May 17, 2021|
JDers’ Videos Rewarded in “100 Reasons to Love Beijing” Competition
by Hui Zhang
JD.com won both individual and group awards in a short video competition, “100 Reasons to Love Beijing”, hosted by the Beijing municipal government, at an award ceremony held in Beijing’s Forbidden City Museum on May 14.
Representatives from JD.com, China Radio International, Beijing International Studies University, Pubilicity Department of Beijing’s Dongcheng District, Beijing People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries rewarded as “Excellent Organizations”
JDer Ella Kidron’s video “Discovering Beijing’s Limitless Possibilities” and colleague Kelly Dawson’s video “Unexpected Beijing” won the Grand Prize and Third Prize at the competition, respectively. Kidron’s video was also rewarded the only most innovative video award among all over 1000 entries. JD.com was rewarded as one of the “Excellent Organizations” attending the competition. Mr. Jiang Jianguo, minister of the State Information office, presented the Grand Prize Award to Kidron. Mr. Wang Xudong, curator of the Palace Museum who is a veteran scholar of Dunhuang Studies, also attended the event.
Ella Kidron on stage to receiving “Grand Award”
The short video competition together with an essay contest with the theme of “100 Reasons to Love Beijing” has attracted over 1,000 foreign participants living in Beijing from about 100 countries. More than 100 short videos were finally selected to be rewarded at the ceremony. The event was organized to give foreigners the opportunity to share their experiences of living in Beijing, and to express their feelings towards the city from their unique perspectives with different cultural backgrounds.
Performers on stage
Kidron fell in love with Beijing on her runs around the sprawling capitol city. As a native New Yorker and former athlete, her life can be hectic, and running has been a constant companion.
“My Beijing story and my love of athletics are deeply intertwined. When making this video, it was important to tell the story through sport, both in terms of what I have discovered and who I have met along the way. Forging friendships has given me a sense of belonging in a city over 10,000 km from where I grew up,” said Kidron.
Ella Kidron’s video “Discovering Beijing’s Limitless Possibilities”
Dawson’s life in Beijing has always been about the “nooks and crannies” that one discovers throughout the city. As the protagonist of this story, it is emblematic of one of her favorite hobbies, using her own lens to capture the unexpected throughout Beijing.
Kelly Dawson Receiving “Third Prize” on stage
“What I love most about Beijing is that it surprises me all the time. I’ve lived here for more than 6 years, and I still feel that it’s a place where I see things every day that I don’t see every day,” said Dawson. “I wanted to make this video for the competition as a kind of love letter to the city that I’ve called home these past years.”
In addition to Kidron and Dawson’s videos, JD.com also submitted 28 other videos with various themes to the competition. Among the 30 works submitted by JD, four of them were shortlisted for the 100 Outstanding Works in the competition.
Group photo
The organizing committee will translate the selected 100 videos into multiple languages, such as Japanese, Korean, French, Spanish and Russian, and will promote the videos through various of social media platform including You Tube, Facebook, Twitter, Ticktok, and etc.
(Banner photo: from left to right are Yuchuan Wang, Ella Kidron, Kelly Dawson, Hui Zhang responsible for JD’s International Corporate Affairs holding four prizes on April 15)
Dec 28, 2022|
JD.com’s CEO Lei Xu Named Among Most Influential Chinese Entrepreneurs of 2022
by Vivian Yang
Lei Xu, CEO of JD.com, was named one of the 25 most influential Chinese entrepreneurs in 2022 by CHINA ENTREPRENEUR magazine, a leading Chinese business publication focusing on reporting and building the country’s community of entrepreneurs.
“Since becoming the CEO of JD.com this April, Xu led the company to focus on its strengths, and improve operating quality and efficiency, while strategically investing in long-term innovation,” said the publication in the announcement on December 12.
As a real “doer” – the theme of the publication’s 2022 nomination – Xu is widely recognized for his down-to-earth spirit in helping the company navigate a challenging time. He has been driving the company to be increasingly “heavy” by exploring technology and service on supply chain, and positioning JD.com as a new type of real economy enterprise, noted the magazine.
“We all wish our enterprise to be built to last, to become a century-old brand,” said Xu in his interview with CHINA ENTREPRENEUR. “This is undoubtedly a marathon, and the only way to complete it through (economic) cycles and against complex uncertainties, is to stay on target and keep running.”
On many occasions in the past year, Xu has expressed his views that China’s economy has cycles that do not cancel its development momentum. JD’s core business focus is on the retail sector and has strong capability to ride out the cycles. Over the years JD.com has been building a solid infrastructure across three networks, including that of products, warehouses, and cloud technology. Coupled with a responsible supply chain, this safeguards the company’s smooth development despite external headwinds.
“Throughout JD’s 19 years of history, we have never dwelt long over short-term and local gains or losses. Our core logic of business is clear, i.e. our business model and strategic positioning have always revolved around customers and business partners,” said Xu in an earnings call in 2021.
The magazine also noticed Xu’s optimism during JD’s latest earnings call this November, when he commented that “the sign of economic recovery is in sight and JD is ready for it.”
Xu was promoted from President to CEO in April 2022. Richard Liu, the founder and Chairman of JD.com, is dedicated to the company’s long-term strategies, cultivating young talents and initiatives on rural revitalization.
Previously, Xu headed JD Retail for about four years as CEO, a role in which he demonstrated excellent management skills and delivered high-quality business growth under the philosophy of “trust-based and customer-centered value creation.” During this period from 2018 to 2021, JD’s annual active users grew from 300 to 570 million, and full-year net revenue nearly doubled from RMB 461 billion to 951.6 billion yuan.
A decade ago, Xu took the lead in transforming JD’s wireless business into JD App, bringing the company into the mobile era. Xu was also the key person in conceiving the idea of JD618 Grand Promotion, and in bringing the shopping festival to life.
Beyond his professional life, Xu is not shy to show his personality as a genuine Beijinger who speaks from his heart. He is also a rock-and-roll enthusiast and a lover of fashion brands and soccer, all of which make him a magnet for many fans, added the report.
Jul 11, 2022|
JD Incubates New Professions: Robotics Technician, Digital Twin Engineer, Carbon Consultant and More
by Vivian Yang
As a company dedicated to supporting the real economy with its technology and infrastructure in supply chain, JD.com has become an incubator for many emerging professions across its diverse businesses, especially in line with the trends of digitalization and carbon neutrality.
China’s human resources authority recently announced 18 new professions for public summons including robotics engineering technicians, data security engineers, digital solution designers, carbon sequestration assessors and more, reflecting the country’s occupational development and aim to boost college graduate employment and encourage entrepreneurship.
Here are examples of these new positions from JD.com you may want to take a look.
1. Digital solution designer
Jin Zi is an expert of digital solutions for JD Retail’s intelligent supply chain. His work helps to ensure the company’s daily operation efficiency in managing a scale of nearly 10 million SKUs of all categories from electronics, home appliances, general merchandise to fresh food and more, as well as overseeing their optimal fulfillment plans.
By applying cutting-edge technology in inventory prediction, deployment, replenishment and more into a nationwide network of 1,400 warehouses, nowadays 85 percent of JD Retail’s procurement activities happen automatically, further driving down JD’s inventory turnover time to as low as 30.2 days, which is a world-leading performance especially given its size.
2. Robotics engineering technician
Cai Cai is a “trainer” of JD Logistics’ autonomous driving vehicles. She tests these robots not only on the computer for simulations, but also on the real road. New iterations have happened fast in the past few years, and now it is the fifth generation of the self-delivery vehicles. “Before I can follow them by walking, but now as they run faster, I must ride a bike to catch up,” she said.
JD.com is the first company in China to deploy autonomous driving into real logistics scenarios. To date, it is operating hundreds of the self-delivery vehicles on a daily basis in more than 25 cities in China. They also played an important role to perform contactless delivery work during COVID outbreaks in Wuhan, Shanghai and other cities.
3. Energy efficiency and carbon neutrality consultant
Ms. Shen is a building designer from JD Property, a subsidiary of JD.com focusing on developing and managing logistics infrastructures, manufacturing parks and more. Building with a low-carbon concept is at the core of her daily work. Last year, her team delivered a tailor-made BMW parts distribution center in the Central China region, which became the client’s first LEED-certified “green warehouse” in the country. The next such center in North China will also be finishing soon, further extending sustainable development in the entire value chain of the automotive business from production to the after-sales.
As of this June, JD Property has completed project designs for 135 JD Intelligent Industrial Parks, over 40 percent of which adopted the “sponge city” modern rainwater management system.
4. Technician for agricultural digitalization
As part of a new generation of farmers, Wen Ya’s job at JD Farm applies IoT, blockchain, AI and other technologies to the supply chain of agricultural industry, in order to make digitalized standards for farm production and management.
To date, JD Farm has rolled out over 70 projects on nearly 400,000 mu(1 mu equals to 666.67 square meters) of plantation bases in over 10 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions across China, digitalizing the farming process of 13 produce categories including rice, millet, apples, citrons, Chinese wolfberries and more, and adding brand and marketing value for the produce such as promoting dedicated channels like JD Farm’s flagship online stores.
5. Digital twin engineer
Dr. Wang has been a fan of science fiction since childhood and was often fascinated with the idea of bringing people to life from still photos. After graduating from the field of AI generative modeling, he joined JD Explore Academy, applying digital twin technology to organize and present visual content in the digital world. “It is not only a dream come true to me,” he said. “More importantly, we can use these technologies to accompany and serve many people in need.”
JD Explore Academy’s multimodal super deep learning model, known as “Zeus”, has made a series of breakthroughs in the area of digital twinning and achieved first place in several public datasets on task generation in complex scenes.
6. Integrated energy service worker
Bo Wen works on the rooftops of JD’s warehouses, to ensure the stable operation of the photovoltaic panels built by JD Property to generate clean energy to run many of its intelligent industrial parks. He said he has climbed high to “plant the sun” in all weather conditions, and the rooftop view gives him inspiration for a greener future.
By the end of 2021, the first batch of JD’s 12 industrial parks had been installed with PV power generation systems. JD Property plans to build 1,000 megawatts of PV power generation capacity in the next three years, which will sufficiently cover energy use for 85 percent of its industrial parks. This March, JD’s Asian No.1 Logistics Industrial Park in Xi’an was certified to be China’s first carbon-neutral logistics park.
7. Business data analyst
Mr. Kong works for JD Retail’s private-label brand J.Zao. He acts as a “product doctor“ who examines and diagnoses market and consumption trends, identifies high-potential categories with the help of professional tools and experiences, and reviews users’ feedback so as to provide precise solutions for product R&D.
This systemized ability in generating acute product and category insights enables J.Zao to develop highly cost-effective products that meet customer demand better and faster. At this year’s JD618 Grand Promotion, a number of new J.Zao releases had achieved rapid sales growth month-over-month.
JD Industrial Technology Cooperates with Chalco Materials
