Archives 2008

Channel Marketing Manager (mkt248sh)

Job Title: Channel Marketing Manager
Report To: Sr. Marketing Manager
Location: Shanghai
Our client is Fortune 500 American enterprise with a history of outstanding performance and has six BUs in China with 6800 employees. It is diversified technology leader, designs, manufactures, and markets innovative products and services with strong brand names and significant market positions. Its business activities encompass four reporting segments and are comprised of six strategic platforms: Medical Technologies, Professional Instrumentation, Industrial Technologies and Tools & Components.
Job Description:
Job summary:
The objective of this position is to link between brand marketing and sales to drive a profitable volume growth by executing appropriate marketing strategies in alignment with network behavior and end-users needs within all existent channels. This is to be done by activating the right brands in the right package at the right price point with the right picture of success including the right locations, brand messages and promotion.
Responsibilities:
1. Plan Channel Marketing Strategy
-Understand the hand tool channel evolution and segmentation , find the potential opportunities and work out the channel strategy for future 1-2years hand tool channel development;
-Understand the needs, problems, and opportunities of network and end-users by sub-channel;
-Accordingly work out sub-channel tactics including merchandising & display principles and promotion principles under channel strategy to drive the business;
2. Budget Control
-Annual// monthly channel marketing budget plan and control;
-Regional budget plan and control and tracking;
-Work out AMP planning and reimbursement process with finance to facilitate and monitor the whole money expense process;
3. Business/Data Analysis
-As internal business intelligence to be responsible for internal business analysis and provide insights to top management and field sales team;
-Monthly/Quarterly/Yearly national business review and analysis;
-Sales analysis by brand/MAG and products by sub-channel to find the opportunities;
-Work with sales team to review their business to find opportunities;
4. Channel Marketing Programs -Initiate national wide promotion campaign aligning with marketing strategy to drive sale growth in peak seasons;
-Work with industry marketing manager to design customized programs for different end-users to foster partnership and to promote sales;
-Follow through on execution of programs(flagship stores/seminar/local outdoor/display/local show/etc), including program roll-out and program effectiveness evaluation after the activities;
-Design incentive promotion to distributors/dealers to facilitate the channel distribution speed and smooth distribution network;
5. Channel Management
-Initiate and design customer survey by channel to understand customer behaviors and insights;
-Design and develop program /assortment/merchandising/display and guideline & tools to highlight the in-store presence;
-Operate and monitor programs with auto sales manager and industry marketing manager to get growth through shelf share increase and display improvement in store
6. Support On Network Management
-Work with sales team to draft distributor/dealer guide manual
-Work with sales team on network evaluation and management;
Requirement:
1. Bachelor degree or above;
2. At least 6 years relevant experiences of Channel Development or Trading Marketing in FMCG/DMCG industry with minimum 3-year on managerial-level positions;
3. Solid experience in working with advertising and PR agencies.
4. Able to work efficiently, effectively and independently under pressure with good attitude;
5. Proficient in both oral and written English(CET6/TEM4)?
6. Good command of computer skills (Word, Excel, PowerPoint and etc).
7. Willing to travel 40% of the regular working time
* Please send us your complete resume (both in Chinese and in English to: ‘topjob_mkt248sh@dacare.com'(Please replace “#” with “@”)
* In the email subject MUST you plus the position name ?in either En or Ch ?

Managing Director (eo147sc)

Our client is a joint venture company which produces cast rolls and steel castings. The annual turnover is approximately RMB320 mill (2008 estimate). They primarily deliver to customers in China within the steel, offshore, energy and building industries. Domestic sales comprise 95%, export 5%. The company’s quality system is approved in accordance with the ISO9002 (ISO 9001-2000 version).
The company is located in Sichuan, not far from Chengdu. The total area of the company premises is 260.000 m2, with buildings covering about 1/3 of the area. The company has at present about 780 permanent employees.

Position: Managing Director

Location: Sichuan

The position reports to the Board of Directors which currently has five Directors.

The responsibilities shall include, but not be limited to, the following:
1. Overall operations of the company.
2. Annual budget and periodic financial and operational reporting to the Board of Directors.
3. Development and improvement of the company in accordance with strategies, plans and decisions made by the Board of Directors.
4. The Managing Director shall limit risk exposure in situations controlled by the company. Loans, guarantees, joint venture, alliance agreements, and major contracts shall be approved by the Board of Directors. Further, the Managing Director shall employ financial instruments to limit exchange and interest rate exposure.
5. Prepare and submit proposals of capital expenditures and sale of fixed assets to the Board of Directors.
6. The Managing Director shall implement systems containing control procedures and early warning routines to detect larger deviations from plans as budget and forecast. Such deviations shall be reported without delay.
7. The Managing Director is responsible for the business being operated in accordance with laws and regulations issued by the P.R. China
* Please send us your complete resume (both in Chinese and in English to: ‘topjob_eo147sc@dacare.com'(Please replace “#” with “@”)
* In the email subject MUST you plus the position name ?in either En or Ch ?

Tackling youth unemployment

Quoting a report by the National Bureau of Statistics last month, the Minister of Youth Development, Akinlabi Olasunkanmi, said more that 80 per cent of Nigerian youths are jobless. The minister further disclosed that 10 per cent of the 20 per cent that are on paid jobs are underemployed. The report, he said, claims that only about 10 per cent of Nigerian university and other tertiary institution graduates get paid job yearly.

Olasunkanmi, who identified the implications of this dreadful development as prostitution, cult activities, armed robbery, drug and child trafficking and hostage-taking, said as a panacea to the problem, his ministry had initiated the entrepreneurship scheme to create jobs for the youths.

While the revelations are a mere confirmation of the nation’s situation and worries, the minister’s solution is weak and inappropriate.

It is common knowledge that the country’s artisans have been forced to abandon their trades to become Okada riders as a result of the chaos in the power sector. It is therefore strange that the minister’s solution is to train entrepreneurs when the business climate is still hostile to all forms of wealth creation. All such direct government interventions in job creation have never worked.

The problem of unemployment is largely caused by a comatose power sector. Prohibitive cost of doing business occasioned by decrepit infrastructure and unstable policy environment has led to the collapse of many small and medium scale businesses, thereby rendering the youths jobless. The shrinking real sector is also at the root of the mass exodus of Nigerian youths in search of greener pasture in other lands.

Unfortunately, some of them, in their desperate search for jobs outside the nation’s shores, have perished while scores of others are serving varying jail terms all over the world. Recently, scores of Nigerian youths reportedly perished off the coast of Spain. The rising crime rate in the country is also a direct consequence of mass unemployment.

The present administration should avoid voting huge sums of money for poverty alleviation schemes or skill training programmes. Such funds have always gone into wrong pockets. The N10bn voted by the Obasanjo administration in 2000 to prosecute a Poverty Alleviation Programme was frittered. The unemployment situation is where it is today because past employment schemes by government failed dismally.

The singular role of government in employment generation is to create a conducive environment for the private sector to flourish. To foster a business-friendly climate, the power sector should be fixed. Millions of barbers, welders, cold drink sellers and other small scale business operators will go back to work as soon as there is a stable supply of electricity. The economy will automatically attract human and economic capital from all over the world when the power supply crisis is solved. It is generally reckoned that fixing the power sector may reduce unemployment by up to 50 per cent.

To rehabilitate the nation’s infrastructure, the government at all levels should embark on different public-private sector partnership schemes. To fix the rail system, for instance, the various laws that put the rail system at the behest of the Federal Government should be repealed.

Since mass unemployment is a direct consequence of the nation’s undue reliance on imports, all government policies should now be targeted at creating an export-oriented economy. China, India and many Asian nations have created millions of jobs at home by producing goods and services which are exported at globally competitive rates.

Soaring ad income boosts Sina’s profit

China’s biggest Web portal Sina Corp reported its profit jumped 74 percent in the second quarter of this year backed by soaring advertising income.

Its net income grew to 25.2 million U.S. dollars, or 42 cents a share, and its revenue soared 53 percent to 91.3 million U.S. dollars in the period, beating its estimate of 90 million dollars, Sina said yesterday.

The Shanghai-based company’s online ad income grew 58 percent to 64.9 million dollars and non-ad revenue rose 42 percent to 26.4 million dollars.

“We are very proud of our record revenue and earnings in the second quarter. Our online advertising business in China, in particular, continues to be robust, growing 58 percent year on year, and was a major driving force in allowing us to achieve a net income growth of 74 percent year on year,” said Charles Chao, CEO of Sina. “We expect Sina’s advertising momentum to further accelerate in the third quarter, as we are prepared to provide an unprecedented online media coverage of the Beijing Olympic Games.”

Sina predicts its third-quarter revenue between 100 million dollars and 104 million dollars, with ad income at 75 million dollars to 77 million dollars.

Credit Suisse said in a report that Sina’s ad business will continue to grow next year backed by its status in the industry, excellent sales team and brand value.

China’s 51job Q2 net profit down 37.8 pct on soft demand, costs

BEIJING (XFN-ASIA) – 51job Inc (NASDAQ: JOBS) said second quarter net profit fell 37.8 pct year-on-year to 2.8 mln usd on softening market demand for recruitment services and higher operating costs.

The Chinese human resources online services firm said second quarter revenue increased 4.2 pct to 31.9 mln usd while operating costs rose 16.8 pct to 12.3 mln.

Earnings per share stood at 0.10 usd.

Rick Yan, president and chief executive officer of 51job (nasdaq: JOBS – news – people ), said hiring by users of its service was sluggish in the second quarter, amid higher labor costs and slower economic growth.

‘We expect recruitment activity in the third quarter to further moderate as we believe regulations

instituted by the government for the Olympic Games will restrict normal business practices for companies in Beijing and indirectly affect businesses nationwide,’ Yan said.

The company has a third quarter revenue target of 29.9-31.3 mln usd.

(1 usd = 6.8 yuan)

Survey: More Shanghai people unhappy about income

More citizens of China’s eastern metropolis of Shanghai were not satisfied with their salaries and may postpone buying houses or cars, a survey shows.

The income index for the second quarter of this year set a record low of 114.8 points, 3.8 points lower than that of the first quarter and 7.5 points lower than the last quarter of 2007, according to the survey on consumption confidence conducted by Shanghai University of Finance and Economics (SUFE).

Among the 1,000 surveyed, 13.3 percent said their income shrank over the past year, 4.4 percent higher that that of the first quarter. People’s employment expectation index dropped by 23.5 to stand at 84.7 points, and 35.9 percent of the surveyed were pessimistic about job opportunities in the second half of the year.

In addition, 62.6 percent Shanghai citizens thought it was not a good time to buy houses right now, and 55.7 percent would not consider buying one this year.

The survey also shows that about half of the surveyed were negative about buying cars either now or in the second half of the year.

However, official statistics showed that the annual per capita disposable income in Shanghai’s urban areas last year increased by 14.3 percent as against that of 2006, and that in rural areas increased by 11 percent year on year.

The Chinese stock markets have fallen drastically since October last year, while the consumer price index has continued to rise, both hitting people’s incomes, according to Xu Guoxiang, professor of economics with SUFE.

Business as usual in Chengdu

After the May 12 Wenchuan earthquake in Sichuan province, wives would ask their husbands who had to go to Chengdu on business to take biscuits, instant noodles and water because they believed the city must have been battered by the quake and did not have enough food or clean water.

As a matter of fact, about one month after the quake, cinemas, museums, libraries, concert halls, restaurants and bars in Chengdu had reopened and were back to normal.

The average occupancy rate of Chengdu’s star-rated hotels has risen to 60 percent and some have even reached 80 percent, higher than before the quake, said Deng Gongli, chief of the city’s tourism administration.

The city’s real estate, tourism, investment and retail sale sectors have also picked up the pieces.

In June, sales at famous retailers in the city such as Wangfujing Department Store, Ito-Yokado, Suning Appliance and GOME Electrical Appliances Holdings picked up, reaching between 80 and 90 percent of their pre-quake levels.

Twenty-three foreign-funded enterprises have registered in Chengdu after the earthquake, with an investment of nearly US$134 million.

Zhou Mi, deputy chief of the Chengdu committee for the promotion of investment, said: “Chengdu remains the commercial center of southwestern China.”

Ge Honglin, mayor of Chengdu, describes Chengdu as a vital economic hub, an inland city with great potential for economic growth as China promotes the development of its western areas.

Land of abundance

Chengdu is traditionally known as the “land of abundance” thanks to the construction of Dujiangyan, the world’s oldest irrigation project still in operation.

Two millennia ago, the Chengdu plain suffered from incessant flooding of Minjiang, a tributary of the Yangtze River, during the summer, while it was stricken with drought in the winter.

Li Bing, governor of Sichuan at the time, started harnessing the river by launching the Dujiangyan Irrigation Project around 256 BC.

When the project was completed, it fed a grid of canals that irrigated 160,000 hectares of arable land on the Chengdu plain. That area has since increased to 670,000 hectares.

The plain has stayed more or less free of floods and drought for more than 2,000 years, and has earned Sichuan the reputation of being a “land of abundance”. The Chengdu plain has remained one of China’s most important agricultural regions for centuries.

In the absence of a dam, experts have hailed the project as one of the world’s most impressive hydraulic engineering projects.

Together with Mount Qingcheng, the project was listed as a World Cultural Heritage Site in 2000 by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

Mount Qingcheng, 16 km from Dujiangyan, which is known as “the most tranquil place under heaven,” is the birthplace of Taoism, China’s only indigenous religion.

Chengdu has been a land of abundance throughout history because of its developed agriculture and lack of conflict. Located in the Sichuan Basin and surrounded by rolling mountains, invading troops found Sichuan inaccessible in ancient times.

The city is famous for pandas, romantic poets, spicy hotpot and, more recently, bars and a relaxed atmosphere.

“It is a mix of Frankfurt, Paris and Chicago,” Mayor Ge said.

Ge, a former vice-president of Shanghai-based Baosteel Group, one of China’s largest State-owned enterprises, says his last job trained him to think like an entrepreneur. In fact, the Shanghai native has on many occasions acted as Chengdu’s main PR man.

He has jumped on opportunities to promote the city to foreign investors, attending the American Chamber of Commerce in China’s annual dinner last year, the only mayor to be present. At the 30th Anniversary of the Canada-China Business Council, he gave a lecture and held several meetings with Canadian businesspeople.

Ready for change

Ge is confident that as the world gets increasingly flat, economically speaking, inland Chinese cities such as Chengdu will play an increasingly important role in China’s economic development. For the past several decades, coastal cities have flourished thanks to convenient transportation. Now, as modern technology and industry play a more important role, inland cities are in a good position to develop.

Ge is trying to prepare Chengdu for this change.

The city’s greatest advantage, he says, is human resources. While factories in many coastal cities suffer a shortage of skilled workers, Ge says Chengdu has made vocational education one of the top priorities of the city’s policymaking.

“I am really concerned about training ‘grey collar’ and ‘blue collar’ workers,” he says.

In addition to stipends from the central government, the local government offers extra subsidies to workers and their children living in the Chengdu suburbs so they can receive technical training. The subsidy will cover all school costs, and in some cases, even family living expenses.

The local government encourages high school students to attend vocational schools if they fail to enter college. In December, the city spent 350 million yuan (US$51 million) to build a vocational school. The school, which will begin recruiting students in September, plans to send over 10,000 technicians per year to Chengdu and beyond.

Chengdu aims to become a base for the information technology, automotive and food processing industries. A vast number of skilled workers will be needed to fill the gap. According to its initial plan, the school will offer training courses and cooperate with enterprises to supply talent to enterprises.

A clean city

Apart from the talent pool, Chengdu is trying to build itself into a place that is suitable to live in.

Ge is proud that nearly all foreign embassies have situated their offices in western China in Chengdu. “They chose it because they feel comfortable living here,” he explains, adding that Chengdu aims to be one of the cleanest cities in China.

According to Ge, almost all the buses and taxies in the city burn gas instead of oil to reduce pollution. By 2009, the city expects to safely burn all the rubbish, instead of using landfills. It has also moved major factories out of the city, and is generating electricity with water, instead of burning coal.

In 2007, the city government spent more than 5 billion yuan to build over 30 sewage water processing facilities. Efforts to improve air quality have also paid off: 311 days last year had good air quality. The egret, a rare bird that had long been unseen in the city due to heavy pollution, has recently returned, according to a CCTV report.

“We want to be the city with the best environment in China, and I think we are well on the way to achieving this,” Ge says.

The city’s GDP reached 332 billion yuan in 2007, up 15.8 percent year-on-year, while the per capita income of urban residents surpassed $4,000. Ge aims to increase the disposable income of urban residents by 8 percent, and rural residents by 10 percent annually.

Ge says strong foundations have already been laid, and that Chengdu’s future looks bright.

“When you have the human resources and a suitable place for people to live, enterprises will come and see whether there is a market here for them,” Ge says.

Jobs aplenty but flexibility the key

HUMAN resources companies have poured into China in recent years looking keenly at the robust economy and the shortage of talent in the market.

Randstad, the second largest HR solution provider in the world, launched a flexible staffing business in China recently because it saw the market could potentially create an additional 1 million new jobs annually in the next three to five years.

A professional flexible staffing business which sends staff to employers who need temporary employees has to be an official employer of the workers and has to take on all the responsibilities for the employees, including training, professional development and other benefits.

People in China tend to confuse flexible staffing with payrolling, which is the predominant business for staffing companies such as Fesco which offers staff for longer periods.

In the flexible staffing business, workers are sent to different client companies to undertake temporary work, usually for weeks or months at a time.

“China is in the early stages of flexible staffing. In Europe, an average of between 10 percent and 25 percent of the workforce are flexible workers managed by staffing companies,” said Paul van de Kerkhof, Managing Director of China operation of Randstad.

The service allows employers to use temporary workers to offset dips in productivity in peak and low seasons.

While the annual revenue created by Japanese staffing companies each year is US$30 billion, in the US it reaches US$80 billion and in Europe is worth US$90 billion.

Some Chinese companies, in an effort to circumvent more stringent labor laws introduced this year, have suddenly fallen in love with flexible staffing, Randstad said.

And some international companies have found that operating flexible staffing is extremely tough in China because of regulatory barriers.

Current employment laws require companies, including staff providers, to sign a minimum two-year contract term with employees, which makes it hard for staff providers whose employees have to handle short-term assignments, usually just a few months or even weeks.

“We are working with Chinese regulators to come up with more tailored regulations that support the flexible staffing market,” Kerkhof said.

Randstad plans to recruit 100 secretarial staff to fill temporary assignments for clients by the end of this year.

“We believe this is the right move for us because we see the same trend happening in China as happened in other markets: Both workers and companies are calling for more flexibility instead of just job security,” Kerkhof said.

Randstad set up its first Chinese office in Shanghai in 2005 and linked with Talent Shanghai Co Ltd in 2006 in which it held a 70-percent stake.

Now it owns seven branches in Shanghai, Beijing and Suzhou with 230 staff members, dealing in flexible staffing, pay rolling and search and selection business.

Executive searcher DHR International, one of the 10 leading executive search companies in the world, has big ambitions for its role in the fast-growing Chinese market.

The company runs an office in Shanghai and will open a Beijing office this year. It expects that revenue will triple in China this year.

“We can serve the Chinese market from the Shanghai and Beijing offices,” said Christine Greybe, managing director of DHR International Asia.

The company’s concentrates on headhunting senior executives for leading global companies involved in financial services and advanced technology, health care and retailing.

“A lot of our demand is coming from international companies, which account for 85 percent of our clients, but we are also starting to serve Chinese companies that are expanding internationally,” said Eric Dieny, executive vice president of DHR International Asia.
Dieny, who has been living in China since 1982, is in charge of the Shanghai office.

“The Chinese companies we serve now are young but very aggressive and many of them are clustered in high-tech industry,” Dieny said.

He said their Chinese clients have funding, especially from venture capital firms, and they try to attract senior executives to help them grow into a giant company.

“Senior executives in China move very quickly but those who change jobs frequently are not great value for us,” Dieny said.

Zhaopin.com Gains Investment From Macquarie Capital, Seek

Macquarie Capital and Seek, one of the largest Australian recruitment Internet companies, have jointly announced plans to invest money into the Chinese online job recruitment website Zhaopin.com, which was started by expatriates over ten years ago.

Macquarie will buy a 29.1% stake in Zhaopin.com, while Seek will pay USD45 million to increase its stake from about 25% to near 43% on a fully diluted basis. Early in 2006, Seek invested USD20 million into Zhaopin.com.

Liu Hao, CEO of Zhaopin.com, is quoted by the Reuters that this round of investment will meet the demand of Zhaopin.com for future development. Liu says that the investment is only a financial investment and Macquarie Group and Seek will not participate in the operation of the company. Zhaopin.com will maintain long-term independent decision-making power.

According to Zhaopin.com, the finances will mainly be used to hire new workers and to supply better services to customers, but it will not be used for acquisitions. In addition, it will expand its business in China’s second-tier cities is the company’s another focus.

Labor Shortages Amongst Plenty – China’s Perfect Storm

by Frank Mulligan

With a population of 1.3 billion, the continual assertion that there is a skills shortage for professionals and workers in China is difficult to comprehend – and even more so with the added contradiction of reports of a shortage of jobs for Chinese graduates.

Yet it is a serious problem. The Shenzhen Labor Bureau cites a shortage of 750,000 workers in Q3 for 2007 – that’s the best part of a million people in a city that has a total population just over 6 million.

Frank Mulligan, who will be talking at the forthcoming Online Recruitment Conference in China, in Hong Kong, takes a look at the good and bad news behind the hype.

Education
The Good – Educational opportunities in China are at an all time high. Teenagers about to leave school have never had it so good, and somewhere in the region of 30% of high-school leavers in the cities will have the option for further study.

The Bad – At the same time, this year will see 20 million new job seekers in China, among both high school and university graduates. They enter the market at a time when the overall world’s economy is drifting downward and they have gone through a rote learning education system that does not equip them for the workplace. Employers regard professionals with 1-2 years as their starting point, not graduates. Graduate unemployment is as common as multiple job offers for experienced hires.

Economic Growth
The Good – The Chinese economy has grown by 10% a year for 20 years, and tipped above this figure last year. Continued high growth is certain but just not at previous rates.
The Bad – The Chinese government has painstakingly put together a huge raft of measure to slow down its runaway economy. This includes everything from the abolition of export tax rebates, to additional taxes, to tighter monetary control. It hasn’t worked so far but the arrival of the sub-prime debacle in the US has created slowdowns around the world. This event, plus the measures in China, might all kick in together.

Unemployment
The Good – Paradoxically, continued strong growth is the more likely scenario in China. This would be in excess of ‘only’ 8%.

The Bad – It might not be enough. A slightly slower growth might look like a small price to pay for economic stability. But it might be not be enough to sop up the additional new workers, and those laid-off in the event of an export downturn (which appears to be happening). The stock exchange ‘correction’ we have seen lately, plus the slowdown of housing prices around the country will only exacerbate the problem.

FDI & Services
The Good – If we are lucky the expansion of services, especially banking, will contribute to solving the problem of declining industrial production. This is often cited as the way out. The idea is that the economy will continue growing, and FDI will continue coming in, because industrial investment and growth will simply be replaced by investment and growth in services.

The Bad – We cannot expect services to come in to save the day at exactly the point that manufacturing slows down. Services will develop, to be sure, but at their own rate. It’s also hard to see factory workers changing their industrial style boiler suits for suits ‘n ties. Not in the short term anyway.

Factory Losses
The Good – The loss of factories around China, but especially in the south, is focused on low-level production that the Chinese government says it wants to move away from anyway.

The Bad – The factory workers who are currently losing their jobs are in very low-technology sectors. Some of these jobs are on the margins of indentured servitude. It will not be so easy for these people to transfer across to semi-conductor plants.

The Labor Law
The Good – The new labor law.

The Bad – If we are not lucky the effect of China’s labor law will be to dampen enthusiasm for China, and cause Foreign Direct Investment to shift to cheaper countries for the long term. Currently we are witnessing the wholesale exit of low-tech factories from China, and these are moving to lower-cost countries like Vietnam. Let’s hope it’s a blip, and not a trend.

Whether good or bad, the new environment in China is certainly much more complicated and unstable than before. It needs workforce planning, not hiring, retaining-for-a-bit, losing. Maybe is it time for HR to take a lead from the government’s quality drive, and move up a notch.

China’s Recruitment Challenges will be debated in more detail at the onrec.com Online Recruitment in China Conference, in Hong Kong on 23rd September 2008. Learn more about the current trends and challenges, and learn about the best practice solutions being successfully implemented around the globe. For more information and to reserve your seat, please visit www.onrec.com/hk or email kelly@onrec.com. Availability is restricted so please book early to avoid disappointment.