- il y a 2 semaines
A conversation with Michael Evans
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TechnologieTranscription
00:00Chris Tank, please a warm welcome.
00:22Merci Chris and welcome.
00:24Thank you for having me.
00:26I cannot describe how excited I am to be here in person after three years and good to see
00:33you guys, all the friends at this forum.
00:38I'm glad you were able to make it Chris and it's good to see you.
00:43Chris, I'd really like to start off and give our audience a little bit of a walk down,
00:48a little bit of memory lane, if you will, but you've played a role in Alibaba for quite
00:54some time.
00:55What I would love you to do is just let me rattle off some statistics.
01:02In fiscal 2022, Alibaba served approximately 1.3 billion annual active consumers.
01:10I'm just going to let that number kind of float in the air for a moment.
01:14That's quite extraordinary.
01:15I mean, that's more meetings than I usually get in a week and that's a tall order.
01:22Can you give our audience, both our live audience and the live streamed audience, because we have
01:27the pleasure of people joining us from outside of Paris.
01:30Just a quick overview of your role as president of corporate development and the Alibaba Group.
01:37Sure.
01:39I've been servicing Alibaba Group as the chief marketing officer since I joined early 2016.
01:47And recently I was appointed to a new role as the president of the group for corporate development.
01:54It's about how do you develop the group strategically for initiatives like Olympic sponsorship, sustainability,
02:06as well as forging strategic alliances with the leading conglomerates around the world
02:14for business innovation, digital transformation.
02:18And Chris, let's look back.
02:20You mentioned that it's been some time since you've been able to travel and, you know,
02:25assume a kind of a normal position here on a stage.
02:28But during the pandemic, which feels like a memory at this moment, thankfully, Alibaba focused
02:36much of its efforts on helping businesses globally.
02:41The multitude of brands that are on the Alibaba platform, how did you help your brand partners
02:48think about it during that moment and how did you help them in the communication during what
02:54is truly a transformative moment for any business, but particularly for Alibaba?
03:00Yeah.
03:03Alibaba's mission has always been to make it easy to do business anywhere in the world, especially
03:11during the pandemic, a tough time.
03:14I think it's just proven that technology can help the business to grow, you know, more so
03:22than than any time else.
03:25So I think what we have been doing for the last couple of years are mainly about how do we
03:32adopt technology to transform the way to build brands?
03:37How do we drive market innovation and gain change the way to engage consumers?
03:43So for example, live streaming.
03:46Now everybody talks about the power, the influence of live streaming.
03:50We started to build it five, six years ago.
03:54And during the pandemic time, it made the live streaming even more important.
03:58So today, for instance, in China, live streaming can easily take account for 20 to 30% of the
04:05total online business for a brand.
04:07And it's not just a channel to sell, but it's a, you know, live brand building, live fan building
04:16kind of a channel.
04:18So it's very powerful to consolidate what a brand has to do through a live kind of a content
04:24channel.
04:25So that's something we've built.
04:26And from that perspective, it sounds like, and I think this is probably a softball, but
04:33it sounds like your approach from an Alibaba perspective is one of a strategic partner less
04:39than a tactical partner.
04:41Because that sounds like you're really not being transactional with the multitude of brands,
04:47but being strategic.
04:48That's correct.
04:49Well, taking another example, like double 11 festival that I think everybody is quite
04:55familiar with, it started out as a promotional day, a big sale day, right?
05:01But now it has been transformed for all the brands to be the biggest window to launch new
05:07products, the most strategically important new initiative for the year.
05:12Because you get this efficiency of reaching millions of consumers, like in a few days.
05:19And a lot of programs has been there to actually, from a content delivery standpoint, help the
05:27brand to introduce their products throughout the festival window.
05:32So it's becoming the most strategically important new product launch window.
05:37And in the back, we are leveraging a lot of data capability, helping the brands
05:42to find the right target, drive the right target to their, you know, content products and
05:49all that.
05:49Well, it's what we talk about all the time.
05:53The way I characterize MediaLink is living at the intersection of, as I said earlier with
05:59Maurice, marketing, media, advertising, entertainment, sports and technology.
06:03At that intersection, there's various constituents around the table.
06:08And the satisfaction to all of them is important in the ecosystem.
06:14And from that perspective, again, that strategic imperative is coming through.
06:21Chris, there's so much we could cover in the short amount of time we've got.
06:25But I kind of decided to focus on two things particularly.
06:29And I hope that's all right.
06:30One is your commitment to sustainability from an Alibaba perspective and maybe personal
06:36as well.
06:37And as well, the Olympics, because Alibaba has become an important partner of the Olympics.
06:43And here we are in Paris where, imagine that, next year, the buzz will be VivaTech plus the
06:50Olympics.
06:51That other thing that will be happening here in Paris next year.
06:53Absolutely.
06:54Let's start with sustainability.
06:57It's top of mind for so many companies to, you know, the obvious statement is lower your
07:03carbon footprint.
07:04And as we look at China, per se, there are some very carbon neutrality initiatives.
07:16I'd love to go behind the scenes and, you know, take a perspective from Alibaba and how
07:21you're enabling and partnering and leading that.
07:26And then I want to kind of unpack a little bit around sustainability and the impact on
07:30the P&L of a company.
07:32Yeah.
07:34At Alibaba, we aim to build a future of commerce with sustainability as a core part of our strategy.
07:41strategy, which means we, the thinking behind is we look at our own business model, which
07:47is quite unique as a platform, which means we bridge the supplier and the buyers as a platform
07:56to connect the dots there, which present us a unique opportunity as far as sustainability
08:04is concerned.
08:05So we target to not only address the scope one and scope two, scope three standards, which
08:14is commonly known as operational standard for carbon reduction.
08:18But we also introduce a brand new concept called scope three plus to help not only ourselves,
08:26but all the stakeholder on our ecosystem to reduce carbon together, you know, which means the
08:35merchants, the brands, as well as the consumers will work together.
08:39And we jointly have a goal to reduce 1.5 gigaton carbon by year of 20.
08:48Let me just try and comprehend that number.
08:49Yeah, it's huge because if you think about all the transaction, all the engagement happen
08:57on our platform, that is carbon related.
09:01There's a way we can, as a platform, promote low-carb product development, for example, low-carb
09:08logistics, as well as low-carb marketing.
09:12So there's a lot of things we can do as a platform to kind of like encourage everybody
09:17to do more, so we have a target for that.
09:19So I do want to get some specifics.
09:21I know you've had some experiences with some brands that people are familiar with.
09:25Unilever, Nestle, L'Oreal, Procter and Gamble.
09:28I mean, some small brands that, you know, the numbers astound me, but you talked about,
09:34or I talked about 1.3 billion.
09:36I was sitting with the chief marketing officer of Unilever the other day who reminded me that,
09:42because the number used to be 1.5 billion, now 3 billion people a day touch a Unilever
09:47product somewhere around the world.
09:49But you've worked with some of the, obviously, world's largest house of brands.
09:54Are there specifics that you could point to?
09:57Yeah.
09:59It is estimated that the consumer sector accounts for 40% of the total carbon emission in the
10:06world, including apparel, food and beverage, you know, all the retail brands, household brands.
10:12So we believe together with all the leading brand conglomerates believe that we should lead
10:21by example.
10:22We should address the key points of this whole low-carb development and really develop cases
10:31for other companies to follow.
10:33So we, for example, jointly initiated a decarbonization-friendly action.
10:44Alibaba was 26 leading conglomerates, including Procter & Gamble, L'Oreal, Unilever, Coca-Cola,
10:52Nestle, you name it.
10:53You can probably think of a few.
10:55So, with a focus on three areas, low-carb product development, low-carb logistic, and low-carb
11:03marketing.
11:05Just to give you some examples, for low-carb development, we, for example, work with Nestle
11:10to develop 128 products for the last couple of months.
11:15That involves bio-based technology, reduction of packaging material, reuse, recycle of the
11:24packaging, and so on.
11:25And also the standard establishment of the decarbonization products.
11:31And for low-carb logistic, for example, we work with Procter & Gamble a lot.
11:36It's about how do we reduce the shipper material from factory to warehouse.
11:41So, in each step of the continuum is where you're trying to attack it.
11:46But, Chris, let me ask you a question.
11:48Not to cut you off on the example, but what's your experience with the corporations?
11:53Because there's some pushback.
11:56And we hear in the U.S. quite a bit now some pushback on over-correcting on ESG.
12:03And, you know, I hearken back to a comment a pundit made about one of the brands we just
12:10talked about that said, let me remind you to the CEO of that particular brand.
12:15I won't shout their name out.
12:17The purpose of mayonnaise is to dip your chips.
12:21And maybe that's enough.
12:22You're in the business of selling products that taste good or, you know, clean or whatever
12:27it may be or make your hair better or, you know, whatever it may be, is there a point
12:32at which there's an over-correction in ESG or are there great examples where you can show
12:39that if you are committed to the right ESG goals, you actually drive the P&L in a positive
12:44way?
12:45Yeah.
12:46My view is...
12:47Because it's a balance, obviously.
12:49Absolutely.
12:49It's not just a balance, it's an upgrade of your operational strategy.
12:55I think that the key thing is sustainability initiative has to come from the organically
13:02as part of your growth strategy.
13:05So the way we look at it, you have to look at your operation model, what's your unique
13:10strengths, competitive advantage, all that, and see how you're going to accomplish that
13:15in an organic way, instead of having an add-on project, having someone...
13:21It's unlike philanthropy, for example, it's not an add-on project, it's how do you upgrade
13:26your operation model with technology that's helping you to deliver sustainability.
13:33So I see great opportunities coming out of this journey, for example, it's a great opportunity
13:40to increase your revenue, because by driving sustainability, many brand companies are looking
13:48for new opportunities for new products, and reaching targets that are never interested
13:53in their brands, and so on.
13:54So it's an increase of revenue, and it's a cost reduction because of less material, you
13:59know, smart logistics and so on.
14:01And also, it's a way to mitigate the long-term risk, regulatory risk, competitive risk, and
14:08also...
14:09Shareholder risk.
14:11Exactly.
14:11And more importantly, it's a way to push the company to adopt technology early on as an
14:17industry leader.
14:18For example, cloud computing technology.
14:20Many companies started to use cloud computing because of sustainability, not because of a replacement
14:29of IDC.
14:31Well, look, in personal life, I've always subscribed to something that I was taught by my parents,
14:37which was if you have the good fortune of doing well, you have the obligation to do good.
14:44Sure.
14:45I try to apply that in my personal life, but I think corporations need to do the same thing,
14:50and that is not just CSR, that is ESG.
14:53And I know we're using a lot of acronyms, which I generally hate, but they're well-known
14:57enough.
14:58And I think that's really the delicate balance.
15:00Especially consumer expected.
15:03You know, for China, for instance, 77% of consumers think low-carb is becoming increasingly important
15:15in their consumption choice.
15:17And 83% of consumers think it's the brands that are responsible to offer convenient choice
15:24of low-carb products.
15:27So it's your job.
15:28They're expecting the brands to do it.
15:29It's table stakes, as we would say.
15:31So I always talk to, you know, the CMOs, you know, all the friends saying, you know,
15:37this is not a defense move.
15:39This could be an offense move.
15:41This way to build your brand.
15:43So, Chris, you mentioned, obviously, technology a few times in there.
15:48Let's talk in our last couple of minutes here about AI.
15:54You know, we're in front of the Cannes Lions, which begins on Monday.
15:58And I've been asked many times, what are the hot topics for this year in Cannes?
16:04And certainly, AI and its impact, both positive and negative, potentially, is on the docket
16:10for conversation.
16:12You know, parenthetically, with a bit of a sense of humor, I hope, somebody asked me about
16:17this new fangled AI.
16:19And I said, well, there's nothing new about artificial intelligence to me.
16:22I've been dealing with it for 72 years.
16:24So I'm used to it.
16:26Yeah.
16:26I thought that was funny, by the way.
16:28You can all join in that one.
16:28It's memme intelligence.
16:30I was just testing that to see if it works.
16:32But let's talk about that relative to Alibaba and, you know, technology.
16:38But what's AI having to do with your day job?
16:43I like this question, Michael.
16:44Very few people talk about the relationship between AI and sustainability.
16:50It's always being discussed separately.
16:53But actually, we see great link.
16:55You know what?
16:56By moving the IT system from your local data center to the cloud computing, it's already
17:04a very sustainable move because it saves a lot of energy, redundant computational power.
17:14Plus, take Alibaba's cloud computation as an example.
17:18We use a lot of liquid cooling to reduce energy consumption.
17:24We also use a lot of green energy, reusable energy in the cloud center, and so on.
17:34So that's shifting already.
17:36We know statistically one company, one client we have, actually by moving their data center
17:43from local to the cloud, already save 85% of the carbon emission.
17:49So AI also doing the work of ESG.
17:53Plus, as we are using more and more AI to make business decisions, AI takes a lot of computation.
17:59So we got to, first of all, move to cloud to be cloud ready.
18:03Then we start to use the AI to run your business even smarter, like including logistic, marketing, manufacturing.
18:13So it saves energy.
18:15It's interesting.
18:16Our friends at Google were telling a story about one of the overnight carriers and the application of AI to
18:25their logistics.
18:26They're in the logistics business, obviously.
18:28Yeah.
18:29And the number was astounding.
18:32I mean, the implementation of an AI capability in that conversation saved them $400 million annually.
18:40So there's a case of AI doing something good.
18:44And in fact, in that case, it didn't decrease the number of jobs.
18:48It increased the number of jobs.
18:49But through the process, they saved over $400 million with the introduction of AI into that logistics chain.
18:57And again, that sounds silly to say that, but there's an example of we shouldn't be worried about that.
19:03Chris, sadly, we're going to run out of time, but I don't want to get off this stage in Paris
19:08without talking a bit about your commitment to serve as a worldwide Olympic partner, especially beginning back-to-back with
19:16Beijing and Tokyo and now here in Paris.
19:19Can you give us a view of what we should be excited about from an Alibaba perspective as we look
19:27forward to next year in Paris?
19:29Yes, Alibaba became the partner of choice for IOC to support their digital transformation of the Olympic Games.
19:39And for the last six years, we're very grateful that we've been able to work very closely with IOC for
19:44quite some few innovations for Olympic Games,
19:48including probably you guys have heard about the cloud-based broadcasting that saves a lot of staff on the ground,
19:55because people were able to take the footage on the cloud for all the right holder broadcaster to get the
20:03live streaming and the footage
20:05and be able to use AI to edit all the video clips for the different video channels in a smart
20:11way, for example.
20:12And for Paris, which is really exciting, and we had a great meeting with the organizing committee just two days
20:18ago here,
20:19we're going to use more technology, especially cloud technology for the great game broadcasting,
20:27as well as for sustainability, the issues we're talking about, to have a cloud-based carbon accounting system
20:36that match all the game organizing touch points to be able to get more data, more insight to see where
20:44we can reduce the carbon emission,
20:47where we can increase the efficiency of future game holding, and to be able to have an intellectual game organization
20:55system based on the cloud system.
20:57Then that will take place in Paris. So behind the scenes, you guys will see great games everywhere in this
21:03beautiful city,
21:04but a lot of intelligence based on cloud is helping the whole thing running smoothly and intelligently and sustainably.
21:13Well, now my view of the Olympics, hopefully up close and personal, I'll know that Alibaba is behind the scenes
21:21in a meaningful way.
21:22We're honored to be helpful, and we're really looking for a great game, probably the most exciting game in the
21:28history.
21:29Well, only to be hopefully not outdone, but equalized when we bring it to Los Angeles in 28.
21:36So I have a home court advantage.
21:38That we're working with in our support as well, yeah.
21:41Well, Chris, I want to thank you for joining me today and making the journey here from China,
21:45and I'd like to thank all of you for your interest and participation.
21:49Thank you very much, everyone.
21:52Thank you very much.
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