April 10, 2024. Shanghai - Multinationals must balance engagement and risk while being prepared to operate in tune with a deteriorating geopolitical and economic global environment if they are to succeed in China, leading China-based European executive Pierre E. Cohade said at an Executive Forum on the CEIBS Shanghai campus today.

Mr. Cohade was at CEIBS for a discussion on the theme Engage or Derisk? Multinationals in Search of a New China Playbook. As Non-Executive Director on the Boards of Johnson Control International, Deutsche Bank China, and CEAT, Chairman of IMA’s CEO Forum for China, Mr. Cohade has decades of experience at the convergence of the international and Chinese business worlds, along with unique access to top-level executives doing business in China.

The forum took the form of a fireside chat between Mr. Cohade and Professor Frank Bournois, Vice President and Dean of CEIBS. In his opening remarks, Professor Bournois noted Mr. Cohade’s depth of experience in China, describing him as “a great business figure in terms of China-Europe relations.”

Beginning by describing the new reality that multinationals now face in China, Mr. Cohade said: “Geopolitics is back (…) and this is the world in which you need to operate.” In describing multinationals’ responses, Mr. Cohade asserted that they were first and foremost trying to strike a balance between risk-taking and engagement.

Focusing first on engagement, Mr. Cohade went on to say that “What we see right now on the engagement side is three or four very profound trends. Number one, the market is consolidating. There is so much overcapacity that the market is consolidating, and so you must be at scale: if you are not number one, two, maybe three, you are going to be gone. So, you have to be at scale, which means accelerating your growth, developing your base or, for that matter, being ready to sell or partner if your business is not operating at scale.”

Mr. Cohade went on to describe the unpredictability of events in 2024 (including the US election) and increasingly sophisticated Chinese competition eroding the traditional strengths of multinationals as other key factors international businesses must consider when engaging with China. 

Moving on to outline potential “de-risking” strategies, Mr. Cohade described the typical “menu” of options available to multinationals considering how to offset any perceived new risks relating to their China business. In addition to diversifying supply chains to include options other than China, Mr. Cohade emphasised the importance of maintaining important elements of the business within the country, including developing IP within China to ensure it is “sanction-proof” and deep localization of company infrastructure (i.e. buying infrastructure from Chinese suppliers).

Mr. Cohade also affirmed that multinationals in China could effectively de-risk by finding the right balance of local and international talent, conducting a full review of product portfolios (and subsequently having a willingness to enter joint ventures to remain at the top of their product category in the country if necessary), and maintaining effective governance to ensure the ability to operate autonomously regardless of unforeseen worst-case scenarios. 

Following this, Mr. Cohade took questions from the audience, touching upon topics as wide-reaching as geopolitics and artificial intelligence to climate change and foreign direct investment.

In his concluding remarks, Mr. Cohade reaffirmed a belief in the future of globalisation and the importance of engagement between China and the rest of the world, saying: “People say globalisation is over. It's not over. It may be a little bit different, but globalisation continues.”

Addressing the audience, Mr. Cohade elaborated: “You guys are a testimonial of globalisation, right? CEIBS has given you a passport to the world. And the biggest mistake that one of you could make in this room is to think ‘my country is so big and has become so successful, I don't need to get out.’”

“China needs to invest overseas to develop itself overseas, to import from overseas,” Mr Cohade added. “China is becoming the next United States, in many instances. So big, so powerful, so influential. If it catches a cold, we all will get sick. So, the one thing that China could maybe learn from the United States is: don't close yourself. On the contrary, express self-confidence and openness to the world.”

March 27, 2024. Shanghai – A historic high of 17 CEIBS faculty have made the 2023 list of Highly-Cited Chinese Researchers released by world-leading academic publisher Elsevier.

Amongst those listed, 15 CEIBS faculty have been named for their contributions in the category of Business Management, one more than last year, with the remaining two named in the Applied Economics category. Previously, CEIBS boasted the largest number of faculty on the list in the field of Business, Management and Accounting for six consecutive years between 2015 and 2020, before a revamping of Elsevier’s category system.

CEIBS faculty included on this year’s list are (in alphabetical order):

• Professor Emeritus Chen Jieping
• Professor of Accounting Chen Shimin
• Associate Professor of Strategy Chen Weiru
• Professor of Accounting David Erkens
• Professor of Accounting Ding Yuan
• Honorary Professor Jiing-Lih Larry Farh
• Associate Professor of Management Michael Kwan
• Professor of Management Tae-Yeol Kim
• Professor of Economics Bala Ramasamy
• Professor of International Business and Strategy Shameen Prashantham
• Professor of Management Katherine Xin
• Professor of Economics and Finance Xu Bin
• Professor of Finance Frank Yu
• Professor of Management Zhao Hao
• Professor of Operations and Supply Chain Management Zhao Xiande

In a congratulatory message, CEIBS President Wang Hong pointed out that CEIBS faculty is the core capital of the school and an inexhaustible source of CEIBS’ continuous efforts in deepening "China Depth, Global Breadth". The record high number of CEIBS professors on the Elsevier’s list of reflects their strong academic influence and excellent research prowess.

“Standing at a new starting point in the year of the 30th anniversary of our founding, CEIBS is committed to attracting top faculty from around the world, embracing its role as a bridge connecting China and the world, contributing intellectual wisdom to the economic development of China and the world through knowledge creation and dissemination, and making unremitting efforts to build CEIBS into the most respected international business school in the world,” she added.

“Research lies at the core of our mission to offer tomorrow’s business leaders in-depth insight into China. The fact that a historic high of 17 CEIBS professors appear on this year's Elsevier list demonstrates not only our continued dedication to this goal, but the unimpeachable quality of our world-class faculty. Their presence in the world's top journals and regular citations by their fellow academics demonstrate the fact that, with their help and hard work, CEIBS continues to grow in influence as a go-to source of knowledge about business in China,” CEIBS President (European) Dominique Turpin said.

Elsevier has released the Highly-Cited Chinese Researchers list annually since 2015. The list uses Scopus, an authoritative global citation and index database, to track the scientific research achievements of Chinese scholars. A total of 5,801 China-based scholars from 496 academic institutions across ten different subject areas were named on the 2023 list.

March 27, 2024. Shanghai – Companies and governments should work together to prepare the workforce for the transitions driven by artificial intelligence and advanced technologies, renowned Nobel laureate in Economics Christopher Pissarides said during a talk at the CEIBS Shanghai campus today.

Currently serving as School Professor of Economics and Political Science at the London School of Economics and Political Science, Prof. Pissarides specialises in the economics of unemployment, labour-market theory, and labour-market policy.

During the event, he walked the packed audience through an overall roadmap of Automation Technologies and Future of Work by examining how they’re transforming labour markets, the challenges ahead, and essential skills for the future.

Whilst many believe that the job market will be disrupted by automation, Prof. Pissarides argues that the main impact is how to transition from one technological state to another.

“The main transition taking place is that people have new roles and new tasks within companies or sectors,” Prof. Pissarides said, adding that the reason for the transition is that technological progress does not affect all jobs equally but particular sectors.

“What happens is that new technology raises productivity in a sector and pushes up demand, but relative prices in that sector fall, such as computers and smartphones,” he continued.

As workers have to move from one sector to another, Prof. Pissarides pointed out that the biggest challenge posed by the transformation is that people have to learn new skills, and to ensure that technology is used to improve the wellbeing of workers and to make them better off, not just to increase profit.

“About 40% of jobs advertised in the UK require technical skills such as IT skills and data processing, operations and logistics, and engineering, whilst 80% of occupations ask for ‘soft skills’, including good communication with your supervisors, peers, or subordinates, reliability and self-discipline, creativity, critical thinking, leadership, and management, as well as advanced communication and negotiation skills,” he explained.

In talking about a potential job shortage brought about by the technological revolution, Prof. Pissarides argued that many industrial economies are suffering from a shortage of workers instead of jobs.

“AI requires labour to work with, especially in IT, data processing and data analytics industries. Non-technical service sectors, such as health and hospitality, will create more jobs as spending on these services increases,” he said.

While Prof. Pissarides remains optimistic about AI’s overall impact on the job market, he raised concerns for the long-term viability of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM), careers as most STEM-related tasks can be done by AI.

“If you train in STEM, there’s a high possibility that you might lose your job. AI cannot communicate well and make required decisions, that’s where the future of human work is,” he asserted.

Looking ahead, Prof. Pissarides underscored the enduring importance of collaboration between governments, companies, and employees amid a rapidly evolving job landscape.

“AI is still in its early ages, and we must make sure that it’s applied well. Companies should be providing good jobs, and everyone should be focusing on making the right choices about the direction of change that we’re making,” he concluded.

March 11, 2024. Shanghai – Amidst a new wave of technological revolution and industrial transformation, the electric vehicle (EV) industry offers a new horizon full of opportunities to reshape the automotive landscape.

This is something that is keenly understood by NIO Co-founder and President Qin Lihong, who asserted that the automotive industry is a global business by nature during a CEIBS Executive Forum at Shanghai campus today, adding that no country in the world can produce a quality vehicle behind closed doors.

During the event, Mr. Qin shared NIO’s strategic practices as one of China’s leading smart EV companies and explained how NIO builds its systematic competitiveness through full stack technological innovation and a user-centric operating model.

“We did five things over the past decade, the first of which is to create a globally recognised premium smart electric vehicle brand,” Mr. Qin said. “We’ve mapped our global layout since the day we were established. We created a term called ‘global startup’. No matter which country it is, there’s a growing trend of globalisation in automotive research and development, supply chain, talent, and marketisation. It’s better to begin to have a global reach sooner rather than later in your company’s development.”

Since 2014, NIO has expanded its global footprint, including R&D centres, production facilities, and sales and service networks, in nine countries outside of China: Germany, US, UK, Singapore, Hungary, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Netherlands.

Committed to R&D and battery technological innovation, NIO sets itself apart from other EV brands with its pioneering vehicle-battery separation service system and a large-scale battery-swapping network for its users.

“We were faced with two challenges in our initial stage. The lack of investment in charging infrastructure across the country has created inconvenience for EV users, leading to a vicious cycle where fewer people invest in electric vehicles. Additionally, the limited production of batteries pushed up prices, thus further deterring its adoption,” Mr. Qin explained. The only solution to break the deadlock, he continued, is by separating the vehicle from the battery and instead enable battery swapping.

Besides technological innovation, NIO also leads the industry in offering a premium charging experience enabled by chargeable, swappable and upgradable power solutions for all EV users to make their travel more convenient, Mr. Qin said.

“Users do not exist solely for the benefit of manufacturers. They only pay for convenience and experience, so it is particularly important for us to provide users with comprehensive power services catering to all scenarios,” Mr. Qin said.

As of today, NIO has deployed over 20,000 charging stations and 2,380 battery swapping stations nationwide, making it the automotive company with the most charging pile layouts in China.

With a focus on a user-centric business model, Mr. Qin said that the Chinese EV startup has built up a unique user community with a wide range of peripheral products from the very beginning, such as the NIO app, NIO Life, and NIO House to boost user satisfaction.

“With the advancement of technology, the mobile internet has changed the way people communicate. Unlike the old days when we were restricted by traditional media like newspapers and television, every user today is a brand disseminator. These offerings not only help us boost user satisfaction and create a brand premium, but also benefit us significantly by unlocking value throughout the user life cycle,” he concluded.