Journal Entry 2

For week 3 and 4, we are doing presentations about different tech companies in China. We are supposed to be their management consultants and help them to enter the US market. As the companies in China are mainly focusing on China-based consumers instead of US or the western market. SO we are suppose to study the company and think of some ways to help them to enter the US market to expand their business.

Our group includes Ming Chuan, Gao Yang, Sherwin and myself. We are doing on a company called Meizu. It was founded by Jack Wong in 2003 and it is one of the top 10 smartphone manufacturers in China. It is quite popular in China especially among Youth. Due to fact that Meizu’s phones have good designs, outstanding specs and a cheap price. We have found a few reasons why Meizu is unpopular in the US. One of the reasons is that Meizu is not trusted and known by the US consumers. As they have the stereotype that local products are better and Chinese products are low quality. Hence they would not really choose Meizu. Furthermore,  Meizu has lack of support outside China and they don’t really understand the US consumers. We also think of some solutions to the problems. Firstly, Meizu should set up their headquarter in the US and as well as the services to connect with US people. Secondly, they should co-operate with US Telco’s like AT&T to have better data plans and cheaper prices. Thirdly, they should hire people in the US and have better working bonuses. Lastly they should have their unique designs and OS with better advertising in US.

 

Reflection as a presenter:

As a presenter, I feel that we are properly prepared and we have done quite a good job. We had done enough researches and maybe some of our points are not good enough or too simple. I feel that the audiences are not really attentive and some of them are focusing more on their phones and laptops. I feel a bit disappointed but most of the people were still listening to our presentation. We had quite a number of problems with our presentation such as the solutions are not detailed enough and the targeted audiences we had put. I hope that the audiences can be more co-operating and stop talking too loud among themselves. Through this activity, I had learnt more about the markets in China and US and how the company plan their goals and strategies. The US market is very different to the China market as it is more free and open. Where as China is not as open-minded and the companies are controlled by the government. I hope that the government should be more open and thus increase their profit.

Reflection as an audience

I feel that the presentations are properly prepared and the presenters are enthusiastic about the presentations too. But I also feel that the audiences are quite noisy and some of them are not focusing on the presentations. But I must also admit that the sometimes the presentations are quite boring too. Now I will be talking about the content about the presentations. I feel that most of them have found the problems and came up with varies solutions. But one of the presentation topic is not suitable. The topic is about tech company while that group is doing a sports company. But they had done a lot research about the company and give us a insightful view on the company. They have found out different attempts to go globalized. Mainly because the fact it is a Chinese-based company which focus too much on its Chinese market and think in the Chinese way. They do not really understand the market in US and even though they follow Nike and hire famous sportsman to promote their popularity but it failed quite badly. The suggestions they gave are good and practical. But I feel that they should come up with more solutions such as hire some local employees and understand more what the US people want. They should focus on a specific group of audience for example teens and youths. But I think that their “Great plan” was too vague and not really practical. Overall good effort! For the Wechat presentation, their research is not really enough and their slides are poorly organized. I cannot even see the words as the title has block some of the words. But I like design of the slides as they look quite simple. The problems that they detected are very good, for example some applications and functions are limited to Chinese. Their suggestions are quite good such as getting employees from US. I also want to comment on the group doing Geely. They did a really job and provide the companies some good suggestions such as adopting Apple's ideas while keeping its own ideas too. This will greatly attract both Chinese and US consumers and it is a win-win situation.. However for the group doing Qihoo 360, they did quite a lot of research on the company and the situations in US anti-virus market. But they did not really provide us with enough and effective suggestions. They should find out more about how 360 is doing in US and the company should adopt some US policies and ideas in order to expand itself in US.  Generally, the presentations are good and they will better if the audiences are listening carefully.