(Insert company name here) stumbles in China

From the article Groupon stumbles in China in The Wall Street Journal:

Foreign Internet companies have long struggled in China, which has more Internet users than any other country. Yahoo Inc., one of the earliest to enter, handed over its China business in 2005 to Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., and has since quarreled with the Chinese company. EBay Inc. sharply scaled back its presence in China after losing market share to an online shopping site owned by Alibaba. Google Inc. has seen its market share slide, to the benefit of rival Baidu Inc. since the U.S. company moved its Chinese-language search engine to Hong Kong out of frustration over censorship and hacking issues.

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.*

 

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1 thought on “(Insert company name here) stumbles in China”

  1. Is it the ridiculous expectations that some companies seem to have set with China?

    I remember a consultant telling me about this story of a large organization that entered China and quickly became very disappointed with their employee turnover rate, which was much higher than in the U.S. Rather than looking at the market dynamics and how to realistically deal with it, the company quickly set their goals to match that of the U.S.

    It’s the same in thinking that everything has to be measured by growth (of the company) or it has failed; while the Germans think that innovate by doing more with less is more sustainable.

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