For Information About China Market

Chinese consumers characteristics

The Chinese consumer market has awesome demographics. It is huge, young and growing. But competition in the consumer market is growing, too. To win in China, companies must create strategies that overcome pitfalls while taking advantage of local strengths.

The objective of this two-part series of articles is to identify the challenges that multinational companies face in China and describe what they should do to achieve profitable growth.

This first article highlights the common pitfalls encountered in China and discusses the expected changes in the Chinese market and competitive environment. Companies will find competing in the consumer market there to be very challenging. They will no longer be able to "wing" it ; rather, they will need to take a rigorous, integrated approach.

The second article, to be published in an upcoming issue of Strategy & Business, will describe what this integrated approach should entail. Companies should begin by generating deep consumer insights and building strong local capabilities. They should transform these insights into superior product market strategies, effectively manage sales and distribution and aim to achieve operational excellence. They also need to develop an organization that is flexible, open to learning and adaptive in order to cope with China's vast size, high diversity and rapid rate of change.