SHANGHAIBEIJING, Dec 12 Reuters The founder of JD.com told staff he acknowledged the ecommerce giant was too large and inefficient and vowed to instil change, in response to a staff complaint about problems with the platform amid intensifying competition.

Richard Liu made the comments in an internal staff forum in response to a post by an employee, local media reported. A person with knowledge of the matter confirmed the accuracy of his comments to Reuters on Tuesday.

The unidentified staff member had over the weekend posted a thousand wordlong article, criticising JD for having an overly complex promotion mechanism and how its lowprice strategy was being implemented haphazardly. Liu then responded, acknowledging problems and saying they were due to his poor management.

The current organisation is huge, bloated and inefficient, and it does take time to change it, Liu said in his comment, urging staff to join him in changing the company together.

This is a routine exchange, and it demonstrates our management39;s confidence, as well as the entire team39;s collaboration, in addressing problems and overcoming challenges, a JD spokesperson said on Tuesday.

His post comes only a fortnight after Alibaba cofounder Jack Ma similarly responded to an employee post on Alibaba39;s intranet exhorting the company to reform for tomorrow and the day after tomorrow in the face of increased competition, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Alibaba did not reply to a…