|
COPYRIGHT 2006 SourceMedia, Inc.
As China's vast market becomes the long-stagnant high tech industry's greatest hope for growth, foreign companies doing business there face difficult decisions about what kind of leadership their operations require. At one time, such foreign operations evolved with the evolution of globalization itself--often moving almost naturally from international to multinational to transnational operations as global trade was gradually liberalized. Now, after more than two decades of globalization and with the quickening pace of China's transformation, high tech entrants there could find themselves at any of those stages of evolution--and saddled with leadership that is more appropriate to a different stage.
The stakes are enormous: The market for PCs in China grew by 19 percent in 2004 and is expected to continue to grow at similar rates for years to come. Despite rampant piracy, the packaged software market in China is expected to more than double in the next five years to $5.81 billion. Millions of Chinese sign up for cell phones every month, yet market penetration stands at only about 25 percent--offering another huge market in a country that by some measures stands as the second-largest economy in the world after the USA.
With China's re-entry into the World Trade Organization in 2002 and its continuing liberalization of rules governing foreign investment, the trickle of high tech entrants like Intel, Microsoft, Motorola, and Oracle that began in the 1990s has become a flood. In a spate of recent visits to China, the top executives of some of the world's leading high tech companies have made their ambitious plans clear:
* In April 2005, Motorola Inc. announced its launch of a new third generation (3G) development center in China. Based in Beijing, the center will play a crucial role in the development of Motorola's 3G network solutions globally, as well as provide direct support for customers in China. The center will focus on developing next-generation technologies for Motorola's Universal Mobile Telecommunications System and Mobile Broadband via high speed downlink packet access solutions. Including the new center, Motorola has invested over $450 million in China in 16 research and development centers. There are over 1,800 personnel focusing on research and development activities alone.
* Some 800 economists, top government officials and business leaders from global corporate giants gathered in Beijing in May 2005 for the 9th "Fortune Global Forum," hosted by New York-based Fortune business magazine. The presence of hundreds of CEOs demonstrated the degree to which global capital depends on China as a...
Read the full article for free courtesy of your local library.
|
Bookmark this article
Print this article
Link to this article
Email this article
Digg It!
Add to del.icio.us
RSS
