Li & Fung: Internet Issues

Li & Fung is a Hong-Kong based company that provides value-added services across the entire supply chain. Li & Fung has been operating for about a century. It was founded in Guangzhou, china, in 1906 by Fung Pak-Liu and Li To-Ming. Li & Fung was a family owned business until the 1970s where it transformed into a public company that is professionally managed. The Li & Fung Group is an international group specializing in exports sourcing, distribution, and retailing. In August 2000 Li & Fung invested heavily in the use of internet technologies to support its business, and launched lifung.com, a business-to-business e-commerce portal. The following write up conducts an analysis of the historic strengths and strategy of Li & Fung, the capabilities of Lifung.com and the risk associated with using the internet technologies. Li & Fung was able to outperform many of its competitors within the same industry for reasons that stem from its effective management, relationships with suppliers and customers, and operations. First, the management team of Li & Fung is well educated and informed about the market. For instance, William earned his MBA from Harvard Business School and Victor completed his Ph.D. in economics at Harvard University. The knowledge they acquired from their studies helped them to transform the business from a family owned business to a professional one, and helped them to integrate a planning and budgeting system into the business. William and Victor were open-minded and adaptive. For instance, when new technologies are introduced into the market, Li & Fung usually adopts it aggressively to gain advantage over competitors. Second, Li & Fung worked in both hard (such as toys) and soft (such as clothing) market. This diversity helped Li & Fung to avoid the risk associated with functioning in one market. Third, Li & Fung provided value-added services across the entire supply chain in 32 countries around the world. Supply chain customization provided benefits