Zhang Yong’s innovative “special forces” surfaced.
Editor’s note: This article is from WeChat public account “Tech Planet” (ID: tech618), author Jia Ningyu. The original title “Reorganization for 100 days, Ali’s “Wind” experiment”
At the 20th anniversary of Alibaba, Ma Yun left the words “Winners” and stepped down as chairman.
For the Ali economy with a trillion market value, how to maintain subversive innovation is a problem left to the successor and a deep meaning of the words “windmakers”.
In the past, Ali created new business forms such as Taobao and Tmall in the B2B business, and on the basis of this, created new species such as Alipay, Alibaba Cloud, and Rookie Logistics.
How does the Internet giant get rid of the path dependence of mature business? How to sustain this kind of innovation? It is not easy for an Afghan-scale economy.
However, in the recent round of organizational adjustments and new establishments in Ali, there is a BG that has not been noticed, and has assumed the role of Ali Innovation Pioneer.
In the big Internet companies, it is not uncommon to set up an innovation laboratory or an innovative business unit, but it is similar to Ali’s establishment of an innovative business group, and it reports directly to the Chairman and CEO of the Ali Group, Zhang Yong (Xiaoyao). The level of action is still the only case in China.
This change in Ali was due to 100 days ago.
On June 18, Zhang Yong announced the reorganization of Alibaba’s innovative business group, with Zhu Shunyan as the president. Zhang Yong, who once innovated and succeeded in Tmall, Box Horse and other businesses, will delegate this important task of innovation to Zhu Shunyan, the “new recruit”.
President of Ali Innovative Business Group Zhu Shunyan
According to insiders, Tech Planet (WeChat ID: tech618) revealed that for the newly established business group, Ali only gave a sentence, “encourage the leadership of the innovative business and organizational security, and continue to create one after another.” The seemingly simple words mean that a business group should take innovation as its sole development goal and carry Alibaba’s task of creating the future.
Tech Planet learned that there are already VMate, Tmall Elf, Quark in the sequence of the business group., singing ducks, etc., across new products in different fields.
A large company with a large volume, mature business, and continuous development for 102 years, how to look for opportunities in the future? How to loosen the innovation in the big organization, and run the next nail and box horse in this?
This is the answer that both Ali and the outside world are looking forward to.
A conversation led to “Innovation Pioneer”
According to the usual practice, Ali will conduct a round of organizational adjustment after double 11 each year. The rotation of executives and the embrace of change are the magic weapon for Ali to maintain organizational vitality. The restructuring that took place after 618 is somewhat unexpected.
Zhu Shunyan introduced to Tech Planet that this change actually originated from a conversation with Xiaoyao. After the end of Ali’s fiscal year, each business person in charge must communicate with Xiaoyao. Zhu Shunyan told him about some innovative projects that UC did last year. Xiaoyao felt good and very interesting. “That would be bigger.”
In fact, some products of UC incubation even broke through Ali’s experience. For example, VMate, a small video community product hatched in India, received a billion-dollar investment from Ali Group. After more than a year of development, VMate has more than 30 million monthly users, and the cumulative downloads on Google Play have reached 100 million.
VMate products
“The new business is in line with the company’s development direction. When these people have the ability and enthusiasm to do this, Ali is supporting you, it is as simple as that.” Zhu Shunyan said.
Before, Ali’s innovative business group was directly led by Xiaoyao, including innovative core products and products from Alibaba, such as Stud, Box Horse, and Tmall Elf. Zhu Shunyan’s “simple” is the “posting of people” promoted by Xiaoyao in Ali.
The entrepreneur veteran Zhu Shunyan has done almost all the jobs in the Internet field. I started my own business in Wuhan, joined the UC management business, and took the helm of the innovative business group. “To sum up my first characteristic is that my determination to make innovation is particularly great.”
Zhu Shunyan often ridiculed himself: “I am so old anyway, I am very patient, I don’t have to prove myself today.” This patience creates a good environment for innovative business development. However, Zhu Shunyan’s movements are very fast in terms of organizational adjustment and guarantee of combat effectiveness.
After reorganizing the innovation business group, Zhu Shunyan adjusted and upgraded the organization and divided the seven business divisions.Big UC’s flagship business segment, star products such as Tmall Elf and VMate, and innovative incubators such as quarks and singers.
“I want to give everyone a promise, go back to the entrepreneurial state, and then go to five years to reach their new peak!” Zhu Shunyan said at the annual meeting of the innovation business group. Zhu Shunyan is leading a young Ali innovation business group to conduct an internal venture.
Ali wants: looking for unknown possibilities
After the Steve Jobs era, Apple, the mobile transformation of Microsoft, has encountered the “wall” of disruptive innovation in the early days. This is because the cost of the overall transformation of large companies is too high, so the “company genetic theory” was born.
The book “Innovators’ Dilemma” has a summary of this: the successful giants are often good at continuous innovation, and are better at improving product performance or service experience in the current mode of making money. Destructive innovation can help challengers open new markets and defeat successful giants to further occupy the original market.
Large companies are more accustomed to the continuation of path-dependent innovation, lacking the power and courage to innovate, which is a special case in Ali. In the early days, there were Taobao, Tmall, and Alipay. In the past two years, there were nails and box horses. Ali’s phenomenal products have emerged, forming a crawler-style business promotion model, and also accumulating the organizational culture of “because I believe, so I see”. .
In April of this year, Xiaoyao shared the four characteristics of thinking about innovation and creation and the “wind-makers” at Tsinghua University: always looking for opportunities in the future; not catching up with the feng shui, but creating the feng shui; From a younger generation; great companies must solve social problems.
“Dr.’s request is to find the variables of the user’s products, and to have entrepreneurial thinking and user insight.” Xiao Chengzhi is a senior product manager of UC. He once started his own business and now returns to lead an emotional new project. . In his entrepreneurial experience, it is not difficult to make a new product that can be commercialized, but that is not what Ali wants.
Finding the variables of the user’s products means that you must abandon certainty, look for unknown possibilities, must go from 0 to 1, and choose a product track with great DAU potential to make products with social value and influence. .
In the eyes of many people, big company innovation is called luxury entrepreneurship. The help of funds, resources and talents is really effective, but it still can’t escape continuous innovation. Even if it is a byte hopping that is called “APP Factory”, the new product of its layout is unsuccessful in leaving the main track of content distribution.
The variables that Ali needs are independent growth of a new business form.
Zhu Shunyan puts forward three principles for innovative projects: first, independent thinking, not relying on original business resources and paths; second, from small to large, believing the vitality of new things, having patience from 0 to 1; third , establish a hero, break the big company systemStriving for stability, motivating individual heroes to appear.
Looking for variables, you must first find someone who is reliable. “The old man is doing new things” is Zhu Shunyan’s thinking. This is also the methodology he summed up: “Let young people realize their dreams, I will be the threshold and whetstone of innovative projects.”
Employees who have been with Ali for 3-5 years have proven themselves, have a good understanding of the business, and can easily set up small teams to focus on serving their needs. As a result, some of the product managers of the innovative business come from international business, while others are commercialized business transformations, among which young people after 85.
I don’t think of a hero, Zhu Shunyan believes that the data will speak. “Users will vote for products. If you don’t give money, you can still get the data. Then you must be a cow.”
How can I assess the effectiveness without a KPI?
On August 23, Xiaoyao appeared in an office building near the center of Ali Wangjing. This non-spacious office area is home to VMate’s Beijing team.
A VMate employee recalled the scene of the day to Tech Planet (WeChat ID: tech618). “The old man said that the innovation business still depends on its own trajectory and follows the trajectory of its own market. It is definitely not a simple KPI. The number is not a problem that the annual goal has not been reached. In just 10 minutes of speech, he probably emphasized four or five times ‘not stress for everyone’.”
Not only short-term performance innovation, it is a “basic guarantee” that is difficult to achieve in the internal innovation of large companies.
At the just-concluded Alibaba 2019 Investor Conference, Zhang Yong’s speech mentioned, “We have never stopped innovating. We believe that the core of the entire economy is innovation. Zhang Yong mentioned the previous acceptance at the end of the speech. In the interview, “If we don’t kill ourselves, we will be killed by others.”
Without KPIs, there is no annual target, and how Ali’s innovative business is assessed becomes a question. In short, whether we can create products with user value, this criterion of internal and external consensus is actually the only assessment standard for Ali’s innovative business.
“The energy that I bring to the team is to ask questions according to normal logic. Your answer is clear, my task is completed, and I have to figure it out without answering it clearly.” Zhu Shunyan positioned himself as a business coach to help everyone really According to the law of the development of a thing, let the right thing happen, and the result of the bet will come.
In the internal entrepreneurial experience summary, Ownership, ultimate innovation, fast and efficient, was defined by Zhu Shunyan as the core organizational capability required for “facing the future and creating the cusp”. And to create organizational innovation ability for the system is also the core work goal Zhu Shunyan set for himself.
Build a “small, fast, and spiritual” project team, reward innovation in the process, reward the growth of personnel, match the contribution of compensation incentives, formed in the innovation business groupOrganize mechanisms to mobilize the enthusiasm of everyone in the innovation team.
The specific project falls on the organizational capacity training method, and the innovation project adopts the process management of combining OKR and PDCA. Using a field OKR resumption meeting, around the problems in the product process, why? How to do it? How to improve? Relying on continuous soul torture to correct mistakes.
Three months ago, the VMate Beijing team moved out of the B-room of Ali Wangjing Center and moved to a nearby independent office. Two months ago, the X-lab business unit moved to an old office building in Wangjing.
“The team that makes innovation business, it is best to have an independent work space, separated from other team areas, what is necessary is the atmosphere of our group of people fighting side by side”, Li Yang, the person in charge of singing, to Tech Planet (WeChat ID :tech618) Introduction, in the singing duck team, the innovative business is creating an entrepreneurial atmosphere like the garden of Ali Lake, forming a taste of hard work.
Innovative “Life and Death”
Although there is no fierce external competition in mature business, the internal innovation of large companies is also staged “life and death speed.”
“If this is not the case, I can’t give the team a new direction, then there is no way to continue.” Xiao Chengzhi is pushing his new product for the second time. Earlier this year, Xiao Chengzhi led a team of 20 people and began to focus on the track of emotional products.
Before, only the team with experience in tool products, have not done community, no one has touched the emotional related field, I believe that Pratt & Whitney’s emotional innovation products have social significance, let them firmly test and error.
At present, Xiao Chengzhi is accelerating the density of product trial and error, and the entire team is building an understanding of emotional content and emotional communities after closing two products. At present, a number of core seed users have been assembled.
Li Yang has recently turned from continuous insomnia to occasional insomnia. Since May 1 this year, the user data of singing ducks has continued to rise. The singer is a music-playing product. It was launched on the Spring Festival this year. After the initial exploration, the team launched several test functions such as playing during the May Day. As a result, the song is fermented in the user population after 00.
Singing Duck Products
The growth of a wave of users has given Li Yang a bottom. Before that, he was responsible for the UC overseas new products, and he had failed in two shutdown projects. “I have failed twice, you give me a chance?” Li Yang once joked to ask Zhu Shunyan.
In Zhu ShunyanIt seems that the failure is very normal, and it is important to move forward after the conclusion is completed. “The most important thing is that everyone must grow up in the process. As long as you grow up, you can do it.” However, the speed must be fast, verifying the product faster, and failing quickly. This is Zhu Shunyan’s rigid requirement.
All in is in the uncertainty, gambling with time, the innovative business group is using rapid trial and error, continuous evolution, to improve the winning rate, across the product line of life and death. This is the core logic that Zhu Shunyan proposed to be innovative.
At the 2019 Yunqi Conference, Zhu Shunyan mentioned the concept of “making machine intelligence more temperature”. The corresponding artificial intelligence laboratory officially released the “family brain” plan, which will establish the Tmall spirit as the core. Wisdom family. Ali’s innovative business group has another important goal.
About the prediction of the future prospects, Zhu Shunyan mentioned a story in the speech of the annual meeting of the business group. He gave himself a good nickname – “Lao Shun”. He said that “innovative products are the same as people and nature. I have my own rhythm, the rhythm of the market, the rhythm of the team, and of course the rhythm of fate. I don’t think my life will be too bad.”