{"id":239,"date":"2012-01-24T11:29:20","date_gmt":"2012-01-24T16:29:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sdaconseil.com\/blog\/?p=239"},"modified":"2012-01-25T15:27:32","modified_gmt":"2012-01-25T20:27:32","slug":"the-year-of-the-dragon-begins-more-fire-on-our-butt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sdaconseil.com\/?p=239","title":{"rendered":"The year of the dragon begins. More fire on our butt."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>27 January 2012<\/p>\n

We know we will be stuck with a low growth environment of 1-2% for the major part of this decade. \u00a0\u00a0As a result we can safely predict rounds and rounds of cost restructuring to protect earnings in the face of pricing pressure all around us.\u00a0 To contain and reduce costs, business leaders will predictably play on a catalogue of measures: \u00a0accelerate the digitalization of business processes, increase investments in automation and robotics, discreetly incite the off shoring of white collar activities, further cut overhead and rationalize the sales force, again.\u00a0 \u00a0This will fill a fair amount of headlines in the business press for some years to come.<\/p>\n

And this is not counting with the dragon puffing at our businesses.\u00a0\u00a0 China and other export driven economies have been literally stripping our businesses naked.\u00a0 Today, price setting is increasingly dependent on the conditions in the<\/em> Chinese market.\u00a0\u00a0 Production and technology are being sucked in China in exchange of market access of elusive mercantile value.\u00a0 Emerging champions from Asia are taking wings overseas with their cost advantage and are putting margins under severe stress everywhere.\u00a0\u00a0 Management, R&D and engineering jobs are being filled in Mumbai or Shanghai with smart counterparts willing to work 50% more hours at a lower pay.\u00a0\u00a0 Few business models can claim to be unaffected by the rise of Asia. \u00a0That is the nature of the dragon, firing at us.<\/p>\n

Our collective response, as we have written in the past, has been rather tepid, just about matching the pace of government programs.\u00a0 \u00a0Good, but not just good enough, given the tempo of changes in Asia.\u00a0 Some executives have succeeded in cracking the Chinese market, or in establishing a footprint in Asia.\u00a0 They deserve congratulations.\u00a0\u00a0 But, our experience suggests that a majority of executives have yet to set a single foot in Asia, nor have they figured out the impact on their work and career.\u00a0 Many Canadian businessmen improvise on their first visit to Asia, hoping to extend their business offer the same way they have done in the past in Europe and America.\u00a0\u00a0 The reality is that Asia is littered with the bones of the unprepared, the unfortunate and the amateurs, from both small and big firms.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Learning to do business in Asia, on Asian terms, is becoming part of a standard curriculum in business.\u00a0 For the last five years, my colleague William Polushin and I have been teaching the topic at McGill University.\u00a0 We keep abreast of major drivers in key Asian countries.\u00a0 We ask students to study and present cases of emerging champions from Asia, and tell us about how they leverage their cost advantage into other competitive advantages to sustain their international strategy.\u00a0 Year after year we get surprised by the growing capabilities of these champions.\u00a0\u00a0 Frankly it is astounding.\u00a0 We talk about and invite expert speakers on how to have success in Asia, how to deal with a vastly different culture, to avoid typical negotiation mistakes, and how to conduct business on the ground.\u00a0 We are now planning to take our teaching experience to the executive level later this year.<\/p>\n

Industries, companies and individual careers are increasingly shaped by the continuous rise of Asia.\u00a0 Most people below 45-50 will come to steer right into the eyes of the dragon.\u00a0\u00a0 It is just a matter of time.\u00a0 While only a minority will actually conduct any business on the ground in Asia, most professional executives have growing personal stakes at play, like it or not.\u00a0\u00a0 It is time to hedge your bets.<\/p>\n

Andr\u00e9 Du Sault<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

27 January 2012 We know we will be stuck with a low growth environment of 1-2% for the major part of this decade. \u00a0\u00a0As a result we can safely predict rounds and rounds of cost restructuring to protect earnings in the face of pricing pressure all around us.\u00a0 To contain and reduce costs, business leaders […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1,4,7],"tags":[47,14,17,20,22,94],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sdaconseil.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sdaconseil.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sdaconseil.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sdaconseil.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sdaconseil.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=239"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sdaconseil.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":244,"href":"https:\/\/sdaconseil.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239\/revisions\/244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sdaconseil.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sdaconseil.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sdaconseil.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}