EVOLVE INTO NETREPRENEURS, SAYS JACK MA
Alibaba founder says changes over next 30 years will go beyond anyone’s imagination
ALL entrepreneurs will need to evolve into “Netrepreneurs” as it will be impossible to do everything offline in the future, says Alibaba Group founder and executive chairman Jack Ma at the Global Netrepreneur Conference, here, recently.
This is because changes over the next 30 years will go beyond anyone’s imagination, especially in the age of e-commerce, Big Data, cloud computing and artificial intelligence.
According to Ma, many businesses were still too ill-equipped and unprepared for e-commerce and globalisation.
He recalled a conversation in 2004 with traders who sold items on eBay during a business networking conference in Shanghai, when the Taobao Marketplace was just created.
At the time, eBay had just entered China and was trying to dominate the local market.
“I asked them, ‘What do you think is the future of e-commerce?’ They said they were major sellers and had done very well, with the biggest recording around 50,000 yuan in trades monthly.
“But I told them, that in 10 years, if the monthly turnover was less than 10 million yuan, they should be ashamed to say they were sellers.
“When Taobao first started, its annual sales was only eight billion yuan. By 2014, it had registered that amount in a single day,” added Ma, who was appointed as Malaysia’s digital economy adviser last year.
The businessmen once known as “Entrepreneurs”, he said, must aim to transform into “Netrepreneurs”, although he admitted that convincing them to go online was a big challenge, he said.
“Often, the most successful (entrepreneurs) are also the hardest to change,” he told the audience. “For some people, even if you are right, they will not believe you. But if you are wrong, they will criticise you.”
There will also be no more “Made in China”, “Made in India” or “Made in France” amid the rise of the age of “Made in Internet”, while the old Business-to-Consumer model will be reversed to become Consumer-to-Business, with each industry forced to customise their offerings based on consumers’ needs.
“For example, a woman previously bought all her clothes from famous French or American brands, but now, the most fashionable people are those who go online to buy a dress from one merchant, a scarf from the second and shoes from the third to create their own unique styles. This is what I mean by ‘Made in Internet’.”
Meanwhile, Alibaba chief executive officer Daniel Zhang, who spoke on “Defining the new Netrepreneurship”, said the world had experienced rapid changes since the last event in 2012.
The Internet has developed rapidly in the last five years. More people now have access to wireless Internet and, as a result, the use of electronic payments, like credit cards, is becoming a habit.
“Today, in Hangzhou or other Chinese cities, a person can easily use Alipay or other electronic payment tools to pay for a bun, a newspaper or a cup of coffee. The real mobile phone wallet has truly become a reality,” said Zhang.
The next challenge for Alibaba, he said, was to get the remaining 85 per cent of businesses in China that had yet to embrace ecommerce to do so.
Zhang also stressed that businesses must go from “meeting demand” to “creating demand”, saying “Made in Internet” was becoming possible through of creation of more contact points with consumers.
Therefore, all parties must seize opportunities arising from the era of new retail, new finance, new technology, new manufacturing and new energy, which have redefined online trade platforms.
Also present at the event included World Trade Organisation director-general Roberto Azevedo, Xiaomi Inc CEO and chairman Lei Jun, film director Luc Besson; and Paytm founder and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma.