Women - The secret to Alibaba's success

Researchers have shown that the rise of women in business and leadership positions has helped firms prosper in unprecedented ways during the past few years. Also, employers and their industries have failed to reciprocate in many cases, according to the research.

China's Alibaba Group's founder and chairman Jack Ma has given credit to women for his company's success. According to Ma, empowering women in business by boosting their employment will help enterprises develop their businesses because of their detail-oriented and caring nature.

"Our secret of success is the women in our company, which also makes us distinct. It is women who have encouraged me to undergo the tough times in the past 18 years since the founding of Alibaba" said Jack Ma

The company's founders, according to Ma, comprised more than a third of women, and a similar amount held senior managerial positions. After a wave of mergers and acquisitions, Alibaba's female employment ratio has only slightly dropped.

Alibaba Group Chairman Jack Ma stated on Monday that women are the "secret sauce" behind the company's success, and he cautioned men that women and artificial intelligence will replace them in the next 30 to 50 years.

In her address to the 2017 Global Conference on Women and Entrepreneurship in Hangzhou, Ma stated that in the age of robotics and machine learning, women's endurance and attention to detail will outshine males.

"I hope to be a woman in my next life, have two children and run two businesses - not one big business (like now)," he said.

Furthermore, he noted, men only know how to develop a firm that competes in revenue, whereas women in business know how to build a company that competes in quality. 

Ma stated that Alibaba's customers enjoyed the best online shopping experience because the company's female employees focused on enhancing quality so that its 500 million users could purchase with ease and comfort.

"I think the more I study my female colleagues' leadership, the more worried I am, since women don't recognize the potential they have," Ma remarked.

In addition, because of Alibaba's distinctive corporate culture, a great number of bright women are attracted to and retained by the company. It's all about empowerment, openness, and family togetherness at its foundation, and it's a beautiful thing. 

In the firm's communication platform Aliway, for example, all employees, regardless of their position or title, are enabled to bring up discussions regarding problems with products or procedures; suggestions and solutions are welcomed throughout the company.

Jack Ma is also concerned about the organization preserving a sense of family among its members. Ma presided over a wedding of 102 couples who were Alibaba employees shortly after the company's IPO launch in the U.S., and gave them a warm blessing as part of the ceremony. 

Ma summarized his corporate philosophy as follows: "In this world, if you want to win in the 21st century, you have to empower people who are better than you are... I find that women think about others more than they think about themselves." No one can deny the fact that Ma is committed to a diverse workforce and to respecting women's contributions in the workplace.