According to a report from The Hay Group, called Waking Up To China businesses leaders are turning to MBA students from China because they believe too few local graduates have Chinese language skills. 41% of business leaders surveyed said they planned to recruit Chinese MBA graduates and 16% of executives would like to see business schools including a China module in all MBA courses.

The study, which was based on interviews with business leaders across the US, Asia Pacific and Europe, looks at much more than MBA graduates and can be summarised as follows:

Business leaders across the world view the expansion of the Chinese market as a definitive net positive. Specifically, they cite average 14 per cent of global revenues to China by 2009.

Around 50% of respondents see China as the greatest opportunity facing their business.

American business business leaders are the most bullish, expecting the proportion of their global sales accounted for by China to increase by 200% over the next three years.

The winners in the race to take advantage of the opportunity presented by China are the UK, Japan, South Korea and Australia. The losers are given as Italy and France.

Asia Pacific business leaders see the greatest opportunities, with executives forecasting that 16 per cent of their business revenues will come from China by 2009.

Despite the bullishness about China, only 47% of global companies have actually established operations in China. However, another 22% said they are planning to set up in China within the next 5 years.

The biggest barrier to expansion in China is seen to be cultural and language differences.

75% of respondents believe that Western companies need to develop whole new ways of operating in order to succeed in China.

China’s business environment poses barriers to trade, with poor protection of intellectual property (IP) top of the blacklist.

Corporate governance is a big problem, with China’s complex legal system, unequal treatment of foreign and domestic firms, perceived corruption and excessive bureaucracy identified as the greatest local barriers to success in China.

Strangely, despite the sheer size of the China opportunity, about 25% of Western companies surveyed have no China strategy but less than 15% of companies in Asia Pacific lack a strategy.


The report is good news for China business overall but it is all bad news for employers in China. Now the competition for Chinese staff is global. Thanks to Hay Group the competition has a better understanding of the challenge, and what they need to do about it.

[First posted on [url=http://www.talentinchina.com]Talent in China[/url]]

[Frank Mulligan• Entrepreneur-Recruiter-Speaker • Talent Software • http://english.talent-software.com • frank.mulligan@recruit-china.com]