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May 24, 2006

Harvard Business Review on Doing Business In China - blog by Karl Janowski

There are eight articles in this book that were published in HBR.

The Great Translation - Phases of Entering China

The Chinese Negotiation - Eight elements of Chinese negotiation

The Hidden Dragons - China's companies that are global powers

Entering China: An Unconventional Approach - EJVs don't always make it

To Reach China's Consumers, Adapt to Guo Qing - the Chinese market

Trouble in Paradise - Case study of EJV problems

The Forgotten Strategy - Four forms of arbitage

All are listed in the China category of this blog.

May 17, 2006

Entering China: An Unconventional Approach – article by Wilfried Vanhonacker - blog by Karl Janowski

This article was published in Harvard Business Review

EJVs are the conventional way to enter China but often they do not give corporations what they need to succeed. 
 
WOFEs are the way to go as long as companies can find guanxi (political and personal connections).
 
China more concerned with what companies bring to the deal not how the deals are constructed
 
Every Chinese company operates under local, regional, and national government regulations which all have their own agendas, not many EJV partners can bring a national presence to the table
 
Conflicting Perceptions
Most Chinese companies lack experience to keep up in fast pace market
Companies do not know how much technology to share in EJVs
Many Chinese seek shorter-term profits (than their partners) due to worry that capitalism may not last

April 30, 2006

The World is Flat – book by Thomas Friedman – blog by Karl Janowski


A great book on outsoucing, and offshoring that explains how the world came to be at the current level of globalization. 
 

Globalization 1.0 - 1492 to 1800 - key agents of change relied on muscle, how mych economic power the country had and how well it deployed its power, companies went global but only collaborated with other companies in their country

Globalization 2.0 - 1800 to 2000 - multinational companies arise, steam engine, railroad, telegraph and phone, early web

Globalization 3.0 - 2000 to present - using the web for global collaboration


 
Ten forces that flattened the world
 
11/9/89/ Berlin Wall Falling – spread of capitalism, world as a seamless whole, democracy
8/9/95 – Netscape went public – rise of the internet, spread of fiber
Work flow software – applications talking to applications
Open Sourcing – community development
Offshoring  - search the world for human resources
Supply-Chaining – Walmart style supply symphony
Insourcing – UPS and companies that are expanding their roles to add services
In-forming – Yahoo and Goggle style search engineers
Digital Steroids- Cell phones and PDA style widgets
 
 
Triple Convergence – new playing field from flattening, new ways of doing business, and new tools that allowed collaboration
 
Ambition gap- youth in other countries (zippies in India) more ambitious than Americans
   
 
Rules
 
When world goes flat don’t build a defensive wall.
 
Small companies act big.
 
Best companies are the best collaborators.
 
Best companies get checkups and share results with their clients.
 
Outsource to win not to shrink.
 

Outsourcing is for everyone. Not just big corporations do it.


 

 

April 29, 2006

Offshore Software Development: Managing the New Attitude – article by Starsoft Labs – blog by Karl Janowski

Article can be found here:
http://www.the-chiefexecutive.com/whitepapers/30693/paper1.pdf 


10 Reasons why offshore software fails
 
People
            Wrong build / buy / partner decision
            Poor project and / or team selection
            Culture alignment failure
 
Process
            Underestimating startup effort
            Misaligned SDLC (software development lifecycle) documents or processes
            Failure to integrate Offshore Development Center with internal staff
            Failure to manage expectations
 
Technology
            Ad hoc collaboration / communication
            Little or no effective SDLC acceleration or support tools
            Little or effective services automation platform 
 
More concepts
Increased communication leads to lower unnecessary communication
Don’t let the core relationship be the contract.
Create a  true win-win partnership
Russia is now becoming a software offshore destination.