Newsletter Week 8, 2008 |
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Dear Reader, Here is this week’s edition, covering:- Warning to China Managers: Out of the box thinking can get messy - Breaking the Impasse: Promoting Worker Involvement in the Collective Bargaining and Contracts Process - Luxury Brands in China Part I - An outstanding successful executive in North America, not in China We hope you will enjoy reading this edition. Have a nice weekend! All of us at China Success Stories China Expert Guest Blog Warning to China Managers: Out of the box thinking can get messy  Just before Chinese New Year, I was in a Shanghai sales meeting where the owner of a European company was discussing post-holiday sales projections. The talk was all “new, innovative, out of the box”, but the walk was all about doing the same old thing only bigger and/or cheaper. I’ve been to this rodeo before. Some of the expensive new marketing initiatives put into place 6 months ago were about to whither and die. If you are a straight-arrow manager trying some “out of the box” thinking in China you are going to need a strategy for gauging and recognizing success in the early stages. Most of all you need to avoid squandering your investment by pulling the plug too early. Here are some ideas that might help: I’m not one of those “innovate or die” guys. I like figuring out what works and doing it more - better, cheaper - faster. Sometimes that means reinventing and cleaning house. Sometimes it means refining and removing bottlenecks. But let’s assume you went off and tried something new. A compensation plan. An advertising campaign. An operating structure. A product. A brand. You get the... Read the rest or post a comment >> China Expert Guest Blog Breaking the Impasse: Promoting Worker Involvement in the Collective Bargaining and Contracts Process  Collective labour contracts have been developed and promoted by the Chinese government and the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) since the mid-1990s. Thus far, however, because of the lack of genuine worker participation in the contract negotiations, they have brought only limited benefit to China’s workers. CLB believes free collective bargaining should be introduced into the collective contracts negotiating process as a means of not only protecting workers’ rights and interests but of also improving labour-management relations. Given the widespread abuse of workers’ rights and the often severe tensions that exist between labour and management in China today, there is now an increasingly urgent need to promote greater worker involvement in this process. Breaking the Impasse, is our new English language research report that provides a detailed introduction to and analysis of China’s collective contracts system. The 20 page report describes the legal and regulatory framework of the system and the joint efforts of the government and the ACFTU to promote collective contracts in state-owned, private and foreign-owned enterprises across China. The report analyzes the largely pro-forma process of contract negotiation and the various types of contracts currently in force: comprehensive contracts covering a broad... Read the rest or post a comment >> Advertisement  China Expert Guest Blog Luxury Brands in China Part I: Luxury brands and the retail sector in China  Foreign companies share a growing interest in tapping into China’s luxury market. Statistics show not only that the number of wealthy people is growing fast in China, but that their willingness to spend on big-ticket items is also on the rise, driven by an appetite for status as well as the comforts and trappings of luxury products. China’s economy grew 10.3 percent in the first quarter of 2006 from the year earlier, overtaking the United Kingdom to become the world’s fourth largest economy. According to a preliminary estimation by the National Bureau of Statistics in China, the GDP of China in the first half of 2006 was RMB 9.144 trillion, a year-on-year increase of 10.9 percent. Total retail sales of consumer goods for the first half of 2006 also experienced significant growth, reaching RMB 3.644 trillion, a year-on-year rise of 13.3 percent. Overall, China’s retail sales have been rising at their fastest pace as increasing incomes spur spending on cars, furniture and electronics.(4) Retail sales have been rising alongside disposable income. According to the National Bureau of Statistics of China, per capita disposable income of urban households stood at RMB 5,997 in 2005, an increase of 1.6 percent over the previous year, and a real increase of 10.2 percent after deducting price factors. The per capita consumption expenditure stood at RMB 4,228, a year-on-year increase of 9.4 percent, and a real growth of 8.0 percent. Cities are home to some 40 percent of China’s population, and average incomes in urban areas are often more than... Read the rest or post a comment >> Facts & Figures Mobile Phone Users You never know when these statistics might prove to be of value to you. So without further ado, here's our weekly top 10. Top 10 Provinces of Mobile Phone Users in China (March 2007)
China Expert Guest Blog An outstanding successful executive in North America, not in China  The Bora launch was the most successful new car launch in China’s automotive history. FAW/VW couldn’t make them fast enough. The Germans, still hurting over not getting their advertising agency, were really smarting because DMG was not following their global policy for advertising and marketing style and format. Yet, sales were phenomenal. VW hired a world-class market research Hong Kong firm to investigate the reason for the amazing launch results. The conclusion: although DMG didn’t follow the global VW policy, the market place responded because the Chinese react to someone who markets to them the Chinese way. OK, now for the big one. At a time when global car sales in the rest of the world were going down the tubes, VW decided to introduce the Golf, the No. 1 selling car in the world, to China, the world’s fastest growing car market. The market in China was experiencing... Read the rest or post a comment >> Comments Jeremy Fox in reply to Headed for China? Cultural Considerations Regarding who enters a room first, it is also the same process for use of the elevator… oldest, respected first, which made for great initial confusion on my part as I... John Melendez in reply to Lying I speak on the side of the “unseen customer” whom we’ve been complaining about above: I see a lot of misunderstanding can possibly arise when expectations are … Joanne in reply to Caution is the key in Chinese recruitment In fact in our company we have nerver met someone that has the forged cvs. When we interview a person we will ask him or her about what he has presented in the cvs. Mike Rogero in reply to China’s Banking Industry Part II Interesting article, but there are a number of date refrences which seem to point to this being a recycled item written a while ago. Items are throughout, but one example is... Julie Edwards in reply to Introduction China Business Group Hi , I have a Audio Visual business in Sydney Australia and specialise in video conferencing.I wish to expand and would like to hear from anyone who may be interested. I read every … Celina Chan in reply to China is expanding its global economic Empire I agree that China enterprises are increasingly trying to expand beyond the domestic market. The need for bilingual east/west culture sensitive executive with global perspective is essential … |
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