The case describes how Roman Khan and Jennifer Chen founded Linjer, a start-up with a limited budget, which successfully generated cashflows via crowdfunding. Linjer is a boutique design house in Hong Kong which offers minimally-designed leather bags and watches, which it sells online globally. Passionate about style and quality, the two founders started the venture in 2014 with a budget of US$20,000. Like most start-ups, Linjer faced limitations on access to traditional funding from financial institutions. As a result, the founders spent half the budget on their first crowdfunding campaign, creating video and photographs establishing Linjer as a classy, high-end brand, and more importantly, one whose products could initially only be procured through online crowdfunding. The rest of the money went to the production of prototypes of their first product, the Soft Briefcase. The case is set in September 2018, when Linjer’s management is deciding on next steps the company will take: (1) to continue the business as is; (2) to take funding from venture-capital investors; and/or (3) other alternatives including, but not limited to, selling the company.

In the beginning of 2018, Lincoln Zhang (Zhang), president of Wanda Cultural Industry Group (hereafter “Wanda Cultural” or “the company”), was thinking about how to take the company to the next phase of international growth. Wanda Cultural had four sectors: films; sports; travel innovation; and children’s entertainment & education. In 2012, the company made its first bold overseas-expansion move to acquire the US cinema chain AMC. Since 2015, its films and sports sectors had rapidly internationalized primarily through acquisitions. However, the path of internationalization was not always smooth, especially in 2017. For instance, because the Chinese Government had seriously limited capital outflow for overseas acquisitions since the end of 2016, Wanda Cultural had to cancel an acquisition of Dick Clark TV Productions. Even worse, its parent Dalian Wanda Group, founded by Chairman Wang Jianlin, suffered from defamation and there were fluctuations in their subsidiaries’ share and bond prices due to a series of rumors in the media that were related to the company’s overseas expansion.

Zhang was pondering how to increase the company’s profit contribution to Wanda by: creating synergies within his multinational business portfolio, shaping market growth, and entering new markets, etc.

The focus of this case is digital technologies in the retail sector in Hong Kong. More specifically, it documents the challenges confronted by the largest department store operation in Hong Kong, the SOGO department stores. A traditional brick-and-mortar retailer with negligible e-commerce operations, SOGO has recognized the impact of technology in the retail sector. Just as its customers are influenced by technology in their daily lives, SOGO has been perpetually challenged in seeking the optimal ways to integrate technology into its daily operations, such as point-of-sale (POS) and customer relationship management (CRM) systems.

Chow Tai Fook (CFT) was the world’s largest pure-play jewelry retailer by market capitalization, with reported sales of USD7.4 billion in fiscal year 2013. One study showed that within mainland China the brand was better known than other international jewelry brands. CTF’s aggressive expansion strategy aims to have 2,000 point-of-sales (POS) outlets by the end of 2014. Faced with a changing demographic, social, economic, and digital landscape within Mainland China, Kent Wong, the Managing Director of CTF, is challenged to fine-tune CTF’s operation and marketing strategies in order to retain current customers and acquire new ones. At the same time, the company is facing some severe headwinds that could slow down its growth path. One of the biggest hurdles is the anti-graft drive initiated by the new Chinese government to stamp out corruption among government officials. Many analysts fear that this campaign would have negative or even devastating consequences for many luxury goods companies like CTF, especially goods of conspicuous consumption.