Archives June 2008

Competition for managers heats up as China booms

Firms anxiously seek those with global expertise
Susan Fenton, Reuters
Published: Monday, May 26, 2008
American-born Thomas Kwan’s career has taken off since he moved to China to work as the country manager for a U.S. health products company.

“If I’d stayed in the U.S. I wouldn’t have had the same opportunity for advancement,” said trilingual Kwan, 46, who was brought up in a Cantonese-speaking household in Virginia and also speaks fluent Mandarin and, of course, English.

“The U.S. is still a Caucasian-dominated society,” added Kwan, who now lives in Shanghai.

Job fairs in China are one way for companies there to try to fill a void for managers with both Chinese language skills and international exposure.

China’s rapidly expanding economy has created a seemingly insatiable appetite for Chinese-speaking managers.

Yet even though three million university graduates enter China’s workforce every year, multinational companies are finding it hard to find local talent to meet that demand.

Companies that are successful in luring top-notch recruits are at an automatic advantage in the race for a piece of China’s $1.3-trillion US consumer market.

But competition for good quality hires, especially experienced managers, is fierce.

Companies in China will need 70,000 middle and senior managers over the next five years, according to executive search firm MRI Group, but they are unlikely to find them.

“We’ll be lucky if we can identify 50 per cent of that number,” said Erica Briody, director of MRI China.

Since last year, Pricewaterhouse Coopers has posted Chinese recruiters in the United States, Britain and Australia to scout for graduates at university campuses as they seek to keep pace with business growth in China by recruiting 3,000 people a year.

They are targeting Chinese students studying abroad, as well as experienced foreign professionals with a Chinese heritage, such as Kwan.

“The economic boom in China means the talent needs are demanding. We are building a talent pipeline for the future,” said Angela Jiang, a PricewaterhouseCoopers recruitment manager based in New York and responsible for finding U.S.-based talent for the firm’s China operations.

Recruiting qualified Chinese-speaking managers is crucial for firms, especially multinationals, as they seek to capitalize on business opportunities in the world’s fastest growing major economy.

“Multinational companies are looking to China to grow their organizations,” said Briody.

“If they can’t get the talent, their expansion plans will be limited. Ultimately they can’t be competitive.”

A report by the McKinsey Global Institute in 2005 said fewer than 10 per cent of China graduates who applied for jobs at multinationals had the right skills and qualifications to work there. Poor English was the main shortcoming.

The Asian Development Bank in its 2008 Asian Development Outlook says the skills shortage is aggravated by China’s failure to produce the right kind of graduates rather than too few.

Chinese graduates may be well versed in theory but often lack practical problem-solving skills, analysts said.

“While the root cause of China’s skills crisis lies in the leap in demand for skills, the education system has failed to keep pace,” the ADB said in the report.

Kwan, who has been in China for four years, says his understanding of Chinese culture is as invaluable as his linguistic abilities when it comes to managing his China team.

“Here, I am bicultural. I understand that Western culture and Chinese culture are different and that Chinese don’t normally speak out,” he said.

“A lot of expat managers fail in China because they don’t understand that Chinese don’t tell you what they think.”

Feature: China’s Huawei seeks to expand services in E Africa

China’s Huawei Technologies, a leader in providing next generation telecommunications network solutions for operators around the world, is seeking to expand its services to become a dominant player in telecom services in East Africa.
The telecom firm which is marking its 10 years of business in East Africa said its expansion is in line with Huawei’s strategy to expand its regional network by offering customer’s specialized service and engineering teams to respond promptly to customer requirements.

The telecoms company has had exceptional growth in the region since it began operations in 1998 in Kenya and become the largest CDMA product provider in the region.

Speaking during celebrations in Nairobi on Tuesday night, Huawei Kenya CEO Herman He said the company first tapped into East Africa market with its cutting-edge technology and top-ranking services.

He said Huawei, together with African operators, has built a comprehensive communication infrastructure, enriching the life of African people due to diversified communication services offered by the telecom company.

“Based on our equipments and solution, Kenyans enjoy various quality and affordable services, including value added service, voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) and broadband service through NGN, CDMA and 3G,” said Herman.

Herman noted that some of the leading telecommunication companies such as Kenya’s Safaricom, Celtel Kenya and leading fixed-line incumbent Telkom Kenya have benefited from Huawei’ s advanced technology, reliable products and quality service.

“In Kenya, Huawei is the major supplies of optical transmission network of Safaricom, and have offered it high speed wireless internet access service of 7.2Mb through leading 3G solution in Nairobi,” he said.

“We have also successfully built Telkom Kenya’s National CDMA wireless, as a end to end solution, we also provide Intelligent Network, NGN, Data Communication,” he said.

Herman said Huawei will never stop its efforts in providing timely response, proficient service and customized service portfolio.

The Chinese company has created more than 400 jobs both directly and indirectly in Kenya while it has employed over 3,000 employees in the sub-Saharan Africa.

Joe Deng, Huawei’s East Africa President, said the firm has invested about 1 million U.S. dollars in Kenya to establish a fully furnished training center with the latest and best equipment to train local customers, partners and their staff in the latest communication technology.

“Huawei East Africa has long-term strategically plan to invest in Kenya and become 100 percent Kenyan company. Area of investment will cover social responsibility, environmental awareness, technology education and knowledge transfer as well as enriching Kenyans life through communication, Deng said.

Huawei Kenya, with around 65 percent Kenyan employees, is a registered local company. It is the headquarters of East Africa, serving other branch offices including Uganda, Tanzania, Congo, and Ethiopian among other countries.

“We constantly update our customers on the latest technological developments which allow them to make informed decisions for their organizations and customers. In 2008, we will strengthen our investment in wireless terminals, as well as research and development,” said Deng.

The Chinese company was the first to introduce next generation telecommunication technologies in Africa such as UMTS/WCDMA, WiMAXand CDMA EV-DO and services mainstream mobile operators such as Vodacom, Orange, Telkom, MTN, Milliccom, Celtel and Safaricom among others.

Haier launches first after-sale services center in Jordan

AMMAN, June 1 (Xinhua) — Haier, one of China’s Top 100 IT Companies, launched its first after-sale services center in Jordan, in an attempt to extend more extensive technical support to its Middle Eastern customers, an official with the company told Xinhua on Sunday.

Yan Xuhong, General Manager of Haier Middle East, inaugurated the center and affirmed that it would provide fast and reliable services to its customers and clients.

The center, with the latest technical equipment, is run by a number of specialized electronic and technical engineers who have undergone extensive training in the mother company, Yan said.

As part of promotion, Haier has offered a two-week of free charge maintenance and repair of all Haier products, according to Yan.

Haier, the world’s fourth largest white goods manufacturer, specializes in technology research, manufacture industry, trading and financial services.

Haier has 240 subsidiary companies and 30 design centers, plants and trade companies and over 50,000 employees throughout the world. It registered a global revenue of 107.5 billion RMB (about 15.4 billion U.S. dollars) in 2006.

Chinese Pilots Pay To Quit

Hong Kong – Employees worldwide desire the protection of lifetime employment, a so-called “iron rice bowl” that can never break, and can’t be taken away. But in China it’s this very kind of lifetime employment that airline pilots are trying to end. One problem, though, is that even when pilots succeed at leaving their jobs they can be forced to pay vast sums to employers on the way out.

In recent months the grievances of Chinese pilots have received wide-spread publicity due to strikes staged against their employers, and the unfair treatment they have received in the newly-liberalized aviation industry.

Adding insult to injury, a slew of court verdicts has ordered the pilots to pay millions to terminate their employment contracts.

On Thursday, Air China agreed to let six pilots in its Zhejiang branch go, but only after it knew it would collect between 1.29 million yuan ($185,612) and 1.7 million yuan ($244,604) from each, in a closely-followed dispute. Two months ago one Air China pilot fainted upon hearing a verdict that ordered him to pay 2.1 million yuan ($302,158) for his resignation.

Also, Chinese pilots have seen their careers suspended and salary halted for up to three years as local courts dealt with their resignations; the airlines inevitably sought legal protection, citing the vast sums they invested in training the pilots. Worse, the law is on the airlines’ side: resignations from Chinese pilots are effective only if their employer agrees to it.

The problem is that the Chinese government controls all four major airlines—Air China, China Southern, China Eastern and Hainan Airlines—and keeps a tight leash on pilots, in much the way it runs the military. In fact, Chinese airlines enlist pilots from the military. This is despite 2004’s market liberalization, which allows small privately-run airlines to set up shop, and compete.

A boom in China tourism also creates an acute shortage for pilots, making them too precious a property to lose. Despite this, pressure from long working hours, intense overtime, and laxness in management and safety issues arising from recent consolidation has prompted an exodus of pilots from the state-owned sector to small, privately-run aviation startups.

Short of resignation, Chinese pilots have sought to get attention through strikes, mass sick leaves, and hunger strike. In one extreme maneuver, on March 20, China Eastern Airlines pilots disrupted 31 flights by flying back to their take-off point, just minutes after departure. The pilots were unhappy about a new, high tax on a formerly tax-free portion of their income and for being put under the loss-making Shanghai parent airline after a 2004 nationwide industry shakeout..

While almost all Chinese state-controlled airlines have disgruntled pilots, loss-making airlines based in Shanghai seem to have particular problems. A branch there was blamed for three waves of mass resignations since 2004 and in one tally, more than two-third of a 70-plus pilot team had tried to resign.