Yao Ming Knows Business -- China Needs More Overseas Experience

Just came across this article, headlined, "China needs more overseas experience, says Yao."  I opened it, expecting to read a Chinese economist discussing how China's companies are, for the most part, still quite inexperienced internationally.  Instead, the "Yao" is Yao Ming and it is an article on Chinese basketball.  As a huge basketball fan, the metaphoric opportunities here are just too good to pass on.

I have watched countless Chinese basketball games on TV and Yao is right.  Like basketball players everywhere, Chinese players play to the level of their competition and, right now anyway, Chinese basketball does not match that of the leading basketball countries.  To break from this, China's best players need to leave China and start playing in tougher leagues.  Leagues with better players, better coachess, better training.

The majority of Chinese basketball players do not look like they have played basketball for at least five hours a day for their entire lives.  I can remember watching some women's professional basketball on TV during the first season.  This was pre-WNBA, even pre-WNBL.  Nancy Lieberman was the star.  Only a handful of women on each team looked like true gym rats; the rest looked like they were athletes from other sports who were out playing basketball.  Nowadays, most all of the girls on the better high school teams look like they have been living and breathing basketball since they were six or seven.  There is no substitute for getting out and playing among the best.

The same is true of China's companies.  Not that China is an easy environment for businesses generally, but it is for many of the State Owned Entities (SOEs).  Despite all the talk and the numbers regarding increased Chinese investment overseas, the reality on the ground seems very different.  I have yet to talk with anyone involved with China who does not say Chinese companies have been to slow to expand overseas. 

Though we read about the big Chinese companies like Lenovo and Haier and Huawei making strides internationally, most of the Chinese companies with which I deal admit they would like to become more international, but they have little idea how even to go about it.  Almost wwithout exception, the Chinese companies with whom my firm has dealt do need more time out on the international business court.  They need to practice, practice, practice.