Baidu Planet: Baidu Announces Management & Organization Restructure "Spur development, create efficiencies, enhance synergies"

● Baidu Planet ●

Robin Li, center, Chairman and CEO, signing the lectern during the close of Nasdaq trading on August 5, 2005, Baidu’s first day as a listed stock on the market.

Baidu announced on Friday, July 8, 2011, a management and organization restructure, a senior officer was leaving, and a promotion. The Baidu press release stated:

Baidu Announces Realignment of Four Main Business Functions
Company announces resignation of senior vice president Haoyu Shen

BEIJING, July 8, 2011 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ --

Baidu, Inc. (the "Company") (NASDAQ: BIDU), the leading Chinese language Internet search provider, today announced the realignment of four main business functions: Sales, Commercial Operations, User Products and Technologies, and Commercial Products and Technologies. Baidu will implement an executive rotational program to promote management innovation and efficiency.

"With the development and rising complexity of Baidu's business, promoting organizational innovation and personnel training have become important tasks," said Robin Li, Baidu's chairman and chief executive officer. "Over the past decade, we have constantly upgraded and improved our operations to deliver excellent results. With the realignment of Baidu's four main business functions, I'm confident that we will spur exciting new developments in technologies and products, create greater efficiencies in our sales operations, and enhance synergies in our management structure."

● Sales Functions: Vice president Zhan Wang has been named as head of Sales, which will unify Baidu's direct sales, channel sales, key accounts sales and search engine marketing functions. Mr. Wang joined Baidu in July 2000 and has served as the Company's vice president since January 2010. He previously was in charge of Baidu's commercial products and mobile Internet business.

● Commercial Operations Functions: Vice president Hailong Xiang has been appointed to oversee the Commercial Operations functions, which will incorporate commercial product applications, service management, sales operations, Baidu Union, and commercial product development functions. Mr. Xiang joined Baidu in February 2005 and has served as vice president of sales since April 2007. He previously oversaw direct sales for Baidu's search marketing business nationally.

● User Products and Technologies Functions: Vice president Mengqiu Wang has been assigned to head the User Products and Technologies functions, bringing together the client-side software and user R&D functions. Ms. Wang joined Baidu in November 2002, and was promoted to vice president in January 2011. She currently oversees search technology R&D and other related activities, and will retain these responsibilities in her new role.

● Commercial Products and Technologies Functions: Vice president Jing Wang has been named as head of the Commercial Products and Technologies (including Cloud Computing and Mobile) functions, which will incorporate Baidu's commercial products and technologies, mobile and IT infrastructure functions. Mr. Wang joined the Baidu team in April 2010 as vice president of engineering. He previously oversaw the research and development of Baidu's commercial products as well as the company's IT infrastructure.

Baidu also today announced that senior vice president Haoyu Shen is resigning from the Company for personal reasons and will leave at the end of this month. "We are grateful for Haoyu's contribution to the company's development over the last few years and we wish him every success in the future," Mr. Li added.

Separately, Victor Liang, senior director of Baidu's legal department, has been promoted to vice president. In his new role, Mr. Liang will oversee the legal department, online systems management, policy research, intellectual property and patent-related matters. He will report to Jennifer Li, Baidu's chief financial officer.

About Baidu

Baidu, Inc. is the leading Chinese language Internet search provider. As a technology-based media company, Baidu aims to provide the best way for people to find information. In addition to serving individual Internet search users, Baidu provides an effective platform for businesses to reach potential customers. Baidu's ADSs currently trade on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol "BIDU". Each of Baidu's Class A ordinary shares is represented by 10 ADSs.

The Baidu Story

Many people have asked about the meaning of our name. "Baidu" was inspired by a poem written more than 800 years ago during the Song Dynasty. The poem compares the search for a retreating beauty amid chaotic glamour with the search for one's dream while confronted by life's many obstacles. "…hundreds and thousands of times, for her I searched in chaos, suddenly, I turned by chance, to where the lights were waning, and there she stood." Baidu, whose literal meaning is hundreds of times, represents persistent search for the ideal.

Baidu chose a poetic Chinese name because it wants the world to remember its heritage. As a native speaker of the Chinese language and a talented engineer, Baidu focuses on what it knows best - Chinese language search. Applying avant-garde technology to the world's most ancient and complex language is as challenging as it is exciting. At least people here at Baidu think so. As having diligently disclosed in the Prospectus of our recent Initial Public Offering, we believe there are at least 38 ways of saying "I" in Chinese. It is important that we master all the ways of addressing oneself in Chinese because our users depend on us to address every one of their daily queries. And trust us, pin pointing queries in the Chinese language is an art rather than a science.

Our mission is to provide the best way for people to find information. To do this we listen carefully to our users' needs and wants. Have we collected all the Chinese web pages they want to see? Are the pages current and up to date? Are the search results closely related to their queries? Did we return those search results instantly? To improve user experience, we constantly make improvements to our products and services. For example, we introduced "phonetic" or "pin-yin" search which allows our users to type in Chinese keywords using English alphabets. This feature is designed to skip the switching from English inputting to Chinese inputting and for when the user is not sure of the written form of a keyword. Our users definitely notice the many little things that we do differently to ensure a simple and reliable search experience every time.

In addition to serving individual users, we also serve as a media platform for online marketing customers. We not only provide our customers easy access to one of the largest online audiences in China but also targeted groups with defined interests as indicated by queries. Unlike traditional online advertising services which charge by flat fee, our marketing products and services are performance based. Our Pay for Performance model has taken the market by storm because it is cost effective and measurable.

We know that a lot of interesting things are going on in the Internet space, but we don't want to lose focus. China's Internet search industry is only a newly discovered territory. We see vast untapped grounds in our home base and we believe there are still plenty of prizes to be claimed by the best players.

Charts & Analysis