Liberalization & Deregulation

Internet Diffusion

Electronic Commerce

Hardware Manufacturing

Software Development 

Who uses IT?

IT Labor Market

IT Geographics

IT Financing

Government Policies

Legal Environment

Transborder Data Flows 

Analysis: IT Strengths & Weakness

Analysis: Impacts on the Business

Sources and Links

Since IT industry in China is not so advanced, it is very necessary to establish the sales offices in China to provide a physical presence to the customers.

Although China's IT industry developed rapidly in the recent years, it is still behind the western countries. Due to the relatively poor telecommunication infrastructure, low access to internet and so on, the sales in china has to rely on the traditional ways, for example, personal visit to customers, sales promotion exhibition. 

In case the business expends rapidly in China, the sales office should be expanded in the short-term, but not in the long-term. The capacity of the sales office should keep pace to the business. But as China's IT industry will develop in the future, it is not necessary to have a huge sales office in China with advanced IT environment because to keep a huge sales office is expensive. Business should take the advantage of cost-efficiency, IT to push sales. 

Distribution Center

It is necessary to set up a regional distribution center in China. Because the IT environment is not good enough to make a better distribution, the company would like to invest in the distribution center. China is a huge market and the living levels in the different areas are totally different, so the purchasing power for the customers in different areas are different. We need to know how to allocate the goods. The basic structure of Chinese transportation is very poor in some backwards areas. The company need to know how long will it take to allocate the goods. Now, for distribution, most of the companies are using fax, telephone, but not any other advanced IT methods. From the long-term view, the company needs to build up a distribution center. 

Manufacturing Center 

Many foreign companies have set up various manufacturing centers in China. China's low labor costs and huge market potentials are among the major attracting factors. 

In terms of IT environment, the company may choose the labor-intensive sectors, or close to resources or marketing places to produce massive products. Although China, in general still has insufficient IT infrastructure, most of its major cities, economic development zones and eastern coast regions now have been build up more complete IT infrastructure and services. In recent years, the cost of such network is declining dramatically. 

The biggest challenges of manufacturing centers in China are how to protect its business secrets and effectively and efficiently manage their manufacturing centers. 

Reference http://www.virtualchina.com

Support for network infrastructure, what is availability of infrastructure, what is the cost, quality. IS professionals to support IS: training, cost, quality. 

Albeit the prospect is bright, the current dire condition make the work of an IT manager very difficult, to say the least. The support for network is very limited. The lack of infrastructure (detail see Telecommunication Infrastructure) and the disproportional concentrated IT resources (detail see IT Geographies) are the adversaries. Governmental monopoly and peoples bias turns people service insensitive. WAN is still sparse: only 200000 Km of total optical fiber line, only 410,000 computer hosts use leased lines for connection. The monopoly nature of Chinese IT market naturally leads to higher cost and low quality. The intention to control data transmission and Internet content is another barrier for IT managers to overleap. Although the emphasis on hi-tech infrastructure construction from the government would catch up physically, mental education would still pose impedance. 

From human resource side, however, the hurdle is less of a problem. Despite the problem in Chinese education system (detail see IT Labor market), the quality of hi education is solid. To recruit and train IS professionals won't be too costly due to the lower wages. Outside IS consulting service and training services are emerging and growing quickly, especially in the special economic zones. All of this may help IT managers find that IS labor issues are not as challenging as physical ones.