Digital Villages blogs about business development environments and global opportunities combining Industry 4.0, Robotization, Automation, IoT, Social Engineering and Open Innovation.
Hello, time travels; have to apologize for not being here for a while. We have been busy with a number of things.
CRM for small and medium size enterprises (SMEs)
Biofuel, bioreactors, bio-ethanol and visions about a future bio based economy
Microbiological measurements applied to paper machines and cellulose processes
Co-creation of a book about Open Enterprise (Enterprise 2.0) and my role being to write about collaboration and open global innovation 1970 – 2010; theme Virtual organisations in time
The book project consists of a team of 15 people dispersed around Finland. Most of the participants are working together for the first time. The lesson seems to be that radically new working models are working in teams with little or no previous corporate culture. Openness is fostered by the uniqueness and “the strangers” are motivated to work together for the common goal.
The technical platform for collaboration and production of material is the same as CONSEN is using.
We do now have more experience of various Basecamps working with different collaborative teams. Some teams work better together and others don’t get it. Open collaboration should be easy from a technical perspective, but the productivity and innovativity is hampered by old fashioned ways of sending emails or working as individuals from our desktops.
Time is also a factor. There are many knowledge workers spending so much time on the road that they don’t get the time windows to make their entries. Mobile collaboration is still in its infancy.
We have a nice summer climate in Loviisa, Finland today. The climate change is giving us more sunny days. There is no reason to complain about that. How about the rest of Europe, and Climate change, how big is this issue politically? What kind of technological solutions are discussed? Is there a new industry emerging to fight climate change? What are the weak signals about consumer attitude changes?
On Wednesday, November 8, 2006, I participated in a seminar “Hong Kong – Guangdong Your partners for success in China – 8 November 2006 Helsinki.” The Scandic Hotel ball room was full of people. Couldn’t count them all, but I guess several hundred participants and maybe one hundred Chinese and Hong Kong business development officials, entrepreneurs and businessmen / women.
Rapid economic development in China has created major opportunities in two areas: a fast expanding market for goods and services, and a sophisticated production base for manufacturers and retailers. Successful companies realise that China is not one market, but a series of regional markets. Currently, most foreign companies concentrate to the Pearl River Delta region (PRD) on the southern tip of the Chinese mainland, closely connected to Hong Kong.
Why focus on the Greater Pearl River Delta?
This region offers the combined advantages of Hong Kong, with its international services and ease of business, and the PRD, which offers quality low-cost manufacturing and a growing consumer market. The PRD is also home to the Chinese mainland’s wealthiest consumers and highest spenders. Per Capita GDP and retail sales in the Greater Pearl River Delta are significantly higher than the Chinese mainland’s other regions, including the Yangtze River Delta region around Shanghai, and the Bohai region around Beijing.
What has this to do with Web 2.0?
The Asian businesses can be regarded as a threat or opportunity from an European point of view. We’ve been building bridges and contact networks to China, India, Bangladesh, Korea and Japan during the past years. It just struck me that the markets and opportunities for collaborative projects are so huge that it will take European wide efforts to be competitive in comparison with US companies playing a very active role there. The Asian market has been a playground for very large corporations. Finland is strongly represented through Nokia and its R&D and manufacturing partnership companies. But I will concentrate on what EU based SMEs could dot to enhance business relationships with the Asian SMEs.
New Business Models for SMEs
Collaborative efforts to create knowledge based offerings
Collective Networking Mashups with Asian SMEs
European SMEs are often more international than smaller SMEs in US
This applies most probably to the Web 2.0 environment as well (our national home markets are smaller than for the US SMEs and we have to start exporting in an earlier stage)
We’re better equipped to handle multi-lingual operations and to understand cross-cultural differences
We’ve a definitive lead in the Mobile Phone manufacturing and application areas in Europe compared to US but have to do some catch-up with DoCoMo in Japan, Hongong, South-Korea.
