China Business Blog and Podcast
Is China a threat or an opportunity for your company? Are there real growth opportunities for you in the world's fastest growing market? Expertise and insight from Technomic Asia China, a market strategy consulting firm with more than 20 years in China.
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China can design them … but driving them??
It seems like the world has pretty much given up on the automotive industry. Watching economic gravity suck down the Big Three is the new spectator sport in the U.S., the Ultimate Fighter Smackdown with four-on-the-floor. The U.S. consumer is actually saving money (or at least is not spending it s …
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China Gets Bronze In Global Economy Olympics
This just in: the Chinese government officially announced that they are the third largest economy in the world, surpassing Germany. The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences just released the figures proving this, noting that China’s average GSP per capita is now over USD 3,000. While I certainly con …
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Let’s be Frank – how stimulating IS the China economic stimulus plan?
Our research manager at Technomic Asia, Frank Tsai, did his undergraduate double major in philosophy and mathematics, enabling him to do, what I call, “thoughtful computation” (as opposed to my liberal-arts-only undergraduate that only qualifies me to be thoughtful … oddly, I found there were very f …
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Gimme some money
Well, the Party’s party (the National People’s Congress) is underway in Beijing, and all the city is agog. I had to be up in Beijing for business this past week and got caught in what I call a “Serve-the-People Traffic Jam.” That’s when a major road has several lanes blocked off in order to allow …
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March Madness
Julius Caesar was told “beware the Ides of March”. If someone told me the same thing, I would be toast – I don’t know when the Ides of March is. My keen powers of deductive reasoning tell me that the Ides of March was some time in the month of March. And the month of March was not a good month fo …
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Making sense out of China for US business school students
Eye Opening and Life Changing - ChinaSense Trips for US Business School Students Download this podcast Download audio file (20090228_jenny_kent.mp3) The world is a very large place if you get outside your comfort zone and experience it. Thats easy for me to say, I first set foot in China when I was …
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Making sense out of china for US students
Eye Opening and Life Changing - ChinaSense Trips for US Students Download this podcast Download audio file (20090228_jenny_kent.mp3) The world is a very large place if you get outside your comfort zone and experience it. Thats easy for me to say, I first set foot in china when I was 19. It was a ver …
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Deficit? You call that a deficit?? Now THIS is a deficit!
Well … it had to happen some day. China is now in deficit spending. After nearly 60 years of a nearly completely debt free government, the Chinese government is now borrowing from future Zhangs, Wangs and Zhous. The recent announcement that China is going to announce a $139 billion deficit at the …
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Let’s see some hustle out there!
A number of years ago, I had a client who, although he had never been to China, considered himself an expert on all things Chinese. We were doing some market entry strategy work for his company, determining the market opportunities for him here and mapping out a strategy to go after them. However, …
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Don’t forget your anniversary
The bane of most men’s existence is the demand from their female partners, that men, with their very little brains, should remember anniversaries. This requirement is, of course, ludicrous … we can’t remember our shoe size, bank PIN numbers or our own birthdays. How can we be expected to remember …
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Don’t understand it? Then don’t do it.
I recently went through my seventh in a series of mid-life crises (my first was at age 19 and that’s what got me to Asia). I wanted to do something “new” … branch out a bit in my interests and hobbies. I considered a wide variety of things: brain surgery, nuclear physics and theoretical mathematic …
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China overtakes the U.S. in monthly car sales: What the … ?
Quick. Look out your window. Do you see any flying pigs? Talking elephants? Politicians confidently making decisions and executing them? Do you see ANYTHING out of the ordinary? No? Really? That is strange … because here in China, we are seeing some really weird stuff. A report came out yest …
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“On the Frontlines: Doing Business in China” provides keys to harnessing China’s power as a strateg …
The Atlantics James Fallows hosts and the New York Times Joe Nocera offers commentary and analysis throughout the video series Despite the global downturn, China still offers an economy thats growing, with predictions for growth ranging from about 7 percent to 9 percent in 2009, stimulated by signif …
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Waiting for Rock Bottom
To say that “price is King” in China is like saying its crowded here. In China, price is King … it is also Queen, Jack and Ace. Known for its street markets where buyer and seller are in a locked cage match over an item of purchase, only the strong negotiators survive. You can talk all you want …
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China M&A: How to mess up a deal, possibly wrecking both your company and your career
So, Kent, how would we really mess this one up? Download this podcast Download audio file transcript of todays podcast: In a recent Podcast, I talked about how we at Technomic Asia think that many sectors in China today are in a pre-consolidation phase where, we believe, that we are going to see a l …
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Engineering in China – What Would Roger Do?
I just heard from a friend of mine that I worked with back in the ‘good old days’ of the late 80s, teaching in China. Roger was (and still is) one of these rare people who combines an upbeat, optimistic personality with an IQ in the mid triple digits (we all know the opposite type: Mensa members wi …
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Supplier guanxi management
Over on his Go Go Go! Supply Chain blog, Jim Tompkins of Tompkins Associates writes about building strong relationships as the key to successful supplier relationship management, especially in China, which Tompkins calls North Americas preferred overseas destination for low-cost sourcing. He writes: …
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The Platinum Rice Bowl
The debacle in the U.S. over the bonuses paid to bankers for driving their companies into the ground reminded me of something we faced in China. In the mid to late 90s, I worked for a software company here, running their operations in East China and then taking over large account sales for the regi …
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Trickle Up?
As expected, the U.S. economy is slipping further into decline as recent data shows that consumer spending dropped precipitously at the end of last year. According to an article in the New York Times, consumer spending was the worst its been since records have been kept starting in 1947 (it might m …
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Spring has Sprung … On Cue!
I am not sure how the Chinese do it, but every year during Spring Festival (also called Chinese New Year by non-Chinese), Spring actually arrives! At least it does here in Shanghai. We started the week with clear skies – in and of itself, a reason to party – but with temperatures hovering around f …
China Business Blog and Podcast
