The Digitalization of China: CRCC Asia visits CEIBS
Digital security and digitalization is a hot topic for China-watchers, particularly as the country’s tech tools are becoming more advanced by the day. CRCC Asia visited the China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) in Shanghai to learn more about China’s online governance.
Written by Tsungai Makuvise
The China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) is located in Pudong, a short commute away from the central Lujiazui. As our group of CRCC Asia Shanghai interns arrived onto campus, I looked around and noticed the high rise buildings of the financial district had changed to modern villas, wide streets, and altogether leafier surroundings.
Whilst waiting for the school representative, the interns took the chance to get a group photo. The walk through the school campus to the our own lecture hall was beautiful – green grass, fountains…the perfect place for a CRCC Asia x CEIBS Business Seminar!
Walking through campus, you realize about how very little of the city you know and also that such a place existed! CEIBS was founded in 1994 and has 3 campuses in Shanghai, Beijing and Shenzhen. CEIBS is the only business school in Asia to make it in the Financial Times Top 30 list of MBA, EMBA, and Executive Education programs.
After enjoying some very tasty cakes with tea and a side of fresh fruit, we got settled into the lecture room. We were introduced to the school enrolment process together with the different courses they offer. Next, we were introduced to Professor Bai who is the school’s Senior Lecturer of Strategy.
To add to our growing Sector Specific Knowledge, Professor Bai broke the session into 2 sections – Growth Dynamics within China & Digitalization of China. China as a market is growing and Professor Bai touched on how BAT (Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent) are investing in local companies compared to their international counterparts.
When speaking on the digitalization of China, Professor Bai spoke on the scale of advantage that China has in terms of taking over the digital industry as whole. As of 2015, China had 282 million more digital natives as compared to India, European Union and the United States. Mobile internet users in China outnumber those from these countries as well with a base of 695 million users.
We were treated to a video of BBC Reporter Jon Sudworth that proved how digitally, China is becoming advanced as we watched a demonstration of how powerful and effective their surveillance system can be. Mr Sudworth was put on a wanted list and was caught by the police in just seven minutes!
Prof Bai also added to our Cultural Agility with an introduction to Hema – a supermarket owned by tech giant Alibaba. Hema has an online platform where groceries can be delivered to customers within 30 minutes. Its biggest selling point being that you always get your food “fresh” with the press of a button and the delivery is completely free. With the growing trend of online supermarkets in China, Hema has a huge advantage over all of them. Not just in terms of freshness, but also in that other online supermarkets need for you to pay a delivery fee (with some over CNY40 – which on Hema, you can add milk, eggs and bread in your cart for that price!) and on others you get deliveries in a hour or the next day – taking away the freshness!
We could have spent all day discussing China tech, however we were sadly out of time and had to get back into the city center. We got to have more of the delicious cakes and fruit before boarding the bus with full stomachs and even fuller minds!
We’d like to thank CEIBS for hosting us and we are very much looking forward to our next China Business Seminar. Make sure you don’t miss it – Apply for an Internship Program or browse our career fields now!
