Nehao From the Worldcom AGM in Shanghai

I’m writing this from the Worldcom Annual General Meeting in Shanghai.

What an exciting time to be in this city with our Worldcom partners from around the world. The World Expo has 400,000 visitors a day and the growth and development in this country is mind boggling.   

James McGregor, author of “One Billion Customers: Lessons from the Front Lines of Doing Business in China,” was one of the presenters. He’s an American who has lived in China for more than 20 years and a former Wall Street Journal bureau chief in Taiwan and Mainland China.    

Here are some of the interesting facts about China we learned from him as well as some of our colleagues from Asia.  

China was not prepared to take on the global leadership role it’s been asked to assume since the world economic crisis.  Because China has such aggressive ambitions for development in its own country, McGregor predicts that it will be challenging for China to “put what’s good for the world in front of its own agenda.”

The cost of Chinese goods and labor are increasing. China will not be able to continue to afford to sell goods as cheaply as in the past.

Traditional media are very vibrant here, despite continued control by the Communist Party.  McGregor believes that governmental censorship won’t change for a long time.

Think the internet and social media aren’t important here?  Think again.  China accounts for 20 percent of all internet usage globally. While YouTube, Twitter and Facebook are blocked in China, social media is alive and kicking.  The Chinese have developed their own social networking platforms like QQ.com.  Like practically every other global market, bloggers are growing in importance and the government is having a difficult time controlling their influence.

Chinese companies are eager to understand how do to business in Western markets but have a ways to go in learning the value of building a brand. Traditionally, they’ve  focused on increasing sales and market share and consider the long term investment in brand building too “intangible.”  While they understand the value of luxury brands, many manufacturers feel that a brand is only a “name on a box.”  This is expected to change in the next 10 years and we have a fantastic opportunity to help our Chinese colleagues understand Western-style marketing.  

But there are many upsides to this mindset. One is the speed at which things happen here.  In the last two years, for example, the government has built 10 subway lines in Shanghai.  And we’re still waiting for that Second Avenue subway line to be built in New York!