阿里巴巴:世界上第一大集市

IN 1999 Trudy Dai used to spend all night sending e-mails from her friend Jack Ma’s apartment, trying to answer queries from American customers without letting on that she was Chinese. Ms Dai was one of the first dozen employees of Alibaba, an online listings service Mr Ma, a teacher, had just started. It was already having some success connecting small Chinese manufacturers to potential customers, including the overseas ones Ms Dai was reassuring over e-mail. But the friends and students who made up the workforce were earning just 550 yuan (then $66) a month.

1999年，戴珊整夜待在她朋友马云的公寓里收发邮件，回复来自美国客户的问题，同时不让人知道她是中国人。戴珊是阿里巴巴12个（注1）创始人之一。虽然当时由教师马云创立的在线列表服务网站阿里巴巴刚刚起步，但是，它已经帮中国的小厂家联系上了一些潜在客户，包括戴女士正在通过邮件确认的这些海外客户。当时，该公司的职员都是马云的朋友和同学，他们每月的工资只有550元（约合66美元）。

Mr Ma, though, already had big dreams. That year he said: “Americans are strong at hardware and systems, but on information and software, all of our brains are just as good…Yahoo’s stock will fall and eBay’s stock will rise. And maybe after eBay’s stock rises, Alibaba’s stock will rise.”

尽管如此，当时马云先生已经立下了雄心壮志。当年，他就说“美国在硬件和系统方面很强，但是在信息和软件方面，我们的脑袋一样灵光…有一天雅虎的股票会跌，ebay的股票会涨。也许在eBay股票涨之后，阿里巴巴的股票也会涨。”

Since then, Alibaba has come to dominate internet retailing in China, which will soon be the biggest e-commerce market in the world. It has moved beyond its original remit of connecting businesses to each other to ventures that let companies sell directly to the public (Tmall) and enable members of the public to sell to each other (Taobao). Between them, Taobao and Tmall processed 1.1 trillion yuan ($170 Billion) in transactions last year, more goods than passed through Amazon and eBay combined (see table 1).

从那时起，阿里巴巴逐步占据了中国互联网零售市场。不久的将来，中国将成为世界上第一大电子商务市场。阿里巴巴由最初的企业之间的中介转变为二合一的合资企业，一个是企业直接对消费者销售的天猫商城，一个是会员之间相互买卖的淘宝网。去年，淘宝网和天猫商城总共产生了价值11000亿元（约合1700亿美元）的交易额，交易的商品多于亚马逊和ebay交易额总和（见图1）。

The company that started in Mr Ma’s apartment now employs 24,000 workers at its headquarters in Hangzhou and elsewhere; Ms Dai is president of human resources. A few years ago Alibaba began to turn a profit; in the year to September 2012 it made $485m on revenues of $4.1 billion (see chart 2). Following a recent reorganisation it has 25 separate business units, and on May 10th it will have a new chief executive, Jonathan Lu; Mr Ma will stay on as executive chairman.

这家在马云公寓里创建的公司现在已经有24000名员工，分布在总部杭州和其他地方；戴珊女士现任人力资源部副CPO。几年前，阿里巴巴开始盈利。截止2012年，阿里巴巴的利润达到48500万美元，总收入41亿美元（见图2）。最近一次重组之后，阿里巴巴分为25个独立事务部。5月10日，阿里巴巴将迎来一位新首席执行官陆兆禧，而马云将继续担任董事局主席。

The rules of the market

市场规则

In one respect things are as they were in 1999: Alibaba is privately owned. But this will not remain the case for long. The reorganisation into 25 business units is widely seen as preparation for an initial public offering (IPO) that would take most of them public. A deal with Yahoo, which once owned 40% of Alibaba, means that the IPO, if done soon, would allow Alibaba to buy back its shares and end the often stormy relationship. Asked about the IPO, Mr Ma says “We are ready.”

跟1999年相比，有一点没有变：阿里巴巴还是民营公司。但是这样的情况不会太久了。大家广泛认为，阿里巴巴重组划分为25个事业部就是为IPO（initial public offering，首次公开募股）做准备。集团的大部分业务将在此次IPO上市。雅虎曾拥有阿里巴巴40%的股份。如果这次IPO尽早进行，与雅虎的交易将意味着阿里巴巴可以回购其股票，结束与雅虎的暴风骤雨般的关系。问及此次IPO，马云说：“我们准备好了。”

Analysts predict that the IPO will value the company somewhere between $55 billion and more than $120 billion. Tencent, a Chinese gaming and social-media firm now getting into e-commerce, has a market capitalisation of $62 billion, just shy of Facebook’s current valuation. Mark Natkin of Marbridge, a Beijing-based technology consultancy, thinks Alibaba could easily be worth more than Tencent, given that “there is so much room to grow its businesses in China”.

分析师预测，阿里巴巴IPO的价值将在550亿美元和1200亿美元之间。而中国的线上游戏和社交网络公司，腾讯，也正在开拓电子商务业务，公司市值达620亿美元，比脸谱网当前估价略低。北京迈博瑞科技咨询公司（Marbridge）的马克??纳特金（Mark Natkin）表示，阿里巴巴的价值将轻松超过腾讯，因为“他们的业务在中国还有很大的发展空间”。

The top-end estimates would imply a remarkably high ratio of value to profits. But such a ratio might make sense to investors if they think that the company is investing in yet more growth to come. Amazon, in some ways a similar company, supports a market value of $117 billion with no profits to speak of. And Alibaba will provide an attractive platform for investors trying to profit from China’s booming internet economy.

虽然最高的估值意味着阿里巴巴的利润率非常高，但是只有当投资者认为公司还有很大的成长空间，这样的利润率才有意义。某种意义上，亚马逊就是一家类似的公司，有1170亿美元的市场价值却还没有盈利。而阿里巴巴将为那些想从中国蓬勃发展的互联网经济中得益的投资者提供了诱人的平台。

There will be some caution. Part of Alibaba floated on the Hong Kong exchange in 2007, but the shares ended up being bought back by the company after losing much of their value. The experience with Facebook’s IPO suggests a certain wariness about internet stocks is wise. But many think it will be different with Alibaba this time. “This will be bigger than Facebook,” predicts Bill Bishop, a Beijing-based technology expert. Mr Ma seems to agree. Though he will say only that the IPO will be “very very big”, asked about Facebook he cannot help but smile and say “Our revenues and profits speak for themselves.” (In the last quarter of 2012 Facebook’s revenues were $1.6 billion.)

但是投资者有一些谨慎。2007年，阿里巴巴的部分业务在香港交易所上市，但是却损失几乎所有价值，最终却被公司全部购回。脸谱网IPO的教训也说明谨慎购买互联网股票是明智的。但是很多人认为这次阿里巴巴的情况不一样。驻北京的科技专家比尔.毕绍普（Bill Bishop）说：“这次IPO比脸谱网大很多。”马云似乎对此表示同意。虽然他只会说这次IPO会“非常非常大”，当被问及脸谱网时，他还是忍不住微笑说：“我们的收入和利润会为自己说话。”（2012年第四季度，脸谱网的收入是16亿美元。）

Gordon Orr, a senior partner at McKinsey, thinks a healthy IPO valuation could be just the beginning. He says that if Alibaba can sustain its leadership in its current market and expand strongly into finance, the management of the supply chain and other services, “it could become one of the world’s most valuable companies five years from now, with potentially more than $1 trillion of sales passing through its platforms each year.”

麦肯锡公司（McKinsey）的资深合伙人戈登.奥尔（Gordon Orr）认为，一个健康的IPO估值仅仅是一个开始。他说，如果阿里巴巴能保持它在当前市场的领导地位，并强力进入金融领域、供应链管理和其他服务领域，“五年后，它将成为世界上最有价值的公司之一，旗下平台每年将有超过10000亿美元的交易额。”

Those are sales through Alibaba, not by Alibaba. In America 76% of online retailing involves people buying from individual merchants, according to a new report by the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI), a think-tank. In China, in 2011, that figure was 10%. The other 90% was sold through marketplaces that simply allow buyers and sellers to find each other. Alibaba has grown so big because early on Mr Ma had two insights into what could make such marketplaces work.

这些是通过阿里巴巴的平台达成的交易额而不是阿里巴巴本身的销售额。据智库麦肯锡全球研究所(McKinsey Global Institute, MGI)z最新发布的报告显示，在美国，有76%的在线零售是消费者与自营商家的交易。2011年，在中国，这个数字只有10%。另外的90%是通过让买家和卖家相互联系的在线集市完成的。阿里巴巴发展到如此规模就是因为当初马云对怎么样使这样的在线集市运作的两个洞察。

The first was that many Chinese are tight-fisted. So Alibaba made all the basic services it offers free to both buyers and sellers. It earns money through online advertisements and extra services it offers clients, such as website design. With 6m vendors Taobao is a cluttered-up cyberspace. Many sellers think it worthwhile to pay for fancy storefronts and online advertisements to help them stand out.

第一，很多中国人精打细算。所以阿里巴巴的基础业务对买家和卖家都免费开放，而自己通过在线广告和其他增值业务（比如网店装修）赚钱。淘宝网聚集了600万小商贩，组成了一个杂乱的虚拟空间。很多卖家觉得花钱卖漂亮的店面、做在线广告以脱颖而出，这样很值。

The second is that many Chinese are reluctant to trust strangers. So Alibaba has provided tools to build trust. One is an independent verification service through which third parties vet the claims made by sellers; the sellers pay for the process. Another is the Alipay payments system. Unlike PayPal, used by many Western internet companies, Alipay takes money up front and puts it in an escrow account. Vendors can be sure that payments made through it will be honoured. Alipay—a source of much bad blood with Yahoo, which felt Mr Ma seized control of it illegitimately, something Alibaba strongly denies—has roughly half of China’s online-payments market. The vast majority of Alipay transactions are for deals made through Alibaba, but the firm says that use elsewhere is growing fast.

第二，很多中国人不愿意相信陌生人。因此阿里巴巴提供工具，以在买卖双方之间建立信任。一个是建立独立的验证服务，通过第三方处理卖家的请求；卖家支付此过程的费用；另一个是支付宝支付系统。与许多西方互联网公司使用的贝宝不同，支付宝预先收取买家支付的钱，放进托管账户。卖家们可以放心，通过支付宝的货款一定会到自己手上。支付宝是阿里巴巴和雅虎关系恶化的源头所在。雅虎认为马云对支付宝的控制是违法的，而阿里巴巴极力否认。尽管如此，支付宝还是占了中国在线支付市场的半壁江山。支付宝处理的交易中有一半来自阿里巴巴的平台，但是公司表示，其他平台的业务增长更迅速。

Alibaba also now has the advantages that come with dominating its domain. In the West, shoppers often search for items on Google, and then follow a link, possibly one in an ad, to a retailer’s website or to Amazon; the ads are what make Google its money. In China Taobao’s scale means it can afford to block the “spiders” that search engines like Google, or its local equivalent, Baidu, use to find out what is on a site. It can do this because shoppers more or less have to come to it anyway. This makes adverts on Taobao more valuable; it gets a fair whack of the revenue that would otherwise go to the search engines.

阿里巴巴的支配地位为它带来了好处。在西方，购物者通常通过谷歌查找商品，然后点击链接（很可能是广告链接），进入零售商的网站或者亚马逊；就是这些广告使谷歌赚钱。而在中国，淘宝网的规模意味着它能屏蔽搜索引擎的天罗地网，像谷歌或者国产搜索引擎百度等用来发现网站内容的网站。淘宝之所以能这样做是因为购物者多多少少还是会回到淘宝上来。这使得淘宝上的广告更加值钱；这样它就得到了本来是搜索引擎的很大一份儿收入。

This is just one way that the marketplace model works better the bigger a firm gets. The more buyers come, the more sellers need to; the more sellers come, the more buyers want to. As a result, domestic and foreign rivals are having a hard time. This goes for purely online firms like DangDang (which resembles Amazon) and 360buy (in which Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia recently invested) and for high-street retailers fighting defensive battles online like Suning and Gome, two appliance giants.

这只是集市模式比较好的一个方面。买家越多，卖家就越多；卖家越多，买家消费就越多。最终，不论是全在线网商当当（与亚马逊类似）和京东（沙特阿瓦里德王子最近投资），还是在线上奋力拼杀的实体家电巨头苏宁和国美，淘宝让国内外的竞争对手都很头疼。

The founders of (translated as seven princesses), a women’s fashion firm, tried the bricks-and-mortar route but flopped. They turned to Alibaba’s web portals and found eventual success. The firm now spends up to 100,000 yuan a day on banner ads with Alibaba, as well as money on search optimisation and special promotion days; last year, its online shops on Alibaba earned over 350m yuan.

女士时尚服饰公司七格格的创始人曾经尝试传统的实体店模式，然而却未成功。他们转而投向阿里巴巴门户网站，最终取得成功。这家公司现在每天花费高达10万元在阿里巴巴网站上投放横幅广告、优化搜索和开展特别促销活动；去年，其阿里巴巴的在线网店赚取超过35000万元。

A torrent of customers

客户洪流

International brands like Adidas and Samsung are still pouring money into Tmall. Some use Tmall as the exclusive channel for online purchases in China; others are experimenting with having both their own site and a Tmall storefront. Günther Hake of Disney says his firm has had good experiences advertising and selling on Tmall. With a new Shanghai theme park opening in two years, he expects to sell ten times more merchandise in greater China. Tmall will see a lot of that action.

阿迪达斯和三星等国际品牌也在向天猫倾注资金。有些品牌把天猫当做在中国的独家在线销售渠道；有些则同时拥有自己的网站和天猫的店面。迪士尼的京特??霍克（Günther Hake）称，迪士尼在天猫上的广告和销售都令人满意。两年内，上海迪士尼主题公园将开园，他预计销售额会有10倍的增长。天猫商城的销售将继续看好。

But Alibaba will not necessarily get things all its own way. Tencent has set up a stand-alone e-commerce division; it runs Paipai, a Taobao competitor, and recently bought , which competes with Tmall. Tencent is a potent rival, says Marbridge’s Mr Natkin, because other businesses such as gaming give it a lot of cash. Alibaba will probably need to invest heavily to maintain its lead. That helps explain the $8 billion in loans and other outside financing the company is pursuing. Most of the money will go to refinance older loans at better rates, says Joseph Tsai, the group’s chief financial officer. But some $3 billion might be used for acquisitions.

但是阿里巴巴却不一定能得偿所愿。腾讯成立了独立的电子商务分支---拍拍，是淘宝的一大竞争对手，最近又收购了易讯商城，与天猫形成竞争。迈博瑞（Marbridge）的纳特金先生说，腾讯是个强有力的竞争对手，因为腾讯的其他业务比如在线游戏让它赚到了不少现金。阿里巴巴可能需要大量投资才能保住它的领导地位。这也就解释了阿里巴巴80亿美元的贷款和其他在外融资。阿里巴巴首席财务官蔡崇信表示，大部分借款会用来以更低的利率对原来的贷款进行再融资。另外大约有30以美元可能用于收购。

What of the company’s prospects? To some extent they are good simply because of where it is. China’s e-commerce market has grown by 120% a year since 2003, says MGI. This year it is set to surpass America’s, with a total value of $283 billion—7% of retail sales—according to Morgan Stanley (see chart 3). The number of Chinese online shoppers has surged to 250m, more than doubling in three years. And there is a lot of room for growth. Online penetration in China was 43% in 2012, well below the 70% or higher seen in developed economies. And fewer Chinese internet users shop online than in other markets.

阿里巴巴的前景怎么样？某种程度上，阿里巴巴前景很好只是因为他们所处的环境。据麦肯锡统计，中国电子商务市场自2003年以来每年以120%的速度增长。据摩根??士丹利(Morgan Stanley)数据（见图3）显示，今年中国的电子商务销售额将赶超美国，达到2830亿美元，占零售总额的7%。中国网络购物人数已激增至2.5亿人，三年内增长了一倍多，并且还有很大的增长空间。2012年，中国的网络渗透率是43%，远低于经济发达国家的70%甚至更多。而且中国网络购物的人数比例也比其他国家少。

With more non-shoppers starting to shop and the rest of China’s population getting online, MGI predicts the market will be between $420 billion and $650 billion in 2020. Mr Ma says that the rudimentary nature of much Chinese offline retailing will allow e-commerce to grow faster and further in China than in the developed world; in rich countries, he says, e-commerce is just “the dessert”. In China it’s the main course. This may be particularly true in smaller cities where consumer spending power is outgrowing the shops available.

麦肯锡预测，随着非网购者开始网购和中国上网人数的增多，到2020年，中国电商市场销售额将在4200亿美元到6500亿美元之间。马云说，中国线下零售的本质决定了电子商务在中国比在发达国家增长速度更快，走的更远。他说，在富裕国家，电子商务只是“饭后甜点”，而在中国，它是主菜。这在小城市尤其正确，因为当地的商店已经不能满足当地消费者的消费能力。

The changing nature of China’s growth offers new possibilities to the company. Peter Williamson of Cambridge University’s Judge Business School argues that a big reason Alibaba’s original business-to-business platform thrived is that by helping buyers and sellers overcome a lack of information and high search costs it was perfectly placed to help and profit from the first wave of China’s integration into the global economy. Now Alibaba is well positioned for the next wave. “The rise of Chinese consumers, Chinese tourists, Chinese companies going global and so on [will offer] lots of new opportunities,” he says.

中国经济增长性质的改变为阿里巴巴带来了新机遇。剑桥大学贾吉商学院（Judge Business School）的彼得??威廉姆森（Peter Williamson）认为，阿里巴巴最初的企业对企业平台蓬勃发展的一个很大原因，就是它帮买家和卖家解决了信息缺乏和搜索成本高的难题，这个完美定位使阿里巴巴从中国融入全球经济的第一次浪潮中获得收益。现在阿里巴巴已经为下一次浪潮做好了准备。“中国消费者和旅游者的增长、中国企业走向全球等等，都会带来新的机遇。”他说。

But the company plans to do more than simply ride the waves of China’s growth. One of its strategies will be to use the data it gets from e-commerce to expand into new areas. “We have the best data mindset in the world,” boasts Wang Jian, Alibaba’s chief technology officer. Zeng Ming, the company’s chief strategy officer, points to finance as a way its data can give the company an edge in new markets.

但是阿里巴巴不满足于随波于中国经济增长，而有更大的计划。其中一个战略就是利用从电子商务中获得的数据扩展新领域。“我们有世界上最好的数据系统，”阿里巴巴首席技术官王坚说。阿里巴巴首席战略官曾鸣指出，就金融来说，数据可以在新市场上带来很多优势。

For three years Alibaba has been making small loans (average size $8,000) to merchants trading on its platforms, using the data it holds on them to guide its decisions. Mr Tsai says its loan book was $600m in 2012, and that by the end of this year it should top $2 billion; the non-performing-loan ratio is below 2%. “The people we are focusing on are completely below the radar screen for the big banks,” he points out. The company turns the loans into products that can be sold to investors. The firm is expanding into loans to individuals, and into insurance, where it has announced a joint venture with Tencent and Ping An, a Chinese insurer. The financial division is likely to be spun out soon, and run at arm’s length rather as Alipay is today. Regulators would probably not allow foreigners to hold a big stake in a financial firm—and any Alibaba IPO would bring in lots of foreign investors.

三年来，阿里巴巴以其掌握的数据为指导，开始向它平台上的商家进行小额贷款（平均8000美元）。蔡崇信先生说，2012年的累计贷款金额达到6亿美元，到今年年底，累计贷款金额将达到20亿美元；不良贷款率低于2%。“我们的目标客户是那些完全不在大银行辐射圈之内的，”他指出。公司将贷款转化为产品出售给投资者。公司在不断扩张，由贷款给个人，扩展到保险行业。公司宣布与腾讯和中国保险公司平安保险成立一个合资公司。这个金融分支可能不会撑太久，不会像现在的支付宝一样，而是只能撑一段时间。监管部门不会允许外国人在金融公司中掌控大量股份，但是阿里巴巴IPO一定会带来很多外国投资者。

Another growth opportunity is that China is now the world’s biggest market for smartphones. Purchases on mobile phones leapt from 2 billion yuan in 2010 to 53 billion yuan last year, 4% or so of total e-commerce. A company dedicated to serving this market might be a serious competitor. Mr Ma recently ordered a large number of engineers to be shifted to the firm’s mobile division. Mr Wang acknowledges that “mobile is a new game where we don’t have the edge yet”—but he reckons nobody else does either.

另一个增长机会是，中国现在是世界上最大的智能手机市场。智能手机的销量额由2010年的20亿元增至2012年的530亿元，占电子商务销售总额的4%左右。致力于服务这个市场的企业可能会成为这个市场强有力的竞争者。马云最近调集了许多工程师，到公司的移动部门。王坚承认“移动领域是一场新的战争，我们还没什么优势。”但是他估计别人也没有。

Then there are the opportunities (and risks) of going global. Alibaba makes no secret of its global aspirations, but some of the things that make it a success at home may not transfer well. Alipay, for example, may offer few advantages in markets which are better supplied with banking and credit services. The marketplace approach that lets the company do without warehouses and other tangible assets has not proved the winning business model around the world that it has in China.

然而走向全球机遇和风险并存。阿里巴巴丝毫没有掩饰自己想要走向全球的野心，但是那些让他们在国内成功的元素，在国外不一定适用。比如，支付宝在银行和借贷服务比较发达的市场就失去了优势。集市模式让阿里巴巴在国内大获成功，但这种没有仓库也没有其他有形财产的模式，在国外并未获成功。

Its most promising overseas markets will be low-trust, underbanked emerging economies—the markets in Africa, Latin America and Asia where other Chinese pioneers leaving the home market, such as Huawei, a telecoms giant, cut their teeth. Being a platform for retail, rather than a retailer itself, may be a winning proposition in those countries too; but it is not a sure thing. And outside China there are serious competitors in the form of Amazon and a resurgent eBay.

对阿里巴巴来说，最有前途的海外市场是那些信任低下、银行也不发达的新兴经济体的市场—-非洲、拉丁美洲和亚洲等其他中国企业，比如电信巨头华为，已经开拓过的市场。阿里巴巴作为一个零售平台而不是零售者本身，在这些国家可能也会取得成功；但是这不确定。而在中国之外，又有像亚马逊和复活的eBay这样的强有力的竞争者。

Among the advantages those competitors might have is that the goods they offer are highly likely to be kosher. This has not always been the case with Alibaba. China has a history of making and consuming counterfeit goods, and vendors on Taobao have not been a notable exception.

这些竞争者的一个共同优势就是，他们出售的商品都比较可靠。而对阿里巴巴来说，这可不一定。中国本来就有制造和销售假货的传统，而淘宝上的商贩可不是例外。

Up until the end of last year, Taobao was on the American government’s list of “notorious markets”. Its removal reflects the effort the firm has put into cracking down on fakes by working with multinationals and lobbies like the Motion Picture Association of America. But managers of Western brands sold through Tmall grumble that fakes are still too readily available on Taobao. Judging by the $12 Manolo Blahniks found in a quick browse they have a point. McKinsey’s Mr Orr tells of a Chinese shoe manufacturer selling through a number of stores on Taobao and Tmall competing with several thousand dodgy operators peddling unauthorised or counterfeit goods, many sourced from within the company’s own supply chain. “Taobao has not yet changed the culture of counterfeiting in China,” he concludes. If it is to become a global giant, it must do more to clean things up.

直至去年年底，淘宝才从美国政府的“恶名市场”名单中除名。这反映了公司在打击假货上做的努力，比如与跨国公司和美国电影协会之类的游说集团合作。但是入驻天猫商城的一些外国品牌的经理抱怨说，还是能在淘宝上轻而易举地找到假货。因为迅速搜索一下，他们就能在淘宝上搜索到仅卖12美元的莫尼??伯拉尼克高跟鞋（Manolo Blahniks）。麦肯锡的奥尔先生讲了一个故事，一家中国鞋商通过淘宝和天猫上的多家店销售正品鞋子，与贩卖未经授权的或者冒牌鞋的几千狡猾小贩竞争，而这些小贩很多都是在该商家的供应链内进行采购的。“淘宝还没有改变中国买卖假货的传统，”他总计道。阿里巴巴要想成为国际巨头，必须做出更多努力，把假货清理干净。

As well as an old problem to overcome, there is also a new one: the sharing of power at the top. Mr Ma is not leaving the firm; he is staying on as executive chairman. But his stepping aside as chief executive clearly changes things. Microsoft, to take the obvious example, was already a global giant and successful public firm when Bill Gates made a similar move. Few people outside China know Alibaba well, and what they know centres on its dynamic founder.

除了老问题，还有新问题待解决：高层的权力分配。马云还没有离开阿里巴巴；他继续留任董事局主席。但是他从首席执行官职位上退下来显然改变了很多事情。举个显而易见的例子。当比尔??盖茨做了同样的举动时，微软已经是一家国际大公司和成功的上市企业了。而在中国之外，很少人了解阿里巴巴，他们知道的只是它那活力无限的创始人。

The change has been long planned inside the company, though. In a little discussed move three years ago Alibaba reorganised its top brass into a partnership structure. Mr Tsai says this was explicitly designed to ensure continuity at the top and a smooth transition from boss to boss. Pressed on whether such a cabal could continue to run things once the firm goes public, he immediately points to Goldman Sachs, an investment bank, as an example of a publicly traded company with a close-knit partnership structure. Edward Tse of Booz & Company, a consultancy, observes that such partnerships (his firm is one too) cannot rely on rules and top-down control to make quick decisions. Shared values are much more important.

尽管如此，这次改变早在公司内部计划之中。在三年前一次悄然无息的行动中，阿里巴巴把它的高层机构重组成了合伙人制机构。蔡先生说，这次决定就是为了保证上层的连续性和职位间的顺利交接。当被问及公司上市后这样的合伙人制度是否还会继续管事，蔡先生马上举了高盛（Goldman Sachs）投资集团的例子。作为一家上市公司，高盛有着一个联系紧密的合伙人制度。博思艾伦咨询公司（Booz & Company）的谢祖墀(Edward Tse)认为，这样的合伙制度（博思艾伦也是合伙制度）不能依赖于规章制度和由上而下的控制来决策。共同的价值观更加重要。

Change China, change the world

改变中国，改变世界

Alibaba seems to take its culture seriously. Assessment on key values, which include integrity and teamwork, make up half of performance reviews, and Mr Ma spends a third of his time teaching such values—which, as one of China’s few revered entrepreneurs, he promotes far beyond the bounds of the company. He claims Alibaba is about improving people’s lives—going beyond Google’s “Don’t be evil” to “Do good”. When corruption was uncovered in the business a few years ago, Mr Ma showed the division’s high-flying boss, and a lot of other people, the door.

阿里巴巴似乎把公司文化看得很重。业务考核中，对于包括诚信和团队精神等重要价值观念的考核占了一半。而马云自己也花费三分之一的时间宣讲企业价值观。作为中国少有的一位受尊敬的企业家，他把这个价值观推广到企业之外。他宣称，阿里巴巴要改善人们的生活---这比谷歌的价值观“不做坏事”更进一步，变成“做好事”。几年前，当阿里巴巴出现了腐败现象时，马云把该分支高高在上的领导和其他许多人请出了大门。

Thus Alibaba may continue to grow. Even if it does not, its legacy of creating trust, encouraging a shift to consumption, and increasing the overall productivity of the retail sector will persist, to the benefit of the country as a whole. Any company that surpasses it will do so by building on those gains, not reversing them. That is why Harvard’s William Kirby, an expert on Chinese business, calls Alibaba a transformative firm—“a private company that has done more for China’s national economy than most state-owned enterprises.”

阿里巴巴将继续成长。就算阿里巴巴不再成长，它建立信任、鼓励消费、增加零售行业的整体生产力的影响也将继续，对整个中国都有好处。超过它的企业也将会继续在它的基础上延续这种影响，而不是颠覆它。这也是为什么哈佛大学的中国商业专家William Kirby称阿里巴巴为变革性的公司---“一家对中国经济做出的贡献比大多数国有企业还多的民营企业。”