Can Alibaba compete in the global e-commerce market?

1. CASE QUESTION Founded in 1999, Alibaba Group has quickly emerged as the largest Chinese ecommerce company and transactions on its online sites totalled US$248 billion in 2014, more than those of
eBay and Amazon.com combined. The company primary operates in China and provides C2C (consumer-to-consumer), B2C (business-toconsumer) and B2B (business-to-business) sales services via web portals.
With its’ IPO (initial public offering) on NYSE (New York Stock Exchange) in September 2014, the company is expanding into the global e-commerce market. Alibaba Group’s mission is to make it easy
to do business anywhere. As Alibaba Executive Chairman Jack Ma said at the World Economic Forum in Davos 2015, he wants Alibaba’s online platforms to serve 2 billion consumers all over the world,
while helping 10 million small businesses outside of China sell into global markets.

Questions: How Alibaba Group has made it easy to do business in China and achieved a great success? Can the company replicate its China strategies elsewhere as it expands into other countries and
achieve competitive advantages in the global ecommerce market? Search information (e.g. newspapers and other media outlets) relevant to the case and answer the case questions through reference to
relevant theoretical concepts and frameworks introduced in the lecture program.

2. Assignment should include some of the theories listed below:
-International business strategy, e.g FPI FDI, international corporate governance, international business ethics, RBV, sustainable competitive advantages, BPO, EDI
-Michael porter five forces competition
-contracts
-transaction cost
-transaction specific investment
-vertical/horizontal integration
-international alliances & tapered integration
-trust (process based, charcter based, institution based)
– The dynamics of MNE growth – A) sequential internationalization • stages model • geographic expansion • diversification • functional migration – B) accelerated internationalization • corporate
venturing • entrepreneur start-ups