- In this interview, Jean-Luc Chéreau, the head of Carrefour China, discusses the French retailer’s experience since opening its first Chinese store, in 1995.
- Before coming to mainland China, Chéreau spent seven years in Taiwan. He credits that experience with teaching him much about Chinese consumers and ways of doing business.
- The Carrefour executive also discusses the importance of adapting to local tastes and—particularly as markets spread out from the biggest cities—to local budgets. Networks of Chinese partners and their knowledge of mainland consumers are crucial as well.
- Chéreau says that when multinational companies explore the Chinese market, their failures often teach them more than their successes.
Lessons from a global retailer: An interview with the president of Carrefour China
Published May 9th, 2007 in China and Business. 0 CommentsThe value of China’s emerging middle class
Published April 18th, 2007 in China and Economy. 0 CommentsAs China’s economy has soared at consistently astonishing rates, many global companies have focused on serving the country’s most affluent urban customers. When these well-off urbanites were the only consumers with significant disposable income, this strategy of skimming the cream from the top made sense. But new research by the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) highlights the emergence of a far larger, more complex segment—the urban middle class, whose spending power will soon redefine the Chinese market (see sidebar, “About the research”). While some companies are already focusing on the evolution of this new class, many others have yet to broaden their vision and thus risk missing a significant opportunity.
During the last Eastern I enjoyed, together with my girlfriend, of a really great time in The Netherlands where the weather seemed to be much nicer than in Barcelona. I even read in today’s newspaper that some tourist complained about these circumstances as if Spanish people were the responsible for that situation! The climatic change is causing problems everywhere in the world and the EU seems not to be an exception.
During the trip I got the occasion to continue reading ‘The world is flat’, an interesting book written by Thomas L. Friedman that I encourage to buy to all those that like economics and that wish to understand what the hell is going on there outside.
This week I assisted to an interesting conference in Casa Asia of Barcelona where a book, “The image of Spain in China”, was presented. The book is a study carried out by the Spanish think tank organisation Insituto Elcano, with the support of other different public institutions; it mainly focuses on the image that Chinese people have regarding Spain. The results didn’t surprise me at all as there are lots of confusions relative to the Spanish culture. But are those misunderstandings very different from the ones we have of Chinese? I think so.
The first thing that a Chinese thinks when he is asked about Spain – according the study - is toro, bull in English. The reason is that in China it is quite common to watch on TV corridas, therefore Spanish are known by that in the Far Eastern country. Consequently, the attributes (adjectives asked during the inquiry) that Chinese inquired people associate to Spain are related to tradition, forest and past customs. When they have been asked for a music style they mainly answered paso doble, the one played during the bull corridas.
Moreover it was quite funny to hear from one of the speakers in the conference about one article appeared on a Chinese newspaper after the visit of the Spanish prince in China. They basically described him as a mediocre sportive person instead married with a journalist do not belonging to any royal family, instead of focusing on other characteristics about him. And that is precisely one of the main problems in China when countries try to develop successful media campaigns. China’s communication media are uncontrollable and that gives serious difficulties when trying to build a country’s image so far away.
Finally, Javier Noya, the author of the book, said that countries will need to focus their country image strategies on non traditional ways of communication such as the internet, which use is extended among the youngest people. Building contents on the World Wide Web will be one of the keys of success in the future years.
Asia an awakening healthcare giant
Published March 27th, 2007 in China, Economy, India, Business and Asia. 0 CommentsIt is widely recognised that Asia is a growing market for healthcare, but what might not be as evident is the pace at which Asian countries are developing their own innovative research capacity.
In its new five-year strategic development plan, the Chinese government has positioned pharmaceuticals as one of the pillars of economic development, and government action is expected to support the life sciences industry, says Dr Rae Yuan, head of Roche’s pharma development centre in China. Continue reading ‘Asia an awakening healthcare giant’
After a long period of time where I have been disappeared I am coming back. In fact, the cause of my absence has been the training program that I’ve been doing in Madrid for one month with my new company. Things are going pretty well but consultancy requires a high average of daily time being placed in the office. Moreover, I must confess that I am suffering a lack of motivation regarding the write of interesting posts. Before, when I was living in China I got more things to explain but life in Barcelona doesn’t inspire me that much. A lot of times I think why I didn’t continue my adventures in China but I am pretty sure that someday, somehow it will happen again. I attach the link to some of the pictures of Madrid.
我感觉得很快乐，因为这个圣诞节我玩了很多。我跟我的女朋友一起去西班牙北部旅行。我们去了一个很漂亮的省，它名巴斯克。这个地方离巴塞罗那不太远。巴斯克的人口很小，只有两百万。
我们首先去了San Sebastián。这市在海边。我们在哪儿停留了两天。我们拜访了很多名胜古迹。
在巴斯克有一个历史以来的争论。西班牙和巴斯克之间存在一个很大的矛盾，就如中国和台湾之间。虽然我的看法是很难，但是应该有一个解决办法。
朋友们，我祝你们的圣诞节快乐和新年快乐！
