Headquartered in Singapore, DBS Bank, one of Asia's leading financial services groups, embarked on a multi-year digital transformation under CEO Piyush Gupta in 2014. It was then that DBS also began experimenting with AI to drive value for the business and customers. As the bank scaled the use of AI, it developed an internal P-U-R-E framework for ethical AI governance. In 2022, DBS started experimenting with Generative AI use cases. It had to consider how best to leverage its existing capabilities and adapt its governance frameworks in deploying Gen AI to drive additional value while managing emergent risks.
In 2023, CEO Randy Wu was considering the optimal growth strategy for Fantuan, a restaurant food delivery platform that had expanded from its 2014 founding in Vancouver, Canada to serve the Chinese demand for Asian cuisine in urban markets across Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Unlike mainstream platforms such as DoorDash and Uber Eats, Fantuan had been profitable for its first four years until deciding to invest heavily in international expansion in 2020. Wu and his team now were evaluating how best to scale Fantuan further in order to capture additional value: by extending its existing services to new geographies, deepening its offerings for existing customers, or broadening its customer base beyond the Chinese diaspora.
Dr. Zhang, CEO of Super Quantum, an AI-driven hedge fund, is considering an investor's request to withdraw their funds as the markets experience volatility. Should he pull the investor's funds?
Dr. Zhang, CEO of Super Quantum, an AI-driven hedge fund, is considering an investor's request to withdraw their funds as the markets experience volatility. Should he pull the investor's funds?
Based in Shanghai, China, Huazhu Group, the world's third-largest hotel operator, was known for its standardized IT system. It helped the company boost efficiency during the COVID-19 pandemic. Chief Digital Officer Xinxin Liu also faced some longer-term challenges: What resources and digital strategy would the company need as it tapped into the higher-end hotel market to become a multi-brand hotel giant? How should Huazhu balance the needs between using its IT solutions to scale its own operations on one hand and to empower other hotels on the other?
Founded by Mosunmola "Mo" Abudu in 2012 with a mission to bring high-quality African stories to the world, EbonyLife was the company behind many of Nigeria's biggest films and TV shows. The company began as a television channel on the Africa-wide direct broadcast satellite service DStv. By 2020, EbonyLife had produced over 5,000 hours of television content and Nigeria's top-three highest-grossing movies. With a need for greater control over its production schedules and following the end of its relationship with DStv EbonyLife launched EbonyLife ON (EL ON), an on-demand streaming service. However, EbonyLife struggled to grow its subscribers of EL ON. Abudu started to rethink whether to continue fighting to grow EL ON. Should EbonyLife focus instead on co-production deals with international media distributors such as Netflix, Sony and AMC?
In 2004, Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba created Alipay, an app to facilitate payments on its e-commerce sites. As Alibaba grew, so did Alipay, until Alipay spawned its own ecosystem of financial technology products and services under the name of Ant Group. By 2020, Ant had one billion users on its platform, which offered investment opportunities, consumer lending, and insurance, targeted towards middle class individuals and small- and medium-sized businesses. In November 2020, Ant Group was poised for its initial public offering (IPO). But the Chinese government canceled the IPO just days before Ant was expected to raise $34 billion at a valuation of $310 billion. Regulators were concerned that Ant's partners were bearing too much risk and they fretted that the Chinese economy showed signs of rising consumer spending. What was next for Ant Group?
In mid-December 2018, Peter Ma, Chairman and CEO of Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China, Ltd. was considering whether the company should grow a fifth ecosystem of Smart City Services. Established in 1988, Ping An was one of the top 10 global financial institutions in terms of market capitalization with 342, 550 employees and nearly 1.4 million sales agents. Under Ma's leadership, Ping An was transforming from a traditional financial institution to a leading global technology-powered personal financial services group. In recent years it executed a strategy of "Finance+Ecosystem" by leveraging three frontier technologies-AI, blockchain, and cloud technology-to develop four ecosystems: Financial Services, Healthcare, Automobile Services and Real Estate Services. Smart City Services, with its business potential and social impact, had become an attractive new opportunity for Ping An to leverage its technology expertise and business experience while gaining new traffic for the other four ecosystems. Ma wondered: How important would this new ecosystem be strategically for the future of Ping An? If Ping An decided to go after this market, how should Ping An differentiate itself from competitors?
Korea Telecom has committed $4billion in investments and R&D to build a GiGAtopia, essentially ushering in the next generation of mobile (5G) and wired infrastructure. CEO Dr. Hwang and his team are considering which areas to prioritize in terms of new products and services in development. The top five sectors identified by KT's team include Internet of Things (including connected cars and smart city/homes), media, health, energy, and security and surveillance. Which might provide some quick wins both in terms of revenues and market lead. Should KT develop solutions that could be exported to other countries? Should KT go all in across all five sectors, or select one or two to prioritize?
In 2015, Dietmar Hopp, owner of Germany's Bundesliga football team TSG Hoffenheim and co-founder of the global enterprise software company SAP, was considering how to ensure long-term sustainability and competitiveness for TSG Hoffenheim. While historically a small team from bottom rungs of the league, TSG Hoffenheim, with revenues of €60 million to €70 million, reached the top division of the Bundesliga in the 2008-2009 season thanks to a deliberate strategy focused on enhanced scouting, strong youth programs, and innovative technology and analytics that improved player development. In 2014 Hopp, who had personally invested €300 million in the club, built a "footbonaut," an automated training environment that collected data on players' skills and strengths. The tool, one of three in the world, helped scouts and coaches better assess and develop each player. Yet some managers felt the technology was a distraction, an investment too expensive for a team that was not yet cash-flow positive. The team finished the 2014-2015 season in eighth place, below the top division, and Hopp wondered whether the focus on technology and analytics was the right strategy to grow the club. He wondered if the "moneyball" approach-when a smaller team competed with wealthier teams by using statistical analysis to buy undervalued assets and sell overvalued assets-could work in football and if investments in technology could lead the team to financial independence.
Founded in 2015 by serial entrepreneur, Colin Huang, Pinduoduo Inc. (PDD) had become China's fastest-growing e-commerce platform in history. PDD pioneered a new approach to online shopping that allowed shoppers to share products, invite friends to form shopping teams, and purchase together at discounted prices. The company's rapid development helped it debut on the Nasdaq in July 2018, only three years after its inception. The fast growth was partly boosted by PDD's heavy investment in marketing and branding, such as through coupons and promotions. How should the company make its competitive advantages more sustainable? Could its business model be replicated outside China?
In the digital economy, scale is no guarantee of continued success. After all, the same factors that help an online platform expand quickly--such as the low cost of adding new customers--work for challengers too. What, then, allows platforms to fight off rivals and grow profits? Their ability to manage five aspects of the networks they're embedded in: (1) Network effects, in which users attract more users; (2) Clustering, or fragmentation into many local markets; (3) The risk of disintermediation, wherein users bypass a hub and connect directly; (4) Vulnerability to multi-homing, which happens when users form ties with two or more competing platforms; (5) Network bridging, which allows platforms to leverage users and data from one network in another network. When entrepreneurs are evaluating a digital platform business, they should look at these dynamics--and the feasibility of improving them--to get a more realistic picture of its long-term prospects.
In summer 2016, four of Australia's top five banks petitioned regulators for permission to bargain collectively with Apple over the terms under which they would support its digital wallet, Apple Pay. They argued that doing so would force concessions from Apple that would improve market competitiveness, consumer choice, price transparency, and transaction security for all mobile payments in Australia. The banks stood to benefit as well. If they succeeded in their primary aim of opening the contactless payment functionality of Apple's devices to their own digital wallets-something Apple had thus far refused in any market it had entered-the banks could retain customer relationships that Apple Pay threatened to usurp and limit Apple's free-riding on the contactless payment infrastructure the banks had just spent several years building. This case supplements the (A) case, 619010.