EasyFinance: Managing Knowledge Workers during an Economic Crisis

The protagonist of this case, Marshall Ma, is an MBA graduate with over ten years’ experience as a professional manager in both Chinese and multinational companies. In 2005, he joined a small private enterprise, EasyFinance, as the third partner and General Manager. EasyFinance was founded in 2004, by two trainers, providing finance training for corporate and individual clients. It has experienced rapid growth since its inception — doubling its revenues every year — and by 2007 it had become the dominant player in the fragmented and highly competitive Chinese finance training market with revenues of CNY 13.5 million. The workforce of EasyFinance has reached 31 and the organizational structure and processes are also well established. Marshall and his two partners expect to keep doubling revenues for another three years, which would take the young firm’s annual revenues above CNY 100 million in 2010. However, EasyFinance operates in a relatively small market segment and the shortage of qualified trainers is a bottleneck that his business has to overcome. Marshall and his team need to identify a feasible way to achieve their growth ambitions.