Willis Towers Watson at WEF meeting in Dalian, China
This year's annual conference theme focuses on “Leadership 4.0: Succeeding in a new era of globalisation”, inspiring participating leaders to explore new strategic models to address global environmental challenges, regional competition, economic disparities, and technological change. Willis Towers Watson (WTW) participated as a WEF Strategic Partner.
With only four decades, many Chinese business leaders have grown from self-taught factory managers to highly sophisticated international tycoons. Participating as a key panelist at the session on “China’s new business leaders”, Smilla Yuan spoke about the type of skills Chinese business leaders need to have in order to thrive and stay competitive in today’s challenging market environment.
Below is a summary transcript of Smilla’s participation at the session.
For the full text (in Chinese), please visit our Chinese website.
Most prominent characteristics and qualities of current Chinese entrepreneurs
Chinese entrepreneurs have always stood at the forefront of China's economic development, and led social and economic changes. At the same time, they are still a very respectable group, and their traits and characteristics are very obvious. By comparing both the contemporary Chinese entrepreneurs and overseas entrepreneurs, we find that Chinese entrepreneurs reflect the following qualities:
Gap and weakness of Chinese entrepreneurs
Difference between first generation of entrepreneurs in the new economy and the second generation of entrepreneurs inherited by wealth
Regardless of the path, we believe that the leadership of Chinese entrepreneurs can be upgraded to the next stage. We hope that the entrepreneurs can be more "people-oriented". In the era of AI, more work will be automated and hence it will be important to pay more attention to people’s needs. This will help to bring a good breakthrough among the new generation.
Challenges faced by Chinese entrepreneurs' in the process of internationalisation
Although the recent US-China trade friction has brought many uncertainties, the pace of Chinese entrepreneurs venturing out has not been greatly affected.
Professors in Central Europe have a point of view on this: the internationalisation path of Chinese enterprises is called reverse upgrade, that is, by acquiring resources, and then strengthen their home market and enhance competitiveness, and thereafter invest in the real internationalisation process. I am fully aligned with this statement. In my view, many international companies do not fall into the real definition of global enterprises, and rather - Chinese companies with global business. In the process of enterprise nationalisation, entrepreneurs and organisations need to have a global mindset, specifically including three capabilities:
In our daily work, we interact with many Chinese companies. We found that Chinese entrepreneurs have a strong interest in truly becoming a global enterprise. More and more Chinese companies are beginning to think about how they can build a global enterprise spirit.
For Chinese entrepreneurs, there is still a big room for adjustments and changes. They are mainly in two areas:
Only when the entire group of Chinese entrepreneurs make a change, then it can achieve success in the process of internationalisation. Enhance the global business acumen and international vision, establish a corporate culture and adapt to the local sub-culture, and through the path of reverse upgrade, more Chinese companies can have access to not only resources but also overseas operations and management experience, but also the willingness to learn to build a truly global company.
As a key panelist participating in the discussion on the global cyber risks, Wise Xu highlighted the following:
For the first time, cyber attacks are among the top five security risks in the world
Many industries are unprepared for the potential risks and responsibilities that new technologies can bring, including new threats to public safety, physical damage, and catastrophic systemic attacks on shared public infrastructure. Cyber attacks in critical infrastructure industries can have a knock-on effect, resulting in economic losses, industrial disruptions, and in some cases casualties, which can be catastrophic.
Therefore, for example, when we look at the risks of the aviation industry, especially cyber risks, we see external pressures from governments and regulators around the world, such as GDPR and NISD, which often have different and contradictory views. We see industry pressure from the same industry, suppliers and stakeholders to drive the aviation industry to be more innovative and customer-centric through the adoption of new technologies and ways of working, whether it is partnerships and alliances, or actively exploring. A new way to achieve passenger, freight and profit growth.
Interconnection brings more risks
The diversity of people and goods transported around the world poses a challenge to the insurance industry. The interconnected and dependent systems of public and private systems are critical to the aerospace industry. As efficiency continues to increase, the aerospace industry will increasingly connect with third-party suppliers, and the relationship with key components (such as the Internet of Things) will continue to challenge the industry's risk profile.
Response from the insurance industry
The insurance industry must be able to respond quickly and comprehensively to new challenges. Regardless of whether it is a new distribution model, a changing regulatory environment, geopolitical uncertainty, new inter-network, big data or malicious cyberattacks, Willis Towers Watson is ready to provide the best solution for this type of problem, providing confidence in the current and future risk management of its customers.
Traditional insurance solutions cannot cover such new risks. But with big data analytics and an in-depth understanding of the industry, we can and have designed solutions that not only the transfer risks, but also help the aerospace industry identify and analyse these new risks so they can avoid, mitigate and/or transfer such risks.
Collaboration is essential
WTW’s partnership with the WEF and its network partners to develop industrial IoT agreements is critical to the success of global cybersecurity. We are already working with the Cyber Security Center (C4C) and the Fourth Industrial Revolution Center (C4IR) to advance this programme. In the context of Globalisation 4.0, WTW will be able to help more companies with professional insights and best practices, risk management and control, adapting to a new era of globalisation.