China Notepad
Welcome to my blog. I write about my work, the thought leaders I meet and the ideas that inspire me. Henrik Bork
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The recovery of production and sales at China’s OEMs, while the country is emerging from months of lockdown during the coronavirus crisis, is currently one of the very few lights at the end of the tunnel for the global automobile industry.
It is currently not easy to stay optimistic about Hong Kong’s future. With headlines predicting the “demise of Hong Kong” on a daily basis, it helps to look at underlying regional and macro-economical trends. They suggest that Hong Kong’s future might be brighter than most commentators currently assume.
Wondering what you can do to better engage your audience in China? I had the chance to make the case for CEO positioning during maxcomm Shanghai 2019, talking to an audience of communication pros from brands like adidas, Lanxess, Lufthansa and agencies like China Skinny, Storymaker and Saatchi & Saatchi Worldwide.
The latest “Page Report” is a must-read for corporate communications professionals. Asia Waypoint´s founder Henrik Bork is reviewing it here from the perspective of strategic communications work in China.
Masayohi Son, the Korean-born business maverick from Japan, has gotten the attention of the global investment community. His Vision Fund is an ambitious attempt to scale tech investments to leverage the opportunities of artificial intelligence and other new mega-trends in science & technology.
Many startups in China have easy access to capital, often too easy access. My latest article for Roland Berger´s CEO magazine Think:Act takes OFO as an example to examine questionable investment patterns that carry considerable risk.
While everybody is crazy about robots, Toyota is taking a different approach to automation. It has brought back workers to some production lines that had previously been completely automated. It was a pleasure for me to meet with Mitsuru Kawai, Vice President of Toyota, who explained why.
He recently watched iQIYI go public on the Nasdaq, raising US$2.25 billion. The company is often called “China´s Netflix”. But Gong Yu´s ambitions are bigger. He wants to disrupt the ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY and build “China´s Disney”.
Japan´s celebrated tech pioneer is developing a new robot that he says will take our hearts by storm. It can´t talk, but is packed with ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, pleasant to touch and so cute that few will be able to resist its charme.
Zhang Ruimin, the widely respected CEO of Haier, once famously took up a sledgehammer to destroy brand-new refrigerators - to teach his shocked workers a lesson about quality. Now he has put Haier on a path of DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION that is equally radical.
I´m Henrik Bork. I help people to succeed in China. Please get in touch! I´d love to hear from you.
He is the founder of Asia Waypoint, a communications consulting and research company and of Lychee.com, a travel tech startup in Beijing. A former foreign correspondent in China and Japan, he loves to talk to people and write down what they say.
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Rather than speeding up an exit of manufacturers from China, the coronavirus crisis is more likely to slow it down. The relocation of supply chains costs money, and in a recession many companies will find that they have other priorities.
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