230 CultureShock! China
Wal-Mart and Carrefour
When Wal-Mart made its China play, it leveraged on the precedent
created by Carrefour, which had already established an aggressive
national presence in China. Carrefour had expanded well beyond
national guidelines by creating a number of favourable regional deals.
In the end, the Chinese government revisited the regulation forcing
Carrefour to restructure its business and providing the same structure
for Wal-Mart to build its China presence.With hopes running high about the upside in China,
headquarters is also a critical stakeholder. There is a
balance to be achieved between managing and delivering
on expectations. An added responsibility of a China posting
that is seldom mentioned is the amount of entertaining that
is required. China has become such an attractive destination
for board meetings, executive visits and due diligence trips by
related businesses that each senior executive in China spends
a good part of their time briefing and entertaining visitors.
The stakeholder group that you have the most interaction
with in China are your employees and customers. The
following section will address guidelines to consider when
interacting with the people that make up the core of your
China experience.Being Glocal
One of Deng Xiaoping’s most famous sayings was ‘it doesn’t
matter if it is a black cat or a white cat, as long as it catches
the mouse’. The success formula for companies in China
melds the best of China and Western business practices,
being neither global nor local, but rather ‘glocal’.
When explaining why they would like to work for a glocal
company, many Chinese professionals cite their preference
for transparency, merit-based promotion, opportunities to
train or work overseas and formal development programmes
as their major attraction. In addition, professionals pursue
careers in MNCs (multi-national corporations) with aggressive
localisation policies as they find this provides better
opportunity to move quickly up the corporate ladder into
senior leadership positions.