Useful Links
• Best Practices
China
• DiligenceChina
• ChinaIR.cn
We Want You!
Are you Profile-worthy? Know someone who
is? Let us know. ChinaSolved
is always
looking for new views on successful manage-
ment idesa in China.
title_flash
 |
Personal Data Name: Marshall Taplits |
"Get involved within your organization and also within your community. Meet people. Get your hands dirty. Learn a new word. Order a new dish. Gain a new skill. Be tired when you go to bed and ready to do it again in the morning. Things move fast here!" | |||
|
|||||
The company I consult for provides retailers and suppliers with a Unified Buying Process(tm) that improves margins and speeds products to market. These solutions give companies the power and visibility to plan, design, collaborate on and purchase goods from across the world in time to meet immediate customer demand. |
|||||
It may be true that China isn’t a ‘developed’ country, but that doesn’t mean skilled labor is cheap and available. Good people are harder to find than back home, if for no other reason than people are older here before they get real solid experience. When you find them, it’s hard to keep them just like it was in the United States during the IT economic boom in the late 90’s. If you can consistently find, hire and keep good talent for reasonable salaries, you’re ahead of the game.
Face time is crucial
It’s easy to take for granted in my field that technology allows me to work from anywhere. In fact, I worked for 3 years from home once, with only a weekly 1 hour status call to connect me with the home office. That doesn’t work in China (yet?). Expect to be in the office, partaking in social events with your colleagues and partners, and having business dinners regularly. Most of these things I now enjoy, but it was a challenge in the beginning.
Lack of worldview, especially with regards to global business and expectations.
China was a closed society for a very long time. In many ways it still is. The great majority of people you meet will have never been out of China before. One of the reasons I consider myself successful with regards to understanding global business, is because I’ve traveled and worked/studied in different countries. Without this experience it would not be the same. When working with other people on projects here, I need to remember that they don’t share the same wealth of knowledge and experience and not get frustrated… instead I need to teach and explain. On the other hand, the knowledge they have about their own country and how the various markets here work is just as vital.
After working in Shenzhen for about 1.5 years managing a software development team, I decided to return to the United States for an interesting opportunity. However, my heart was in China. It was a risk for me to leave that very stable position and return to China, but I knew it was the right thing to do. If you want to be a real player in China’s long term growth and development, you have to be here.
Get out of the big city!
To understand China (as best as is possible!) you must get out of Shanghai, Beijing and Shenzhen and visit various provinces, small cities, rural areas etc. The great majority of people you meet, even in most cities, are only a few generations removed at most from their village and most people still support family back home. Some statistics claim that more than 275 million people travel back to their villages for Chinese New Year, making it the single largest annual migration on the planet. To not understand the relationship city people have with their hometown is to miss a vital component of what drives Chinese people in their daily lives and thoughts.
Yes, guan xi (relationships) matter. But don’t relationships matter in every country?!? Yes, you need to know the local market to succeed. But don’t you need to know the local market in any country you operate in? Yes, you need to be well financed to manage cash flow during periods of heavy growth. But I’ve yet to see a case in any country where this was not also true! My point is not that China is the same as everywhere else. However, it’s important not to treat China as some anomaly on the world stage that defies the laws of physics. It’s certainly a challenge for westerners to do business here because it’s so different from how our own countries operate, politically and economically. Nonetheless, I bet if you’re on the ground long enough and conduct business in a professional manner, you’ll likely find success at approximately the same odds as you would back home.
 |
 |
 |