Autor: Heiko Gebauer

Chinese industrial companies have evolved into serious competitors for German companies. The success of companies such as Lenovo, Haier, Huawei or CIMC is a clear proof of their competitiveness. What is interesting is that they do not follow the traditional Western management principles. The competitive behaviour of Chinese companies differs from Western companies similar to the Japanese with their revolutionary management concepts such as Lean Management, Total Quality Management or Kaizen. The lack of knowledge on Chinese competitive behaviour often leads Western managers to making the wrong decisions in terms of sustaining or extending their market position as opposed to Chinese competitors. This article gives a detailed description of the competitive behaviour of Chinese companies and offers a guideline for managers on how to deal with emerging Chinese challengers.

Traditionally product focused companies diversify into the industrial service business and recognize the transition to solution provider as a key idea for their business. But the historically grown organizational structures do only support this transition to a certain extent. Existing structures need to be replaced by organizational design which supports the new strategies of the companies. Product business and service business will need to be organizationally detached from each other. These changes in organizations are often accompanied by conflicts and challenges which need to be addressed.

Confronted with intensive product price competition in China, industrial firms are forced to invest in extending the service business. Extending the service business is far from easy. Chinese competitors offer faked spare parts. Local service skills are very poor and service requirements force industrial firms to invest in logistic infrastructure. This article offers a guideline for managers seeking to professionalize the human resource management in the service organization, to adapt service offerings to the local customer needs, and to set-up a logistic infrastructure.

Many manufacturing companies want to become solution providers. Unfortunately, they have not extended their service offering systematically. They also have not built up the required capabilities in the company. The article describes how companies can find the right breadth of service offering and the required competences by analysing the customers' processes and needs. The article serves as a guideline for managers to extend and implement the service offering.

This article reports how product manufacturers can benefit from an extended service business. After a short introduction, we explain the transition line from product manufacturers into service providers and describe the challenges inherent in the transition process. Then, we focus on identifying the success factors that need to be considered when creating a professional service management in the context of a manufacturing firm, and triggers to navigate the transition.