The best week of the MBA
The IBE, was by far the best week of the MBA. Everybody has learnt so much about the countries we visited in just one week. This was mainly because the trips were so meticulously planned. For one, the China IBE had just the right mix of company visits, lectures at leading B-schools and sight-seeing trips. It will be almost impossible to spec out the day-by-day details of what we did. However, I will share some of the main things I learnt about China in this short but focused trip.
Firstly, the infrastructure at the main cities (Beijing & Shanghai) compares with the best with the world. At Shanghai, we got the see the 300kph+ Maglev train in action. There were escalators on the overhead pedestrian crossings, four-tier roads and enormous construction activity going on in the city. Beijing wasn’t too far behind as well. Secondly, I could see a lot of similarities between the behaviour (public behaviour) of Chinese people with that of Indian people. The same kind of chaos at public places, the same of kind of social disparity, the same mix of law-abiding citizens & those with a "who-cares" attitude. It almost looked like a Mumbai crowd in a developed city. Another aspect that I wanted to examine first-hand was the level of English skills prevalent amongst the Chinese people. The fact is that it is quite poor. Two of the four companies we visited required interpreters to convey their message & interpret our questions. Not surprisingly, in one of the companies, the youngest employees in the company knew better English than the seniors, perhaps a sign of changing times. However, the level of English in a non-professional setting like a general store or a barber’s shop is almost zero. My visit to a foot massage centre was quite entertaining. The masseuse relied on the skeletal English skills of another customer to communicate with me. Signboards and mainly in Mandarin. This perhaps explains why India is good in the outsourcing service sector while China is not. China’s low English skills do not deter it from manufacturing (make and sell) products, but do inhibit its prospects in the service (listen and serve) sector. However, China is making significant inroads into the Japanese and Korean outsourcing markets.
The lectures at CEIBS were very enthralling, though the one in the afternoon was very difficult to concentrate on, as everyone was fighting the jet-lag. It helped me dispel the notion of a ‘China strategy’, as we now realised that China was in itself quite diverse and for the purpose of making a strategy for the Chinese market, one must regard China as union of provinces (like the EU) and not a nation. The lecture on Marketing in China at Peking University was outstanding. Especially, the Viagara case-study that the lecturer took us through, exemplified how ignorance of the different aspects of Chinese culture could lead to failure of a world-proven growth strategy. We also had an opportunity to understand the analysis of China from an expatriate and also from officals of the Embassy of Guyana.
As far as the company visits went, I particularly liked the one to Kasen (an upholstery company) the most. Though it wasn’t the company in the best financial shape, the presentation was very relevant for an MBA audience. The visit to their sofa-manufacturing plant was very interesting, as we got to the see the low-cost Chinese labour in action. We were also shown briefly a dormitory built for the workers. The visit to a leading mobile TV services company was also very interesting.
The visit to the markets in China were very reminiscent of shopping in India. The prices can be quoted as much as 10 times over the fair price & the onus is on the buyer to get to the right price. The visit to the toy market in Beijing was quite fascinating. I was very impressed with some of the remote controlled toys, especially the helicopter that could stay still in the air and also the ones that were based on magnets. The guided tours to the Forbidden city & Great Wall were also well organised. The drive past the Olympics stadium was also very useful for us to see how an event of such scale can boost the economy of a region. The construction of housing complexes around the area was going on a frenetic pace and at a large scale. We had a great guide & I learnt a lot about Chinese people in general from the stories he shared with us on the bus.
The only grudge that I have against the country is that the concept of vegetarianism apparently does not exist in the country. It is not that you won’t find vegetarian food, just that it would not be classified as vegetarian. It is simply a "no-pork" item. I was quite surprised to find this, because when I had visited China town in NY last year, I remember seeing quite a few vegetarian Chinese restaurants there. I imagined that China towns were close replicas of the Chinese cities.
Graham Heard (our tour co-ordinator) had mentioned at the reception event by the Embassy of Guyana that it is possible to learn greatly about a country in a week’s time if the programme is packaged correctly. In retrospection, I think it is so true.
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