Mindful self-disruption: how to work like China’s tech giants

Titans like Alibaba and ByteDance experiment constantly with their core products, a new analysis argues, with innovation at the centre of strategy rather than a set of initiatives at the fringes of a company – then, having created something new, the trick is to stimulate both demand and supply.  

Analysis

“The most interesting thing about Chinese tech startups isn’t necessarily how innovative they are, but how willing they are to shake up their best, most core assets and disrupt themselves,” writes analyst Rui Ma in a piece for the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz’s in-house magazine, Future.

Specifically, Ma explores the strengths of companies that lead in the areas that China has pioneered, notably live e-commerce and short video.

Alibaba

Live e-commerce wasn’t an overnight success. Alibaba spotted that growth was increasingly coming from commerce linked with content.  So it pushed aggressively into the space, training potential streamers and setting up events like Singles Day to drum up interest, incentivising sellers and dedicating media dollars and prime app position.

TikTok

Known as Douyin in China, TikTok wasn’t ByteDance’s original bread and butter. First came the news aggregator Toutiao, which bet big on video and even bigger on data prices falling. Like Alibaba, its new idea required focus and money, bringing on board big names both to grow demand and spur supply.

Competition is a key

Partly, the reason for Chinese tech’s speed is competition: “The domestic market is incredibly competitive and international markets have thus far been pretty inaccessible. Chinese companies fight over every market opportunity,” writes Ma.

But they also tend to develop differently from large western companies. Rather than slowing down with size, they speed up and make more changes.

Sourced from Future