President & Director, Alibaba Group
BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands 2020 | Michael Evans, Alibaba
An exclusive interview with David Roth, CEO The Store and Michael Evans, President Alibaba. Listen to what Alibaba has learnt ...
About J. Evans
J. Michael Evans, President of Alibaba Group, has discussed the company's international strategy and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on e-commerce and supply chains. In a 2023 interview with BloombergHT, Evans stated that Alibaba's initial decision to invest in Turkey was based on the country's geographic location, its manufacturing base, and the availability of a management team. He said that the company observed good coordination between the Turkish cabinet and ministries. Evans also commented on competition and regulation, stating that "competition is a good thing" and that regulatory frameworks should aim to give everyone an equal opportunity to participate. He noted that the impact of COVID-19 and the post-COVID period on supply chains has been important, and that disruptions have contributed to high inflation in many parts of the world. In earlier appearances, Evans discussed Alibaba's partnership with Farfetch and Richemont, describing it as a way to bring technology and creative solutions for retail to multiple markets. He said that the deal was about using technology and finding partners to create an experience for merchants and consumers that cannot be created by a single entity. Evans also spoke about the digitization of retail, stating that the concept of "new retail" — the digitization of the full retail value chain — is very important. He noted that Alibaba had passed two trillion US dollars in sales, with 90 percent of those sales happening on a mobile phone, and that the company had about 846 million highly engaged customers. Evans described Alibaba's strategy as connecting businesses in the developed world with consumers in emerging markets, and he expressed confidence that China had returned to pre-COVID levels of consumption and consumer confidence.
Transcript (14 segments)
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Interviewer0:04
It's an absolute pleasure to welcome my very special guests here in our interview room, Mr. Michael Evans. An accomplished athlete while studying at Oxford University, he rowed stroke for Oxford in the world's best-known annual Boat Race, which first took place back in 1829, the Oxford and Cambridge University Boat Race, where he defeated Cambridge two years in a row. He's also an Olympian and an Olympic gold medal winner, rowing for Canada in the men's eights in the 1984 Summer Games. A former investment banker with a long and distinguished career at Goldman Sachs, where Mike was chairman of Goldman Sachs Asia. Mike has served on the board of Alibaba since 2014, is president of Alibaba Group, and the key player in Alibaba strategies, including Alibaba's international strategy. Alibaba is in a very select club of global brands. It is in the top ten of the BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands, seventh place last year, and has improved its value and ranking position in 2020. But by how much will be revealed a bit later. I had a wide-ranging discussion with Mike. Thank you very much indeed for joining us. It's a pleasure to have you with us.
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J. Evans1:41
Thank you, pleasure to be here. I'm Mike.
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Interviewer1:45
What has an e-commerce player learnt over the course of the last hectic few months that's really going to help accelerate the pace of digital retail innovation and transformation that we've already seen start to happen?
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J. Evans1:59
Well, it's been a fascinating several months, not just for us but I'm sure for everyone. But we're doing things today that we had not anticipated before 2019. And all the things we're doing are designed to help our brands and our consumers. So starting with the brands, it's clear that this concept that we call new retail, which is the digitization of the full retail value chain, people understand the online piece pretty well, but it's the digitization of the offline store that allows the store to actually be open even when it's closed because it acts as a fulfillment center. And that has completely changed the way that brands are thinking about the digitization of their offline resources and infrastructure. Many of our brands in China had already started that process, particularly in the food category, so come on, Freshippo, Hema, and our Tmall assets. But now across the categories, people are realizing that new retail and the full digitization of the retail value chain is going to be very, very important.
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Interviewer3:08
Alibaba's mission has always been, I suppose in one form or another, to make it easy to do business anywhere. Looking into your crystal ball, how do you see that manifest itself further in the coming years?
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J. Evans3:24
Well, we have a giant ecosystem of businesses. So when people look at Alibaba, particularly the people that are consumers, they view it very much as a lifestyle app. So it isn't just about coming in and buying things in the traditional e-commerce business. We also have a digital media and entertainment business, we have local services, everything from grocery shopping and movie theaters and those types of opportunities. So we want to make it easy for the consumer to find everything that they would consider to be important in their lifestyle, in addition to shopping, so that they can come to one place and live there. And we see it in the statistics, which is our average consumer spending about 25 minutes a day on our platform, opening the app about eight times, and they're looking at different things: sometimes shopping, sometimes entertainment, sometimes live streaming, sometimes something very specific that they want to do for a local services opportunity, or just browsing and enjoying themselves.
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Interviewer4:34
You have such a unique perspective as a former investment banker, as somebody who understands both the finance of the world and as a businessman as well. What do you think the role of both companies and governments needs to be over the course of the next, I don't know, two years to help stimulate demand and help everybody grow the economy?
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J. Evans5:00
From a brand standpoint, I think that technology that exists in certain parts of the world doesn't in other parts of the world. Therefore, how do you from an IT and from a technology and product standpoint actually develop that into your ecosystem and integrate it so that you don't have multiple technology and IT platforms running in different markets around the world? They've got to work to try and harmonize those and put them together, otherwise it will be very, very difficult to run your business globally and take advantage of big markets like China. And I think from a government perspective, they are on the cutting edge of a variety of issues, whether it's data or technology regulation. There is a whole series of policies and regulations that need to be clarified because you see different rules in different countries or even different parts of the world, which make it very complex for corporates to operate global businesses.
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Interviewer6:08
We've all learned a lot about our individual businesses over the course of the last hectic few months, but what have you learned about yourself that you didn't know beforehand?
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J. Evans6:22
I've learned that it's possible to do a heck of a lot of work without ever getting on a plane. Prior to 2019, I was getting on a plane all the time. And while I miss all my colleagues in China and all over the world where we're developing businesses, what I realized is that technologies like this and others that allow us to come together digitally and virtually are actually very empowering, quite effective, and we don't see a loss of productivity; we see enhanced productivity. And actually a lot of people are happier to have more of a balance between what they're doing at home and the hopeful prospect that one day they may get back in their office. So that's been a real learning experience and a balancing act for me.
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Interviewer7:12
Sure, well, I have a whole professionally I'm a bit like that. I was a constant traveler. I'm not even certain I know where my passport is at the moment, which is a very new and very freeing feeling. One last question. Not many people in the world you can actually ask this question to, or you can ask but you won't get the right answer from somebody who's experienced it. We over the course of the last three or four months have gone from a physical world to an extent a big sort of virtual world. We've experienced virtual concerts and cocktail drink sessions with our friends and virtual theater. The physical though is still very important. The biggest physical event in the world that's really being postponed is the Olympics. You are one of the few people who has an Olympic gold medal. When you were in that physical environment, when somebody was putting that gold medal around your neck and you were looking at the crowds, what was going through your mind and how did you physically feel in that physical environment?
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J. Evans8:22
I'll tell you exactly. That's the first time anybody's asked me that question. But I'll tell you what was going through my mind. I had a great rowing coach by the name of Neil Campbell, and he was a legend in Canadian rowing. And Neil always used to say, 'Think big, dream big, work hard.' And when we were standing on that podium, we were looking at that Canadian flag as it was. It had been folded for so long because Canada hadn't won a gold medal. You could see all the creases in it. But as the wind basically started to make it flutter, I remembered exactly what he said, because he was right. Think big, dream big, work hard. It pays off. And it did.
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Interviewer9:13
I think that's a fantastic way of leaving this, especially as we all have to face those big challenges ahead. And I think that's a great mentality to have. Mike Evans, president of Alibaba, it's been a pleasure. Thank you very much indeed for talking to us.
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J. Evans9:28
Thank you.