Over the past decade, Asian companies have been launching accelerated and wide-ranging digital transformation initiatives. This has enabled some of them to become leading national and even international players, as well as digital pioneers in their respective industries. This case examines the successful digital transformation undertaken by the Chinese company Midea, one of the world's leading home appliance manufacturers. By digitally transforming the company, Midea improved its financial performance and reshaped its business on a wider scale. While many cases that address digital transformation focus on the early phases of the process, Midea's case illustrates a successfully completed digital business transformation. This allows participants to have an overview of the entire digital transformation journey and see what the potential outcomes might be.

The case is about the continuous entrepreneurial transformation, over two decades, of a company in terms of increasingly advanced technologies and international product markets. It describes how Geely, a leading player in the global automotive industry, started in the 1980s with its founder capitalizing on a series of opportunities during the time of China's high growth. It illustrates how Geely has evolved its technological competence from low-end refrigerators to high-end electric vehicles and mobility systems by deploying growth strategies as diverse as organic growth, acquisition, and integration of businesses across countries. In the process, Geely has turned itself from a late mover and imitator to a strategic innovator and pacesetter in an industry that faces disruption in terms of technology and customer behavior. The case details the phases of Geely's development (from fridges to motorcycles, from motorcycles to cars, and from cars to EVs and mobility solutions). It tracks how Geely's founder, Li Shufu, created a highly successful enterprise in a rapidly growing home market and realigning global economy. The case recounts episodes characterized by continuous improvement and by radical departures from standard practices. Li's entrepreneurial attitude to leveraging available resources step-by-step toward successful deployment is important in turning an affinity for innovation into a competitive advantage and to benefit from China's large market, powerful stakeholders and growing income. At the end of 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, several large and outsized companies that dominated the headlines about Chinese technology giants had become targets of increasing scrutiny by stakeholders in Chinese society. At the end of the case, students are asked to make a choice: Maintain the status quo of high growth; focus on incrementally increasing the quality of growth; or go for a major change?

By 2018 it was the largest insurance company in China. The case charts the development of the company and how it diversified across financial services. In particular, it talks about its strategic transformation, which included attracting foreign employees and encouraging diversity. A key pillar in the strategic transformation was Ping An Technology, a division of the Group created in 2008 that would develop its technology capabilities. This division was critical to later enabling Ping An to develop into an ecosystem player across five segments. Ping An Technology had three core functions - including data, incubating new businesses and new products. Its immediate goal was to align the Group's different IT systems, reduce bureaucracy and increase efficiency. Harnessing the latest technologies, Ping An would operate as a 'human being' with a brain formed of AI, its body of cloud computing, and a nerve, arterial and vein network of blockchain. The case then charts the rise of the Technology division and its ambition to become a global technology ecosystem player. It looks at the core technologies that the division developed including facial and voiceprint recognition and medical imaging and their applications to different parts of the ecosystem. The final part of the case looks at the five ecosytems - finance, healthcare, automobile, real estate, and smart city and Ping An's collaborations and offerings. The case closes with Ma reflecting on the 15 years of the transformation but questioning whether Ping An's technology leadership can continue given the challenges of competitors Alibaba and Tencent in financial services and Huawei, Alibaba and Tencent in smart city solutions. Ping An was also mainly a domestic player but served other parts of Asia, Ma questions what it will take for the Gorup to become a global player.

A few Chinese companies recently have challenged the R&D strategies of foreign companies and offered lessons on how to make ideas commercially viable. But another, less obvious force to be reckoned with in China are the thousands of innovative companies that are quietly disrupting numerous industries and developing new products and new business models.