James Hardy is an authority on retail globalisation, e-commerce, and online growth strategies. He works with brands to future-proof their online expansion across various trading platforms, including Amazon, Alibaba, boutique marketplaces, and own-brand sites. He is the Head of Global Retail & Market Development at Flutterwave, Africa’s largest fintech company. Previously, James served as Head of Europe, Middle-East, and Africa for Alibaba and co-founded the UK's largest China e-commerce exporter. This award-winning platform helped European brands build market share in mainland China.
James has developed international e-commerce strategies for numerous public and private companies, focusing on maximising their value in external, private, and public markets. He examines what large global conglomerates can learn from startup methodologies and what smaller companies can learn from brands like Alibaba about scaling their business.
James regularly contributes to the press and media, appearing in The Financial Times, The Huffington Post, The Journal du Net, and the BBC and China Daily News.
James Hardy discusses the Consumer-to-Business (C2B) model, on-demand development, automated decision-making, and exceptionally fast feedback loops. He delves into Alibaba’s concept of Smart Business and what this means for the impact of emerging technologies.
James Hardy discusses the radically different approaches of these two behemoths and what can be learned from each. Amazon is focused on its customers but not its suppliers and owns most of its own capabilities. Alibaba is focused on all parties within its ecosystem and has multiple business partnerships in almost all areas in which it operates. James pulls the primary learnings from each and predicts how they will fare when they compete head-to-head in countries such as India.
James Hardy explains how Alibaba’s ecosystem operates and why it has been so successful. He focuses on how Alibaba has been able to move so fast and disrupt so many industries, even those outside of its historical core areas. He discusses the company structure, culture and approach to business value and relationships that have allowed it to become such a powerful force within China and increasingly across the globe.
James Hardy explains what business ecosystems are, giving examples from multiple verticals to illustrate the speed and success derived from such an approach. He explains why they are the future of business, and then ties this into a unified theory of business and an operating model for all businesses.
