Product Description

CHINA CEO: Voices of Experience From 20 International Business Leaders is based on interviews with 20 top executives and eight experienced consultants based in China. The book is packed with first–hand, front–line advice from veterans of the China market. Hear directly from the top executives heading up the China operations of Bayer, British Petroleum, Coca–Cola, General Electric, General Motors, Philips, Microsoft, Siemens, Sony and Unilever, plus expert China–based consultants at Boston Consulting Group, Korn/Ferry International, McKinsey & Company, and many more.

Each chapter provides practical tips and easy to grasp models that will help new managers in China to be effective. In CHINA CEO, we deliver what other Western authors can′t – first–hand reflections based on over 100 years′ collective experience in China. The book presents this rich knowledge in a readable, conversational style suitable for time–constrained executives. Each chapter gives specific advice on how to manage Chinese employees, work with Chinese business partners, communicate with headquarters, face competitors, battle intellectual property rights infringers, win–over Chinese consumers, negotiate with the Chinese government, and adapt yourself (and your family) to life in China.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #346067 in Books
• Published on: 2006-05-12
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 250 pages

Review
Many managers dream of becoming a Chief Executive Officer in China. Maybe they think that CEO stands for Cash Enhancement Opportunity – but of course, failure could turn the assignment into a Career Ending Option. So how can you ensure that your assignment in China is successful?

Management Professor Fernandez and business journalist Underwood tackled this question by interviewing 20 top executives working in China, plus eight experienced consultants. They discussed topics like managing in China, setting up local operations, adapting regional/global businesses to China, tackling the local market and living in China.

But how do you report the results of 28 interviews? The easiest solution would be to present each interview as a separate chapter. However, Fernandez and Underwood wanted to understand the challenges facing international executives in China today. So they took the harder – but more useful – approach of analysing the interviews and then writing about the main underlying themes, quoting from the interviewees to illustrate particular points.

That approach means that topics like working with Chinese business partners or dealing with IP piracy are pulled together into a well structured discussion. But if you want to understand the specific experience of Philips, Sony or Unilever in China, the information is split up across many chapters.

China CEO launches straight into the key question: What are the qualities of a successful international manager in China? Or to express it more personally: Are you the right stuff for China? Fernandez and Underwood cluster the essential qualities into three groups: professional qualities like having a rock–solid professional background and some previous international experience; global qualities like being adventurous and willing to learn; and China–specific qualities like being able to balance apparent opposites such as humility and strength, and patience and speed.

The bulk of China CEO covers topics which directly interest all international managers, like managing Chinese employees, facing local and global competitors and dealing with the government. It also explores some important, but commonly ignored, aspects of having a successful assignment in China. There is a useful discussion of the challenges of living in China. Most expatriates enjoy their work, but the “trailing spouse” and children often have more difficulties with the experience. Fortunately, there are specific steps that companies can take to minimise the stress of relocation.

This is useful reading for all CEOs and international managers undertaking an assignment in China. Learn from the China Experience of Others!––Keith Hall′s Book Reviews

“This is a useful book. It’s an easy read and moves quickly, with many relevant examples to China today. The book gains credence by featuring insights from executives who have lived in worked in China extensively, and its content is relevant and fairly accurate, in my opinion. The book is well–organized; each chapter covers a single topic and concludes with a summary. This book might appeal to anyone who wants to come to China to do business. While no book can tell you everything you need to know about operating in China, this book will provide some ideas about the challenges of China and what some people have done to encounter these challenges.”––Sharon Landon, Managing Director, Cross Cultural Interchange; Chair,  AmCham Shanghai Education & Training Committee

"a worthwhile and enjoyable read." (Supply Management, September 2006)

"…a good mixture of theory, models, tools and case studies…useful for people ... delivering improvements in their global sourcing approach." (Global Sourcing, September 2006)

Review
"a worthwhile and enjoyable read." (Supply Management, September 2006)

"…a good mixture of theory, models, tools and case studies…useful for people ... delivering improvements in their global sourcing approach." (Global Sourcing, September 2006)

From the Inside Flap
Heading to China? China is a ′must win′ market for nearly any business with international ambitions today. But executives taking up management positions in China often find themselves in a profoundly confusing and chaotic business environment marked by fast change, contradictions, and extreme competition.

Who best to advise on cracking the world′s fastest–growing and highest–potential market than those already succeeding there? This was the philosophy behind the book CHINA CEO: Voices of Experience From 20 International Business Leaders. Based on interviews with 20 top executives and eight experienced consultants based in China, the book is packed with first–hand, front–line advice from veterans of the China market. Hear directly from the top executives heading up the China operations of: Bayer, British Petroleum, Coca–Cola, General Electric, General Motors, Philips, Microsoft, Siemens, Sony and Unilever, plus expert China–based consultants at The Boston Consulting Group, Korn/Ferry International, McKinsey & Company, and many more.

Each chapter provides practical tips and easy to grasp models that will help new managers in china to be effective. In china CEO, we deliver what other Western authors can′t – first–hand reflections based on over 100 years′ collective experience in China. The book presents this rich knowledge in a readable, conversation style suitable for time–constrained executives. Each chapter gives specific advice on how to manage Chinese employees, work with Chinese business partners, communicate with headquarters, face competitors, battle intellectual property rights infringers, win–over Chinese consumers, negotiate with the Chinese government, and adapt yourself (and your family) to life in china.

Customer Reviews

Where is the solution to the "China puzzle"?
The approach taken by the authors of this book - interview and analysis - is similar to that taken by John Stuttard in his book The New Silk Road, published also by Wiley. Although it was published six years earlier, the latter is actually a much better work.

First, while Stuttard was able to shape complex facts into a clear and insightful whole with nothing lost in the transition from the spoken to the written word, by conducting a second-level rationalisation of the views of the interviewees (splitting an interviewee's story into small pieces, placing them into categories, and drawing conclusions based on the amount of artificially-placed evidence in each category), the authors of China CEO have managed to reduce the value of the interviewees' voices and insights. For China is a story of limitless permutations: a perception immediately loses its meaning once it is taken out of the specific context.

Second, Stuttard does the job in less than 150 pages but the authors of China CEO in 300 pages: the former is more readable, more engaging, more robust, and offers much more practical value than the latter.

But still, The New Silk Road offers no roadmap to success in China.

Does this mean that there is no solid solution to the "China puzzle"?

I used to think "yes" but not anymore after I read Dr Wei Wang's The China Executive: Marrying Western and Chinese Strengths to Generate Profitability from Your Investment in China. With depth, thoroughness, practicality and above all wisdom that is based on combining the best of both Western and Chinese civilisations, including results and relationships, analysis and intuition, competition and co-operation, and management and leadership, The China Executive, I believe, is the solution to the "China puzzle". And Dr Wang is able to do so simply because he is able to understand both the West and China and to combine the best of both worlds.

I have particularly enjoyed reading the timeless wisdom that the author has extracted from the works of Confucius, Lao Tzu, Sun Tzu and others. Indeed, I have read these gems of wisdom many times but each time my understanding of human nature and strategic thinking deepens and expands, and this has made me to think that even in 10 or 20 years time, The China Executive will still offer great value - but not such work as China CEO!

Guide for China
This is a great book on the "must-do's" for multinationals
in China. Well written book, well structured topics.
However, the book is most suitable for the newcomer to China.
This book paints a very positive picture of China; does not
cover heavy pollution in cities, the over-capacity in many
industries that lead to razor-thin margins and often losses!
Multinationals may follow all the advise but still have loss
making operations in China.
The reader of this book should also read: "China Shakes the
World" by James Kynge!
Also a book like "Big Winners and Big Losers" by Alfred A. Marcus, gives better advise on what "winners" do different
from "losers" (however, this book does not cover China!)
by: Peter Lennhag