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Case
| HBS Case Collection
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September 2000
Jardines: Tapping the Asian E-Commerce Market
by
F. Warren McFarlan, Melissa Dailey and Fred Young
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Abstract
"We have made significant progress in reshaping the group in the current cycle of change," announced the homepage of Jardine Matheson & Co.'s web site. Percy Weatherall, newly appointed managing director of the company, knew all too well about change. In his previous position as chief executive of Hongkong Land Holdings, a core Jardines holding, Weatherall had successfully navigated through the Asian economic crisis and the plummeting Hong Kong rents and asset values that ensued. But these changes paled in comparison to the challenge of devising an e-commerce strategy for Jardine Matheson, a group with an intricate imbroglio of minority interests and diverse subsidiary and associate companies employing over 160,000 people worldwide. From the 48th floor of Jardine House in Hong Kong, Weatherall and approximately 100 of his Jardine Matheson Ltd. colleagues provided leadership, direction, planning, budgeting, as well as financial resources to the decentralized subsidiary companies located around the world. The question at hand was how a 168-year-old multinational company with commercial interests in over 30 countries could move fast enough to stake its claim in the electronic domain.
Keywords: Corporate Entrepreneurship;
Decisions;
Information Technology;
Corporate Strategy;
Technology Adoption;
