Jack Ma's mantra to staff: Balance among system, people, culture

Chinese etailer Alibabas charismatic Executive Chairman Jack Ma who steps down in September 2019 has exhorted his 80000odd employees to have the right balance among system people and culture to sustain the companys growthSimply relying on individuals or blindly following a system will not solve our problems to achieve longterm sustainable growth you need the right balance among system people and culture Ma said in an email letter to the groups 86833 employees which the Hangzhoubased global firm shared with IANSWith an aim to connect Chinese entrepreneurs with the world Ma who was a teacher in English and international trade at a university in Hangzhou about 180km southwest of Shanghai founded in 1999 the ecommerce platform Alibabacom which rose to become one of the largest companies in the worldAlibaba Group announced on Monday that on its 20th anniversary on September 10 2019 its Chief Executive Daniel Zhang 46 will take charge as the new ChairmanMa will continue as the Chairman till September 2019 and remain as a board member of the Alibaba Group until the annual shareholder meet in 2020With an interest to get back to education the teacherturnedentrepreneur said he will however remain a lifetime member of Alibaba Partnership a group of 36 of the company and its affiliates senior managementI have full confidence that our partnership system and efforts to safeguard our culture will in time win over the love and support from customers employees and shareholders 54yearold Chinese business tycoon Ma said in the letterAlibabas future will need to depend on droves of talent and the transition of chairmanship demonstrates that the company has stepped up from the one that relies on individuals to one built on a culture of talent development Ma notedThe teacher in me feels proud of our team our leadership and our unique missiondriven culture as well as the fact that we continue to develop exceptional business leaders and professional talent like Zhang he said addressing the Aliren the people of AlibabaZhang who was earlier the Chief Executive Officer CEO of Taobao an online shopping portal owned by the Alibaba Group was appointed the CEO of the group in 2015 He has been with the company since 2007Even as Alibaba was founded as a company that could last 102 years Ma admitted that no company can rely solely on its foundersA sustainable Alibaba would have to be built on sound governance culturecentric philosophy and consistency in developing talent Because of physical limits on ones ability and energy no one can shoulder the responsibilities of chairman forever he saidThe company needs younger and more talented people to take over its leadership roles so they can inherit Alibabas mission to make it easy to do business anywhere Ma notedStarting the process of passing the Alibaba torch to Daniel Zhang and his team is the right decision at the right time because I know from working with them that they are ready and I have complete confidence in our next generation of leaders Ma addedThe company which reported a revenue of 399 billion for the fiscal 201718 has been successful not because of its scale but its team the business magnate saidOur partnership system unique culture and talented team have laid a strong foundation for the legacy of our companyZhang with his unparalleled analytical mind and guts to innovate and test creative business models will drive the multinational firm forward said MaThe one thing I can promise everyone is this Alibaba was never about Jack Ma but Jack Ma will forever belong to Alibaba Ma addedAlibaba Groups businesses and affiliates include its etail portals Alibabacom Taobao Tmall and AliExpress filmmaking firm Alibaba Pictures cloud computing platform Alibaba Cloud financial services company Ant Financial and new retail grocery stores Hema among othersCatch up on all the latest Crime National International and Hatke news here Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps to get latest updatesThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Except for the change in the headline the story has been provided ASIS AS AVAILABLE without any verification or editing from our side Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever