Francis Bassolino
- 20 years of management consulting specializing in three areas that focus on helping companies develop and implement global strategies for moving into and out of China
- Devise market entry strategies
- Construct and execute implementation plans
- Develop brand strategies
- All 7 Best Practices
- Pre-Meeting Discovery Process
- One-on-One Call with Expert
- Meeting Summary Report
- Post-Meeting Engagement
Operations In China - Oversight and Leadership Support
Common Problems
- Foreign companies operating in China lack solid data about the Chinese marketplace.
Chinese managers do not always adhere to western standards around using objective intelligence to make business decisions. Intuition plays a large role in decision-making within Chinese organizations.
The good, hard data that Western managers like to use to make decision is hard to come by. For example, a company might boast about 20 percent growth, while the actual market demand is growing at 35 percent. They’re losing ground, but do not know it due to the lack of accurate market data.
- Companies often pursue an inconsistent strategy with respect to China characterized by a lack of focus on the part of senior leaders, a misunderstanding of opportunities and risks, and a reliance on outmoded assumptions.
Senior leaders in U.S. organizations have so much on their plate that they very often can’t stay focused on their China strategy. A market that may have been growing at the rate of 20 percent is unrecognizable within six months to a year. It is easy to lose focus and to rely on assumptions that are no longer valid.
Because China is very closed in terms of information about its macro-economic and political situation, most senior managers don’t have the information they need to make decisions quickly enough. They have to rely on journalism that has very shallow analysis of the facts on the ground and such guesswork is driving the decision making in many large U.S. organizations.
- Many players in the China market are insufficiently funded because they are repatriating their profits too soon.
Once organizations become profitable they tend to get excited about sending the money back home. They are too quick to repatriate profits because they do not understand that China requires large investment, due to size alone.
There is the opportunity for substantial growth but not if profits are brought back home too early. Many companies are quick to repatriate profits and they’re also quick to make acquisitions. It is easier to get money for an acquisition than it is to grow organically.
- Human Resource challenges in China abound, including rapid turnover and middle management difficulties.
The tenure of employees within an organization tends to be much shorter than in the USA. Employees leave a position very easily for a 10 to 20 percent increase in their income without much consideration about the long-term ramifications to their career.
This makes it very difficult to build a solid foundation for your organization. Retention policies within HR are difficult to implement and they tend to be poorly maintained.
- Companies operating in China find that there is a lack of experienced leadership at the top levels of the organization.
Acquiring local leadership that is respected by and can communicate with the board back home and that has the trust of the senior leadership is a challenge. Few and far between are local leaders who appreciate the complexities of a general management role that includes managing talent development, information technologies, finance, marketing, sales, new product development, etc.
The education system in China tends not to encourage the cross-functional, multidisciplinary training that is necessary to produce leaders with a sufficiently broad skill-set to serve as a senior leader in an international enterprise.