Dance with the Dragon

n our lifetime, there perhaps may not be a bigger phenomenon than the inexorable rise of China. For well over a decade, firms from around the world have tried to grapple with the challenges of doing business there. And now, the tipping point seems to have finally arrived for many of these battle-scarred warriors. The Chinese market is on the verge of becoming the single biggest market for many global companies, bigger than even their home market. And that shouldn’t really surprise us.

Across every global business, be it from India, Germany, Japan or the US, there’s one fundamental question that every CEO is asking: What does it take to win in China? It’s a question that no firm with serious global ambitions can afford to ignore.

Last year, I got a call from a senior executive who is also an ardent reader of Forbes India. Rajesh Dalal, till recently the head of mergers and acquisitions for the Asia- Pacific region in Johnson & Johnson Medical, had been travelling widely across the region and had seen the Chinese transformation from close quarters. He wanted to know if we were keen to commission a series of columns based on his diverse set of experiences in China.

That conversation triggered off an exciting editorial project that eventually resulted in this cover story package. For the past four months, Neelima Mahajan-Bansal, one of our most talented young journalists, teamed up with Rajesh to bring you the answers to the Chinese riddle. Between them, they spoke to scores of senior executives across a range of global firms around the world, including some from India, and a pack of leading China experts, to figure what it takes to grab the China opportunity. What they found was interesting: China has forced companies, particularly those from the West, to look for a fundamentally new operating model. Here’s a sample: Guess what often occupies about 65 percent of a CEO’s time there? It is managing the government machinery. It is the single biggest reason why global businesses lose their way there. And in one of our stories in the package, we tell you how some of the smartest players have learnt their lessons — sometimes the hard way — and now spend as much time and effort on engaging the government as they do on business strategy.

What does it mean for India? We discovered a clutch of Indian firms that have dug deep roots in China and seem well-positioned to do well. But equally, there were scores of leading firms that are completely missing out on the action. China may be a tough nut to crack — but it’s also the laboratory from where the next practices are emerging. Can you afford to be absent? We think not.

Please do write in with your comments. We’d love to hear what you have to say.