Shannon Brandao
Shannon's excerpt from the article: "FT [excerpt]: The Financial Times spoke to nine #Alibaba employees, who painted a picture of a flailing enterprise trying to chart a new course after canning crucial planks of an ambitious #restructuring plan that was supposed to revive its fortunes.
Several Alibaba insiders, who declined to be named, spoke of the confusion that resulted. 'Many people do not know what has and has not split,' said one Alibaba employee working across different businesses. 'That is until they’ve been fired after their #business unit has been spun off,' they added.
In March, the tech group had announced its intention to split its empire into six units to unlock shareholder value and stimulate growth across the businesses. The plan was initially embraced by #investors, with its share price climbing 20 per cent in the days following the announcement. But fading investor optimism about #China’s #economy after the end of pandemic-era lockdowns damped enthusiasm.
In November Alibaba formally announced it was ditching plans to spin off its #cloud business — which it has said is crucial to future growth — and paused the listing of its supermarket unit. It is not clear what is happening to the other four units. Lossmaking wings of the company have been lobbying to stay attached, according to company insiders. Multiple employees said plans to separate other businesses had either been axed or were under review.
In one example of resistance to change, Alibaba created an #IT team to handle infrastructure across the group after a review found that teams were replicating the same functions in the various business units.
But this was then axed because of internal power struggles, according to two people familiar with the matter. 'It was a bad and chaotic situation. Many of those who need to be fired have internal backers and cannot be easily dismissed,' said the executive.
In another example of the disarray within, an employee at DingTalk, Alibaba’s enterprise communication platform, said their team had been logged out of the group’s intranet without warning, leaving them without access to Alibaba’s internal communications.
Power struggles between the old guard led by former chief executive Daniel Zhang and Wu, who took over from him in September, have exacerbated the sense of chaos, insiders said.
In March, the company had announced that Zhang would head the cloud business when it was spun off, but on the day in September he was scheduled to take control, he unexpectedly stepped down. The Financial Times reported that incoming chief Wu had pushed him out. Alibaba responded in December that this was not the case and Zhang had expressed his wish to transition away from his role.
An Alibaba Cloud person said Zhang’s exit meant many people linked to him would likely be laid off. Last month’s departure of the cloud unit’s chief commercial officer Cai Yinghua was part of Wu’s efforts to reboot the #business unit, according to Alibaba insiders."
#news