I’ve worked with some really great startups and some that have some development opportunities (and some God awful). Here are a just a few pieces of advice for those startups that want to work with brands. These tips are cross cultural and apply to my experiences working in the U.S., China and Singapore.
Social media has gone far beyond entertainment. Businesses are now looking into how they can use these channels in their recruitment strategy.
Hiring the right employees is imperative for any company, but Chinese companies also face some unique challenges. China is caught in a double bind of worker shortages for high skill labor and unemployment. Targeting and recruiting the country’s fickle talent pool has become extremely competitive for recruiters and HR-professionals. How are companies using China’s unique social media environment to tackle this problem?
The reign of the Sina Dynasty may be on the wane in the realm of Chinese microblogs. Regional warlords have risen rapidly to take advantage of weaknesses on the fringes of Sina’s empire. To add to Sina’s troubles, upstarts are recruiting confused citizenry in guerrilla warfare and sleeping Titans may be starting to stir.
Brazil and China represent the economic power hubs of their respective regions, and despite different languages, cultures, political and economic systems, there are many similarities when it comes to their Internet markets.
The future of computing in China is a frequent topic in the tech community.
The three things holding China’s computing industry from creating disruptive innovation is the 1.) lack of trust between individuals, groups, and institutions, 2.) lack of organizations that foster creativity and community, and 3.) lack of common myth among technologists, engineers, and programmers.
On December 1st, Gaopeng—a joint venture between Groupon and Tencent—finally made a formal apology for the ‘fake Tissot incident’, over a month after their initial denial. They offered a full refund to everybody that bought a fake Tissot watch from Groupon China as well as give an additional 200 yuan in credit. They could have fixed this problem over a month ago, but instead chose to deny it first, only to be pushed to finally accept it in the end. What took them so long? Let’s take a quick look at Gaopeng’s recent Tissot problem.
In addition to reflecting poorly upon Gaopeng, the incident has further shaken trust in China’s embattled group-buying market.
The Techyizu “UXDay: Designing Shanghai” debuted on Nov 5th and provided an enjoyable user experience for me. UX design, as Techyizu said, is all about creating positive holistic experiences.
Whether local or foreign, the one trait that all failed online businesses in China share is an inability to adapt to a rapidly changing environment.
The winners in this environment are not necessarily the ones with the most funding, nor those with the most sound strategies neatly prepared by world class consultants, not even those equipped with the best technology proven in more mature markets.
Jingdong Mall (360buy.com) started selling online in 2004, the same year Amazon acquired Joyo and the B2C industry looked like it would soon consolidate around a few large players like Joyo, Dangdang and Newegg, who each had half a decade of experience by then. Fast-forward to today and Jingdong completely disrupted that balance. Years of sustained triple digit growth led to double the market share of the above three online retailers combined. “The key to winning in this business,” explained CEO Richard Liu in a China Knowledge@Wharton interview, “is not the so-called business model but the implementation of details.”
Not even a year after newegg.com went live in California did newegg.com.cn launch in China. A decade each of online retail later, the outcomes couldn’t be more different: newegg.com became the second largest online-only retailer in the US, while their counterpart in China has incurred operating losses since inception.
It should have been a cakewalk: “Many of our senior managers and executives are Chinese, know the language, and have a deep understanding of the culture and business climate,” management confidently wrote in their 2009 IPO prospectus, which has since been shelved…
