PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT MANAGEMENT AT TENCENT

How can Design Thinking be monetized?

Abstract

This paper intends to analyze the characteristics of product development management that gained and maintained a competitive advantage in the Internet service industry from the perspective of design thinking. We conducted a case study of the QQ business of the Chinese company Tencent in order to derive a hypothesis. The original findings of the case study in this paper are as follows: Tencent built into the QQ a mechanism for visualizing and enhancing "Guanxi," a user characteristic unique to the Chinese market, in a virtual space through product development from the Human-Centered Perspective (HCP). The hypothesis derived from the case study is as follows: Behind Tencent's rapid growth in China's emerging Internet service market were the visualization and enhancement of "Guanxi" in the virtual space, which raised certain unique psychological switching cost.