Is SAIC correct in calling Alibaba arrogant?
Is SAIC correct in callingAlibaba arrogant?
Not content with telling the powerful State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC) how to do its job, Alibaba's communications are now telling journalists how to write their reports. Readers will be aware that Alibaba is involved in a very public spat with SAIC after the e-commerce giant fared badly compared to its rivals in a survey on online commerce.
Only 37 per cent of Alibaba's products were found to be up to standard compared with 90 per cent among some of its rivals. This prompted Alibaba to query the survey's methodology and it threw in a few insults for good measure. Evidently stung, SAIC fired the other barrel, so to speak, and published a highly critical report in which it accuses Alibaba of being "arrogant" and "narcissistic" while "undergoing the biggest test of its credibility since its establishment". Alibaba has filed a complaint against the department for what it believes are unsound procedures.
Unsurprisingly, all this has attracted the interest of journalists. One of our colleagues who was in touch with Alibaba's corporate communications team over a feature he was writing found himself at the receiving end of instructions from one of the senior communications staff.
"Our vice-chairman Joe Tsai, will be speaking on this SAIC situation tonight at 8.30pm during our earnings conference call. Before you write a story alleging reputational damage to Alibaba, it's best you hear from the horse's mouth directly. Interviewing a few experts who give a similar opinion does not necessarily make that opinion true and correct. Please take a considered view of this fast-moving situation and wait to include Joe's comments from the call."
Sounds like SAIC had a point about Alibaba's "arrogance".
Blighted by developers
Following yesterday's piece which discussed, among other matters, the need to change the way land was sold in Hong Kong, we noted that the current arrangement requiring huge capital sums restricts the market to a handful of big developers.
A reader wrote to say, "The narrow playing field in property development is caused not only by the upfront premiums, but also by the fact that the government auctions off enormous chunks of land at a time. A highly unfortunate by-product [of this] is our abysmal urban design, as the planning within each land bank is surrendered to the developers, who create inward-looking enclaves optimised for maximum commercial benefit."
This results in another restriction on freedom, he says, "the freedom of movement, as we are forced to move only in the proscribed way developers had laid out for us."
Wanted: Lying consultant
Good to see that Airport Authority Hong Kong is putting public money to good use. We see that it will be hiring consultants in the wake of the embarrassing incident that was brought to the ombudsman's attention recently. It was sharply criticised for telling its staff to lie about its CCTV systems. Essentially, a passenger who saw what he thought was a theft was told by an airport staff member that the CCTV cameras did not record and were only used for real-time monitoring. This subsequently turned out to be untrue.
The airport management blamed the member of staff for his apparent dishonesty when he in fact was obeying company policy. The AA said it accepted the ombudsman's criticism, adding that, "it had hired a consultant to train staff in handling customer inquires [including] areas such as integrity and transparency."
Why do you need a consultant to tell you that it is not good practice for managers to tell their staff to lie to the public? Surely, senior managers could just about manage that?