Danwei FM

China Businesscast: Strategic Consulting with Shaun Rein

cmr_logo.gif
Shaun Rein is the chief executive at CMR China Market Research Group, based out of Shanghai.

reinquote.gif
Shaun believes that the end is near for the strategic consulting companies that depend on the Henry Kissinger model of using personal relationship networks to ease clients through the ins and outs of the system. He believes rather, that only the firms that provide the best data and analysis will succeed.

In part one of this episode, Shaun introduces us to the concept of "China's baby boomers", the label he applies to the generation born after the Cultural Revolution. Like America's baby boomers, they lived the first thirty years of their lives in a period of economic optimism. They care primarily about making money, which they want to spend rather than save. Their parents, having been through hard times, encourage them in their pursuit of the materialistic good life.

If this is true, both my father and girlfriend are baby boomers.

Listen to Part 1

In the second part of this episode, Shaun talks a bit more about baby boomers, then goes into what is good and bad about the venture capital industry in China, speaking from his experience in that industry. This is a segue into a conversation about China's VC industry in a coming episode.

Listen to Part 2

Mainland listeners use these links:
Listen to part 1
Listen to part 2

There are currently 6 Comments for China Businesscast: Strategic Consulting with Shaun Rein.

Comments on China Businesscast: Strategic Consulting with Shaun Rein

On your technical problems: I have no problem whatsoever to work with Blogger from Shanghai. Actually, all the Google services kept on humming even direct after the Taiwan earthquake.
Apart from the Blogger-interface there are a few other methods to post on your blog. First is by email (although it varies how fast it show up and I had sometimes some lay-out problems). Otherwise, if you only upload text and links Google Docs&Spreatsheets offers a good alternative to update your weblog directly.

Great interview by Shaun Rein, too bad the host couldn't pronounce Rein or Kissinger correctly ..tsk tsk..

Sorry, don't agree with Shaun's comments on the end of strategic consulting firms. The firms with the best data and analysis are the big strategic consulting firms. Because they have the capital and un-ending waves of warm bodies to throw at projects, they will continue to remain major players in China's corporate ascent. However this is not to say that there isn't room for boutiques like CMR. To say that strat consulting in China is near the end sounds more like a plug for CMR than the actual situation. With all that being said in the end the majors (Bain, McKinsey, etc) know "what" and "who" to know.

I think that maybe the previous poster actually agrees with Shaun. The impression that I got from the businesscast was that top strategic consulting firms like McKinsey, Bain, or CMR, that base their work on thorough data analysis will find success in China when compared to firms that rely solely on 'connections.'

I think Adam is right. I cannot believe Shaun would be saying firms like McKinsey and Bain have no place in China. I took him to mean that those firms that trade on their purported connections and not their expertise will be gone and on that I concur.

Shaun?

i think Shaun is right. I am actually one of china's boomer. I understand and accept western culture and living style very well. and this group of people (millions) will become the main consumers pushing the economy of china and world.

Media Partners
Visit these sites for the latest China news
090609guardian2.png 090609CNN3.png
China Media Timeline
Major media events over the last three decades
Danwei Model Workers
The latest recommended blogs and new media
laomo2010x80.jpg
From 2008
Books on China
The Eurasian Face : Blacksmith Books, a publishing house in Hong Kong, is behind The Eurasian Face, a collection of photographs by Kirsteen Zimmern. Below is an excerpt from the series:
Big in China: An adapted excerpt from Big In China: My Unlikely Adventures Raising A Family, Playing The Blues and Becoming A Star in China, just published this month. Author Alan Paul tells the story of arriving in Beijing as a trailing spouse, starting a blues band, raising kids and trying to make sense of China.
Pallavi Aiyar's Chinese Whiskers: Pallavi Aiyar's first novel, Chinese Whiskers, a modern fable set in contemporary Beijing, will be published in January 2011. Aiyar currently lives in Brussels where she writes about Europe for the Business Standard. Below she gives permissions for an excerpt.
Front Page of the Day
A different newspaper every weekday
From the Vault
Classic Danwei posts
+ Korean history doesn't fly on Chinese TV screens (2007.09): SARFT puts the kibbosh on Korean historical dramas.
+ Religion and government in an uneasy mix (2008.03): Phoenix Weekly (凤凰周刊) article from October, 2007, on government influence on religious practice in Tibet.
+ David Moser on Mao impersonators (2004.10): I first became aware of this phenomenon in 1992 when I turned on a Beijing TV variety show and was jolted by the sight of "Mao Zedong" and "Zhou Enlai" playing a game of ping pong. They both gave short, rousing speeches, and then were reverently interviewed by the emcee, who thanked them profusely for taking time off from their governmental duties to appear on the show.
Danwei Archives
Danwei Feeds
Via Feedsky rsschiclet2.png (on the mainland)
or Feedburner rsschiclet.gif (blocked in China)
rsschiclet2.png rsschiclet.gif Main feed: Main posts (FB has top links)
rsschiclet2.png rsschiclet.gif Top Links: Links from the top bar
rsschiclet2.png rsschiclet.gif Danwei Jobs: Want ads
rsschiclet2.png rsschiclet.gif Danwei Digest: Updated daily, 19:30