The market does not allow Alibaba to rest on its laurels. Amid continuous reforms, Jack Ma's frequent appearances could help stabilize morale and boost confidence if effective.

Alibaba has changed again.

On the company's official website, the business introduction has been updated from the original "1+6+N" structure to four major segments. Reports suggest this is an adjustment internally called the "biggest transformation in a decade," while other sources consider it merely a routine update based on the business classification from its fiscal 2025 annual report.

The market generally agrees with the former interpretation. After all, Alibaba has been the internet company with the most dramatic organizational changes in recent years.

When this news broke, it had been merely two and a half years since that chilly spring afternoon in March 2023.

The market has undergone significant changes: once-smaller rival PDD Holdings briefly surpassed Alibaba in market capitalization before falling back; AI emerged as a dominant force with capital going crazy for artificial intelligence; Taobao and Meituan engaged in fierce competition in food delivery services...

Regarding Alibaba's future, the company's 120,000 employees have various perspectives - some hesitant, some confused, with uncertainty perhaps being the predominant sentiment. Then, Teacher Ma returned.

**Frequent Organizational Restructuring**

Unlike Tencent, which adjusts its structure once every seven years, Alibaba has frequently reorganized its architecture.

According to incomplete statistics, Alibaba has publicly announced over 15 structural adjustments from 2011 to present:

In 2011, Taobao.com, which held 80% market share, was split into three independent subsidiaries - Taobao, Tmall, and ETao, while group buying platform Juhuasuan operated independently, and ICBU (International Business Unit) and CBU (China Business Unit) were spun off from Alibaba B2B company.

In 2013, the group first split into 7 business units, dubbed "Seven Swords Descending from Heaven Mountain," then 60 days later, these 7 units were further divided into 25 business divisions.

In 2015, newly appointed Alibaba CEO Daniel Zhang initiated the famous "big backend, small frontend" transformation, returning to a centralized model.

In 2020, Alibaba broke the centralized model again, loosening restrictions on major businesses and adding 4 senior presidents responsible for China Digital Commerce, Cloud and Technology, Local Services, and Overseas Digital Commerce...

This continued until 2023, when an adjustment described as "unprecedented in Alibaba's 24-year development history, the biggest change" occurred.

On March 28, 2023, Alibaba announced the launch of a "1+6+N" organizational structure. The "1" represented Alibaba Group, "6" referred to Alibaba Cloud Intelligence, Taobao Tmall Commerce, Local Services, Cainiao, International Digital Commerce, and Digital Media Entertainment, while "N" included other important businesses like Alibaba Health, Freshippo, and Quark.

Reportedly, this reorganization plan took 2 months from discussion to announcement, with rumors of Jack Ma's assistance before finally being communicated to 120,000 Alibaba employees.

Many Alibaba employees speculated that Daniel Zhang's "1+6+N" organizational adjustment email might be the last "all-hands letter" they would receive at the entire Alibaba Group level.

According to LatePost, the annual cultural event "Ali Day" held on May 10 would no longer be organized by Alibaba Group but would be handled by individual businesses.

However, things didn't unfold exactly as expected, and another "major change" emerged.

On August 22, 2024, Alibaba's official website showed that the company's businesses were reorganized from six major business groups into four major business categories: Alibaba China E-commerce Group, Alibaba International Digital Commerce Group, Cloud Intelligence Group, and All Other Businesses.

This means Alibaba Group's highly anticipated "1+6+N" structure officially ended.

Through splits and mergers, organizational restructuring has consistently accompanied every critical moment in Alibaba's journey.

Having weathered three years of pandemic, survived antitrust fines and the suspension of Ant Group's IPO, Alibaba employees still had sleepless nights when PDD Holdings surpassed their company's market value.

Despite Alibaba's much larger market scale compared to PDD Holdings, the latter is rapidly closing the gap.

Financial reports show that in 2024, PDD Holdings achieved revenue of 393.836 billion yuan, up 80% year-over-year, with net profit attributable to shareholders of 112.4 billion yuan, also up 80%; in Q2 this year, revenue reached 103.985 billion yuan, up 7% year-over-year.

In comparison, for fiscal 2024, Alibaba recorded revenue of 941.168 billion yuan, up 8% year-over-year, with adjusted EBITA of 165.028 billion yuan, up 12% year-over-year.

Meanwhile, AI large language models have brought surging industrial internet waves, forcing Alibaba to reinvent itself.

Externally, this reflects in Alibaba's different morale.

At Alibaba's 20th anniversary event in 2019, Jack Ma officially stepped down as chairman, with thousands singing together, commemorating Teacher Ma's great achievements and anticipating new stories from Alibaba.

However, such enthusiastic scenes of thousands singing together have rarely appeared since.

**Can Jiang Fan Afford to Lose?**

Returning to this business segment division, e-commerce occupies two of the four major businesses: Alibaba China E-commerce Group (domestic e-commerce) and Alibaba International Digital Commerce Group (international e-commerce).

According to industry insiders, this adjustment perfectly aligns with Alibaba's leadership strategic direction.

In May, Alibaba Group Chairman Joe Tsai delivered an important speech at the "510 Ali Day" gathering, clearly stating that Alibaba's core strategic direction for the next 3-5 years is "e-commerce" and "cloud+AI."

As the leader overseeing Alibaba China E-commerce Group and Alibaba International Digital Commerce Group, Jiang Fan's position as Alibaba's number two has become more prominent.

It's perhaps not an overstatement to say he controls half of Alibaba's empire.

This increased power is also reflected in changes to the partnership list.

According to Alibaba's fiscal 2025 annual report, 9 Alibaba partners including Lucy Peng, Judy Tong, Jeff Yu, and Daniel Zhang have left the power center, while Jiang Fan directly entered the Partnership Committee that holds Alibaba's highest decision-making power.

Notably, the latest Partnership Committee consists of only 5 people - Jack Ma, Joe Tsai, Eddie Wu, Jeff Zhang, and Jiang Fan - two fewer than the previous fiscal year.

What does this mean?

According to the analysis by "Zhu Si Ma Ji," assuming a return to a 6-7 person Partnership Committee from 2019, Jiang Fan was merely an ordinary partner, where each member of the highest power center could oppose, support, or abstain from his decisions, requiring at least 3-4 people's approval to pass major resolutions. But now, with the committee reduced to 5 people including Jiang Fan, only 2 people need to approve for a resolution to pass.

This means reduced resistance from above.

However, with increased authority comes the pressure that Jiang Fan cannot afford to lose - he carries the expectations of everyone at Alibaba.

Understanding this, Jiang Fan acted swiftly.

On August 25, Taobao Instant and Ele.me jointly announced that rider social insurance subsidies would expand nationwide, providing up to 100% subsidies for pension and medical insurance for riders across the country; at least 50% premium subsidies for riders who run stable routes and wish to contribute to pension and medical insurance; full payment for rider captains and honor riders.

Taobao stated that the first batch of cities would implement this in October, with nationwide coverage by year-end. Additionally, the company announced full coverage of "new occupational injury" insurance, added heatstroke prevention insurance, increased serious illness assistance amounts, and enhanced educational support for riders and their children.

The riders' new uniforms were also officially unveiled, featuring logos of 22 brands including Alibaba Cloud, DingTalk, Damai, Ele.me, Fliggy, Amap, Freshippo, Ant Group, Taobao, Taobao Instant, Tmall, Tongyi Qianwen, Xianyu, and Alipay - riders will wear these new uniforms while moving through streets and alleys, becoming ambassadors for Alibaba's brand ecosystem.

On another front, according to LatePost, food delivery subsidies will continue, and Alibaba is already opening up larger markets by setting up stations in small and medium-sized cities, dispatching ground teams to connect with merchants, and gradually cultivating user habits. This is described not as weekend raids but as long-term investment measured in months or years.

A reference data point shows that after Fengniao recruited station franchisees and large-scale dedicated delivery riders in various locations, Alibaba's rider supply has grown significantly.

Based on QuestMobile's monitoring of user engagement time data for Meituan Crowdsourcing, Meituan Rider, Fengniao Crowdsourcing, and Fengniao Knight, LatePost calculated that before the battle, Meituan's rider scale was nearly 8 times that of Alibaba's Fengniao, but this ratio has now shrunk to 2.6 times.

**Jack Ma Appears Again**

Teacher Ma pays close attention to Alibaba's battles.

According to a source cited by "Zhu Si Ma Ji," Jack Ma's enthusiasm for instant delivery was completely unexpected, even rarely appearing in the partnership group to provide direct opinions on the instant delivery business, including today's Taobao Instant logo color being changed at Ma's personal request that very day.

Regarding the claim that Jack Ma personally directed operations, a veteran Alibaba source commented: "Teacher Ma really has this style. When we were doing international business, he actually said he wanted foreigners to feel the Chinese New Year red and made us change the color scheme overnight."

According to "Zhu Si Ma Ji," at the end of June 2025, in Hangzhou's Yuhang District, Jiang Fan and Ele.me Chairman and CEO Chris Fan, both Alibaba partners, were individually invited to Jack Ma's home for a family dinner and a separate small meeting.

Two things happened after that meeting:

First, Ele.me along with Fliggy was incorporated into Taobao's major e-commerce system, with Xianyu founder Duan Duan and Chris Fan both reporting to Jiang Fan - it's rare for one partner to report directly to another partner at the business level within a major business group.

Second, Jiang Fan's previously requested 10 billion yuan instant delivery subsidy budget was increased to 50 billion yuan, and all of Alibaba Group's business lines began massively concentrating resources and manpower toward the instant delivery business.

Behind the food delivery war, Jack Ma has appeared at least 7 times this year alone, trending on social media for his appearances, such as participating in the Central Private Enterprise Symposium in Beijing on February 17.

Compared to his complete absence from 2021 to 2023 and 3 appearances in 2024, this year's frequency of Jack Ma's appearances is surprisingly high.

"Zhu Si Ma Ji" believes this is a sophisticated, subtle yet significant public relations signal: Jack Ma has returned to work; Alibaba's strategic decision-making center and supreme decision-making power have returned to Hangzhou; asking global investors to give Alibaba some time to wait for a turnaround.

As Alibaba's founder, Jack Ma's every move attracts particular attention amid the company's frequent business adjustments.

In June, when Yuan An (花名), a 15-year Alibaba veteran and DingTalk product development head, left the company, he published a lengthy article on Alibaba's internal network criticizing the company's "big company disease" problems, including grade inflation, unclear rewards and punishments, short-termism, and unclear strategy.

Jack Ma responded to this post saying, "Hello Yuan An, thank you for such a long letter, it's well written. Like human growth, Alibaba's development also has many inevitable paths and processes to go through. Alibaba is changing. Best wishes to you, and hope you come back to visit often."

Undoubtedly, even in retirement, Jack Ma remains deeply concerned about Alibaba.

Additionally, Jack Ma has appeared multiple times, returning to Hangzhou's Alibaba campus for activities and interactions with employees.

Since the end of 2024, he has appeared at Alibaba campus four times: from Ant Group's 20th anniversary event to inspecting Xianyu workstations, from Alibaba Cloud strategy meetings to exchanges at Lakeside Cabin, with his itinerary covering core businesses including e-commerce, finance, and technology.

On August 19, as a profound business adjustment was brewing at Hangzhou's Xixi campus, Jack Ma appeared in Gansu's Gobi Desert, visiting the Ant Forest project.

Circulated videos show Jack Ma engaging in deep conversations and jovial exchanges with local tree-planting workers while eating watermelon.

This peaceful scene is exactly what Alibaba employees yearn for but can hardly find.

The current market doesn't allow Alibaba to rest comfortably. Facing a series of market opportunities and challenges, the massive Alibaba must cautiously advance through transformation and change. At such a time, Jack Ma's frequent appearances, if they can stabilize morale and boost confidence, would be quite beneficial.