Dragons at Your Door: How Chinese Cost Innovation Is Disrupting Global Competition

According to business professors Zeng (of Cheung Kong Graduate School in China) and Williamson (of INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France, and Singapore), the slogan of the China International Marine Containers Group, “Learn, Improve, Disrupt,” could just as easily apply, with global consequences, to any Chinese corporation busy using those principles to reinvent manufacturing. The authors reveal that low labor costs are only one advantage enjoyed by Chinese companies, and that the “three faces” of cost innovation (offering high technology at low cost, a near-impossible range of choice and “specialty products” at volume prices) have allowed them to make impressive inroads into markets long assumed impenetrable. This is sobering reading for Western audiences; while the authors avoid the alarms that sound throughout many current business books on China, their dry, factual approach may prove even more unnerving. Though it may paint a disturbing portrait of a competitor formidable even in its infancy, this volume brings to light anecdotes and analysis that are bound to inspire anyone serious about global business or politics today. (June 12)