With nearly two decades of experience in providing consulting services for multinational companies, Ruggero Jenna believes Chinese companies need to concentrate on planning and improving their services, creative product designs, and plan their strategic priorities before they go abroad.

The managing director of Value Partners China supervises and coordinates consulting services for a string of major Chinese companies engaged in the telecommunications, automobile, consumer goods and textile and apparels industries.

Globalization

When some domestic companies ask for suggestions on how to realize globalization, Jenna says they'd better improve their work on their home turf before looking overseas.

"Not just for going abroad, but also for increasing their competitive capability comprehensively, they'd better improve their performance at home in things like organization, customer service, and then think over their overall strategy - what markets to invest in," says the consultancy veteran from Italy.

The quality of customer service, for example - from telecommunications to the banking industry - that Chinese companies give to their clients, in general, "is still not what it should be", he notes.

Chinese companies are facing increasing competition from both international brands and local players, so they need to protect themselves first, he says.

Chinese consumers are also becoming increasingly demanding and sophisticated and if Chinese companies can meet their needs, they can be more competitive on the international market, says Jenna.

"If they want to win against the competitors at home and abroad, improving customer services is the key topic that we know about and what Chinese companies have to do now," Jenna says.

He points out that another key goal for Chinese companies is quality product design. In China's early developing stage when growth was focused on fast expansion and low value products to reach scale, the game was easy.

But now China has stepped into another stage, which requires more value added services and products. Domestic companies should quickly respond to the transition, he says.

Jenna cites China's car manufacturers as an example. Cars designed by Chinese producers, even joint ventures, are not at the same level as those in the most sophisticated markets. That fact limits the potential of companies such as Chery and Geely to fully expand in the international market.

"If Chinese companies, including car makers, want to go globally successfully, they need to have creative products or services, which have superior characteristics and their own personalities," says Jenna.

Concerning globalization, it's a case-to-case issue, with no magic bullet for all companies, especially when it comes to establishing priorities.