Unusual and unique business qualities of Alibaba
and unique business qualities of Alibaba are market and consumer segmentation in terms of financial capability, geographical reach, and type of ecommerce demands in a competitive online retail market. The characteristics of Alibaba’s growth strategy is dividing the business into three different units, Alibaba, Taobao, and Tmall, all dedicated to improving consumer experience and satisfaction (YouTube, n.p). Through Alibaba, the firm focuses on business-to-business website ecommerce services. Taobao prioritizes connecting international enterprises to demand or consumers to consumers, thereby increasing consumer traffic. Tmall specializes in marketing products to China’s middle class and offering services to multinational brands.
Alibaba’s innovation strategy is the reliance on network coordination and data intelligence to match consumer needs with available services, hence reducing costs of customer care through the hiring of large pools of human personnel. Since founding in 1999, Alibaba’s financing strategy was issuing an IPO in 2014 (YouTube, n.p). As the biggest IPO in the world, the ecommerce venture sourced a significant amount of capital for research and development and facilitating attainment of costs associated with marketing in China’s retail sector.
Through a VRIO analysis, the value of products and ecommerce experience is critical in offering a delightful consumer utility, thereby aiding in retaining loyal consumers. The rarity of Alibaba services focuses on providing products and services that rival such Amazon fails to offer to the mainstream and middle-income earners. In terms of the Imitability of products, Alibaba differentiates products by providing similar services provided by Amazon, eBay, PayPal, Google, FedEx offer under one roof but at negotiated and cheaper prices (YouTube, n.p). Organization as the final element of VRIO analysis is relying on vast network coordination and data intelligence to manage organizational competitiveness through reduction of marginal costs of products, thereby improving business sustainability. Alibaba’s competitiveness is sustainable since the availability of capital, technological intensiveness, and adequate demand, and consumer traffic offers resources for eliminating the emergence of a going concern.