China Speakers Bureau: October 2008

Former Philips China CEO joins China Speakers Bureau

David Chang

David Chang, former CEO of Philips China, part of the Dutch manufacturing giant, has joined the China Speakers Bureau. Philips has developed over the past decades into a major player in China's electronics manufacturing industry.
David Chang took the helm of the company in 2002 and retired earlier this year.

In addition to his previous role as the Chairman for Philips China Management Team, Mr. Chang was also sitting in the board of various JVs in China. He is still very instrumental in nourishing the relationship with Chinese partners and aligning business goals. He is also a board member of EUCCC (European Union Chamber of Commerce in China) Shanghai Chapter,Advisory Board member of CEIBS (China Europe International Business School), Vice Chairman of CAEFI (China Association of Enterprises with Foreign Investment) and ECFIC (Executive Committee of Foreign Investment Company in China).
Mr. Mr. Chang is the Advisor to Nanjing municipal government and Rotterdam City.

Victor Shih to join China Speakers Bureau

Victor Shih

Getting a thorough insight of what is happening in China's financial systems is becoming crucial as the financial crisis holds the global economy in its grip. Assistant professor Victor Shih of the Northwestern University is one of very few people who get beyond scratching on the surface and explaining the outside world what he sees.
In his articles, weblog and latest book Factions and Finance in China: Elite Conflict and Inflation, Victor Shih descriphers the political and financial relationships that mark one of the more important players in the global financial crisis. Is China going to drop the US dollar? What kind of alternatives the country has to invest its gargantuan trade deficit? Questions that get very seldom answers beyond the cliches of politicians, but do deserve a better insight in thise challenging times.
The China Speakers Bureau is happy to announce that Victor Shih has agreed to join its service. If you are interested in having Victor Shih as a speakers at your board meeting, conference of panel, do get in touch.

China's GDP depends only for 10 percent on export - Arthur Kroeber

Arthur Kroeber
by Fons1 via FlickrUnlike popular believe China's GDP depends only for ten percent on export, not 40 percent, says Arthur Kroeber, manager director of Beijing-based research firm Dragonomics, according to Sify. The limits the country's exposure against failling export considerably.

China's dependence on exports is not as heavy as may seem at first glance. Officially, exports account for 37 per cent of its revenues and seem to be the driver of the Chinese economy.
But independent surveys by Dragonomics, an advisory firm specializing in China, put its "true" export share at just under 10 per cent of its GDP.
It is internal investments, which account for 40 per cent of its GDP, that are the driving force of China's economy. Although part of them is channeled into export-oriented projects, the global financial crunch will not slow China considerably.

Kroeber expects for that reason a "hard landing" of China's economy rather unlikely.

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Arthur Kroeber belongs to the China Speakers Bureau. Are you interested in his take on China's economic development? Do get in touch.

China changes course to avert crisis - podcast

Amy Sommers
by Fons1 via FlickrBig ticket items like cars and apartments have a problem as Chinese consumers delay purchases, says Shanghai-based lawyer Amy Sommers in a podcast, from her car on the way to Pudong Airport in Shanghai. But the central government is adjusting its policies to avert a full blown crisis like elsewhere in the world.
Consumer spending is going strong, but for real estate, the automotive industry and the export policies will change to avoid that current delays in big ticket spending spills over into 2009, Sommers says. She sees the stronger Renminbi as the main reason for the downturn in export and expects the Chinese currency will weaken, as the government changes its monetary policies.

We lost Amy Sommers shortly and finish our conversation by discussing the plans of the government to increase spending in infrastructure. No crisis management, says Sommers, but a long term strategy.

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Amy Sommers is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. When you are interested in having her as a speaker, do get in touch.

No Chinese brand can compete at a premium price - Tom Doctoroff

Tom Doctoroff
by Fons1 via FlickrNo local brand can compete at a premium prices in America, Europe and Japan, says Tom Doctoroff in the Huffington Post. Doctoroff, CEO, Greater China, of J. Walter Thompson, has a wide-ranging look at the China-branding trends hit by the milk melamine scandal, pushed by the Beijing Olympics, growth areas like services and the online trends.
But on the capacities of domestic brands and their chances of going global, Doctoroff is pessimistic:

There are many local brands that boast strong distribution in emerging markets such as Southeast Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America. However, with the exception of Lenovo (which acquired the IBM ThinkPad brand), there is not one local brand equipped to compete at a price premium in the developed markets of America, Europe and Japan. Their brand equity is not robust enough and the structure of their organization is too sales-driven. This will not change for many years and the first brands to break through will be mid-sized, relatively non-bureaucratic entities such as Anta and Lining shoes, rather than lumbering state-owned behemoths.

More at the Huffington Post.

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Tom Doctoroff is one of the leading speakers at the China Speakers Bureau. If you want to have him as a speaker, do get in touch.

The innovation war room - Rowan Gibson

Rowan Gibson
by Fons1 via FlickrAre you feeling the impact of the financial crisis? Leading innovator Rowan Gibson, global business strategist and bestselling author provides compelling and practical answers in his new series of keynote speeches and 2-day strategy meetings. Focusing specifically on today’s burning economic issues, Rowan shows you how to radically rethink your product and service offer,
your cost structures, internal processes, supply chains, distribution channels, and business models for these challenging times. With his cutting-edge “Innovation War Room”, he
explains how you can discover innovative ways to save money and create new value – both for your customers and your own organization.
Based on his groundbreaking new book, “Innovation to the Core” (Harvard Business School Press), Rowan has designed a practical set of innovation strategy tools to help your company deal decisively and creatively with the challenges that currently face you. (The books is expected to be released in China early 2009).
More on the Innovation War Room you can find here.

If you are interested in having Rowan Gibson as a speaker at your event, get in touch with the China Speakers Bureau.

China ready for Keynesian model - Amy Sommers

Amy Sommers
by Fons1 via FlickrChina is getting ready to spend its way out of the current financial crisis, says Shanghai-based attorney Amy Sommers in the LA Times.

"The government is going to actively and more quickly implement infrastructure development," said Amy Sommers, an attorney at Squire, Sanders & Dempsey's office in Shanghai. At the same time, she said, Beijing will be looking to attract more foreign investments in higher-value areas, such as green energy and new technologies for agricultural, environment and industrial use.

That should help companies like GE, which last month signed a strategic partnership with Hubei province, where the capital city of Wuhan is building a subway and expanding its airport. Shanghai, meanwhile, is ramping up for the World Expo in 2010, opening new opportunities for foreign businesses. AEG, the Los Angeles sports marketing firm that owns Staples Center and the Los Angeles Kings, last week announced, with the National Basketball Assn., new arena projects in Shanghai and Guangzhou.

China used similar investment strategies in its infrastructure during the Asia currency crisis in the second half of the 1990s.

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Amy Sommers is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. If you want to share her views on the ongoing financial crisis and China's possible answers, do get in touch.

Consumers still trust the brand 'America' - Shaun Rein

Shaun Rein
by Fons1 via FlickrDespite the financial turmoil, the Chinese consumer trust in the brand 'America' is still undented, says Shaun Rein, director of the China Market Research Group (CMR) in The Economic Times. While Chinese take their money out of the Citigroup banks into the Bank of China as a result of the financial unrest, trust for consumer goods is still high, Rein says based on own research.

Despite the turmoil, trust in American consumer brands is at an all-time high due to China's contaminated milk scandal, which led to more than 53,000 children falling ill, said Shaun Rein, managing director of China Market Research Group.
"They feel there is better quality control, people aren't going to cut corners, put in bad ingredients in order to make money," Rein said. "So on the consumer side, that 'Made in America' label is still very powerful."

But at the same time, confidence in US financial institutions has plummeted, Rein said, citing surveys his firm conducted in 10 cities across China.

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Shaun Rein is a leading expert on branding in China. When you are interested in having him as a speaker, do get in touch with the China Speakers Bureau.

Healthy growth retails defies crisis trend - Paul French

Paul French
by Fons1 via FlickrRetail in China shows a healthy growth, suggesting the country might indeed wither the global financial crisis, writes Paul French in the weekly newsletter of Access Asia.

Well, despite some slowing growth domestic consumption appears to be staying strong – pretty much everyone we’ve talked to reported very strong Golden Week sales in early October that partly make up for the sluggishness of the third quarter (always the slowest retail quarter of the year). Importantly, this was done without offering excessive discounts.
So, despite some inflation, the earthquake, the bad weather at the start of the year, the Olympics clampdown and the global recession we have still have consumption growth in excess of 20% so far this year, and it’s improving as the year goes on. Retail sales continue to grow at a very healthy level – around 23% (around 14% when adjusted for inflation). That’s better than both this time last year and the year before by a percentage point or two.

While car sales have gone down, the real estate sales are at a low and export is in the doldrums, all those symptoms are triggered off by deliberate government policies, not by failing markets. When domestic consumption is keeping the economy humming, as Paul French suggests, that might offer a partly solution for China to remain relatively healthy.

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How will China react during the ongoing financial crisis? At the China Speakers Bureau we can offer leading opinion leaders who can guide you through the most essential questions. Do let us know if you need our help.

Charles McElwee
Fons1 via Flickr

Preparing a crisis podcast with Amy Sommers

Amy Sommers
Fons1 via FlickrOn Monday we will be doing a podcast with Shanghai-based lawyer Amy Sommers, Partner, Squire, Sanders & Dempsey, on her perspective of the effects of the global financial crisis on China. Apart from a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau, Amy Sommers is also member of the real-estate committee of Amcham.
The declining real-estate will be part of the conversation, but we will draw a broader picture and see how a declining export, closure of factories and social unrest fits into that. Also, the possible measure the central government might be taking to encourage the economy. Tune in again on Monday.

Two media misconceptions on China - Kaiser Kuo

Kaiser Kuo

Kaiser Kuo gets a nice chance from uberblogger Shel Israel to explain the basic misconceptions of Western media (including bloggers) when it comes to China. Part of a lengthy interview:

The assumption that Chinese political authority speaks with a single voice. China is a continent-sized country, and its enormous, parallel hierarchies of Party and state are not the perfect transmission lines that run from Beijing down to every village that some people imagine. There's a lot that goes on at the sub-provincial level that has little or nothing to do with the Party line from on high. Even within the Party there are a wide range of viewpoints on the burning questions of the day, to include issues of personal freedoms. But there's this persistent notion that any time someone's rights are violated in a small town thousands of kilometers from Beijing, the order must have somehow come down fromHu Jintao himself.

The myth of continuity. When someone like Jack Caffertyon CNN calls the Chinese leadership "the same goons and thugs they were 50 years ago," he's simply wrong. China underwent a momentous, revolutionary change 30 years ago when Deng Xiaoping inaugurated his reforms deliberately reshaping the leadership to create one of the most thoroughly technocratic regimes the world has ever seen.Jiang Zemin, his successor, continued to change the very nature of the leadership by embracing capitalists and entrepreneurs--the "most advanced forces of production"--who had had been excluded previously. And now the leadership under President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao have shifted emphasis and are addressing many of the excesses of earlier freewheeling market-led development.

More at Shel Israel's weblog.
The interview is part of the preparation for the China2.0 tour where US-based internet gurus come to meet their counterparts in China, later this year. The tour is organized by the China Business Network and will pass by in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.

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Kaiser Kuo is one of the celebrity speakers at the China Speakers Bureau. If you are interested in having him as a speaker, do get in touch.

Howard French
Fons1 via Flickr

A recession, that would be unchartered waters - Paul French

Paul French

As everybody is still guessing how the global financial crisis and a possible recession would affect China, any glimpse of a recession would be new in China, says China consultant Paul French to Sky News. "We are off the map when that happens."

"No one here has known a recession, no one here has known a slowdown. No one here has really known a time when jobs were hard to find, when unemployment kicked into the system, when people got worried. So we really would be in uncharted territory."

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Paul French is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. If you want to have him as a speaker at your event, do let us know.

Language learning goes free - William Bao Bean

William Bao Bean
by Fons1 via FlickrSocial networking can also be a language tool, says William Bao Bean, director of italki.com from Shanghai and speaker at the China Speakers Bureau, in a recent article in the South China Morning Post.

“It’s a twist to the original Web 2.0 concept... Instead of just making friends online, why not find a language partner who can teach you English or Spanish, while you teach him or her Chinese?”

The service had at the summer already a quarter of a million users, 20 percent from China and the rest from all over the world. While not replacing the professional language teaching methods, the service wants to add functionally to the "just' friend-making ability of social network.
The free service is going to be advertisement-based:

“Just like Facebook, we intend to sell advertisements [to raise revenue],”said Mr Bean. “There are many language-learning schools and other advertisers who will find our user base attractive.”

Most sought speakers - October 2008

Mark Schaub, this month's fastest mover

Surprising changes in this month "most-sought speaker", compared to the scores in September. Some of our leading speakers have suddenly dropped off the list and we see a range of relative new-comers in our top-10.
One of the reasons for that change could be that last month's statistics were still dominated by the Beijing Olympics, where celebrities like Tom Doctoroff got quite some hits among the traditional media. Now, even the milk melamine scandal and even more the financial crisis is hitting the headlines hard. But it is too early to see specific speakers emerging from that chaos, although it could explain the high score of William Bao Bean.
Shaun Rein lost quite some of his earlier advantage - he took a well-deserved break in the past month - but retained his first position.
Fastest mover was Mark Schaub (he came from a much lower position compared to William Bao Bean). What triggered off his rise might have been the podcast we did on the milk-melamine crisis: close to one hundred people listened to this podcast and while the others worked pretty well, Mark Schaub's podcast was leading. But all the others who figures in a China Speakers Bureau podcast, like Paul Denlinger, Sam Flemming, James Farrer, Amy Sommers and William Bao Bean are all in the top-10, suggesting this new tool really triggers off more traffic. Reason enough to continue this experiment.

The top-10 most-sought speakers of October 2008 (between brackets the position in September):

1. Shaun Rein (1)
2. William Bao Bean (-)

Shaun Rein, no.1
Fons1 via Flickr
3. Paul Denlinger (5)
4. Sam Flemming (-)
5. Kaiser Kuo (9)
6. Mark Schaub (-)
7. Arthur Kroeber (6)
8. Amy Sommers (10)
9. James Farrer (-)
10. William Overholt (-)

Mobile internet, the way to go - Marc van der Chijs

Marc van der Chijs

Mobile internet will outflank the traditional computer users, believes Marc van der Chijst, CEO of the Spill-group in Asia and speakers at the China Speakers Bureau. In his weblog, at the launch of the first mobile game of his company:

I think that eventually the number of mobile internet users might surpass the users who go online on a computer, currently it's 80 million mobile internet users out of 260 million who go online in total. I especially think that mobile games could be a huge market in China, because entertainment (and not information) is still the main thing that people are looking for online.

Now the number of mobile internet users is about 80 million in China, against 260 million of the total number of internet users. More for the new game at shouji.game.com.cn.

Politics main challenge for coming ten years - Arthur Kroeber

Arthur Kroeber
by Fons1 via FlickrChina has its fair share of social problems, but none it getting out of control, says Arthur Kroeber, managing director of the Beijing research firm Dragonomics in the German edition of the Financial Times. China is not heading for a social crisis, as some assume, he claims. "China has huge social problems, but they are not leading to a crisis. The political system is very stable."
The lack of democracy is not developing into a problem, Kroeber also says. "The government has invested in the past ten years a lot of money to find out what is happening at the basis of the society, so she can deal with any kind of concerns."
Risk on the short term is inflation, argues Kroeber, on the middle term the pollution and on the long run China's demografic problems, since the society is ageing very fast because of the country's one-child policy. "But the main challenge for the coming ten years is political," he adds, as China political and economic elite of new-rich might join forces in defending their priviliges, just like happened in South-America.

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Arthur Kroeber is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau and one of our authorities on China's political future. When you are interested in having him as a speaker at your conference, board meeting or panel, do get in touch.

Friday, October 31, 2008

Former Philips China CEO joins China Speakers Bureau

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Victor Shih to join China Speakers Bureau

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

China's GDP depends only for 10 percent on export - Arthur Kroeber

China changes course to avert crisis - podcast

No Chinese brand can compete at a premium price - Tom Doctoroff

Monday, October 27, 2008

The innovation war room - Rowan Gibson

China ready for Keynesian model - Amy Sommers

Sunday, October 26, 2008

Consumers still trust the brand 'America' - Shaun Rein

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Healthy growth retails defies crisis trend - Paul French

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Preparing a crisis podcast with Amy Sommers

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Two media misconceptions on China - Kaiser Kuo

A recession, that would be unchartered waters - Paul French

Monday, October 20, 2008

Language learning goes free - William Bao Bean

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Most sought speakers - October 2008

Mobile internet, the way to go - Marc van der Chijs

Saturday, October 18, 2008

Politics main challenge for coming ten years - Arthur Kroeber

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