Abstract

JD Health, the healthcare subsidiary of JD.com, entered the health industry by launching a pharmaceutical e-commerce business. It started by selling healthcare products online for the first time in 2013. In January 2016, JD Health started a platform for third-party pharmaceutical retail businesses and also opened JD Pharmacy, a first-party pharmaceutical business model, the same year. JD Health started independent operations in May 2019, aiming to build the most comprehensive ‘internet + healthcare’ ecosystem in the industry to give people easier access to better healthcare, no matter what their geographical location. The company offered pharmaceutical drugs and healthcare products on its platform, both as a marketplace that connected merchants to consumers and as a first-party, or 1P, direct retailer. It also offered online consultation with real life doctors and separately partnered with offline pharmacies that could provide location-based 24/7delivery as part of an omnichannel initiative to complement its core e-commerce business. Its closest competitors were Alibaba Health, Ping a Good Doctor, and Meituan for its e-commerce business. The company had high ambitions, its goal being to create a full ecosystem of healthcare and health management for the most populous country in the world. Experts wondered whether JD Health would, in fact, become the leading online healthcare provider in China.

Learning Objectives

The case is structured to achieve the following Learning Objectives:

• Evaluate the healthcare and health-tech ecosystem in China
• Analyze how leading healthcare companies in China were growing their business
• Examine the approach taken by healthcare companies to digitalize healthcare in China
• Understand how healthcare trends create a force multiplier to ignite digital transformation
• Learn to design a healthcare ecosystem for comprehensive health management

Keywords

Platform Business Models; Partnerships; Growth Strategy; Ecosystem development; Omni-channel Strategy; Healthcare Services