Open Sesame: A look into Alibaba’s vision for the future

While the world’s two largest retailers (Amazon and Walmart) invade each other’s turf in India to build a formidable base, one Chinese firm is quietly rewriting the rules of the e-commerce game. A comparison between Amazon and Alibaba would be like comparing David to Goliath, and it’s no secret that Alibaba’s growth as a mega conglomerate has sped up in the last few years, giving heavy competition to its American counterpart(s).

With a revenue growth of about 42%, as of June 2019, and 654 million annual active consumers, Alibaba is paving the way in terms of what it means to monetize on big data and artificial intelligence. And it is all because of co-founder and former executive chair Jack Ma’s latest philosophy of “New Retail”, which aims to digitize the retail experience for its consumers.