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Management Excellence and Success in Asia"If it doesn't kill you, it will make you stronger" Nietsche
August 26 Moving back again to TypepadDear Bloggers, My moving to MSN Spaces was short live. Last week, Typepad has been unblocked after 4 months; so, I am moving back again to Typepad. I haven't post anything but be sure that the spirit of blogging thrills me again. As you may see, I have made substantial improvements on the blog: Twitter, my favorite China blogs, my Favorite India Blogs, Latest new to follow, my Latest Business Readings, and other things. I will continue to upgrade when I have time. Until I post -it will not last too long- please enjoy, the information on my different web lists. Good reading! July 09 Back to MSN Spaces LiveIn my previous post, I explained that I would no longer use MSN Spaces Live as my daily blog, instead I would use Typepad but, from 5 weeks now, Typepad has been censored by the Great Firewall of China, therefore for my China viewers I have no other solution than blogging again here.
Anyway, all the posts you can see on this blog I will also post them on my typepad account.
See you soon.
Romain May 14 Change of my blog addressDear bloggers,
I have recently changed my blog address. You can find me now at the following one: http://www.chinaandi.typepad.com/
Thanks for the 600,000 + visitors since December 2004. I decided to switch to Typepad because you can add comments if you are not a MSN space blogger and there are also more functions and design possibilities.
Please come to visit me at the address mentioned above.
See you soon! May 01 How to avoid cheating in China Part IThere are so many forms of cheating in China that I cannot give you an exhaustive list of them. They cheat in all kind of industries for all kind of reasons: non-payment, intellectual property infringements, corruption money, etc...What I can do is to show you as much as possible how to avoid it!
Inside your company:
There are very creative ways of cheating in a company that can make it collapse:
- Development of distribution network: Your products can only be successful if they are marketed widely. So, the task is often given to Sales & Marketing managers in an area to develop the distribution network. Quick profit from your staff can come by choosing relatives or friends (classmates for instance) as a distributor and/or to be a shareholder in the company. Consequences are various: 1/ your employee will make sure that your company cannot increase the number of distributors in the area; 2/ Price to the distributor will be low so it will dampen your sales; 3/ distributors are chosen for their relationship, not for their skills, so it may hurt your brand if customer service is not good.
- Purchasing: classic way of cheating and widespread. I only purchase from you if you give me a kickback. It could be for raw materials to stationery!
- Sales: I sale to you and give you a good price but you shall give me a kickback for the good price I gave. Widespread form of transaction!
- Parallel entity/ product: I copy your product or set up a mirror company and sell products saying that they are from your famous brand.
- I work for you but also for the competitor. I am paid monthly by your company to sell or market your products but they are not always suitable for the Chinese customers (too expensive, design doesn't fit, time delivery too long, etc...) so I also sell your competitor products if my client doesn't like yours.
(To be continued) April 30 How to manage your secretary/ assistant Part IWhat I mean here is not what is going beyond your professional relationship with your secretary/assistant but how to work with your Chinese employee when you are a Foreigner. Well pretty the same way as you work with your assistant in your home country but with some differences that shall be clarified when you hire your new Chinese employee.
When you are an assistant in a Foreign company or in a Chinese company, you don't have the same social status. What are the differences?
Chinese company Western company
Loyalty before skills Skills before loyalty
Powerful often seen as deputy boss Power limited, just an assistant
Respected by staff Equal among other employees
Can take decisions outside scope of work Prerogatives limited to English and inform staff about decisions
Beijing offers better protection for migrant workersHu Jintao and Wen Jiabao promised last month a system across China that will help Chinese migrants to get their salaries. Millions of migrant workers leave the countryside to find better paid jobs in large cities. They are a very cheap labor force on construction sites. They often stay without payment of their salaries during months. Beijing is the first city to implement this new system.
ChinaCSR.com (here) reported this new plan by Beijing municipality:
"
Beijing's municipal government will issue migrant workers at construction sites free multi-functional identity cards this year to prevent wage problems and better facilitate management. The card can be used for banking, as an identity document for insurance purposes, training courses, and as a work attendance record. The Beijing municipal construction committee announced it would issue 600,000 such cards to migrant workers in the city's construction industry. Projects that have a construction area of more than 5,000 sq m or cost more than RMB5 million and a construction period of more than six months, must ensure that more than 95%of the migrant workers have the card. Tao Liming, president of the Postal Savings Bank of China, said each card has a corresponding deposit book, into which contractors can deposit wages. He said that with the card, migrant workers will not have to carry a lot of cash with them when they return to their hometowns. The card also provides information to the public security and labor departments so they can keep abreast of the city's floating population, said Sui Zhenjiang, director the Beijing committee, who will closely monitor the implementation of the card. Action will be taken against companies that refuse to promote the card. Last year the city's construction companies defaulted on RMB1.628 billion in wages, so this card will hopefully allow workers better access to their salaries" Is this the first step for a more harmonious Chinese society? I doubt but it will be interesting to watch the implementation of such plan and if it spreads around the country. How to manage cultural differences Part I In an organisation where Chinese and Foreigners, there are always miscommunication because of difference of:
- Education;
- Family background;
- Nationality;
- Interests in life;
- Personal and corporate objectives, etc...
I often see in Joint Ventures or even Wholly Foreign owned enterprises that Foreigners take care of their own business and the Chinese theirs. They rarely share or confront ideas. You often ask your Foreign staff if they had lunch or dinner outside of the job and they will mostly tell you: "No". Personnally, I think the failure of most Foreign companies in China is the lack of communication among employees. Foreign managers tend to delegate too much to their Chinese staff because they think only a Chinese can manage in a Chinese environment. This may be true but I think they also shall be some involvement by the Foreign expat. They are not just here to make the bridge between the Foreign Headquarters and the Chinese company, there are also here to get things done in a way that is understandable back home. To empower is important but to manage is even more important. I have seen along my ten years in China so many Foreign companies that look from the outside very efficient but lack proper and sound foundations. Like card pyramids they often collapse very quickly.
Most expats are here for short-term (2-3 years) and they have heard the stories at corporate HQ that China is a very difficult country to work and they don't want to mess things up for themselves. So they quickly delegate their work and focus building bridges with HQ something that Chinese staff have more difficulties to do.
How to understand the Chinese way of thinking Part I"The problem is not me, the problem is China!": this is the most common sentence I have heard over the years in China ( I am here for more than ten years!). Maybe true in some aspects but any expat coming to China has also his/her share or responsibility. Stating that doesn't give you any solution for success. So, what are the differences in thinking between Chinese and most Westerners?
Western thinking Chinese thinking
Truth is valuable Face is valuable (It doesn't matter if I am right or wrong, the matter is I keep face)
I give myself objectives that I shall reach My objectives are always changing
I think in terms of systems Empirism shall prevail, no system
Business first, friendship second Friendship first, business second
Competence is more important than loyalty Loyalty is more important than competence
Corporate transparency is a valuable asset | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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