Winner Technology: Big Data Disruption in the Retail Industry

This case focuses on the challenges and key decisions facing Winner Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Winner Technology or Winner) when shifting from selling brick-and-mortar retailers with a traffic analytics system to providing them big data services. Founded in 2004, Winner Technology, which focused on providing traffic analytics system as well as related services for brick-and-mortar retailers such as department stores and shopping centers, had become the leader in this industry. However, with the shifting consumer behaviors and the recent advancement of technologies such as big data and artificial intelligence, digital disruption of brick-and-mortar retail became a major trend. Mr. Zhang Hongjun, chairman and CEO of the company, was keenly aware that simple traffic data analytics could not keep up with the retailers' growing needs while the application of big data in the retail industry brought about tremendous opportunities. Therefore, in 2015, Winner Technology established "winneryun.com", acting as a platform to marshal traffic data in the Chinese retail industry, and launched enhanced big data services based on the data resources at the end of 2018. The services, which mainly included foot traffic benchmarking, customer analysis & trade area insights, operational diagnosis, marketing effectiveness assessment and optimization, were designed to provide brick-and-mortar retailers with in-depth big-data-based advice about operational efficiency and decision support. However, the new big data service had received mixed responses from the market. After brainstorming, Zhang and his executive team identified several fundamental issues that the company needed to address in providing big data services, including: what kind of revenue model should be adopted for big data services? How to cultivate the market? And how to diversify into new products and business to achieve a sustained growth?