Alibaba Project

This is an individual project of 3000 words +/- 10%.
Your task: critically describe and evaluate Ali Baba’s current organizational structure and overall business configuration and then suggest a suitable adaptation to improve its performance. The adaptation might be to flatten it, make it more customer focused, nimble, networked, cost efficient, or any combination of these or another significant performance improvement that you identify.
Assignment guidelines: You should include the following headings in your assignment:
REPORT:
i) Critical evaluation of the organization-s current status; ii) Critiqueofcurrentrestructuringplanandoptions
PROJECT:
iii) Action & control plan
Issues which are dealt with in each section do not intend to exclude others you may consider relevant as well.
REPORT:
2

i) Critical evaluation of the organization’s current status
Issues that may be covered include (though not exclusively):
• Analyze the Ali Baba’s main business line by profits and revenues along with the various business models the Corporation has pursued in the various market segments during the past five years both in China and Worldwide.
• Identify which environmental factors (Use Raskino and Gartner Group’s model) may have influenced the company’s Business strategy (use Porter’s generic strategy framework) and the type of control strategy the organisation has chosen (bureaucratic, market and clan). Explain how the concept of Smart business applies to the Alibaba group.
• Indicate three major business policies the company currently uses to guarantee that Ali Baba will effectively meet its growth objectives. Comment on how the organisation structure, culture and processes have evolved in recent years to support such policies up to the pre-COVID era.
ii) Critique of current reorganization plan and options
The restructuring plan post-COVID should set out :
• Main strategic objectives sought.
• Any concomitant changes to the organisation’s strategic vision, business
philosophy, use of technology and alliances.
• Improvements needed to the existing organisation and the nature of the
program – cost reduction, operational improvement, service improvement and
any related changes to management style and skills.
• Whether to drop (divest) any current SBUs, which ones to develop further, and
which new ones to start.
• Type of control strategy the organisation will use (bureaucratic, market and
clan) PROJECT:
iii) The Action & Control Plan In this part formulate actions to concretise the restructuring
• A milestone action plan indicating who will be responsible (Strategic Business Unit, Division) for the respective actions to be undertaken in the implementation of the restructuring plan, and when these actions will be undertaken.
• An overall framework to monitor and control (measure) that the restructuring plan is being implemented to required time, quality and cost standards and its goals achieved.
Conclusion: Summary and explanation of findings and methodology