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BPO is to Bop to the Top

Yvonne Dong — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 07:37:36 +0000

Pudong New Area
With an aggressive goal to turn into the heart of Shanghai’s and even the country’s outsourcing business, the Pudong New Area makes great effort to develop himself into a place with the best outsourcing environment, which would be an irresistible attraction for countless outsourcing firms and talent, an excellent architect of competitiveness, and an outstanding creator of opportunities.

2010 will be such an important landmark that the Pudong New Area will have turned its aims into reality. Firstly, it plans to achieve annual turnover of 70 billion Yuan in software and information outsourcing and an annual turnover of $1 billion in offshore outsourcing. Secondly, 50 software firms each with an annual turnover of over 100 million, 60 biomedicine R&D outsourcing firms, and 30 firms offering financial services outsourcing will have become a part of this area. Last but not least, it plans to have a highly effective industrial development platform.

The Shanghai Outsourcing Research Center which is created by various levels of government in the purpose of making a plan for China’s outsourcing industry, drawing up a national standard and working out an industry report, made its final settlement in Pudong at the end of 2007.

Changning
Changning district, with an area of 37.2 sq km, locates in the downtown area, and it is well-known to all as the Hongqiao Economic and Technological Development Zone, one of the earliest national-level development zones in Shanghai that focus on modern service.

Changning has an ideal transportation system. On the one hand, there lies the Hongqiao International Airport. On the other hand, the under-constructed Hongqiao transportation hub will connect with the Beijing-Shanghai Express Railway, Shanghai-Nanjing Intercity Railway, the proposed Shanghai-Hangzhou Maglev Train, and other expressways, roads and the airport.

Having got the name of the China outsourcing pilot district, Changning is qualified enough to enjoy the fame such as the Shanghai Multimedia Center, Shanghai White Cat Huigu Information Center and Airport- related Economic Center specifically for outsourcing.

Companies in this district do extraordinarily well in IT offshore outsourcing, and a steady climb in engineering design, financial back office, digital games and outsourcing of other professional services. Many important corporates do business in this district, including Shanghai DGT Information Systems, one of China’s top 25 software-outsourcing firms.

As is named by Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Changning is a comprehensive model district for the development and utilization of national information resources. It will take the advantage of information technology to reach a new height in its outsourcing industry and invite more firms to join in.

Its target is to create a good investment environment, especially effective and open government services, fast flow of traffic, logistics, capital and information.

Luwan
Luwan district lies in the north part of the Shanghai city, covering an area of 7.5 sq km, and is next to the Huangpu River which is the future location of the corporate halls for the Shanghai Expo 2010.

Luwan is rich in cultural heritage, and has an advanced traffic system, complete infrastructure and facilities. It’s a place where gathers more 100 of the Fortune 500 enterprises and where lies the regional headquarters to numerous multinationals. Over 20 outsourcing firms, with an annual turnover exceeds 100 million each, settle in this district. And six of the top 20 business process outsourcing firms have a presence here.

The district set its sight to build two clusters, one of which lying in the north aims to deal with high-end outsourcing corporate headquarters and the other of which in the middle and south is to deal with the cooperation of high-end outsourcing firms. It also set its sight to attract three kinds of outsourcing forms: leading outsourcing firms in their special segments; headquarter-type outsourcing firms with the functions of management, settlement and outsourcing; knowledge-intensive outsourcing firms with big investment in human capital, strong innovation and high interaction with clients.

And it attaches great importance to the four fields, i.e. information technology outsourcing, mainly system integration, development and operation; business process outsourcing of professional services such as human resources, banking and accountancy; business process outsourcing of productive services such as logistics, settlement and agency; and knowledge outsourcing of design and R&D services such as construction design, advertisement design.

Finally, it set its sight to build four outsourcing model centers: Shanghai International Information Service Outsourcing Center; Shanghai Outsourcing Standardization Model Center; Shanghai Outsourcing Intellectual Property Rights Model Center, and Shanghai Human Resources Outsourcing Model Center.

Caohejing New Technology Development Zone
Caohejing Development Zone was designated one of the model districts of Shanghai by the Ministry of Commerce in November 2006. This reputation comes without any question. Caohejing Development Zone has spared no effort to push the outsourcing industry forward, an industry that would bring about substantial opportunities. And also, outsourcing, one of the essential elements in modern service flourishes in the zoon with the further-deepening of economic globalization and the adjustment in global strategies by multinationals.

Caohejing avail itself of the favorable government policies, industrial cluster, complete infrastructure and abundant resources to carry out its outsourcing framework in which information technology outsourcing as well as research and development design has been paid special attention.

Caohejing will go on with the development of the outsourcing industry during the 11th Five-Year Plan (2006-10). The outsourcing, especially global offshore outsourcing, will be taken as one of the zone’s major tasks. The zone has not only always been ready to give a hand to the companies in the zone with more global outsourcing services and to enlarge their services in scale, but also made effort to revise the pattern of the zone’s economic growth and improve its strength.

To see part 2

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Inland moves get a lot help from Shanghai’s industry promotion centre

Yvonne Dong — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 07:13:39 +0000

To better implement the scientific outlook on development and the strategy of developing China’s western regions, to seize the historical opportunity of economic globalization and the trend of a faster international industry transfer, and to make the best use of foreign investment to promote a coordinated regional development, Shanghai has established a national service platform, the Industry Transfer Promotion Center (Ministry of Commerce Shanghai Base), to help middle and west regions to “set the stage” for a smooth and successful industry transfer from east coast to middle and west regions.

Shanghai is able to not only develop the modern service industry, high-end manufacture industry and hi-tech industry, but also realize industry upgrading and development transformation.

The following is some basic information of the center:

Name

Industry Transfer Promotion Center (ITPC) (Ministry of Commerce Shanghai Base)

Brief introduction

ITPC is collaboratively established by the Ministry of Commerce, Shanghai Municipal Commission of Commerce, Shanghai Caohejing Hi-tech Park Development Corp.

The representatives from middle and west provinces, autonomous regions, and a municipality, which is directly under the central government, will also participate in the center’s further construction and development.

Relying on the existing infrastructures in Caohejing Hi-tech Park, ITPC aims to provide quality services to promote business investment activities in the middle and west regions. ITPC is a nonprofit organization.

Functions of ITPC

Promote the investment environment in the middle and west regions: Set up a fixed exhibition area; deliver relevant information about investment environment; periodically announce business projects.

Organize and coordinate investment promotion activities and projects: Set up a promotion platform for investment and trade projects; help middle and west regions to attract efficient investment; serve as an information channel for foreign investment companies that are interested in searching industry transfer locations.

Policies & projects information exchange: Set up an information exchange platform sharing relevant information with middle and west regions; communicate industry transfer information and investment related information.

Information coverage: Information about investment promotion activities and related projects covering not only Shanghai, but also the regions in the Yangtze River Delta.

Training of talented personnel specialized in investment.

Organization Institute

Set up a coordinating leading group serving for ITPC. The members of the coordinating leading group include leaders of Department of Foreign Investment Administration of Ministry of Commerce & Investment Promotion Agency, leaders of Shanghai Municipal Commission of Commerce & Shanghai Caohejing Hi-tech Park Development Corp, and leaders of commercial management departments of middle and west regions. Nominated leaders of Investment Promotion Agency serve as the group leader.

Set up of the administration office (Shanghai), responsible for sketching out rules and regulations and daily operation management.

One director and three deputy directors will be nominated. The nominated leaders will be responsible for the affairs of foreign investment.

These leaders will be from Shanghai Municipal Commission of Commerce and Department of Investment Promotion Agency of Ministry of Commerce.

Shanghai Caohejing Hitech Park Development Corp will assign a full-time deputy director, responsible for daily operation management and personnel recruitment.

Staff approved from middle and west provinces, autonomous regions and municipality will participate in the daily operations and management.

The administration office will set up an internal meeting schedule and periodically discuss related work plans.

Selection criteria

Provinces, autonomous regions, and municipality from middle and west regions are eligible to apply independently.

Priority to applicants from “Industry Transfer Demonstration Zone”.

Experienced staff specialized in investment and can independently communicate with foreign business partners are in paramount consideration.

Applicants must deliver a feasibility report on business investment.

Through dynamic management, the administration office will evaluate each province, autonomous region, and municipality on its investment promotion achievements.

Based on the evaluation, the coordination leading group decides the staying and new-coming provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities.

Location

ITPC is located in Shanghai Caohejing Hi-tech Park (Hitech Building, No 900 Yishan Road, Shanghai), with an area of 900 sq m, including offices, meeting rooms and an exhibition hall.

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IT outsourcing giant launches new centre in China

Yvonne Dong — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 10:02:03 +0000

Because the global financial crisis may force more Western companies to outsource their business to China, One of the world’s largest IT outsourcing firms, US software outsourcing company CSC, announced on Oct 28^th that it will launch another new centre in the country.

Michael Laphen, chairman and chief executive officer of CSC, said in order to go through the financial crisis, more companies have to outsource their business in pursuing of lower costs, thus creating more opportunities for outsourcing companies.

“Outsourcing will increase in difficult times as the financial crisis pushes companies to become more cost effective,” said Laphen. “We expect further robust growth from China.”

CSC’s new delivery centre, which is located in Tianjin, will open next spring. Its service includes both CSC’s domestic and multinational clients in China and it will have 500 employees within the next three years.

But Laphen did not dwell on the scale of the investment in China.

Despite the huge influence of the financial crisis, CSC is still optimistic about economic prospects in China.

It is said that the two major customers for CSC in China, that is the country’s manufacturing and financial companies will continue to grow fast.

During the past decades, multinational have reduced costs through transferring non-core business to countries like India and China.

But as Chinese labour costs rise, outsourcing companies in the country have been trying their best to increase the supply chain and earn money with more value-added services.

According to Lin Zheying, deputy director of foreign investment administration department under the Ministry of Commerce at an industry forum, financial crisis brings good opportunities to China to develop outsourcing in service sectors, because many US financial institutions may have to outsource their business.

It is believed that the company which is doing outsourcing service like BPOVIA in Nanjing will have more opportunities.

Based on the data of the ministry, the value of foreign contracts of Chinese outsourcing companies reached $1.9 billion in the first eight months, up 17 percent from the same period last year.

CSC entered the Chinese market in 1991 and now owns about 300 employees in the country, the offices of which distribute in Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Guangzhou.

CSC has approximately 90,000 employees globally and reported revenue of $17.1 billion for the 12 months ended July 4, 2008.

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Nestle establishes second R&D centre in Beijing

Yvonne Dong — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 06:43:37 +0000

According to Nestle senior company officials last Friday, in spite of the global economic slow-down and the impact of the recent milk crisis, China will remain one of the fastest-growing markets with the biggest growth potential for Swiss food and beverage giant Nestle.

Patrice Bula, Chairman and CEO of Nestle China said on Friday, “Nestle China’s sales growth was still strong so far this year, partly due to the high standard products provided for China’s market, which were attested with no melamine.” He also added that Nestle China is expected to see double-digit growth in its sales revenue this year.

The European food giant set up a research and development (R&D) centre in a hi-tech industrial park—Zhongguancun Park in Beijing. Invested nearly 70 million yuan, Beijing R&D centre will be a new branch of the company’s global R&D network including other 24 centres. It was the second centre in China after the first one built in Shanghai in 2001.

According to Paul Bulcke, CEO of Nestle Worldwide, the Beijing R&D centre will be the European food giant’s largest technical centre in Asia and first overseas basic R&D Centre. The new centre will mainly focus on food safety and quality. Bulcke also added that they will strengthen Nestle’s ongoing R&D efforts, “To better meet the growing demand for food safety and high-quality food products in the Chinese market, the Beijing R&D centre will contribute to Nestle’s 20 factories in the country, providing more technical products for local consumers.”

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Beijing: a potential financial centre

Yvonne Dong — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 10:07:07 +0000

As the deteriorated global financial markets impact economies around the world, Chinese financial experts expressed that Beijing is in a good shape to reinforce its position as a global financial hub.

The Chinese capital is a promising city crowed with talents and industries with the potential for significant development.

Crucial sectors such as financial services, real estate, IT, automobile, retail and hospitality are booming.

In 2007, Beijing’s financial industry with a revenue of 128.6 billion yuan, it accounted for 20.5 percent of local economic growth.

At New York’s Beijing Financial Industry Cooperation Summit on Oct 14, a group of financial service officials from Beijing and experts from New York discussed Beijing’s position and potential of emerging as a global financial center.

Delegates from Bank of Beijing, Huaxia Bank, and Beijing Rural Commercial Bank- three leading banks of Beijing- talked about their plans to forge an improved global network with China’s overseas companies.

Zhou Weimin, deputy division chief of Beijing investment promotion bureau, said:” Our goal is to serve the foreign investors in China a better and more stable environment through more effective communication between the government agencies and foreign financial institutions.”

Seeing the collapse and bailout of a number of US financial institutions, Henry Tang, a founding partner of the Carnegie Towers Group, a global strategic investment advisory organization, when asked what measures Beijing should take under such situation, said:” Don’t go to excess.”

The pressure of saving earnings, according the idea of Tang, was one of the problems leading to the financial crisis in the US. In fact, high-earning mortgage-based derivatives are said to be a catalyst of the recent financial turmoil on Wall Street.

Tang, a financial expert with over 35 years of experience, believed it was the time to rethink derivatives.” It (the current financial collapse) is a nightmare for financial industry,” he said.

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Microsoft intends to set up an IT centre in Wuxi

Yvonne Dong — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 08:35:34 +0000

Wuxi, 90 minutes’ drive from Shanghai, is considered one of the top 15 most economically developed cities. Its per capita GDP is expected to surpass $10,000 this year and the manufacturing industry is still on the lead.

Microsoft China, signed a contract with Wuxi government on Sunday, planning to open an IT training centre in Wuxi to turn out skilled professional to work in the emerging IT industry in this city. To offer professional IT training to 10,000 students a year in the centre, Wuxi New District the city’s high-tech zone will provide infrastructure, while Microsoft will bring the technical platform and program. All the effort is committed to developing the city into the country’s leading outsourcing centre, according to Yang weize, Party chief in Wuxi.

Wuxi’s official, who went to India’s Bangalore last month to seek cooperation with the outsourcing companies there, is confident with this project, and plans to have 100 companies providing international outsourcing services and exporting software by 2010. They expect each company will employ at least 2,000 staff and will have an export volume of $30 million.

Yang said they believe Microsoft’s experience will help them develop a large pool of IT professionals; and Wuxi’s solid industry foundation and overseas business network will help it develop a strong outsourcing industry.

Zhang Yanqin, head of Microsoft (China), said the company is willing to help Wuxi achieve the outsourcing goal.

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BPO is to Bop to the Top

Yvonne Dong — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 08:04:38 +0000

To see part 1

Shanghai Financial Information Service Industrial Park
The founding of the Shanghai Financial Information Service Industrial Park is a decisive point in the national strategy in turning Shanghai into a global financial center, and is also one of the essential professional foundation in the Zhangjiang High-tech Park which , in the lightof its technology-intensive and capital-intensive financial information service, centers on the outsourcing of financial information services and business processes, and which features the financial CBD in Lujiazui.

The industrial park, located at the center of Pudong New Area, was named “Shanghai Zhangjiang Financial Information Service Outsourcing Center” as one of the first licensed outsourcing centers on March 17 this year. It covers an area of 376 hectares. It had completed its infrastructure construction and become the back offices of the three operational centers of the People’s Bank of China, China Union Pay, China Life Insurance, and other well-known financial institutions. The construction area took up nearly 500,000 sq m.

China UnionPay Information Center and Client Service Center, Ping’ an of China’s national back office, Bank of Communications’ database and Bank of China’s information center are all in operation.

The industrial park is trying all means to turn itself into the platform for the back office of financial institutions in and out of China, and for business process outsourcing, with an effort to create a stronger financial business process outsourcing pilot base in China.

The Zhangjiang Biomedicine R&D Outsourcing Service Center
As one of the first three outsourcing centers recognized by the Shanghai municipal government, The Zhangjiang Biomedicine R&D Outsourcing Service Center, lying in the State-level Zhangjiang Biomedicine Base, is well-known as the “Medicine Valley” of Zhangjiang and is run by Shanghai Zhangjiang Biomedicine Base Development Co Ltd. Owing to the Zhangjiang biomedicine base, where a cluster of R&D entities has exhibited strong innovation and turned out prominent invention results, the center has given a strong motivity to biomedicine outsourcing industry in the Zhangjiang High-Tech Park and assisted establishing a complete outsourcing industrial chain and the maximal outsourcing cluster in the country.

A lot of famous R&D outsourcing companies gather here, such as Covance and Charles River, as well as Sundia MediTech Co, Shanghai ChemPartner Co Ltd and many other home and foreign-funded R&D outsourcing firms.

Outsourcing in the park is done by means of alliance and strategic cooperation. The number of firms that form the Biomedicine R&D Outsourcing Alliance rises from 18 in early 2005 to 50. And a New Medicine R&D Outsourcing came into being, and was associated with Sundia Meditech, United Pharmatech, and HD Bioscience.

Some world-renowned projects have been squared away in the park. For example, Eli Lily & Co, a US drug maker, has entrusted its pre-clinic R&D work of new medicine chemical combination to Hutchison Whampoa, at a price of $100 million, which is the largest deal made in China.

Controlled by the offshore outsourcing, especially the pre-clinic R&D, the park is advantageous in such areas as chemical combination and filtration, distilling and technique R&D, pre-clinic pharmacological and toxicological research.

Shanghai Human Resources Outsourcing Center
Shanghai Human Resources Outsourcing Center will settle in Luwan, a central district in Shanghai and with a profound cultural heritage, complete infrastructure, sound amenities and advanced traffic system. It’s expected that it, covering 2.1 sq km, will be composed of two parts, north and south respectively.

The northern part will be near the eastern part of Huaihai Road. The cluster of high-end offices will be dotted around the Taipingqiao area. As a result, it would be the center of the headquarters of human resource outsourcing firms. And the southern part is next to the world Expo sites. In order to make room for more businesses and to create an operational cluster for human resources outsourcing firms, parts of the old factory is to be renewed.

The human resources outsourcing centers bring about sixty percent of Shanghai’s key human resources firms together, which includes not only the big firms such as Hewlett, but also Deco and Manpower, the only two human resources firms out of the Fortune 500 corporations.

The master customers in this district, including 100 Fortune 500 corporations and the regional headquarters of many multinationals have made great contributions to the rapid development of the human resources outsourcing industry ranging from executive searching, dispatching, remuneration management, recruitment and assessment, to talent training and human resources planning.

Shanghai International Medical Zone
Shanghai International Medical Zone specialize in modern medical services, medical equipment and biomedicine industries. It aims to build itself into a top-class medical service platform and a high-tech medical equipment and biomedicine industrial base, and create a modern medical town with a beautiful environment, advanced technology and harmonious ecology.

The zone occupies an area of 13.2 sq km and locates in the Nanhui district adjacent to Zhangjiang. It takes an excellent position, with the People’s Square 20 km away, the World Expo site 10 km away, the Pudong International Airport 18 km away, and the Yangshan Deepwater Harbor 45 km away.

The construction of Metro Line 11 is in the zone’s goal and it will be closer to the Zhangjiang High-Tech Park after the completion of the A3 Expressway and the expansion of Shenjiang Road.

The Shanghai International Medical Zone falls into six functional areas: international hospitals area, medical equipment and biomedicine industry area, medical schools area, medical research area, international recuperation area and international commerce area, all of which are indispensable for each other and for the whole. And each of them has a number of big names in operation, such as Shanghai Protons and Heavy Ions Therapy Center, Sino-German Friendship Hospital, and International Heart Hospital in the modern medical services, and also Siemens Medical Asia Science Park, Drager Medical Shanghai and Shanghai Simcere Pharmaceutical in the medical equipment and biomedicine industry.

The zone has long enjoyed the fame of being Shanghai Nanhui Medical Equipment Industrial Park, State Biomedicine Industrial Base Extension, Nanhui State Medical Equipment Industrial Cluster, Shanghai Nanhui Incubation Park for Overseas Returned Professionals, and Shanghai Nanhui Biomedicine Outsourcing Park.

What’s more, the zone has got ready to push up its productive service and set for the creation of good software and hardware in order to promote the development of biomedicine outsourcing.

The Software and Information Service Outsourcing Center in Shanghai Pudong Software Park
With a floor space of 589,700 sq m and an total area of 764,100 sq m, the Software and Information Service Outsourcing Center in Shanghai Pudong Software Park, where the cluster of outsourcing center is built up and where the strong impetus is bursting, is composed of three parts: Shanghai National Software Export Base, Shanghai National Software Industrial Base and Sanlin World Expo Park. There are more than 200 software firms in the center houses, and 35 percent of them are engaged in software and information service outsourcing.

The total amounts that Shanghai Pudong Software Park cumulated in output and exports are 12billion yuan and $220 million respectively in 2007.

The recognition as the chief part of Shanghai’s national software industrial base and export base turns out to be the driving force of Shanghai Pudong Software Park’s becoming a role model in the country as the cluster of software industry. And it will remain the head in the country in such fields as the software industry, human resources service, public service platform construction and complementary services by 2010. Thus, it is confident of being one of the software and information service outsourcing centers in the country that take the lead.

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