Lessons from Alibaba and Singles Day
The Singles Day sales event in China was made up because November 11 is written as four ones. It is meant to celebrate being alone but really it celebrates buying things.
In order to pull it off, giant Chinese ecommerce companies have to move about three billion packages in about five days. This feat takes monumental strategic planning, usually based on past data to guide present implementation.
Except the world changed dramatically i n 2020. Last year doesn’t predict this year.
Al of us are in the same situation as Alibaba’s Logistics Team. We all depend on past data to make useful inferences that help us figure out what to do next. Our trusty models from our personal past may not be useful in this unprecedented situation.
One response is to wait for things to ‘get back o normal,’ when the old models will be relevant again. Another is to keep using the old models anyway.
Neither of those options was possible for Alibababa. They couldn’t wait and their predictive models were demonstrably not working. Their only choice was to develop new models driven by more recent context-sensitive data, pilot test them, and expand what worked super fast.
It worked, with more cardboard recycling locations and more renewable energy sources powering the Cloud that drives it all.
The delivery strike, the created needs, the role of livestreaming Influencers — these are not just great topics for discussion, they were all part of the on-the-fly AI logistics model that made Singles Day work.
Immediately building and testing new models when the old ones don’t work sounds so obvious but it is the opposite of what usually happens in life. We are so identified with our models, we have forgotten they are just models, not us. We cling tenaciously despite bad results.
The mandate to move three billion boxes left no time for emotion or ideology. Only results.
Would that be a good mandate for everyone?
- Immediate notification of old model’s irrelevance
- Immediate acceptance with zero resistance
- Immediate search for more sensitive variables
- Immediate implementation of more useful inputs
Alibaba Logistics was in crisis mode and they had to act.
We are all in crisis mode. Do we all have to act?
If we do, then we all need to be on the alert for the notification. Oh wait, there it is. The notification is obvious.
It’s that immediate acceptance with zero resistance that separates the Alibabas from, for example, the Democratic National Committees.
Or maybe from the Chinese Communist Party. Only a week before Singles Day, Alibaba’s Founder was dealt a major setback by the Government for saying a New Model is needed.
Xi Jinping isn’t trying to deliver three billion packages. He is trying to keep 1.3 billion people calm enough that they won’t want to take away his power.
He does not show signs of updating his model.
