(1) ALIBABA PRODUCTS & SERVICES

PRODUCTS

 AGRICULTURE & FOOD

 APPAREL, TEXTILES & ACCESSORIES

 AUTO & TRANSPORATION

 ELECTRONICS

 HEALTH & BEAUTY

 CHEMICALS & PLASTICS

 GIFTS, SPORTS & TOYS

 HOME & LIGHTS

 MACHINERY, INDUSTRIAL PARTS & TOOLS

SERVICES

 ADVERTISING

 CONSULTING

 EDUCATION & TRAINING

 LAW SERVICES

 LOGESTICS

 TRADE SHOW SERVICES

 TELECOMMUNICATION SERVICES

 REPAIRS & MAINTENANCE

 SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT

(2) CLIENT: SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC

Schneider Electric wanted a truly global cloud network to power its application,
including access to the China market with its very high barriers to entry. Alibaba Cloud
therefore provided the global coverage Schneider Electric needed, as well as providing
advanced infrastructure to manage heavy traffic on its cloud-based energy management
application.

With the support of Alibaba Cloud's click and deploy infrastructure, Schneider Electric
was able to make the transition from a traditional equipment provider to a unique and
innovative online service provider. Crucial to Schneider Electric's success was Alibaba
Cloud's flexible Elastic Compute Servers (ECS) with auto scaling features and load
balancing capabilities to underwrite strong reliability and manage traffic in real-time.
(3) CUSTOMER VALUE PROPOSITION

Alibaba offers five primary value propositions:

i. The company creates accessibility by enabling buyers and sellers to connect. The
most difficult connection it facilitates is enabling Chinese small businesses to sell
to buyers overseas.

ii. The company enables customization by personalizing the shopping experience. Its
data analytic/management capabilities enable it to predict buyer needs and
preferences and tailor product offering displays accordingly, matching shoppers
with relevant sellers.

iii. The company offers convenience by making its service easy to use. It reduces
buyers’ wait times by shipping a high volume of products, delivering an average of
24 million packages daily. It provides valuable infrastructure support services for
sellers, including cloud computing services for CRM and ERP systems hosted on
the platform and web-based and mobile interfaces to manage listings.

iv. The company reduces risk by maintaining high standards. It requires sellers to
offer consumer protection programs such as product warranties and guaranteed
returns. It also enables buyers to provide feedback on sellers and products so future
buyers can be adequately informed. Lastly, it utilizes technology to track and trace
counterfeiters in order to remove them from the site.

v. The company has established a powerful brand due to its success. It is the world’s
largest online and mobile marketplace in terms of gross merchandise volume. It
has more than one billion product and service listings offered by over 10 million
active annual sellers. It has more than 350 million annual active buyers who place
an average of 58 orders.

COMPETITIVE DIFFERENCES

a) According to Jack Ma and the company’s acting CEO Jonathan Liu, the
company’s is attributed to their customer centric and customer friendly
philosophy.

b) Alibaba took the advantage of easy entry into Chinese market. The establishing
Shop on Taobao was casual. Costs associated with selling on the platform are
clear and the relationship transparent. Buyers only need to verify their identity
when registering a user account. This makes buying and selling with Alibaba
convenient.
c) Alibaba and Alipay are among the most trusted companies in China. By creating
Alipay, the Alibaba was able to overcome the problems of secure online payment
system in Chinese market. This is one of the competitive advantages for Alibaba
and it derived huge benefit in the Chinese market. Due to this strategy, the
Chinese e-commerce market developed leaps and bounds resulting in successes
of both Alibaba and Alipay.
d) Alibaba is a e-commerce platform which includes online sales portals, a secure
and easy-to-use payment system (Alipay), a quickly developing logistics network,
and a growing number of financial services  many of which have advantages over
traditional financial institutions (e.g. banks). Alipay is found everywhere well
beyond Alibaba’s platforms due to highly fragmented market in China and is well
accepted both by B2C and B2B markets.

e) Another advantage for Alibaba is the Economies of scale. Since the company is
able to attract large number of vendors and customers, company is able to
negotiate for lower prices with the vendors and in turn pass these benefits to the
customers.

f) Alibaba customized its website to the local Chinese customer’s requirement.

Chinese customers want websites, which provide everything they need in main
page. Hence, Alibaba became preferred e-Commerce company in China.

g) Although Alibaba has fierce competition from companies such as Jinggdong.com,

Tencent, and Amazon the company is able to capture major market share due to
its innovative and customer centric strategies.