Case Study

Dalian Wanda Group: When offline meets online (Abridged)

15 pages
October 2018
Reference: IMD-7-2026

Chinese conglomerate Wanda Group, headquartered in Beijing, is the country’s largest commercial property developer and the world’s largest movie theatre operator. One of its core businesses is the Wanda Plazas – large complexes encompassing shopping malls, cinemas, hotels and offices. Wanda’s competitive advantages include a strong culture of execution and a proprietary technology backbone that supports and automates decision making processes. With the growth of ecommerce giants such as Alibaba and JD.com, traditional retail was coming under threat. Wanda, with its background in offline retail, saw the online-to-offline space as an opportunity. But, how best to execute? This case study follows Qu Dejun, president of Wanda’s newly formed Internet Technology Group, as he and his team explored ways to leverage Wanda’s traditional strengths to bring an online-to-offline strategy to fruition.

Learning Objective

Learning objectives include: 1) Understand how an industry can disrupt itself over time and the difficulty for companies to leap across formats and models. 2) Analyze the impact of e-commerce on brands and the implication on the future of retail. 3) Understand the challenges and potential opportunities of integrating technology into traditional businesses. 4) Recognize the importance of business model alignment in making an organization successful.

Keywords
Real Estate, Commercial Properties, Technology, Retail, Bricks and Clicks, Globalization, Digital Transformation, Digitalization, Business Innovation, Corporate Culture, Online to Offline
Settings
Asia, China
Dalian Wanda Group, Media, Finance and Insurance, Financial Services, Consumer Services, Retail, Manufacturing, Technology, Finance and Insurance, Travel and Leisure, Entertainment, Services, Real Estate
1988-2017
Type
Field Research
Copyright
© 2018
Available Languages
English
Related material
Teaching note
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