In 2014, Shenzhen Bauing Construction Holding Group Co. Ltd. (Bauing Group) decided to expand internationally, and successfully established subsidiary companies in several Southeast Asian countries. Based on this success in Southeast Asia, Bauing Group decided in 2016 to expand further by entering the US market. However, doing so entailed some challenges and difficulties, including cultural and regional differences, language barriers, and the need to become familiar with different construction standards and laws. Bauing Group also needed to address a pressing issue: determining its market entry strategy. Should it enter the market through licensing, greenfield projects, franchising, business alliances, exporting, turnkey projects, joint ventures, or acquisitions?
BY-HEALTH Co., Ltd. (BY-HEALTH), a Chinese dietary supplement company founded in 1995, had a first-mover advantage as a contemporary health supplement provider in Mainland China. It had successfully utilized this advantage to conquer a significant portion of the market. However, by early 2017, maintaining this leadership position in the market had become increasingly difficult, largely due to deteriorating public perception of consumables originating in China. BY-HEALTH had sought to differentiate itself by actively making its sourcing and production processes fully transparent to stakeholders, most notably by opening a transparent factory in Guangdong Province.<br><br>While BY-HEALTH’s transparent factory and corporate social responsibility activities developed consumer trust and positively contributed to the environment within which the company operated, they were also prohibitively expensive to maintain. It was also difficult to determine how they affected the company’s bottom line. As he prepared for a company shareholders’ meeting in January 2017, the company’s chief operating officer was faced with difficult questions. What programs should the company continue to invest in for the future? Should some of these initiatives have an end date? If they were ended, what effect would this have on the community? How could he communicate the value of the transparent factory to consumers and shareholders?