Hong Kong Business Intermediary: The Dynamic of Innovative Entrepreneurship

Hong Kong Business Intermediary ("HKBI") was Hong Kong's first business brokerage company that specialised in small business sales. Leading the company was Edwin Lee, a young entrepreneur who took his every chance to drive the company to new levels of success. In November 2001, after realising that there were no business brokerage firms in Hong Kong, Lee set up HKBI and started to offer "matchmaking" services for prospective business sellers and buyers. As the company diversified into too many additional services without proper planning, the rising operation cost turned into a cash flow disaster for HKBI in 2005. Lee then restructured his business model into a more systematic and integrated way and successfully turned his company around, earning himself the award of Hong Kong's Innovative Entrepreneur of the Year 2007. HKBI's business model and efforts in promoting entrepreneurship had also received recognition worldwide. Meanwhile, local rivals began to tap into the under-developed sector in Hong Kong, and many of them were former HKBI employees. Lee knew when a blue ocean began to turn red, he needed to continue to reinvent his business to safeguard HKBI's market leader position. He envisioned HKBI to become a small business property developer in the future. How did Lee distinguish HKBI from others by associating the business brokerage operation with the finance, private equity and property markets in an innovative way? How did take it as his employees striking out on their own and becoming his competitors while one the objectives of HKBI was to promote entrepreneurship?

• Business models
• Profitability
• Organizational restructuring
• Competitive strategy
• Entrepreneurship
• Innovation
• Leadership