From its humble beginnings as a start-up in China's Jinjiang County in 1989, Joeone Company Ltd. (Joeone) had grown to become the country's best-selling producer of men's pants. Over the past three decades, the company's founder and chairperson had faced several substantive turning points, including a quality crisis, a period of mediocre growth, and the need to enhance the sophistication of the company's management approach. These turning points led to continuous business model innovation through the three stages of creation, sustaining innovation, and efficiency. By June 2019, the company was doing very well: an initial investment of ¥720,000 had built a company with sales of ¥500 million by the end of 2003, and the company had been publicly traded since its initial public offering in 2011. Clothes from Joeone's three brand platforms were sold via direct sales channels in key cities and through major online shopping channels. However, the founder was still grappling with questions of how to align the company's strategy to ensure its long-term success. Against the backdrop of pressures to further increase efficiency, expand the business (potentially internationally), and respond to changes in the larger competitive and political environment, how could the company sustain its competitive advantage and further improve its operational efficiency and flexibility? What lessons from the past 30 years could be applied to the company's next 30 years of growth?
This case features the development of KargoCard, a Shanghai-based prepaid gift card startup, from its inception in 2008 until late 2015/early 2016 when it received news of a potential buyout by a global player. It illustrates the challenges of entrepreneurship, particularly management and leadership in dynamic and foreign business environments. In particular, this case highlights the considerations in pursuing different growth strategies. This case is suitable for graduate-level management, business, and executive development programmes that include entrepreneurship and/or tech innovation components. It is also targeted at similar programmes with an international, Asia Pacific, or especially a China focus.
This case is a study of the transnational collaboration in China's motorcycle industry from the 1980s to 2010s between Chongqing Jianshe Motorcycle Co. (CJM), a Chinese state-owned enterprise (SOE), and Yamaha Motor Co. (YMC), a Japanese global motorcycle company. It examines the implications and outcomes for the joint venture (JV) arising from differences in the JV partners' organisational cultures as well as from different industry practices, and highlights the systemic influence of political and economic factors in a fast-changing business context on each partner's strategic imperatives. It also discusses the impacts of these factors on the JV operations and outcomes. The case study provides an opportunity to explore the issues and challenges confronting cross border joint ventures at various phases of development and to identify key factors that could shape the prospects and potential of such collaborations.
Since the opening up of its economy in 1979, China has followed an export-led growth policy and transformed the country into a 'Factory of the World' with its labour-intensive manufacturing. Since then, many factories were set up and concentrated mostly in the south-eastern coastal provinces. Although this policy resulted in consistently high annual growth and creation rates, negative side effects such as environmental, economic and social problems became increasingly evident. To address these challenges, in 2012, China's policymakers changed the policy direction to focus more on domestic consumption-led growth. One strategy to achieve the goal was to expand its manufacturing base into the hinterland. To attract investors to move to the inner regions, the government developed gigantic industrial parks and basic infrastructure to accommodate the new policy. This case depicts Xi Yong Micro-electronics Industrial Park in Chongqing, the largest municipality in Western China. It discusses the implementation of the government's development strategy at Xi Yong and presents an opportunity to examine whether Xi Yong and other similar industrial parks would provide the solution that the government is looking for.