The Self-Tuning Enterprise

How Alibaba uses algorithmic thinking to constantly reinvent itself by Martin Reeves, Ming Zeng and Amin Venjara

From the Magazine (June 2015)

Artwork: Gordon Bennett, Wilma, 2010, wood, metal, Bakelite, glass, plastic, rubber, paint; Photography: Lucas Zarebinski

Summary.

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Wouldn’t it be nice if an algorithm could tell you when to develop a new business model or whether to enter a new market?

Read more on Experimentation or related topics Strategy and Business management

A version of this article appeared in the June 2015 issue of Harvard Business Review.

Martin Reeves writes, speaks, and advises on strategy and innovation and is a former chair of the BCG Henderson Institute. He is a coauthor, with Jack Fuller, of The Imagination Machine (Harvard Business Review Press, 2021) and a coauthor, with Bob Goodson, of Like: The Button That Changed the World (Harvard Business Review Press, April 2025).

Ming Zeng is the chairman of the Academic Council of the Alibaba Group, an e-commerce, retail, and technology conglomerate, based in Hangzhou, China, and the author of Smart Business: What Alibaba’s Success Reveals About the Future of Strategy (Harvard Business Review Press, September 2018). He is also the dean of Hupan School of Entrepreneurship, a private business school founded by Alibaba chairman Jack Ma and other leading Chinese entrepreneurs in Hangzhou.

Amin Venjara , a project leader at BCG during the writing of this article, is now a vice president of strategy and business development at ADP.

The Self-Tuning Enterprise

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