How China Can Avoid the Middle Income Trap

Without further institutional development, China is headed for the middle-income trap.

Designing a China Business Framework

If you’re looking to succeed in China, you’ll need to align your strategy with the agenda of China’s leaders. Businesses need to take a “politico-strategic” approach when entering the country because of the strong relationship between commerce and government.

How to Find a Manufacturer in China

You have a product idea and you want a manufacturer to produce it for you. But you’re on a limited budget so sourcing in China seems like a good idea. You know that China has many low-cost manufacturers. But how do you find the right one?

Solving China’s M&A Maze

Multinationals creating partnerships with Chinese companies can adopt eight best practices to help manage the unique complexities they often encounter.

The ten principles for doing business in China

Everyone is opening shop in China because “it’s the place to be.” Before you sign the lease, read this…

Cultural Insights on Doing Business in China

Concepts of “face” and “trust” will help you understand the complexity of Chinese behavior if you also consider that their decisions are guided by five concurrent, seemingly contradictory, realities. Keep them ever in your mind. The Chinese do.

The Successful Expatriate Leader in China

Given the dearth of national leadership experience in China, companies are turning to expatriates to fill critical leadership roles, and promoting these leaders very quickly. The cultural dimensions of leadership developed by Hofstede help provide a foundation for business leaders operating in foreign territories. These dimensions of leadership include power distance, individualism, uncertainty avoidance, and masculinity. For an expatriate leading a national team in China, … [ Read more ]

Sourcing from China: Lessons from the Leaders

Companies sourcing from China are reaping huge benefits but also encountering increasingly tough challenges, both internal and external. A recent BCG study reveals the nature of the challenges and summarizes ten key practices that separate the most effective China sourcing offices from their peers: defining a clear sourcing strategy; aligning the China sourcing organization with global procurement; enabling collaboration across regional and functional boundaries; integrating … [ Read more ]

Beyond the Great Wall: Intellectual Property Strategies for Chinese Companies

China is in the early stages of its economic development. This report describes the five phases of IP evolution that companies and nations pass through. Without strong international IP rights, Chinese companies may face exclusion from international markets, have to pay onerous royalties, or be otherwise penalized. While it is written for Chinese companies, the main messages of the report apply broadly to companies in … [ Read more ]

Wholesale Distribution Changes for a Winning China Strategy

Most of China’s 500 million consumers still shop at small markets and local department stores. These consumers, who are reaching threshold spending levels for many products, represent China’s fastest-growing market. Yet only a fraction of Western companies have explored the traditional trade beyond the largest cities, primarily because of distribution challenges. Of the various methods for dealing with distribution, active management of the wholesale channel–an … [ Read more ]

Context and Complexity

Success in China requires a flexible approach for a diverse market.

Avoiding China’s Rip Tide: Navigating Volatile Supply Chains

Companies that rush overseas in search of low production costs may be walking into a strategic trap, as gridlock hits ports and railways in the United States and Europe. It’s easy to underestimate the hidden costs in long supply chains and their impact on profitability. The authors demonstrate how companies can get a handle on costs by comparing the economics of a typical North American … [ Read more ]

VW in China: Running the Olympic Marathon

Will Volkswagen’s “Olympic” program help it reassert its advantage in China?

China’s Five Surprises

In the world’s fastest-growing economy, the last 10 years are not the best guide to the next 10 years.

Protecting Intellectual Property in China

By the time a company calls in its legal team, it’s probably too late. The best corporations prepare an IP protection plan to keep their knowledge safe from the outset.

Getting a Leg Up in China

How to set up shop or sell your wares in this enormous, fast-changing market.

Mr. China: A Memoir

In the early 1990s, British businessman Clissold–with a passing knowledge of China and of Mandarin–found himself the point man between a group of Wall Street bankers with hundreds of millions to invest and a budding entrepreneur class in China strapped for cash and foreign expertise. This seemingly perfect marriage would become, as one investor put it, “the Vietnam War of American business.” By decade’s end, … [ Read more ]

Spotlight on Henri-Claude de Bettignies

In this issue of Spotlight, Professor Henri-Claude de Bettignies speaks to editor Sarah Powell about the development of China as a world power and the opportunities and challenges this offers to western businesses.

Selling in China

China’s 1.3 billion consumers are at a crossroads. They are embracing new economic ideas and habits, and devouring goods that have long been unavailable, unaffordable or forbidden. At the same time, they are part of a culture and an economic system that remain quite different from those of developed countries. In this special report, experts from Wharton and Boston Consulting Group offer insights on how … [ Read more ]