Jack Ma envisions ‘small is beautiful’ economy

For good reasons, Alibaba Group founder and executive chairman Jack Ma is upbeat about Asia's chances when it comes to online businesses. He has predicted that the continent will leapfrog America and Europe in the utilisation of the fast-evolving technology. With a larger number of “poorer” people who are naturally trying to earn their livings by using the Internet, Asians are treating online opportunities as a “main course” while their American or European counterparts may just looking at the Internet as a dessert, he noted.
He is not talking about big corporates, of course. Great American and European firms remain hard to beat, but they face a future that will be full of small, successful entrepreneurs, according to the Chinese tycoon. Thanks to the Internet, future businesses will be compact, small and satisfying, he said. “Small is beautiful. Small is powerful. Small is wonderful,” the Alibaba founder said of the future trend of businesses.
A recent visitor to Thailand, Ma, whose statements have been widely circulated on social media, is buoyed by the exponential growth of Internet use for business purposes in China. Poor or “start up” people are harder pressed to fulfill online potentials than their rich counterparts, many of whom can do little more than Facebook uploads to attract “likes”. In addition, richer countries have more “conventional” business options such as good highways and delivery trucks.
He has met several Thai leaders including Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha. Hopefully, the Chinese mogul's message to the Thai government is loud and clear about opportunities for small-scale businesses in this country. Online infrastructure, availability and accessibility in Thailand still leave much to be desired. To begin with, monthly fees that telecom firms charge remain high, especially for poor families.
Political leaders can be misled when it comes to “Startup”, a buzzword at the moment linking new business trends to ever-improving online technologies. In many places in the world, business entrepreneurs, governments, economists and event organisers are treating the term “Startup” as something for conventional businesses, albeit the current economic players. This has influenced policies which tend to keep the status quo intact or even strengthen it. This is not to mention the lobbying power of big businesses which can make “Startup” a trendy but eventually insignificant word.
The truth is that “Startup” is a revolutionary economic concept in which people currently outside the existing realms can become a core of the economy thanks to the technological advancement. Technologies are making it easier to market products, advertise them, improve expertise and extend their reaches. “Startup” in its truest sense can change the world's economy for the better, as it democratises the way human beings do businesses.
Internet-administered business companies can be small, effective and efficiently cost-saving. New entrepreneurs can find talent without being geographically limited. The same goes for the workers who don't want to move or relocate. Overheads can go down or be effectively controlled, and promotion can be done as effectively as having a good army of publicists. Company “owners” won't need big buildings, parking spaces or high-speed elevators.
A global “small-people” economy can be beneficial to mankind in many ways. Of course, the irony of a mega tycoon like Jack Ma saying it is obvious, but, on the other hand, it's good that the admission has come from people like him. 
It's up to the mainstream business world and its political backers to accept it and help smoothen the change, and it's up to the “small people” to realise the opportunities.