“China is no longer the world factory; China is a strong competitor deserving to be respected”

In the past, many foreign investors are attracted by the Chinese cheap labor cost; now, the advantage of labor cost is no longer an advantage while Chinese companies begin to focus more on innovation, quality, and efficiency. Also, with the China’s high-speed economic development, Chinese entrepreneur’s international influence gradually expanded, so the experienced international EMBA students are eager to have more comprehensive understanding of China. After the 4-day workshop, EMBA students told me, “China is no longer the world factory; China is a strong competitor deserving to be respected.”

From May 16^th to 19^th, 2016, SEM successfully hosted a group of Executive MBA students from ESSEC & MANNHEIM Business School to have a four-day workshop on “Doing Business in China”.

The workshop consists of three full-day seminars delivered by Tongji faculty and guest speakers from industry, followed by a one-day company visit.

The participants are 22 EMBA students with several years of working experience from various industries, mainly in technology, consultation, architecture, IT and finance industries. The workshop covered the topics as China in Transition, Cultural Aspects of Doing Business in China, Consumer Behavior and Marketing in China and Legal Aspects of Business Transactions of Foreign Companies in China. Foreign students discussed and communicated actively with faculty while the faculty elaborated in detail their perspectives combining theories with practice. To help students better understand the operations of companies in China, we also organized a visit to Heidelberg Graphic Equipment (Shanghai) Co., Ltd and Saint-Gobain Research (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. Through the field trips to companies and the interaction with the company’s management, participants gained a better understanding of how foreign companies conduct business in Chinese market.

Mannheim Business School is one of the schools of the University of Mannheim. Mannheim is ranked 18 globally as a business school by Financial Times Ranking in 2015. It is one of 59 business schools in the world being triple accredited by EQUIS, AACSB and AMBA and the only one in Germany. Mannheim has intimate cooperation with SEM on Double Executive MBA Degree Program and non-degree exchange programs.

ESSEC Business School is one of the leading business schools in the world, ranked 15 globally by Financial Times Ranking in 2015. And it was the first business school outside of North America to be accredited by the AACSB in 1997 and has also been accredited by EQUIS. As early as in 2004, SEM launched Double Bachelor’s Degree Program and non-degree exchange program with ESSEC. The cooperation program maintains robust exchange over the past 11 years.