Good friend David Wolf located in Beijing offers a ground level view of doing business in China. David is President and CEO Wolf Group Asia, Ltd. a Beijing-based corporate advisory firm. Before starting WGA David led Burson-Marsteller’s Asia-Pacific
Technology Practice. David wrote a thoughtful response to our post on the Edward Tse article in Strategy + Business. This is what David has to say about Tse’s article:

This was a well-written article, and it is a considerable
improvement over the usual acutely out-of-touch stuff we read over here
in the international media.

A few of qualifications, though.

First, while mentioning marketing twice he completely overlooks that
you could count the number of Chinese enterprises with a CMO on the
fingers of a single hand, and still have change left over. Chinese
companies are notoriously unsophisticated marketers, and what is making
the difference here between success or failure is great marketing.
Lenovo’s success was the result of a superior CHANNEL, not better
management, product, or innovation. Look behind any success story in
China, and you’ll find half-decent, if not very good marketing. Tse
missed that.

Second, he exaggerates the extent to which these "trends" are
evident among Chinese enterprises. Brain gain? Edward Tian is the
exception that proves the rule, and I think we’ve yet to hear the real
story of how well he’s fared at China Netcom since its forced
restructuring.

Third, he lauds international aquisitions by Chinese companies
without questioning the rationale that underscores these bids. Was the
Unocal bid the right move to aquire access to upstream supplies? Or
were there better ways to invest $19 billion in China’s energy future?
And remember – the jury’s still out on the Lenovo – IBM thing.

I could go on, but you get the point. Tse is headed in the right
direction, but he falls disappointingly short of offering a revelation
that we can use.

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