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Let one billion customers bloom

By Diao Ying (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-02-23 08:04

China and America are similar in many ways

James McGregor found during his book tour that many people do not realize the depths of change in China over the last few years.

"They come here not expecting cars, new buildings, they just don't understand how far China has come," he said.

But the Olympics last year may have helped give a more realistic picture of the country, he said.

He also found nearly everybody has a connection to China. An old woman told him that her son is in Chengdu and another young man told him that he used to teach English in China.

"China is connected to the US through people," he said. "China and the US are very close on a people-to-people level.

"We share a lot of qualities, a sense of humor, a wealth of entrepreneurs, and a generally open-minded way of thinking," he said. He even finds similarity in the way the two countries developed.

Immigrants from all over the world built huge infrastructure projects in the US in the early 1900s, while China has done the same through internal immigration. There are thousands of immigrant workers hungry for opportunity and willing to work at low wages, as immigrants were years ago in the US.

But there are also problems in the transformation. The major barrier for Chinese companies lies in management, he says. "They have to change their management," he said. He said that an inspired entrepreneur likes to control everything in a business, which works in building up a company in China.

"But to do business globally, and to do research and development, you have to hire foreigners. You cannot control everything," he said.

Many Chinese companies have realized this and hire foreign managers. But in many cases they bring in foreigners, who would come for a year and then leave. Foreigners still find many difficulties managing Chinese companies, he said.

Eventually Chinese management strategies will change and there will be multinationals from China, he said.

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