Essay on Alibaba and the Analytics’ Translator
Number of words: 1205
Business models are crucial tools that enable businesses to create financial value in their global framework ventures. The Alibaba business model is based on the integrated smart business focused on business partners, core activities, value propositions, customer relationships, and segmentation. The company’s multi-sided model can create a visual Business Model Canvas for Alibaba that captures the core activities and how the revenue stream and pricing strategies are achieved. The internet-based business focuses on partnership through investors and how the core activities help solve offline business challenges, especially through business-to-business transactions (Campbell 92). It offers the brands the platform to interact with major supplies before local consumers are served through intermediate retailers.
The model shows the model that Alibaba Group employs to achieve its canvas operational metrics. For instance, the company’s key partners are different brands and consumers who use its services to sell or purchase. The company partners with thousands of brands, including advertisers, agencies, MNCs, government agencies, and international institutions. On the other hand, the motivation for partnership, as envisaged in the case study, suggests that the company is looking for a diverse partnership to help them transform into smart businesses (Henke n.p). There are no limitations to the motivation for partnership. It is also evident that the key resources for Alibaba’s operations are educational, internet services, networking, and information technology regarding a wide range of brands. These services and resources are crucial for the partnerships that it establishes, as evident in the case study. Moreover, the company is critical of value propositions, including the use of certification, authentication, and customization of the partners’ products and brands. In such scenarios, Alibaba addresses the proposition concepts detailed in the partnerships it creates.
Other blocks also address customer relationships, where Alibaba acts as co-creators of the brands and instilling the needed values into the brands. Moreover, it customizes and authenticates the products, giving it the green light to purchase them. Thus, the company has the metrics it uses to assess the quality assurance of the products posted on its website platform, hence taking the risk on behalf of the customers to enhance relationship and trust (Campbell 89). As a form of online platforms, the company employs the channels such as mainstream and social media platforms, which enhance the general outcomes and ideals. For the brands that use its services, the cost is estimated through time, infrastructure, advertising, and shared responsibility. Various brands captured in the case employ such metrics to establish the cost to offer Alibaba for the platform. However, the revenue stream block is the most ideal, where the company gets its revenues from adverts, referrals, likes, and other metrics identified in the case.
The company is just a platform, which only brings the consumers and their preferred brands together. Supply chain issues and other business metrics are based on the policies and regulations from the online business perspectives. Every block of the model is effectively covered in the case study, thus suggesting compliance with the online marketplace metrics and discourses. Alibaba creates the frameworks for improving online and internet-based business activities, increasing revenue streams through various metrics, platforms, and channels (Campbell 95). The company can educate, offer certification, and oversee the innovative metrics for creating an ideal business environment for all the consumers and their brand, including ethical practices.
Creating a smart business through the Alibaba Model suggests the processes that have to be followed. From the analytics’ translator perspective, four steps can be achieved across the various canvas model blocks. For instance, engaging in creative datafication that enhances smart business creation is evident in understanding the value proportions, including how to form a partnership. The data is used to assess the credibility, authentication, and other smart business elements that depend on establishing data and its long-term implications. Creative ratification also enhances the streamlining of the revenue stream and cost determination. Conversely, the second step is installing the business to streamline operations such as workflow (Campbell 92). At the partnership level, it is used to identify the relevant and potential stakeholders and the metrics used. Conversely, the software is used in customer relations and relations as depicted in the case study.
Institution of standards and APIs is the third step, which is relevant for coordination and flow of data, as depicted in revenue streams and cost structures. The standardization is also evident in the customer relations and channel choices to ensure increased coordination of various activities and strict conformity. These canvas blocks’ segments suggest the relevance of the standardization and the APIs in streamlining the operations and coordination of the Alibaba activities and realizing its business goals. The stakeholders, processes, regulations and policies, and the integrated and interactive technologies are standardized and coordinated for holistic business outcomes. Lastly, the smart business is created through the application of machine learning algorithms (Campbell 92). Such elements are applied in the segments meant to achieve the desired outcomes and ideals, including revenue stream, cost structure, customer relationships, and channel choices. Essential, the elements suggest a potential outcome for suggesting Alibaba’s business goals and objectives.
The success of Alibaba is attributed to the relevant and influential leadership of Jack Ma, who founded the merchandise. The challenge was moving away from the traditional offline supply chain as the foundation of an ideal successful company. In this regard, the concern for Ma was on how to create a network of people who believed in the process of changing the supply chain through virtual platforms. Consequently, communication prowess and instinctive decision-making were integral in convincing the partners, such as customers, employees, and brands, to embrace the online platform. It was a risky affair that many people did not appreciate at the onset. However, Ma’s visionary and transformative leadership skills enhanced the status of his idea into a global conglomerate that all the traditional companies have embraced (Henke n.p). Business leaders have a role in influencing the partners’ perception through effective marketing and communication skills, which turn ideas into feasible business ventures. Transitioning from the traditional beliefs to a new model can be identified across the partnership metrics, activities, and the priorities give during such processes and ideals.
Jack Ma’s ideas appeared weird from the onset, but he did not dissent and had an understanding of the future. The visionary, evangelical, and outspoken traits made his ideas and models attractive to many brands, inspiring others in the business world. Creating smart businesses through machine learning business ecosystems has resulted in better and responsive leadership traits. The Alibaba case study underscores how the smart business ecosystem is created and the need for leadership models that change people’s perceptions from traditional perspectives.
Works Cited
Campbell, H. “Alibaba and The Future Of Business, Lessons From China’s Innovative Digital Giant.” Harvard Business Review (2018): 88-96. hbr.org/2018/09/alibaba-and-the-future-of-business. Accessed 13th Mar 2021
Henke, Nicolaus, Jordan Levine, and Paul McInerney. “Analytics Translator: The New Must-Have Role.” Harvard Business Review (2018). www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/mckinsey-analytics/our-insights/analytics-translator. Accessed 13th Mar 2021