Danwei FM

China Businesscast: interview with James McGregor


McGregor on Xinhua:
"We should have driven a stake through their heart ten years ago."
In 2005 James McGregor released his book One Billion Customers, Lessons from the Front Lines of Doing Business in China. The book became a best seller, seen by many as the defining book on doing business in China. Propelled by the success of his book, McGregor started a company focusing on strategic consulting, research, and China-focused fund-of-funds.

In this talk we cover several topics including China's media industry, failures of foreign web companies and possibilities for success, how China should focus on enhancing the competitiveness of its private firms, and how a little TLC goes a long way with Chinese employees.

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Comments on China Businesscast: interview with James McGregor

This is a fantastically useful, insightful and no-nonsense interview. It doesn't take more than three sentences to hear that this guy has a rock-solid grasp of the cross-cultural issues involved in doing business here. I've admired McGregor from afar, but this makes me want to read his book right away, even though I'm not in the business world. Everything he says about Chinese culture rings so true, it gives me a high degree of certainty that most of his opinions about the Chinese economy are probably right on. His remarks about China being a "negative-reinforcement culture" is an example of a deep cultural characterization that can only be based on decades of being seeped in the culture. This guy has got great instincts. He never lapses into stereotypes, and never ventures beyond what he really knows (which is clearly a lot!). Bravo danwei! Good stuff. (And how's that for positive reinforcement?)

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