One Billion Customers : Lessons from the Front Lines of Doing Business in China

With 1.3 billion mouths to feed, China is moving quickly towards surpassing North America and Europe's combined markets. Companies from across the globe are flocking there to buy, sell, manufacture and create new products and Chinese companies are now acquiring their Western counterparts. But as James McGregor, respected journalist, well-known businessman, and ultimate China insider explains, business in China is conducted with much subterfuge - nothing is as it seems and nothing is easy. A Communist dictatorship determined to practice its own form of capitalism, China has long perplexed foreign investors, who find Chinese business practices opaque and contradictory. "One Billion Customers" navigates the treacherous waters of Chinese business, offering compelling narratives of personalities, business deals, and lessons learned - from Morgan Stanley's creation of a joint-venture Chinese investment bank to the pleasure dome of a smuggler whose $6 billion operation demonstrates how corruption greases the wheels of Chinese commerce. Brilliantly written by an author who has lived in China for nearly two decades, "One Billion Customers" reveals indispensable strategies, tactics, and lessons for succeeding in the world's fastest growing consumer market. Foreign companies rightly fear that Chinese partners, customers or suppliers will steal their technology or trade secrets or simply pick their pockets. Testy relations between China's Communist leaders and Western democracies can trap foreign companies in a political crossfire. McGregor has seen or experienced it all, and now he shares his insights about how China really works. Containing nearly one hundred strategies inside a "Little Red Book of Doing Business", this unprecedented account combines practical lessons with the story of China's remarkable rise to power.