This case study focuses upon HSBC’s efforts to solve a looming strategic problem by leveraging new data analytics and generative artificial intelligence (AI). HSBC currently has a dominant position in Hong Kong, counting over 5.5 million of Hong Kong’s 7.3 million residents as its clients. Such dominance masks a long-term problem, however. With a growing number of its younger customers choosing to conduct their banking transactions via digital means, HSBC has been starting to lose a growing number of millennials to new, online-only competitors (i.e., digital banks). While HSBC has been generating the bulk of its profits from older, more established clients, millennials represent its future.

In particular, this case describes the challenges faced by two executives at HSBC Hong Kong, Jiahao Teo, HSBC's Managing Director, Global Head of Data, Analytics & CRM, GPB & Wealth, North Asia WPB and Amy Hui, Head of Personal Banking and Customer Lifecycle Management, WPB HK. Jiahao had been instrumental in developing HSBC’s now significant data collection and analytics machinery. Jiahao and Amy needed to understand the pros and cons of their technology resources and determine the best ways to deploy them to attain the objectives of HSBC’s new CLCM strategy – to retain and attract millennials to ensure that HSBC will continue to dominate Hong Kong’s lucrative market.

This case is set in early November 2023. FTX incorporated in Hong Kong, including FTX Trading Ltd. and FTX.US, was one of the leading global cryptocurrency (crypto) exchange platforms. On 11 November 2022, FTX filed for bankruptcy after USD8.9bn in customers’ funds were found to be missing and had been transferred to its related company, Alameda Research. Its co-founder and former CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), had been recognized for his innovative and unconventional leadership style and had successfully portrayed himself as a wunderkind genius and a billionaire philanthropist, thus shocking the world.

FTX was established in April of 2019, following SBF’s relocation from California to Hong Kong. The company invested significant resources in advertising and celebrity endorsements to bring FTX and crypto to the mainstream investor community. Between 2020 and 2021, FTX experienced rapid growth, supported by multiple global venture capital and private equity funds, as well as customers that seemed to be blindly buying into a dream of riches due to the rising prices of crypto. In January 2022, the company reached a valuation of USD32bn. 

SBF assembled a management team consisting primarily of his former schoolmates and coworkers. The majority of the management team lacked the necessary business experience and education to handle a multi-billion-dollar business. They took reckless risks in the name of doing good. In September 2021, SBF and his team relocated to the Bahamas, indulging in a lavish lifestyle using customers’ funds.

SBF was arrested in December 2022 by the US government. SBF and his management team faced charges of commodities and securities fraud, money laundering, and defrauding FTX investors. On 2 November 2023, SBF was convicted of all seven charges by the jury.

In the aftermath of FTX’s collapse, many questioned how SBF managed to ascend to such financial heights without encountering regulatory intervention. Did SBF’s leadership contribute to FTX’s success, or was he merely riding the wave of market frenzy, crypto enthusiasm, and hero worship? Did SBF engage in fraudulent activities, or was his defense of innocence due to his poor risk management and lack of experience valid, as he claimed in court?

KOODESIGN was founded in Hong Kong by Larry Koo and Natalie Chan in 2017. From its base in Hong Kong, KOODESIGN has managed global design projects for clients around the world, such as Philips, Whirlpool, and Softbank. All of those product designs then needed to be manufactured and brought to market. Accordingly, KOODESIGN also developed its Go-to-Market strategy to facilitate the process of moving a product from a design concept to a finished product ready to be launched in the market. KOODESIGN’s latest project was the design of an Automatic Transfer Switch (ATS) for a major, new client, Eaton, a global conglomerate with US$20 billion in annual sales. The product called the ATS MATSN was to be manufactured in China and was intended for the mainland China market. 
As the product design lead for KOODESIGN, Larry interacted extensively with Studio Blue, Eaton’s human-centric design team, and studied the Eaton Designer’s Guide to Visual Brand Language (VBL) that Studio Blue had shared with KOODESIGN. Natalie, on the other hand, had been in close communication with the ATS MATSN project team in China, which included product development, as well as sales and marketing. They also provided input on product design.
Over the course of the interactions that Larry and Natalie had with the respective parties, it became apparent that the priorities of the design team in the USA and the product development and manufacturing teams in China were not necessarily aligned. While KOODESIGN had an established Go-to-Market strategy, implementing that strategy varied across projects depending on the stakeholders involved in each project and their respective priorities. It was necessary, therefore, for Larry and Natalie to further vet the priorities of the parties involved with the ATS MATSN project and ensure that key elements of Eaton’s VBL were not compromised while also ensuring that the product could be manufactured and assembled in a cost-effective manner so as to be competitive in the China market. 

Davis Bookhart, the founding director of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology’s Sustainability/Net Zero office has an HKD 50 million problem. Four years ago, a fund was created to build a position of institutional leadership in sustainability from the largesse of the university’s then president. Intended to pair students with research faculty and the university’s operations staff in the development of sustainable, smart solutions to campus problems, the resultant program transformed the university’s campus works into a living lab, offering an exploration of frontier problems in sustainability and an alternate pedagogical model to classroom teaching. Four years on, over 30 projects have been funded, with outcomes ranging from digitalizing the school’s registrar to using artificial intelligence to build a smart monitoring system for the campus’ bird population. Now, under new leadership and with its funding set to soon expire, Bookhart must reevaluate the living lab’s impact and address how the case for a living lab might be institutionalized. He must also grapple with a broader question of what the role of the university will be in supporting early-stage innovation in China’s now emerging Greater Bay Area?