Archives 2009

Finance Controller (fi249sh)

Job Title: Finance Controller
Report To: CFO – Region Asia Pacific

Located in: Yangtze River Delta

Company Introduction:

Our customer is a leading global producer of industrial minerals, founded in Switzerland and has more than 100 locations in many countries. It mainly fillers and pigments derived from calcium carbonate and dolomite, and a worldwide distributor of chemical products and the major markets are the paper, plastics, paint/coatings/adhesives industries as well as construction, environment and so on.

Job Description:

The job role mainly manages and operates 2BUs finance affairs, included all financial functions work and business support to Group Investment.

Responsibilities:

1. The incumbent will develop and implement local policies and procedures, which are consistent with the corporation’s international policies and procedures and are also in accordance with the statutory requirements of China;

2. Act as an active member of the decision-making process locally, specifically providing financial expertise and leadership;

3. Oversee the establishment of proper management reporting systems, analyses and ensures reporting practices.

4. Prepare, review, and communicate monthly financial and operating results, performs analysis of financial and other business trends and access progress towards achieving strategic goals;

5. Overall control of preparation and submission of periodic financial statements (IFRS and local) and all other internal financial reporting, eg GIF, CAR, FPR, etc.;

6. The incumbent is responsible for coordinating, advising and assisting company management in the development and analysis of both short and long term planning, annual budgets, business forecast and capital expenditure plans.

7. The incumbent will continuously monitor the various laws, tax rules and other related matters, which have the impact on the administration or the profitability of the organization and advising the company management of the changes.

8. Cash/Treasury Management and Tax Planning in co-operation with Regional CFO, Omya Group Treasury and Tax functions;

9. Provide financial and analytical support where requested by company managers/staff, eg production/logistics/marketing, with a view to cost-efficiencies/profitability improvement;

10. Preparation of CAR’s, with reference to Group Investment Manual and utilize Omya Investment Model where appropriate (with local operations management);

11. Improvement of the IT and EDP processes (with local and regional management teams where applicable);

12. Dealing with legal issues and continuous reviewing of contractual relations (with local management team);

13. Change ERP templates.

Qualifications:

1. Bachelor’s degree in Finance or Accounting;

2. About 8-10 yrs accounting and finance working experience in foreign invested production manufacture enterprise, or group level experience, controlling leader, strong leader function?must?;

3. Familiar with the Chinese and international Accounting?IFRS?, strong analytical skills, financial and tax policy; Sound knowledge about financial software; ERP software knowledge desired, good presentation skills;

4. Ability to find solutions and achieve objectives and drive to completion;

5. Excellent organizational and planning skill – Proactive problem solver;

6. High level communication skills;

7. Self motivator;

8. Team player, excellent interpersonal skills and understanding of different cultures / work environments;

9. Good command of English both in oral and written is a MUST.

* Please send us your complete resume (in Chinese and in English) to: ‘topjob_fi249sh@dacare.com'(Please replace “#” with “@”)
* In the email subject please include the position name and job #

Many Guangzhou workers face salary cuts, job losses

Many workers in Guangzhou are facing salary cuts or job losses, as both the private and the public sectors struggle in the midst of the economic crisis.

As many as 40 percent of the State-owned enterprises (SOEs), or government-controlled shareholding companies, have reduced or plan to reduce staff salaries in the prosperous southern metropolis, according to a recent survey conducted by Guangzhou Urban Survey and Research Center.

More than 50 percent of the city’s privately-operated companies have cut jobs in the past months, according to the survey.

But less than 10 percent of the Party and government departments and bureaus have cut staff or reduced salaries.

“Many SOEs have run into difficulties this year because of the worldwide financial crisis,” said a manager from a local SOE yesterday.

Requiring staffs to increase their days off, limiting overtime working hours, reducing salaries and cutting staff have become common measures to fight the financial crisis, said the manager who declined to be named.

“I hoped all the staff can join hands with us to conquer the difficulties,” he added.

More than 83 percent of Cantonese people said their lives have been affected by the financial crisis in the past months, the survey showed.

Only 16 percent of the interviewees said their lives have remained unchanged under the economic slump.

And more than 78 percent of the interviewees are cautiously optimistic about salary increases in 2010.

The survey interviewed 1,016 residents in the city’s downtown districts of Yuexiu, Liwan, Haizhu, Tianhe, Baiyun and Huangpu in September.

Chen Zhaomin, a staffer from a logistics company, said his monthly salary has not been reduced, but all his allowances for travel, telecommunication and entertainment have either been cancelled or sharply reduced.

“And I have not worked any overtime this year, because my boss cannot pay me overtime,” Chen told China Daily yesterday.

Chen estimated his annual income would decrease by about 20 percent this year.

And Wang Cuihong, an accountant from a private firm, said that since the beginning of the year her company has forced staff to take an additional 20 days off every six months.

Also, the staff are usually given only 20 percent of their wages when they are on holidays, Wang said.

Affected by the income reduction, Wang and her family have cut daily living expenses by at least 10 percent this year, she said.

Sales Director-Low Voltage Switchgear (mkt383sh)

Job Title: Sales Director-Low Voltage Switchgear

Report To: GM

Location: Shanghai/Wuxi_______

Responsibilities:

1. Responsible for sale of low voltage switchgear components like ACB, MCCB etc in China market.

2. To build the sales and marketing teams in China such that company can grow sales rapidly, profitably and sustainably.

3. To lead the Sales Team in such a manner as to meet or exceed the company financial budgets and targets in mainland China.

4. Develop and maintain excellent business relationships with key decision makers within the industry and company customer community

5. To develop an understanding of the markets in the various regions within China and to work with the Management Team to develop strategies to that enable the company to use this understanding to grow market share and profitability.

6. To develop a professional sales team in the Greater China Region, instilling structure and discipline into the sales process.

7. To manage risk, particularly those involving warranties and other long term commitments by the company, and to effectively manage the balance between risk and opportunity in all sales activities.

8. Drive the adoption of Best Practice in sales management and the sales team

9. Generate new product and service ideas and channel through the company innovation process

10. Track and document the activities of competitors, customers (direct and indirect) and clients, then formulate effective strategies to maximize the company sales.

11. To manage the collection of cash by the sales team such that debts and debtors are minimized.

12. Manage and allocate sales team resources in order to maximize the effectiveness of our customer relationships

13. Set and monitor individual sales team budgets and targets with respect to Group objectives and Company budgets

Requirements:

1. Bachelor degree or above majoring in Engineering or related areas.

2. Minimum of 10 years relevant commercial experience, with 5+ years at senior management level;

3. Should have experience in low voltage component (not panel) sale through distributors, Power supply bureau, design institute etc.

4. Outperformed sales skills and very strong capability in potential partners define. Written proven sales record will be preferred.

5. Strong in dealing with customers of diverse backgrounds such as SOE and WOE.

6. Expert in project sales & management as well as total solution delivery.

7. Familiar with modern enterprise management modules, ability to lead sales team for results deliverable.

8. Sound commercial awareness. Excellent leadership skills. Excellent promotional, influencing and people management skills. A sound understanding of contracts and contractual risk. Ability to understand cost and pricing issues and their impact on the business.

9. International experience and understanding of managing and coopering in different cultures.

10. The ability to be able to analyze complex issues with incomplete information available. The ability to enjoy working and leading a team in a multicultural environment

11. Excellent communication skills, written and oral, at all levels of seniority, both internal and external to the company. Excellent oral and written communication skills. Good command of English, both oral & writing.

12. Personality: Excellent leadership and team spirit. Strong in interpersonal communication, negotiation and persuasion. Mature, self-motivated, reliable, willing to deal with challenges .Ability to maintain an open mind and high level of flexibility

13. The job covers the whole of China and significant traveling will be required.

* Please send us your complete resume (in Chinese and in English) to: ‘topjob_mkt383sh@dacare.com'(Please replace “#” with “@”)
* In the email subject please include the position name and job #

Wuxi is ready to become a ‘little India’

Wuxi, a picturesque city that lies along the Taihu Lake resort, is planning to build a “little India” in years to come.

Wuxi is traditionally a manufacturing city. But with more focus on environmental protection, especially after a serious blue-green algae outbreak in Taihu Lake that triggered a clean water crisis in mid-2007, city leaders started to study how to transform the city’s development.

Wuxi decided to replace manufacturing with the service outsourcing industry, which has far less pollution and consumes much less energy.

According to its ambitious development plan, the city is expected to attract $30 billion to $40 billion in service outsourcing business and help create service outsourcing jobs for 1 million people by 2020 – equivalent to that of India as a whole in 2007.

The advancement of the service outsourcing industry cannot survive without a large talent pool.

But the city three years ago learned that fewer than 2,000 students in the city were studying software and information technology fields.

As a result, Wuxi established a goal to build a total area of 6 million sq m for software service outsourcing within three years, and encouraged enterprises to cultivate and import skilled workers.

These policies were well received. In 2008, Wuxi’s service outsourcing business accounted for 39.2 percent of companies in Jiangsu province, and the city employed 28.5 percent of Jiangsu province’s service industry employees, according to Fang Wei, deputy mayor of Wuxi.

Growing jobs

This year, the Wuxi government launched a new program to train university graduates. Outsourcing companies will receive a rebate of 4,000 yuan ($586) for hiring a graduate, and every graduate of the training program will receive 1,000 yuan as a subsidy.

The city’s financial sector is also actively providing financial support to enterprises in the service outsourcing industry.

In February, Wuxi became one of 20 cities approved by the General Office of the State Council to build a service outsourcing demonstration city.

In June, 15 banks provided a credit line of more than 4 billion yuan for the city’s 115 service outsourcing enterprises.

The local government joined India’s National Institute of Information Technologies (NIIT), the world’s second-largest educational institution, to establish the NIIT (China) Outsourcing College in Wuxi as a training base for the city’s outsourcing businesses.

While the domestic macro-economy continues to be affected by the global financial crisis, outsourcing is maintaining robust growth in Wuxi.

The city signed $1.14 billion in contracts from January to July, up 110 percent year-on-year.

Experts estimated that by 2010, there will be as many as 100 international service outsourcing and software exports enterprises with annual export values of as much as $30 million.

So far, Wuxi has attracted 22 investment projects from leading multinational service outsourcing corporations and 50 domestic industry heavyweights. Half of China’s top 10 industry heavyweights have established headquarters in Wuxi.

But Fang is looking at bigger goals. “Wuxi is on its way to becoming a ‘little India’,” he said.

After India matured as the world’s largest service-outsourcing base, many East Asian countries – including the Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam – began competing for more market share.

“Enterprises from the Chinese mainland haven’t had much advantage in competing with these countries, but the cooperation across the Straits should bring some opportunities,” said Zhou Ming, deputy director of the China Council for International Investment Promotion (CCIIP).

The service sector accounts for more than 70 percent of the island province’s total GDP.

Zhou said Taiwan’s industrial development experience, technology and branding, along with a massive market and substantial human resources on the Chinese mainland, will greatly enhance the international competitiveness of both regions.

In spite of the financial crisis, the global service outsourcing industry posted a growth rate of 6.3 percent in 2008 – a strong performance in comparison to the world’s average GDP of 2.5 percent.

Many developing countries see the outsourcing industry as an opportunity to survive the international economic downturn, experts said.

Taiwan jobless rate drops slightly

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Taiwan’s jobless rate dropped to 6.04 percent in September, 0.09 percentage points down from a record high recorded in the previous month, the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics said yesterday. However, the seasonally adjusted rate hit a record high of 6.09 percent, up from the 6.07 percent recorded in August, the agency said.

In September, the number of unemployed people totaled 661,000, down 11,000 from the previous month, when a record 6.13 percent was recorded, due mainly to new graduates flooding the job market.

According to the results of a survey released Thursday, some 48 percent of the people who lost their jobs over the past year did so involuntarily, and the unemployed were jobless for six months on average.

The results of the survey conducted Oct. 8-21 by the online human resources company 1111 Job Bank show that 21.34 percent of the unemployed were jobless for more than a year, 12.23 percent were jobless for two or three months, and 11.03 percent took one month to find a new job.

An executive in charge of public relations at 1111 Job Bank attributed the high ratio of long-term job seekers to their lack of ability, their slim competitive edge and their unrealistic expectations of their prospects.

The number of job applications sent out by each unemployed person averaged 81, for a total of just six interviews, according to the survey results.

Since July, the number of jobs has been increasing month by month , but with the influx of large numbers of new graduates into the job market, the unemployment situation has not improved much, according to the executive.

A total of 1,431 valid samples were collected for the survey, which had a margin of error of 2.24 percent and a confidence level of 95 percent.

50% of new expats leave China early

Almost half of new expatriates leave China early because they have difficulty adjusting to the lifestyle, a consultancy firm said.

China Transition Institute (CTI) president David Israel-Rosen said most foreigners are unprepared for what life will be like when they arrive in China.

“It is moving from the West to the East,” he said. “It is not like moving from Chicago to Denver.”

“If you look at the literature, between 30 percent and 50 percent of expats go home early. The failure rates are astonishing.”

Alan Kahn, vice president of marketing and communications for United Family Healthcare, said identity loss and depression are more widespread than many people realize.
“These are very real issues and they do have a significant impact,” Kahn said. “It is very hard to ever fit in fully and that can cause lots of serious problems,” he said.

Jessa Parkman, a 28-year-old nurse who recently arrived in Beijing from Baltimore said she misses her family and is worried about losing job skills she spent years acquiring if she cannot find a similar position here in Beijing.

“It is very debilitating to be at home and not be so independent,” Parkman said. “I just feel very helpless at times and very dependent on other people. It is a struggle to get my bearings.”

Last Saturday, Parkman and her husband attended expat boot camp, which is run by the CTI, and offers basic survival training for expatriates.

Cheryl Smith, a psychologist with International SOS China, said spouses of executives who have been assigned to China can have the hardest time adjusting.

“They feel a big emptiness and imbalance,” Smith said. “I see a lot of alcoholism with expat women. I see a lot of depression. I see anxiety disorders and lots of marital issues.”

“There are many who have marital issues,” Smith said. “They don’t have enough time with their partner and there are also lots of infidelity issues that I see.”

Jasmine Keel, managing director of Inspired, a Beijing-based life and transition support company, said it is important to find an outlet for frustrations.

“It is hard when the spouse used to have a very strong professional identity. Maybe she was working so she had a professional world. Maybe she also had a very strong circle of friends so basically when she moved a lot of the world that she had disappeared,” she said.

Helen Zhang, co-author of “Think Like Chinese,” which explains Chinese thought and business culture from a Chinese perspective, said: “When you communicate with the Chinese, if you are open-minded and observant, there are clues you can pick up”.

“There are many ways for Chinese to say ‘no’ even including ‘yes,'” Zhang said. “We think totally differently.”

Israel-Rosen said the CTI would expand the workshop to a week-long boot camp offered in a number of Chinese cities as well as abroad sometime early next year.

“There is nothing fancy about what we are talking about,” Israel-Rosen said. “”We are talking about basic survival.”

Source: China Daily

China’s Call Center Sector to Hit CNY 10bn Revenue in 2010

BEIJING, Oct 15, 2009 (SinoCast Daily Business Beat via COMTEX) — The Chinese call center industry is predicted to have a revenue of CNY 10 billion in all during 2010, Wang Jun, chief engineer of the government and enterprise customer division of China Telecom Corporation Ltd. (NYSE: CHA, SEHK: 0728), one of the nation’s Big Three telecommunications carriers, said at the China Call Center Industry Summit in Beijing on October 15.

The industry is expected to reach a 20% growth next year, the chief engineer estimated. The size of the call center outsourcing service market will rise to USD 20 billion in the Asia Pacific region in 2011.

However, China is weak in the competition for call center outsourcing services from Europe and the United States. The establishment of a call center is based on a similar culture environment, so Japan and South Korea choose China as their offshore outsourcing base.

In addition, the summit is held in Beijing on October 15 to 16.

Need staffing your call center in China? go to DaCare Staffing – the only specialized call center staffing agency in China

RBS aggressive in hiring talent in China

Royal Bank of Scotland, whose private banking entity in Singapore reported mass resignations by 70 employees recently, will continue to hire aggressively for its investment banking business in China, China Daily reported Thursday.

The bank would try to attract and retain talents in China and stick to its stated goal of becoming a top-five banking entity in the country, the newspaper said, citing John Hourican, chief executive of RBS’ Global Banking and Markets operations.

The Edinburgh-based bank recently announced a barrage of new hires in China in a bid to beef up its investment banking business. Among the key appointments, the bank named Raymond Yin, who joined RBS from JP Morgan where he was chief representative and head of general industrials for the China market, as the co-head of investment banking for China.

The move comes in the backdrop of a battle for banking talent in Asian countries, especially in the private and investment banking sectors. Citigroup recently appointed Rodney Tsang, a senior investment banker with Bank of America Merrill Lynch, as co-head of its China investment banking team.

RBS is now 70-percent owned by the British government.

Senior sales executive (eo237gz)

PART A – JOB DESCRIPTION
Position: Senior sales executive

Location: Guangzhou/Shenzhen/Xiamen

Main Responsibilities
1. Actively generate sales revenue for the company through sales and marketing
activities which involves not only maintenance of existing accounts but also milking of new accounts
2. Establish strong relationship with clients and prospects through regular sales visits
3. Organizes and leads sales and marketing activities for existing clients and new prospects
4. Maintain a good level of sales activities (sales visits, sales lead) in line with Management’s policy
5. Generate weekly sales reports and any ad’hoc sales report.
6 Register all sales activities in SDV sales and marketing IT portal

PART B – JOB SPECIFICATION

Minimum requirements (Must to have)
– Possess good industry contact with proven sales record. (have customer resource, which is the most important)
– Result orientated.
– Knowledge of local markets will be a serious advantage
– Minimum 3-5 years of sales and business development experience (Hunting) in freight forwarding company.
– Thorough understanding of shipping terms and terminology
– Sales Knowledge and Methodology (relevant to our industry, product and market).
– Have excellent verbal, written and presentation skill & good command of English.
Minimum requirements (Good to have)
– Proficient with office software.
– College degree or above.
– Team player, good marketer, good analytical ability, focused, positive.
– Ability to provide two good character reference checks.

* Please send us your complete resume (in Chinese and in English) to: ‘topjob_eo237gz@dacare.com'(Please replace “#” with “@”)
* In the email subject please include the position name and job #

HK graduates start internships in Chinese mainland

HONG KONG, Oct. 20 (Xinhua) — About 200 university graduates in Hong Kong have or will soon set off to various Chinese mainland cities as interns, said a Hong Kong official on Tuesday.

The cities include Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Shenzhen, Dongguan, Foshan, Panyu and Hangzhou.

Speaking at a ceremony for the Internship Program for University Graduates on Tuesday, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government’s Commissioner for Labor Cherry Tse said the program provides 4,000 places for university graduates to work as interns and receive training for six to 12 months in local or Chinese mainland enterprises. Up to 1,000 places are earmarked for Chinese mainland internships.

For local internships, graduates receive training in their capacity as employees and are paid wages commensurate with the duties, responsibilities and content of the training posts. An employer is eligible to receive a training subsidy of 2,000 HK dollars per intern per month.

Mainland internships are not premised on an employment relationship. Interns are entitled to a living allowance of 3,000 HK dollars per month and depending on circumstances, an accommodation allowance of 1,500 HK dollars per month from the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government.

Tse said as of Oct. 15, about 1,000 graduates have been employed by local enterprises as interns under the program. Their average monthly salary is 8,800 HK dollars and the highest offer is 22,000 HK dollars.