the requirements and needs of and EBay, making it difficult for
different markets and responding accordingly. Alibaba to penetrate into new
markets.
2. Expansion through collaboration: Alibaba has
the potential to partner up with the major e- 2. Threat of entry: New competitors are
commerce players in specific economies which entering the market scape and
reduces competition and maximizes profit. capturing new markets which may
result in Alibaba losing its market
3. Raising Finances:Alibaba can leverage its share to these new players.
global reputation and high income to raise
money in order to finance new ventures and 3. New Technology: Introduction of new
technological developments technologies may seize the very

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existence of present e-commerce
business like Alibaba.

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VIII. Conclusion, Summary, and Recommendations

Alibaba is one of the biggest emerging and growing B2B e-commerce

businesses in the world. It has been achieving its goals in an integrated manner
without impactful disruption from competitors. This is merely the beginning for
them, for they have started to focus ever more on moving from the Chinese
market to a global marketplace. They have captured a very high percentage of
the Chinese market which has motivated them to try new strategies. There are
alternatives from which the company can choose to implement for the future.
Hence, we have decided to recommend expanding Alibaba’s messaging
platform aliwangwang.com globally. Alibaba already has the advantage of
market leader in the most numerous country in the world. In addition, Chinese
writing system is complex, so for another global competitor to expand to the
Chinese market they would have to optimize their system for Chinese users, and
for the interaction of Chinese users and foreigners. The fact that
aliwangwang.com is in wide use in China gives Alibaba an advantage for
making their messaging platform a global standard because it is comparably
easy for them to additionally optimize their system for English writing
population of the world. Also, Alibaba’s messaging platform is successfully
entrenched behind the Great Firewall of China, and they can expand to the rest
of the world unencumbered, whereas any global competitor would have to
significantly compromise their ethos by instituting censorship, anti-privacy
measures and legal encumbrances for any would-be offenders deemed as such
by the Chinese ruling regime

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IX. References
Alibaba.com 2016. About Alibaba.com. URL: http://activities.alibaba.com/alibaba/following-
about-alibaba.php?spm=a2700.7848340.0.0.niQqOR. Accessed: 4 November 2016

Alibaba.com 2017. URL: http://www.alibaba.com/. Accessed: 3 March 2017

Alibaba Group 2015a. 2015 Financial and Operational Highlights. URL:

http://ar.alibabagroup.com/2015/financials.html. Accessed: 5 November 2016

Alibaba Group 2015b. Mission, Leadership and Governance. URL:

http://ar.alibabagroup.com/2015/leadership.html. Accessed: 15 November 2016

Alibaba Group 2016a. FY2016 Annual Report. URL:

http://www.alibabagroup.com/en/ir/pdf/form20F_160525.pdf. Accessed: 4 November 2016

Alibaba Group 2016b. Company Overview. URL:

http://www.alibabagroup.com/en/about/overview. Accessed: 4 November 2016

Alibaba Group 2016bc. Our businesses. URL:

http://www.alibabagroup.com/en/about/businesses. Accessed: 17 November 2016

Alibaba Group 2016d. Alibaba Group Announces September Quarter 2016 Results. URL:
http://www.alibabagroup.com/en/news/press_pdf/p161102.pdf. Accessed: 17 November
2016

Alizila 2016. Big data Game-Changer: 11.11 Event Raises the Bar for Online Sales. URL:
http://www.alizila.com/big-data-game-changer-11-11-event-raises-the-bar-for-onlinesales/.
Accessed: 18 November 2016

Belew, S. & Elad, J. 2009. Starting an Online Business All-in-One Desk Reference for
Dummies. 2nd ed. Wiley Publishing, Inc. Indianapolis.

Berke, J. 2015. How Alibaba turned an obscure, made-up Chinese holiday into a $14.3 billion
shopping extravaganza that's bigger than Black Friday. Business Insider. URL:
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-alibaba-made-143-billion-on-singles-day-2015-11.
Accessed: 3 November 2016

42
Cambridge Dictionary 2016a. Direct Export. URL:
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/direct-export. Accessed: 7 November
2016

Cambridge Dictionary 2016b. Direct Import. URL:

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/direct-import. Accessed: 8 November 2016

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Chen, L., Mac, R. & Solomon, B. 2014. Alibaba Claims Title For Largest Global IPO Ever
With Extra Share Sales. Forbes. URL:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanmac/2014/09/22/alibaba-claims-title-for-largest-globalipo-
ever-with-extra-share-sales/#64cbbd487c26. Accessed: 18 November 2016

China Labour Bulletin 2016. Wages and employment. URL:

http://www.clb.org.hk/content/wages-and-employment. Accessed: 11 November 2016

Columbus, L. 2016. Predicting The Future Of B2B E-Commerce. Forbes. URL:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/louiscolumbus/2016/09/12/predicting-the-future-of-b2b-
ecommerce/#3dea64bb5bd3. Accessed: 20 February 2017

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X. Appendix

Chinese e-commerce market transaction size:

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