“The pandemic created this shift to digital, which we now refer to as the “new digital normal”. We changed the way we live, the way we travel, the way we interact with one another, and basically we’ve changed forever in terms of how we transact in the financial sector,” thus said UnionBank Senior Executive Vice […]
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Aside from President Xi Jinping, another APEC guest from China is stirring interest.
He is Jack Ma, founder and chairman of the Alibaba Group, the largest marketplace in the world which is expected to be worth over $150 Billion by next year, according to Forbes.com.
Ma is the second richest man in China (Forbes: $28.7 billion) and is the 18th richest man in the world.
He will be one of the speakers in the APEC2015 CEO Summit to be held on Nov. 16 to 18 at the Makati Shangrila in Makati.
Chaired by Jollibee Foods’ Tony Tan Caktiong, the 2015 APEC CEO summit expects to gather some 700 chief executive officers from across the Asia Pacific region to discuss under the theme “Creating the Future: Better, Stronger, Together.”
The CEOs will be meeting the 21 Leaders of APEC morning of Nov. 18.
Foreign Undersecretary Lula del Rosario, chair of the APEC 2015 Senior Officials Meetings that did the spadework for the Foreign Ministers and the Leaders, cites Ma as an example of the changes in the global economy which APEC tackles.
“Look at Jack Ma,” del Rosario said. “He sells goods that he does not own. What he has is Platform. That’s how your get your customer.”
Ma shared the strategy that made the Alibaba Group a huge success. He said he once told a Walmart (an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of discount department stores and warehouse stores) executive that Alibaba would surpass them in sales in 10 years and explained why.
“If you want 10,000 new customers you have to build a new warehouse and this and that. For me: two servers,” Ma was quoted to have said.
Del Rosario said in a borderless economy fueled by the internet, other issues come up like taxation and that’s where changes in policies and laws are needed. Transition is facilitated when it is discussed by persons who can make the decision, she said.
The story of the Alibaba Group’s dazzling success (its 21.8 billion IPO in New York in 2014 set a record as the world’s biggest public stock offering) is as fascinating as the story of its founder.
Born on September 10, 1964 in Hangzhou, about two hours’ drive from Shanghai, Ma was an English teacher. He improved his English by working as tourist guide for local hotels for free.
It’s interesting to know that the man who earned his wealth in an internet-based business, got introduced to the technology he was 30 years old. That was when he went to the United States in 1994. His friends said “He says that he came to know that there was a thing called a computer, only when he was 33.”
Ma founded Alibaba with a 17 friends in 1999 in his apartment in Hangzhou. Today, Alibaba’s headquarters in Hangzhou is a model of modern workplace – a campus style flexible open-plan office space that accommodates some 9,000 Alibaba employees.
The driving message of Ma and the Alibaba Group’s story is about overcoming failures and learning from them.
Ma failed his university entrance exam three times. Ma said when Kentucky Fried Chicken came to China, he applied for employment. There were 24 of them applicants. The 23 were accepted except him.
He said he has applied for admission in Harvard University 10 times and was never accepted. The five- feet- tall economic giant said, “Someday I should go teach there (Harvard) maybe”.
Ma related that he got the idea of naming their company Alibaba while he was in a coffee shop in San Francisco. “Suddenly I thought Alibaba is a good name. The waitress comes, and I asked her, ‘Do you know about Ali Baba?’ She said, ‘Open sesame.’ So I went out onto the street, asking 10, 20 people. They all knew about Ali Baba. I decided it was a good name. Plus, it starts with A, so it’s always on top.”
Like in the Arabian Nights tale that when the woodcutter Ali Baba uttered the magic word “Open Sesame, ” the cave opened and revealed the stolen loot of gold and other riches, when one clicks at Alibaba.com, one is led to a variety of merchandises. Not stolen though.
Ma, in a letter to Alibaba stockholders, said “We firmly believe the era of heavy business conglomerates is gone. The economy of today and tomorrow will rely on a platform and ecosystem approach. Sustainable growth can only be achieved when enterprises operate within an ecosystem, participate in collective development and share common interests.”
That’s what APEC is all about about.
Photo from Techwireasia
That’s why I was surprised and outraged when I got a notice by email the other night that I was being charged two purchases, $39.99 each totalling $79.98 almost $80.00 or P3,600.00.
The items downloaded were both Disney story time from ITunes.
I don’t do business with I Tunes and definitely not with my credit card.
My BDO visa was hacked!
I reported the fraud to Apple.
I also called up BDO which confirmed the two charges. The customer officer said they will investigate the subject of my complaint and the first step was for me to accomplish the Dispute Form they would be sending me. Meanwhile, they said they would be blocking my account.
Hacked!
I told the customer officer that I will not pay for those items I did not purchase. I also terminated my account.
When you do business with a bank or a credit company, you are assured that your account is secure and they have installed safeguards to protect your account.
BDO did not safeguard my account. I should not be made to pay for their negligence.
I shared my experience with a friend who said her daughter’s friend also has the same misfortune. Her credit card was BPI’s. She was charged 656 Euros (equivalent to almost P34, 000) for a purchase which was impossible for her to have made because she was here in the Philippines.
Used responsibly, a credit card offers a lot of convenience.
One, it allows you to bring small amount of cash and still do important purchases like groceries.
Two, you can buy items on sale or things that you have been looking for when you see them even if you don’t have cash on hand. (During my student days, I would try to save money for books I’d like to buy. But by the time I had the money, the book was no longer available.)
I find credit cards very useful when buying airline tickets in advance.
Three, I get a lot of reward items like SM gift checks for BDO credit cards and appliances for Citibank cards.
But hand-in-hand with the convenience that technology offers are risks posed by malevolent minds. It’s condemnable that some people use their skill and expertise in information technology for devious ends.
If credit card companies cannot safeguard their clients’ accounts, consumers have no other recourse but to go back to pre-credit card days.
It’s inconvenient, yes. But maybe it’s good. We would be spending less.
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