Wuzhao Reorganizes DingTalk: "Undercover Visits" Customers in Three Regions, Pushes Middle Managers Back to the Front Line | Exclusive Report from Intelligent Emergence

Text | Deng Yongyi

Editors | Su Jianxun, Yang Xuan

“Intelligent Emergence” exclusively reported that Chen Hang (nickname: Wuzhao), the founder, returned to DingTalk. In the two weeks since he took office in April, Wuzhao has quickly launched a reform within the company.

This rectification covers a wide range. From product design, inspection to rectification, Wuzhao has been deeply involved on the front line.

“Intelligent Emergence” exclusively learned that on the first day of his return to DingTalk, Wuzhao met with all product R & D and design employees at the P7 level and above to understand the product situation.

Product and customer experience are Wuzhao's top priorities now. A DingTalk employee said that Wuzhao has repeatedly emphasized to employees recently that they should respond quickly to every customer and provide end - to - end service: “If a problem can be solved in three days, why does it take three or four months? Is there anyone responsible for the customers? If no one solves the problem, is there anyone to be held accountable? All customers, big or small, should be valued.”

Remove some paywalls and restart product co - creation

One of Wuzhao's current requirements is that all product and design staff conduct a comprehensive inspection of the product experience chain.

The product inspection mainly includes two directions. Firstly, in terms of product experience, DingTalk requires sorting out N minimum MVP scenarios for each product function. For example, under computer, mobile - phone terminals and various network environments, basic scenarios such as user login, enterprise creation, and group chat initiation are inspected.

In addition, Wuzhao also requires the internal team to compare these MVPs with the experiences of competitors one by one to better improve the product.

The inspection is not only carried out within DingTalk. A DingTalk employee told “Intelligent Emergence” that in the first week of his return, Wuzhao led the team to conduct intensive on - site visits and research in Beijing, Guangdong, and East China, and “co - created” with DingTalk customers.

When visiting customers, Wuzhao preferred an “undercover” approach to hear more first - hand voices. Wuzhao didn't bring any front - line service teams. The business department provided a list of customer surveys for Wuzhao when reporting work, but he didn't fully refer to it.

“Some front - line leaders were panicked and were inquiring about which enterprises Wuzhao visited and what the customers said. I heard that some customers complained quite a lot,” the above - mentioned employee said.

During the early days of DingTalk's entrepreneurship, “co - creation” was Wuzhao's common method to find the product positioning and improve the product. In 2014, Wuzhao led the team to visit hundreds of enterprises and proposed the concept of “co - creation partners”. He led a group of people to move to the customer companies to work, hold meetings, and have meals together, and carried out product design and improvement according to the customers' requirements at any time.

The second focus of Wuzhao's adjustment is on commercialization implementation.

After experiencing the “integration of cloud and DingTalk” and becoming independent from the Alibaba Cloud system again, DingTalk has been an independent entity since 2023. Since 2022, DingTalk has established a large - customer service department and launched a paid personal version, all because DingTalk needs to commercialize quickly and prove its self - financing ability.

DingTalk announced its commercialization progress in the autumn of 2024. In the first half of the fiscal year 2025, DingTalk's ARR exceeded $200 million.

However, under the relatively high commercialization goals in the previous few years, the priority of product experience was temporarily lowered, which led to some discomfort in product experience. For example, DingTalk's splash screen ads and the “ad - free” function of the paid membership of the personal version have been ridiculed by many netizens as “workers go to work like cattle and horses, and still have to pay to avoid your ads”.

It can be predicted that after Wuzhao's return, DingTalk's new goal is no longer commercialization first, but innovation in product and AI directions.

Commercialization should serve product experience more. A DingTalk employee told “Intelligent Emergence” that Wuzhao now requires a survey of all DingTalk's paid paths. Simply put, it means simulating the customer's perspective to figure out how many paywalls there are for an enterprise from registration, to actual use, and to in - depth use, and also comparing with competitors.

This week, several product functions of DingTalk have been taken off the shelves for rectification, and multiple paywalls have been removed.

Require middle - level managers to return to the front line

After Wuzhao's return to DingTalk, the rectification of internal work discipline has also become a hot topic in public opinion recently.

Before and after the Tomb - Sweeping Festival, many netizens reported on social media platforms that Wuzhao had issued a number of new regulations, such as adjusting the working hours to 9:00 a.m., organizing morning meetings and evening work summaries, and prohibiting the use of apps such as WeChat, Weibo, and Xiaohongshu during working hours unless for work needs. There were even rumors that Wuzhao would “patrol” the DingTalk office at night to see who wasn't working overtime.

Within the Alibaba system, Wuzhao is widely recognized as a super product enthusiast. For a long time, DingTalk's nickname within the Alibaba system was the “madhouse”. It not only referred to the “crazy” degree of working tirelessly on the product during the start - up period but also to its fierce combat effectiveness externally, such as the battle between DingTalk and WeChat back then.

According to “Intelligent Emergence”, some of Wuzhao's measures to rectify attendance were clearly put forward to all employees, such as starting work at 9:00 a.m. and having short morning meetings. But some were over - exaggerated, such as the so - called ban on using WeChat. “Wuzhao encourages employees to use DingTalk first, rather than banning the use of WeChat,” an employee said. However, Xiaohongshu is indeed an app that is prohibited from being used during working hours, except for some teams with work needs.

Many DingTalk insiders said that the so - called requirement for overtime work on social media is actually more of a requirement put forward by Wuzhao to the DingTalk management team. Wuzhao said that DingTalk doesn't need pure managers, and managers must do what they require employees to do. Once a middle - level manager asked the team to work overtime on the weekend, but the notice was stopped by the HR department as soon as it was issued.

A DingTalk employee said that just this week, a post - 2000 DingTalk employee asked Wuzhao face - to - face how he viewed overtime work. Wuzhao responded on the spot: “We still need to ensure two - day weekends and strictly prohibit excessive overtime.” But at the same time, he required that if some colleagues haven't left after work, the leaders shouldn't leave either. “Don't let me see leaders leaving while employees are still working overtime.”

Promoting middle - level managers to return to the front line is not just an action taken by DingTalk. In 2025, after the generational improvement of large - model capabilities, the AI application market was reopened. In order to make the market sense at the product level more sensitive, large companies including ByteDance and Alibaba are trying to let managers return to the front line.

In terms of management, Wuzhao has also been “rectifying the atmosphere” recently. For internal reports, his requirement to the team is: don't make PPTs, don't engage in formalism, just write a document and clarify the matter.

Cost control is another aspect. Wuzhao also advocates that employees shouldn't use up the full amount of the business - travel standard. DingTalk is currently checking business - travel expenses, mainly targeting large - amount cross - border business trips or non - compliant business trips with serious over - spending.

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This article is from the WeChat public account “Intelligent Emergence”. Author: Deng Yongyi. Republished by 36Kr with permission.