Developing the Chinese market is a top priority for many multinational
companies. Across industry sectors, however, they face a common obstacle
-- attracting, developing and retaining the local Chinese talent needed
to accomplish this goal. Global firms realize the importance of having
local leadership in tune with the idiosyncrasies and rapid shifts of the
Chinese market. In a recent interview with
The Wall Street Journal,
Pierre Cohade, the Asia-Pacific president of Goodyear, confirmed that
the number one challenge in China "is absolutely the fight for talent."
Goodyear is hardly alone: Over the past 13 years, the American Chamber
of Commerce has conducted annual surveys of U.S. companies in China and
frequently cites management-level human resource constraints as the top
business challenge.
Localization: Why Bother?
Global companies are driven to hire staff from within each target
market primarily to gain access to knowledge of new regions. In China,
for example, this has driven many multinationals to reduce the number of
non-Chinese staff. Pankaj Ghemawat, a business school professor at IESE
business school, has researched the impact of "cultural distance" on
business and has found greater challenges where companies operate across
regions that lack historical and cultural overlap, as is true with
North American and European companies in China. Successful practices
abroad may not transfer well: Companies that lead in other markets,
including Best Buy and The Home Depot, have floundered in China due to
an insufficient understanding of Chinese consumer habits and local
conditions.
No comments:
Post a Comment