Alibaba restructures org, 3 new divisions under Tmall

Alibaba Group is undergoing a reorganisation, with CEO Daniel Zhang (pictured) naming a new president for its digital media and entertainment business group. It is also establishing a new retail technology group and restructuring its wholesale marketplace Tmall, among others.According to a statement on Alibaba's Weibo, CEO and chairman of Alibaba pictures, Fan Luyuan, will replace Yang Weidong as the rotating president of Alibaba Digital Media and Entertainment business group. Additionally, Alibaba will form a new retail technology business group to consolidate the technology of Taobao and Tmall to strengthen and effectively support the demands of new retail. Wu Zeming will serve as president and report to Zhang.In the meantime, Alibaba's wholesale marketplace, Tmall, will be known as "Greater Tmall" and comprises three divisions - Tmall business group, Tmall Supermarket business group and Tmall Import-Export business unit. Tmall business group's main priority continues to be pushing Tmall as the top partner for global brands to achieve digital transformation and implement an integrated omnichannel business operation. Jet Jing, former Tmall business group president, will continue to serve as president of the new business group.Tmall Supermarket business group will consolidate the existing Tmall Supermarket and Taoxianda businesses, working closely with supermarket and hypermarket partners across the Alibaba ecosystem. This is in a bid to propel its vision for a new integrated omnichannel supermarket model. Taoxianda is a one-hour delivery project launched in March 2018 between Taobao and e-commerce platform Sun Art Retail. Tmall Supermarket business group is led by former business assistant to the CEO, Lee Yonghe.Tmall Import-Export business unit will oversee the importing of US$200 billion worth of goods over the next five years, and will be led by general manager Alvin Liu. Jing, Lee and Liu will report to Zhang.Meanwhile, the Alibaba Cloud business group will be renamed Alibaba Cloud Intelligence business group, with the goal of establishing an intelligent technology infrastructure, powered by cloud computing in the digital economy. Zhang said that machine intelligence capabilities, including main competencies such as data computing platform, database systems and infrastructure technology platforms will be "fully integrated" with Alibaba Cloud and made available to the public. The post also described the Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Platform to be "an extension and natural progression" of the Alibaba Group Enabling Platform strategy.Group CTO Jeff Zhang serving concurrently as president and reporting to Zhang. The Weibo post stated that Simon Hu, former Alibaba Cloud president, will serve in a different capacity. Zhang thanked Hu for his "extraordinary contributions" to Alibaba Cloud over the past four years. In addition, Alibaba AI Labs will join the Alibaba Group Innovation Initiatives business group, with its leader Chen Lijuan reporting to Zhang.This reorganisation comes shortly after the group amassed US$30.8 billion of gross merchandise volume (GMV) on Singles’ Day, marking a 27% increase compared to 2017. More than 180,000 participated in the 11.11 shopping festival, including Nike, Adidas and L’Oréal and 237 brands exceeded about US$14.38 million in GMV.Zhang said in the Weibo post that its recent Singles' Day was proof that the group has progressed to a new stage of development and that its success is due to the team's perseverance and dedication. As such, he said that Alibaba has to be "relentless" in its progressive vision to accomplish its mission of "making it easy to do business in the digital era", as well as empowering merchants through its operating system.Read also:Alibaba’s Jack Ma to be succeeded by CEO Daniel Zhang next yearJack Ma’s departure: Retaining culture when a ‘cult leader’ like personality exits