Majid Al Futtaim in 2019: Driving Digital Transformation in a Physical World

By Robert Siegel, Nick Hubbard
2020 | Case No. SM326 | Length 20 pgs.
Majid Al Futtaim, a retail and entertainment conglomerate based in the United Arab Emirates, undergoes a digital transformation under CEO Alain Bejjani in response to disruption in its four core industries: retail, hospitality, food/beverage and grocery, and entertainment. As a regional leader in these brick-and-mortar industries, Majid Al Futtaim must learn to compete with a variety of digitally native e-commerce, homesharing, food delivery, and video-streaming brands. The case traces Majid Al Futtaim as it blends physical and digital consumer experiences, leveraging its unique understanding of the Middle East and its customers, to ultimately make the whole of its conglomerate greater than the sum of its parts.

Learning Objective

Majid Al Futtaim is a company facing “The Industrialist’s Dilemma” – an incumbent bricks-and-mortar company that now must compete with digital upstarts and change how it develops products and organizes its company. This case shows the challenges facing incumbents during times of disruption from the perspective of a large established organization, and a response of investing in digitization, analytics, and talent.
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