Professor Zhu Feng from Harvard Business School Delivered a Speech at Our School

On the afternoon of December 21, 2023, The Expert Forum of Professor Huang Shaoan (Session 124)was held in the sixth Conference room of Jing Shi Hall . The lecture was delivered by Professor Zhu Feng from Harvard Business School. Dean Qi Yudong, Director Jiao Hao of the Department of Digital Economy and Management, Director Zhou Jianghua of the MBA Education Center, Professor He Haoran of the Department of Economics, and about 100 students and teachers from inside and outside the School attended the lecture, which was presided over by Dean Qi Yudong.

FIG. 1 Speech by Dean Qi Yudong

At the beginning of the lecture, Dean Qi introduced the basic information of Professor Zhu Feng to the participating teachers and students, and expressed a warm welcome to Professor Zhu Feng. Zhu Feng graduated from Harvard University with Master's and doctorate degrees and is currently a Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. His research interests include platform strategy, digital innovation and transformation, competitive strategy and business model innovation. Professor Zhu Feng has published many papers in top international journals such as American Economic Review and Management Science, which have been reported by well-known international media such as Washington Post, Financial Times, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Harvard Business Review. He was the recipient of the inaugural Practical Impact Award from the American Society for Information Systems, which recognizes business school scholars who have demonstrated outstanding leadership and sustained impact on industry through academic research. Professor Zhu Feng has done strategic consulting for many digital enterprises such as Microsoft, Facebook, Uber, and many traditional companies around the world to provide digital transformation and innovation strategy consulting services.

FIG. 2 Speech by Professor Zhu Feng

Professor Zhu Feng gave a wonderful speech entitled "Why Some Platforms Thrive and Others Don't". Based on the research results in recent years, Professor Zhu Feng introduced the strategic choices of internationally renowned platform enterprises such as TikTok, Google, Amazon, Uber and Airbnb, and analyzed the strategies from five aspects: platform network effect, multi-user strategy, network clustering, disintermediation risk and network bridging. The key factors that affect the success or failure of the platform strategy are explained in a simple way, and the successful experience of the sustainable and healthy development of the platform is summarized.Professor Zhu Feng's lecture organically combined cutting-edge theory with dynamic practice, and his explanation was lively and interesting, which left a deep impression on the teachers and students present.

FIG. 3 The Scene

In the comments section of the lecture, Professor Jiao Hao highly appreciated Professor Zhu Feng's speech, believing that Professor Zhu Feng's lecture helped teachers and students better understand the competition and innovation of digital platforms, made teachers and students feel the charm of academic research, and was a feast of ideas that benefited the audience present, and expressed his heartfelt thanks to Professor Zhu Feng for his wonderful sharing.

FIG.4 Summary by Professor Jiao Hao

In the interaction session, participants actively asked questions on topics such as inter-platform competition, business model innovation, and platform practitioners. Professor Zhu Feng patiently and carefully answered questions for teachers and students, and shared his research insights over the years, providing teachers and students with many suggestions on platform strategy.

FIG. 5 Questions from teachers and students on site

Finally, Dean Qi Yudong once again thanked Professor Zhu Feng for his wonderful speech, and believed that this lecture shared the frontier issues of digital economy, deepened the cognition of teachers and students on the platform business behavior, helped to cultivate problem awareness and enhance research ability. In the warm applause of the teachers and students, The Expert Forum of Professor Huang Shaoan (Session 124) was successfully concluded.

FIG. 6 A Group Photo

Provided by Department of Digital Economy and Management

Edited by Jiao Hao

Reviewed byQi Yudong