Download this podcast Download audio file (20080610_multitasking_humor.mp3) Based on a humorous society and culture column Kent Kedl wrote for “that’s Shanghai” magazine, this podcast features a little rant about what Kent sees as excessive multitasking. Let’s just say, you shouldn’t hear a toilet flush on the other end of the business phone call you’re on.

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Download this podcast Download audio file (20080603_earthquake_impact.mp3) The world has been riveted by the tragedy that struck Western China several weeks ago — the earthquake centered in Sichuan province. At the time of this writing, the death toll is well over 60,000, and there are tens of thousands still missing. Millions of people are homeless and many [...]

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Download this podcast Download audio file (20080424_be_good_part2.mp3) In my previous podcast, I talked about how you can’t succeed by simply being in China — you have to BE GOOD. In today’s follow-up, we share some examples of companies and strategies that ARE GOOD. In the past podcast, I referenced the famous quote from Woody Allen — “90 percent [...]

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Download this podcast Download audio file (20080317_be_good.mp3) Earlier this month, the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai released the findings of a study conducted among 66 of the chamber’s member companies, assessing their global competitiveness and ways in which they might become more competitive. Remember when Woody Allen said, “Ninety percent of life is just showing up”? The [...]

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Download this podcast Download audio file (20080214_china_costs.mp3) As China?s over-heated stock markets started to take a bit of a dive early last year, Kent Kedl had a bit of an epiphany: For months, the market had been steadily rising, a China dot-com bubble of sorts in the making. People here were dumping everything into the stock market. [...]

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Download this podcast Download audio file (20080107_outlook.mp3) China holds much hope in 2008, and the findings from the 2007 China Business Report from the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai support that statement. In today’s podcast, Kent Kedl talks about the highlights of the survey in the areas of motivation and regulation. Kedl and others presented the [...]

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In the most recent issue of Chamber Eye, the magazine published by the British Chamber Of Commerce in Guangdong, China, Technomic Asia’s Kent Kedl writes about the idea of “continuous market entry”: For most foreign companies establishing a business in China, the phrase “China market entry” is a one-time process of market assessment, strategy planning and [...]

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Download audio file (20071130_guanxi_andrew_hill.mp3) Download - - - - - - - - - - This podcast on guanxi is transcribed and featured as an “editor’s pick” on PodsInPrint.com. Download, print and take this podcast with you. Read it here. - - - - - - - - - - Today I chat with Andrew Hill, a good [...]

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Download Download audio file (20071114_executive_search.mp3) Kent Kedl interviews Lee Brantingham, partner at Strategic Executive Search. SES has been in business for about 20 years, helping companies recruit business leaders across China and the greater Asia Pacific region. Kent and Lee discuss HR issues in China, particularly the opportunities and challenges in finding the right talent to lead business [...]

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Download audio file (20071022_china_party_congress.mp3) Download Today we’re discussing a topic we purposefully avoid on the China Business Podcast: Chinese politics. I’ve had some time to reflect on the China Party Congress itself and the impact it’s likely to have on the business environment here in China. The party congress is held about once every five years in [...]

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Download audio file (20071008_license_to_kill.mp3) Download Kent Kedl shares the hilarious — and completely true — tale of his efforts to earn a driver’s license in Shanghai. Give a listen to learn about the Office of Telling People to go to Other Offices, the absurd questions that sound like a George Bush speech translated to Swahili and back [...]

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Download audio file (20070925_continuous_market_entry.mp3) Download In today’s China Business Podcast, Kent Kedl discusses the idea of “continuous market entry.” He emphasizes the importance of looking at the Chinese market as if your company had never been here before. Much like the idea of a couple keeping their relationship fresh by not losing touch of the spark they [...]

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Download audio file (20070827_chinalawblog_dickinson.mp3) Download In today’s episode of the China Business Podcast, I sit down for a discussion with Steve Dickinson of the China Law Blog, one of the best blogs on the Web. Steve is an American lawyer living in Shanghai. Over the last ten years Steve has taught law (in Chinese) off and on at [...]

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Download audio file (20070809_quality_concerns.mp3) Download China has been hitting the news again recently, and this time it is over quality issues from products manufactured in China. It started with pet food, and then moved on to tires, toothpaste and now some toys are suspected of having lead paint on them. To those of us that have been hanging [...]

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Download audio file (20070712_new_VAT_policy.mp3) Download China’s new value-added tax refund rate policy was announced on June 19th. In essence, the new policy will reduce the amount of VAT refund currently enjoyed by exporters in China. The scope of impact will depend on both the exporter’s structure as well as the type of product it exports (a product’s [...]

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Download audio file (20070702_ganster_am_cham.mp3) Download The Shanghai American Chamber conducted its annual China Trends conference in Shanghai earlier this month, aiming to update the business community on key trends in China’s economic, regulatory, political and business areas that will affect the operations of American and other foreign businesses in China. Steven Ganster, managing director of China strategy consulting [...]

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Download audio file (20070524_mnto_part2.mp3) Download This is second of two parts of my presentation from a recent event hosted by the Minnesota Trade Office. The first part, which you can find here, covers an introduction to China strategy and a discussion of the first step ?- analyzing your “China readiness.” As we continue today with “The Six Steps [...]

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Download audio file (20070501_mnto_part1.mp3) Download Today’s podcast is from a presentation I gave recently at an event for the Minnesota Trade Office, its 2007 China Practicum. I spoke at the first China Practicum, too, ten years ago. As you might have guessed, things have changed a bit since then. In this seminar, I laid out the basic principles [...]

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Download audio file (20070320_china_strategy.mp3) Download The only way to cross a river with no bridges, that’s full of stones and has a rapid current, is with a good strategy. A former premier of China once said that you cross a rocky river by feeling for stones. Feeling for those stones and crossing the river is the business [...]

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Download audio file (20070221_case_study.mp3) Download Steve Ganster and Kent Kedl, authors of the business strategy book “The China Ready Company,” have posted an audio recording of a chapter of their book online, as a special installment of their China Business Podcast series. The chapter discusses a real-world case study of ABC Company’s planning for China. ABC Company [...]

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Download audio file (20070201_holdsworth_wd40_part2.mp3) Download Interview with Geoff Holdsworth, managing director, Asia Pacific for WD-40: Part 2 Kent Kedl of Technomic Asia brings you part 2 of his interview with Geoff. Geoff and Kent discuss finding and hiring the right people for your China operation and how to train them. Geoff says hiring is not all that different than [...]

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Download audio file (20070102_holdsworth_wd40.mp3) Download Kent Kedl interviews Geoff Holdsworth, managing director, Asia Pacific for WD-40. This is part 1 of a two-part interview. We’ll post part about a week or two from now. Geoff talks about the beginnings of the WD-40 brand and distribution in China, how they entered the market, and how they ?leaked in? [...]

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Download audio file (20061129_dodgeball_in_china.mp3) Download How can companies avoid trouble in the complicated and exotic China business landscape? Simple. The rule is this: Success in China is like a game of dodge ball: The winner is the last one standing. There are no secrets that you have to uncover, no foggy path you must walk down, no secret [...]

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Download audio file (20061116_starbucks.mp3) Download And we’re back! Sorry for being out of touch for so long. We’ve been busy with speaking engagements and moving across the globe. I moved full-time to Shanghai — saves the insane amount of travel I was doing before. My partner Steve Ganster and I have been speaking at China-focused events in [...]

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Download audio file (20060829_consumer_retail_cooper.mp3) Download The retail/consumer goods market in China is dramatically different than in the U.S. or anywhere else. The China Business Podcast’s own Kent Kedl and 13-year China vet Matt Cooper discuss some of the specifics of hitting this much sought-after market. Kent is co-author of “The China Ready Company,” and Matt been in [...]

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Download audio file (20060821_auto_aftermarket.mp3) Download China’s automotive aftermarket is a growing, complicated market. A new research report from Technomic Asia offers some insight and statistics on the Chinese auto aftermarket. Steve Ganster, CEO of Technomic Asia and author of “The China Ready Company,” discusses some highlights and lessons from this new report. Steve discusses trends in the [...]

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Download audio file (20060620_dickinson_press.mp3) Download Is your company a Type D? If so, you had better wait: You’re not ready for China. In this edition of the China Business Podcast, Kent Kedl discusses the China Readiness Assessment — and the significance of its results — with Jim Pentecost of Dickinson Press. Dickinson Press recently completed Technomic Asia’s China Readiness [...]

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Download audio file (20060425_china_trade.mp3) Download The global trade imbalance — which is somewhere around $200 billion between the U.S. and China right now — is something that we can change. There’s no need to wait for politicians and economists to work their bureaucratic magic (or lack thereof). Proactive business tactics are the solution to any business problem [...]

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Download audio file (20060412_hu_jintao_comments.mp3) Download Today’s installment of the China Business Podcast features Steven Ganster and Kent Kedl, directors of Technomic Asia, offering their insights on the upcoming visit to the United States by Chinese President Hu Jintao. Ganster comments on the U.S. perspective and offers advice for U.S. businesses, who he says will benefit from “direct engagement” [...]

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Download audio file (20060321_ganster_nam.mp3) Download Today’s installment of the China Business Podcast comes to us courtesy of the National Association of Manufacturers. Steve Ganster, the managing director of international strategy firm Technomic Asia, appeared on NAM’s radio show to discuss his new book, “The China Ready Company,” which he co-authored with Kent Kedl, Technomic Asia’s executive director [...]

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Download audio file (20060203_due_diligence.mp3) Download We have been talking in the past few podcasts about doing a China acquisition & alliance deal - what we call A&A. I have used a number of analogies - from boat captains to dating relationships - to describe the process and outcomes of China A&A. Today, I would like [...]

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Download audio file (20060117_qualifying_china_partners.mp3) Download In our last podcast, we talked about a really, really bad idea I heard about during a conversation with a guy on airplane. To review, he was hell-bent on totally destroying his company by entering the China market by doing a really stupid deal with a Chinese company that he knew NOTHING [...]

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Download audio file (20051213_a_and_a.mp3) Download I fell into conversation with a guy on an airplane recently. You know, that kind of easy, open talking that two people do when they know they are only going to be knowing each other for the next 90 minutes. After the usual “What do you do? Oh, that’s interesting,” “What do [...]

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Download audio file (20051102_levels_of_sourcing.mp3) Download “Outsourcing” is a buzzword that was originally used along with “Management By Objective” and “Core Competencies” as something that added value to a company or a business. In this case, a company figured out what they were best at, management set clear objectives and their performance was measured by those objectives. Outsourcing [...]

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Download audio file (20051007_goes_to_eleven.mp3) Download The other day I was sitting with the general manager and the VP of manufacturing from a company and we were talking about their China strategy. They are currently sourcing a couple of products from a China supplier there but two executives were thinking that they could do something more. We talked [...]

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Download audio file (20050913_exporting_america.mp3) Download …There were louder rumblings of agreement, and another man stood up and told the story of how his horse and cart had fallen down the side of a steep hill and his horse was injured. “Now I have no way to make money. We must do something about this gravity!” This was too much [...]

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Download audio file (20050829_china_elephant.mp3) Download The talking-head circuit in the global media has never had a feeding frenzy quite like the topic of China in the global economy. Learned scholars, business people and pointy-headed pundits yammer on and on about the opportunity that China represents or the threat of disaster that is sure to follow its global [...]

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Download audio file (20050822_china_business_history.mp3) Download Westerners often fail to understand — or more accurately, misunderstand — the business environment in China. It’s possible that the rapid pace of change in China is exciting enough that even talking about surface-level information can make for great copy. Only with an eye to the past are we able to do some [...]

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Download audio file (20050815_guanxi_for_foreigners.mp3) Download Many foreigners on their first visit to China learn some Chinese and try to use it whenever they can: xiexie (thank you), pijiu (beer) and xishou jian zai naili (where is the bathroom?) are just a few of the most important. But probably the most used — yet most confusing — Chinese [...]

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Download audio file (20050803_growing_supply_chain.mp3) Download The dilemma many suppliers face is how to meet the demands of their customers who have operations in China. It is becoming a common occurrence and one that can be handled proactively with a bit of forethought. In this episode of the China Business Podcast, Kent Kedl, executive director of Technomic Asia, tells [...]

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Download audio file (20050725_crossing_the_river.mp3) Download In this first installment of the China Business podcast, Kent Kedl explains how developing a successful strategy for conducting business in China is like - as former Chinese Premier Deng Xiao-ping said - “crossing a river by feeling for stones.” Picture yourself standing on the bank of a river — not a lazily [...]

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