The Chinese Connection

Visiting our Chinese office is always interesting.  The taxi ride from the new Beijing airport was like a film car chase – weaving from lane to lane – and using the hard shoulder when necessary…. and we weren’t even in a hurry - I dread to think what the journey will be like if I say I’m late.  However, it does support the statistics put out by the airlines that say flying is safer than driving.

Watching the bicycles and cars fight for dominance on the roads in downtown Beijing with little concern for personal safety always fascinates.  Every bicycle is old battered and ridden by all ages – so with such a large market where are the new bicycles?  When it suddenly rains it develops another perspective with some people managing to cycle and hold umbrellas, some put on plastic rain capes or dustbin bags, and others simply accept that the rain will stop and they will eventually dry in the 30 degree heat.

The business is equally diverse ranging from the street seller with suitcase of pirated software and DVDs to the corporations with 100,000s of employees.  But my attention is on the corporations – some state owned and desperate to apply western business principles and systems – others privately owned who already look like their western counterparts.

Balanced scorecard and ERP dominate the business thinking and the bookshelves.  What is interesting is that the IT landscape is relatively uncluttered.  The infrastructure of PCs and broadband internet are in place, but ERP is still a new thing with few companies with installed software more than 5 years old.  Many companies are looking at ERP as they do the long-overdue trip to the dentist.  They know they need it but have seen the pain inflicted on other companies who have attempted to install it and are hesitant.

All the companies are looking to the west for the latest business thinking on improving productivity and competing on a global scale. Which is why we have a flourishing business here. 

The book “Common Approach – UnCommon Results… How adoption delivers the results you deserve”  is being translated into Chinese and the opportunity is vast.  However, access to the market is only via established individuals with their personal networks into the government Ministries and top corporate CEOs.  Relationship is everything in business – but even more so in China.  Without it you will spend time and money and achieve nothing.

So what of adoption and the Common Operational Platform described in the book?  It is a new concept here and whilst the basic principles are quickly understood, proof in a small pilot needs to be successful before it is rolled-out in a wider scale.  The difference here is that a “wider-scale” means to 2 million employees in 55 subsidiaries – or to a new infrastructure programme which has over $15bn allocated to it by the government.

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