In 1980, the annual average income of the American citizens was 42 times of that of the Chinese citizens. After more than 30 years, this gap has been reduced to 4 times. In the recent decades, the rapid development of Chinese economy has helped 5 hundred million Chinese get out of poverty. Although the economic development in China is still imbalanced, the persistent development and powerful economic volume have made most people believe that China has become one of the most significant middle class members in the global economy. Meanwhile, China has attracted more and more experienced overseas corporate executives to come to experience in person the economic development and to better understand China.

From Oct. 30 to Nov. 3, 2017, SEM successfully hosted a group of 18 Executive MBA students from ESSEC & MANNHEIM Business Schools to have a five-day workshop on “Doing Business in China”.The delegation members are composed of corporate executives with many years of working experience from various industries,such as chemistry, medicine, vehicles, and insurance, etc.

The five-day workshop consists of seminars delivered by Tongji faculty, guest speakers from industry, and a one-day company visit. The workshop covered the topics as Confucianism and Chinese Business Culture, Understanding of Chinese Economy, Consumer Behavior and Marketing in China, Business Negotiation, and Overview of Logistics Industry in China, etc. Based on these topics, combining with the real business cases, our lecturer made lucid elaboration for and interactive discussion with the participants.

During the one-day company visits, the participants visited the Heidelberg Graphic Equipment (Shanghai) Co., Ltd located in Qingpu Industrial park, and the general office of SANOFI Company in Shanghai. Through the direct interaction with corporate management, the participants were able to understand the challenge, opportunities, commercial strategy and management mode that the foreign companies confronted when they operated and developed in China.

As one of the schools of the University of Mannheim, Manheim Business School is the best business school in Germany, and owns the reputation of “Harvard in Germany.” It is ranked 19th in the European Business School Ranking, and its Master in Management Program ranked 14th on Financial Times in 2016. Mannheim Business School is the only business school in Germany that has the triple-crown authoritative accreditation, which are AACSB, EQUIS and AMBA.

ESSEC Business School, as the leading business school in France, is ranked 18th in the European Business School Ranking on Financial Times in 2016, and is ranked 3^rd among all the French business schools. ESSEC Business School has also acquired the three accreditations as AACSB, EQUIS and AMBA.

At present, our school has fruitful and close collaboration with both Manheim Business School and ESSEC Business School, on the double degree exchange program and non-degree students exchange program, and faculty joint research.