Alibaba Restructuring Hits Snags Amid Leadership Changes

• Alibaba faces turmoil restructuring to satisfy regulators.
• Confusion reigns over which units to spin off so far.
• Execution issues distract from core e-commerce challenges.

Corporate turmoil and restructuring

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba faces internal turmoil in a major corporate reorganization effort.

The plan, announced in March 2023, to spin off six business units with separate CEOs, intended to satisfy government regulators. However, employees say confusion reigns over which operations split so far.

Coming back into Beijing’s good graces

This restructuring aimed to return to Beijing’s good graces after a $2.8 billion antitrust fine in 2021. But staff petitions and reversals around spinning off divisions like cloud computing show struggles in implementation.

Preoccupation with internal changes also left Alibaba vulnerable to domestic rivals gaining market share

Can they come back?

The overhaul capped leadership changes after charismatic founder Jack Ma resigned as chairman in 2019. While still China’s most valuable tech firm, Alibaba dropped from over $800 billion at its peak to under $300 billion recently.

Its dominant position now sees threats from competitors like Douyin and PDD. Uncertainty abounds about whether Alibaba can reclaim its former growth trajectory.

Execution issues with splitting the e-commerce conglomerate present distractions from challenges in its core business. Pleasing government overseers remains critical to any turnaround plans going forward.