Archives April 2006

Wharton Executive Education Launches New Program in China

Wednesday April 5, 10:00 am ET

New Partnership With China Minsheng Bank Will Lead Branch Managers Through Comprehensive Management Development Program

PHILADELPHIA, April 5, 2006 (PRIMEZONE) — The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania has announced a new Executive Education program in China for China Minsheng Banking Corporation. The partnership was made official at a signing ceremony on March 21, 2006 in Beijing. China Minsheng Banking Corporation, the country’s only privately-held bank, is expected to become one of the leading retail banks in China in the next few years.

Between March 2006 and May 2007, three cohorts of 60 senior executives from China Minsheng Banking Corporation will complete eight modules, spanning various aspects of management development, with specific reference to the banking industry. Examples of topics to be covered include:

— strategy
— leadership skills
— financial innovation
— international accounting standards

The program will be taught in Shanghai by Wharton faculty with sequential translation into Chinese. Participants will include branch managers from various locations of China Minsheng Banking Corporation.

“Wharton Executive Education is very excited about this partnership with China Minsheng Banking Corporation and we believe that this is the beginning of a long relationship,” commented Peter Degnan, executive director of Wharton Executive Education. “Wharton has significant expertise in delivering executive education for the banking industry. We look forward to this opportunity to support China Minsheng Banking Corporation’s efforts in becoming a world-class retail bank.”

“The Wharton School brings to this task unparalleled intellectual resources, in the existing work of our faculty, and also in our eagerness to learn more about China’s tremendous potential for growth and development,” said Wharton Deputy Dean David Schmittlein at the launch ceremony.

Shao Ping, executive vice president of Minsheng Bank and president of the Minsheng Bank-Shanghai Branch, stated that the competition in the financial service sector of the 21st century lies in innovation and human resources. “The Wharton-Minsheng program will build a new body of knowledge, widen strategic perspectives, and develop innovative thinking to make the core team of Minsheng Shanghai Branch outstanding among its competitors.”

“By the end of 2006, China will have to fulfill (its) WTO commitments for a more open banking sector,” commented Xu Jie, general manager for international iusiness at Minsheng Shanghai Branch. “I feel comforted that this Wharton program for senior executives can guide us in probing the right questions to arrive at the critical insights and answers as Minsheng looks to the future.”

Additionally, Wharton and Minsheng signed a strategic agreement to work together in the following areas: promotion of the Chinese edition of Knowledge at Wharton, the School’s online business journal; Minsheng human resource development; and Wharton faculty research and consulting.

The Wharton School is committed to developing its relationships in China. It recently opened an office in Shanghai and launched the Chinese edition of Knowledge at Wharton.

About China Minsheng Banking Corporation

Founded on Jan. 12, 1996 in Beijing, China Minsheng Banking Corp., Ltd. (Minsheng) is the first national joint-stock commercial bank in China with stocks mainly held by non-state-owned enterprises. It also is a standard joint-stock financial institution set up strictly in accordance with the Company Law and the Commercial Bank Law, which distinguishes itself significantly from state-owned banks and other Chinese banks. Since its establishment 10 years ago, Minsheng has become well known to domestic and overseas financial markets.

About the Wharton School

The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania — founded in 1881 as the first collegiate business school — is recognized globally for intellectual leadership and ongoing innovation across every major discipline of business education. The most comprehensive source of business knowledge in the world, Wharton bridges research and practice through its broad engagement with the global business community. The school has more than 4600 undergraduate, MBA, executive MBA, and doctoral students; more than 8,000 annual participants in executive education programs; and an alumni network of more than 81,000 graduates.

JPMorgan to hire 750 in RP, eyes China deal

DETROIT – JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s Chief Executive Jamie Dimon on Monday said the Wall Street bank was increasing its presence in Asia, with plans to hire 750 people in the Philippines this year and actively looking for acquisitions in China.

“We are optimistic about the future in China,” Dimon said in a speech at the Detroit Economic Club.

He said the bank would hire another 4,000 staff in India this year, taking its total there to about 9,000.

http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/storypage.aspx?StoryId=34038

Unisys to hire 1,000 for expanded China operation

by Antony Savvas
Wednesday 22 March 2006

Unisys has opened a new outsourcing and software development centre in Shanghai, as part of a move to hire an extra 1,000 staff in China over the next three years.

The Shanghai centre will provide software development, IT and business process outsourcing services, technical help desk services, and technology support and maintenance services.

Cal Killen, Unisys global sourcing vice president, said, “Now more than ever, Unisys clients require global sourcing options to further their business strategies, manage costs and optimise their return on IT and services investments.”

In addition to providing global sourcing support, the multi-purpose Shanghai facility will serve as the company’s Open Source centre of excellence, where Unisys will develop and deploy an open source software environment.

Unisys’ existing China operations already include offices in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.

EDS to hire 2,000 in China

by Antony Savvas
Thursday 6 April 2006

EDS is to open up to three outsourcing centres in China that will hire around 2,000 staff over the next two years.

EDS recently moved its Asian headquarters from Australia to Shanghai, and it is currently identifying locations for the two to three Global Delivery Centres it now plans.

The new centres will offer outsourcing services, including IT outsourcing and hosting, to both multinational and Chinese clients.

The first centre is expected to open some time this year. There are already similar EDS centres located in Malaysia and India.

EDS currently only employs 100 staff in China, so the expansion is a major but not unexpected move.

Earlier this year, EDS said it expected to double the size of its headcounts in India and China over the next two to three years. This comes at a time when the company is axing thousands of staff in the US and across Europe, as it strives to cut costs.

EDS currently has over 15,000 staff in India. It announced up to 20,000 redundancies in the US and Europe at the back end of 2004, which are still being implemented.

Last month, Unisys established an outsourcing centre in Shanghai, which will offer a range of services, including software development.

Over the next three years, Unisys plans to expand this operation by hiring 1,000 workers and potentially setting up similar centres in other Chinese cities.

EDS is also currently trying to buy Indian outsourcing company Mphasis BFL for $380m (£223m), to help ramp up it offshore outsourcing business even further.

Mphasis, based in Bangalore, is a publicly quoted company in India and has both an IT services and business process outsourcing (BPO) business.

The company has more than 12,000 employees, with around 11,000 of these based in India. Mphasis has clients in industries covering financial services, transportation, technology and healthcare.

The Mphasis board views the EDS offer as “favourable”, but it so far hasn’t officially responded to the takeover attempt. Its board will next meet on Tuesday, 11 April.

http://www.computerweekly.com/Feeds/RS/Articles/2006/04/06/215258/EDStohire2,000inChina.htm

China-Based Employees Demand More Perks, Better Salaries

By Kathy Chen and Peter Wonacott
From The Wall Street Journal Online

China’s office workers may not know who Dilbert is, but many are feeling the pain of the popular cartoon character who works long hours for a soulless corporation.

And they are starting to fight back.

PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Beijing office recently has seen a rash of resignations in its auditing division, and, in July, a group of senior auditors approached the firm’s partners to complain about what they described as paltry pay and long hours.

“People felt that they were doing a very good job, but their salary increases weren’t ideal,” says one auditor who quit the firm this summer after working there several years, partly because of the long hours. To top it off, he says, even though senior auditors often worked until 1 a.m. or 2 a.m. each night and on weekends, they weren’t eligible for overtime pay (though they could take time off).

PricewaterhouseCoopers quietly settled the dispute by agreeing to pay all of their auditors overtime and to issue annual bonuses early. “We hadn’t done the best job communicating with staff, which happens when we’re so busy,” says Dave McCann, the firm’s partner in charge of human resources in China. “Now we’re starting more communications.”

Problems are brewing in the cubicles at multinationals in China. As business booms, foreign companies are pressuring local employees to be more productive, even as budgets — and salaries — remain tight. The trend coincides with some fundamental changes in China’s white-collar work force: No longer satisfied with just a job at a brand-name foreign firm, many Chinese professionals aspire to more leisure time and other accoutrements of a middle-class lifestyle. They also are showing greater awareness of their legal rights under labor laws.

The result is that labor friction, once confined to factories and unprofitable state enterprises, is seeping into the offices of multinationals in China. “At first, Chinese employees [at these companies] felt the salaries were higher, so they put up with the conditions. But gradually, they have become more and more dissatisfied and want to see improvements,” says Zou Zhen, a division chief at the state-backed All-China Federation of Trade Unions.

Adds Frank Gallo, head of the Beijing office of human-resources consulting firm Watson Wyatt Worldwide, “Companies need to be more conscious of people’s needs.”

A multinational job in China is still much cushier than working for a state-run company. While workers may be under more pressure to perform, monthly salaries are equivalent to $400 for receptionists and $3,500 for engineers, for example. Wages at state-run enterprises usually range from $50 a month to $200, although some are starting to pay more-competitive salaries.

Foreign firms also offer more opportunities to go abroad and to learn modern skills. Meanwhile, many of the former perks offered by state-run employers — job security, shorter hours — are fast disappearing as they, too, come under competitive pressures.

The number of labor disputes is rising, too. Last year, Chinese arbitration authorities heard some 226,000 cases involving more than 800,000 employees, up 23% and 31%, respectively, from 2002. Mary Gallagher, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Michigan, says that while foreign companies prefer to settle disputes internally, they also are seeing a rise in the number of cases.

But some workers are taking their multinational employers to court. Last fall, more than a dozen former managers at MSD China, a joint venture between Merck & Co. and a Chinese pharmaceuticals company, filed suit against the company alleging that they were fired over wrongful charges of misconduct. The firings took place around the time Merck was conducting global layoffs, and the Chinese employees believe the company fired them to avoid paying severance packages.

Alice Chin, MSD’s head of external affairs, says the company terminated certain employees because “they violated the company’s policies and procedures.” She says several cases have been settled through arbitration, while others are pending in China’s arbitration and court systems.

In April two Chinese workers sued Shanghai ADT Facilities Management Co. after they were fired for allegedly breaking company rules. A General Motors Corp. joint venture had hired workers from Shanghai ADT for low-skilled tasks, such as cleaning services. These employees worked at the GM site, but weren’t given health benefits or a work contract, and paychecks were delayed, says Qiu Jie, a director of the Labor Law Aid Center at the East China University of Politics and Law in Shanghai, which advised the employees. The arbitration panel ordered Shanghai ADT to pay them back wages and erase the rule-breaking allegation.

Shanghai ADT, a joint venture between Knight Facilities Management Inc. of Saginaw, Michigan, and two Shanghai companies, including GM’s passenger-car partner, Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp., declined to comment. Shanghai GM said it wasn’t aware of the dispute. Shanghai GM said any such situation would mean it would “take immediate action to demand the supplier provide all the necessary information and labor contracts…to address the issue.”

Some Chinese professionals also are getting riled over the often-huge differences in pay between local and expatriate staff. Under China’s old centrally planned economy, workers were paid roughly the same. These days, pay scales are uneven, and working elbow-to-elbow with highly paid expats stokes resentment, says S. Prakash Sethi, a professor at the City University of New York’s Baruch College who advises multinationals on codes of conduct. He says similar workplace frictions are playing out in other countries where skilled local professionals are in demand, such as India.

In this environment, some trade-union officials see an opening to expand their membership among white-collar workers in foreign companies, one-third of which are unionized. China’s unions fall under the umbrella of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, which traditionally has been closer to management than workers.

Some multinationals are trying to adjust their policies pre-emptively to meet the changing needs of their workers — and of their own fast-growing operations in China. Merck, which has a female-heavy work force, says it has introduced flextime for working mothers and opportunities for managers to work in the U.S.

PricewaterhouseCoopers, whose annual revenue is growing more than 30%, is revving up hiring and becoming more selective about which projects it takes on. “With our China practice becoming more mature,” says Johnny Chen, partner in charge of the firm’s Beijing office, “we need to focus more on retaining the qualified accountants we have recruited and trained.”

http://www.careerjournal.com/myc/workabroad/20041130-chen.html

Labour shortages hit China’s manufacturing sector

Lack of young workers could push up the cost of Chinese-produced goods

Persistent labour shortages in China’s factories are pushing up wages and benefits, which could make Chinese-made products less of a bargain, according to economists.

Government estimates suggest that major export industries are looking for at least one million more workers, but the real number could be much higher.

According to the government, minimum wages, which averaged $58 US to $74 US a month in 2004, have climbed 25 per cent in the past three years in big cities like Shenzhen, Beijing and Shanghai.

But as wages increase, some companies are looking to move to lower-cost countries such as Vietnam and India.

One economist said these persistent shortages are the result of a shinking supply of uneducated workers as more and more young people are going to college to avoid working in factories. Last year, more than 14 million students enrolled in post-secondary education, up from 4.3 million in 1999.

Government policy is also contributing to the shortages. Last year, in an attempt to bridge the enormous gap between the urban rich and the rural poor, the government eliminated the agricultural tax and stepped up efforts to develop local economies in poor, inland provinces.

Instead of going to the coastal regions, where the majority of China’s factories are located, many young people are choosing to stay close to home and work on farms or take part in the growing local economies.

The country’s one-child policy is also contributing to the shortages, with fewer young people entering the workforce as the first generation born under the policy emerges from post-secondary education.

http://www.hrreporter.com/loginarea/members/viewing.asp?ArticleNo=4357

Ford’s Volvo Division to Start Manufacturing Cars in China

Monday, March 20, 2006

•Volvo Unveils New Hybrid Technology
BEIJING — Ford Motor Co.’s (F) Volvo Car Corp. said on Monday it would begin making cars in China this year, a step into the world’s third-largest car market that other upmarket automakers took years ago.

Chief Executive Fredrik Arp said Volvo would build its S40 sedan at a plant owned by Changan Ford, a Ford joint venture in the southwestern city of Chongqing.

While Volvo conceded it was late in entering a increasingly difficult market where profits margins were shrinking, the company was confident Chinese manufacturing operations would be profitable as early as next year.

Volvo said it could reach its Chinese manufacturing target of 10,000 cars a year in 2007, and was working with a number of Changan Ford’s local suppliers to meet the government’s local content requirements and the company’s quality standards.

“We are, after working with (Changan Ford) on this project for over a year, convinced that their factory, working together with our own experts, can produce the quality Volvo requires,” Arp told reporters.

“At 10,000 units we will be making money,” Alexander Klose, the head of Asia Pacific for Volvo told Reuters.

Bosch to Recruit 4,000 Staff in China

(SinoCast Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)BEIJING, Mar 17, 2006 (SinoCast via COMTEX) –from the current 14,000 to 18,000 in the following two years.

That means the company aims to recruit additional 4,000 employees in the 1.3 billion-population country by 2007, including at least 1,000 ones for Bosch Diesel Systems, 2,200 ones for Bosch Power Tools, and 600 for Bosch Rexroth.

Franz Fehrenbach, the chairman of the board of management of Bosch, said the company’s development in China will depend on the indigenous personnel with high-quality and strong enterprise.

Bosch has launched management training projects for graduate students early this year, aiming to cultivate manager teams for the company in the future.