On February 26th 2009, the first conference of “Enterprise Transition and Upgrade Management Seminar” with the theme of “Advance in Headwind, Succeed in Management” was held in Beijing, focusing on the dilemmas that the Chinese enterprises were facing with in the current financial crisis and how they could find way out. Many acclaimed and respectable guests participated in the conference and presented insightful analyses on the current economic situation, including Chen Qingtai, former secretary of Party Committee of the Development Research Center of the State Council and former dean of the School of Public Policy and Management of Tsinghua University, Yao Jingyuan, chief economist of the State Statistics Bureau, Hu Xinxin, first deputy director of the China Enterprise Confederation, Zhao Xiaogang, chairman of China South Locomotive & Rolling Stock Corporation Limited, Zhou Qiren, dean of the National Department of Development of Peking University, Yang Peiting, chief editor of the Sino-foreign Management Magazine and Xu Shaochun, chairman of the board of Kingdee International Software Group Company Limited, etc. Unanimously, all the guests agreed that the Chinese enterprises must concentrate on self-development to gain their benefits through management, innovation, transition and upgrade in the severe conditions, fighting and advancing greatly in the headwind.

 

When the global financial crisis was barreling, the Chinese enterprises were confronting with the severest challenges since China’s reform and opening up. On one hand, the global financial crisis resulted from US subprime mortgage was seriously reducing the export benefits of the Chinese enterprises and encroaching their interests. On the other hand, the domestic economy was facing with the sudden explosion of the accumulated contradiction of industrial structure, directly pushing a large number of enterprises toward the brink of a cliff. Facing with such a domestic and foreign crisis, the Chinese enterprises and entrepreneurs must burden considerable pressures. Nevertheless, a great deal of enterprises could, in such a “plunging trend”, stand up against the predicament and successfully develop due to their excellent management and outstanding innovation. Undoubtedly, it could render a far-reaching influence for Chinese entrepreneurs to unearth the reasons why such a group of enterprises could be prospering in the crisis.

 

Xu Shaochun claimed that it was because Chinese enterprises approached the current situations in the system of “philosophical concept”, analyzed problems dialectically, unearthed their roots and made bold experiments. As explained in his vivid metaphor, they kept asking why and finding out the basic reasons for their dilemmas in the way of “peeling onion”. “When the small and medium-sized enterprises are facing the challenges, Kingdee, as an enterprise management expert, must assume its responsibility to help them out of the dilemmas!” said Xu Shaochun, “Kingdee will continue increasing its input in the market and in research and development, services and marketing, in order to help them advance in the headwind of crisis”.   

 

“Good fortune lies within Bad, Bad fortune lurks within good”. Such a golden saying full of eastern wisdom had been proved for many times. In the 1970s, Japanese auto industry rose up in the global oil crisis. In contrast, a number of Korean enterprises expanded too rapidly into “death” in the sweeping Asian financial storm in the previous century. These two examples could help Chinese enterprises reflect on the current dilemma. Zhou Qiren pointed out that Chinese enterprises, as enterprise development were involved with controllable variable and uncontrollable variable, must now watch how the uncontrollable financial storm developed, and build up their confidence and improve themselves carefully through those controllable variables, such as technical, management and conceptual innovation, in order to win their development in headwind.

 

“The rising wind forebodes a coming storm”, Zhao Xiaogang borrowed the sentence to demonstrate the severe situations Chinese enterprises were facing now. In 2008, China South Locomotive had advanced in the barriers, and successfully listed in the A-share market of mainland China as well as Hong Kong’s capital market. Zhao had employed the management tact of gathering information and distributing power. Together with Kingdee, China South Locomotive constructed an information platform to greatly enhance the speed and accuracy of its information exchange and reinforce its ability of corporate management and control. In this way, risks could be fully controlled while its subsidiaries’ activeness and innovativeness were ensured as well.

 

China South Locomotive’s successful management practice had been recognized and appraised by all the guests in the conference. Li Daye, vice-chairman of Beijing Airlines Food Co., Ltd. argued that Chinese enterprises were undertaking new experiments in management and service and changing their concepts in order to discover a sea for them to develop freely. In addition, many other enterprises’ manager representatives said that they must carefully reflect on the confronting challenges and catch some potential opportunities, making all efforts to advance in headwind after pushing away all predicaments.