China’s 5 Surprises + 1

From S+B:
Five facets of business in China may surprise most outsiders:
1. Local entrepreneurs are interested in producing global brands, not just low-cost commodities
2. China has become a hotbed for rapid innovation
3. Executives from around the world are moving to China for the long haul
4. Good management and transparency are starting to count more than patronage, at least in some sectors
5. China is becoming a catalyst for growth in emerging markets throughout the developing world.
Let’s add another surprise:
6: China is becoming a market for high-end luxury items once thought to be “exclusive” for the western elite and Middle-East oil-barons.
Also:
“Because they are in such a hurry to make a place for themselves, and because it is still early in the life cycle of their ambition, Chinese entrepreneurs tend to give the impression that they don’t care much about quality. However, that is not universally true. Many of them recognize the trade-offs among cost, quality, and time that exist for any startup, and they have explicitly chosen designs and processes that sacrifice quality for the sake of speed and cost savings.
“But this doesn’t mean that China will always be a nation of commodity enterprises; indeed, many Chinese businesspeople know the price of a Motorola phone in Chicago or a pair of Nike sneakers in Manhattan. They ask themselves, “If I can make these things, why can’t I sell them for higher prices?” Some of them are already laying the groundwork for the evolution of their industries from low-cost producers of shoes, handsets, and components to branded enterprises.”
Read the entire article here.
This will come back to bite almost all of our western “outsourcers.” See “Innovation Blowback” by JSB and JH3 >>