The Hidden Dragons – article by Ming Zeng and Peter J. Williamson - blog by Karl Janowski
This article was published in Harvard Business Review.
As of 2002:
Corporations normally think of China as cheap labor and a huge market for products but ignore Chinese firms as powerful rivals in the global market
China is the fastest growing market on the planet, but there are more regional brands than national brands partly due to economic rivalry between China’s providences, with most of the global companies still state owned. Still a new breed of Chinese firms are becoming rivals for global businesses
4 Types of the “New Breed” of Chinese firms
China’s National Champions – own the China market and look for niches abroad where they can use their skills at meeting the low cost needs of the China consumer and become profitable in places where their multinational rivals can’t (Haier example)
Dedicated Exporters – knew that competition in their business was global and when China opened up set their sites on the global market, often have low prices (Pearl River Piano example)
Competitive Networks – clusters of many small family owned companies located in one geographic area that work together to form one global entity, can change fast due to low bureaucracy (Wenzhou network manufactures lighters for 70% of the world), one weakness is that the networks do not build brands
Technology Upstarts – companies started from research firms and technology that were state owned for military development