Back to you . .... Working in China

This has been a while since I wrote here. infact long time, since I even had a look at my own blog. 2 reasons: 1 - China has stopped blogpost, 2 - I stay in China:) So whats news and what I should write here today. Let me first of all introiduce what I do and some of my current thoughts and plans: I am currently workign at Bureau Veritas in China, which I trust is an ideal company for me to work in a chinese environment with truly global clients (including Chinese giants). Work is nice to learn. One thing I would say about workign in China is that anyone who doeasn;t have cultural sensitivity, would fail in vein here. I see this with some of the foreign clients, who just refuse to accept the truth of culutre in China. One of the thing, I usually say is that there are 2 significant thing any foreign company and foreign professionals see for China: 1 - Language, 2 - Culture. and I trust that the 1st if over rated and the 2nd is under rated.

The speed of things in China is very very fast, the quickest I ever saw. Decisions are made very quick. I see this not only at my employer in their chinese operations compared to those in other countries , but also within large chinese companies. Which may be contrary to the conventional wisdom. Lemme explain....Most of the chinese companies are large state owned enterprises (SOEs) which makes big investments. Once they think of doing something (which is very sudden: but mostly strategic), it happens very quickly. This probably doesn;t happen in other parts of the world. This quickiness in chinese companies has a buisness impact, that once the decision is made the suncontracts shall be awarded to companies / peoples who have already established business relationships with them, called Guanxi (关系). I write udner assumption that they are able to deliver). This makes the implementation very quick and Guanxi, the most improtant business etiquette in China very important. Enough for my understanding. This is open to discussion. I'd be happy receive your comments if any. I wish to continue to leverage my understandign of chinese culture and continue to deliver value for my employer.

Have a good day. Write back to me your opinion.