Managing business change in China

I recently returned from my first trip to China and it was a great experience both professionally and personally. As well as presenting at an academic conference in Beijing, I was invited to give a keynote on Managing Business Change to over 100 executives and senior managers in Qingdao. According to the travel guide, Qingdao is a beautiful seaside city located a short distance across the Yellow Sea from Korea and Japan, making it an important place for international trade. 

Of course others may know it as the home of Qingdao (Tsingtao) Beer which I had the opportunity to sample at an evening dinner prior to the conference. I was quickly introduced to the drinking culture for which every introduction is an opportunity for a ‘bottoms-up’ drink - although I did draw the line at the misnamed China Wine, a distilled liquor, which is about 80 to 120 proof. Just as well since my presentation was the first one on the next morning!

I started the presentation with one of the few phrases I learned in Chinese and then switched to English to talk about the hard and soft elements of Business Change. My co-presenter, Jonathan Du, Nimbus President in China translated the presentation into Mandarin. The talk covered the different mindsets of IT and Change Managers, the cultural aspects of doing business internationally and the need for an integrated approach to change. Much of this was based on my book on IT-Enabled Business Change.

It was very encouraging to see the real depth of understanding reflected in the questions from the Chinese executive audience. Clearly they are facing many of the same challenges that we are in the western world. In fact, at the academic conference one paper reported that only about one in 10 enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementations in China are rated as successful. The audience recognised that key issues are generally more connected to business and people than IT.

On a personal note, the visits to the historic Great Wall and Forbidden City contrasted amazingly with the tour of the modern Birds Nest Stadium in the Olympic Village. Judging by the number of visitors to the latter, China will be able to recoup a large amount of taxpayers money spent on the 2008 Olympics.

Overall a great experience and one I hope to repeat.