Within WeChat, worries about challengers and life after Allen Zhang
- WeChat insiders discuss how to remain agile in the face of rising competition from upstarts in China’s competitive social media industry
- London Business School conducted interviews with WeChat executives for a business case study
WeChat head Allen Zhang Xiaolong used to approve every change to Tencent’s flagship social media app, down to the colours and fonts.
But as WeChat surpasses 1 billion users and plays host to more than 1 million mini-apps on its ecosystem, operations have finally become too big for him to oversee everything.
How to stay agile and nimble in a rapidly changing social media landscape with a top-down approach for a 2,000-strong team, and what happens to strategy should Zhang one day leave or step back, were among the top issues on the minds of WeChat executives as the app enjoys its perch as China’s most dominant super-app.
These discussions, gleaned from interviews by the London Business School for a business case study and in written comments provided to the South China Morning Post, offer a rare glimpse into the inner workings of a unit that dominates the country’s social media scene.
“I admit I am very dictatorial,” Zhang, 49, told the London Business School for its case study. “There are many products that are very democratic, but if there are many leaders giving their thoughts, then there is no spirit to the product and the product fragments,” he said. “A product needs to have a strong identity in order to have everything in coherence.”