Arthur D. Little Global CEO: "China Experience" is increasingly recognized, and vitality and innovation are the most valuable assets in Shanghai.

Currently, the Chinese economy is showing positive momentum, with its resilience, strength, and future potential, giving confidence to domestic and foreign enterprises. The growth of the Chinese economy is of great significance to regional and global economic development.

Arthur D. Little Global CEO, Ignacio Garcia Alves [photo by Jia Yu Wei]

Arthur D. Little (ADL) Global CEO Ignacio Garcia Alves said during his visit to Shanghai that technology, innovation, and digitalization are not only key to business development, but also core driving forces for China to sooner achieve comprehensive modernization. With the recovery of the Chinese economy, China market will continue to be a strong pillar for global economic growth. The promoting concepts, such as technological innovation, continuous opening up, and green development, have provided significant opportunities for domestic and foreign enterprises.

Garcia Alves revealed that his visit to Shanghai this time was to attend a senior leadership meeting in ADL Greater China, and to visit important clients. He hopes that his visit can enable a broader cooperation with key account clients and support them to seize emerging opportunities in China market. He believes that China is an extremely important part of the global economy, and will remain as the "world's leading manufacturing center" and "industrial pillar" in the future. “The Chinamarket has unparalleled advantages in the infrastructure, scale of economy, and capital investment potentials that other markets cannot compete. What’s more, China's consumer market is huge and continuously growing, making it highly attractive to multinational companies. Despite multinational companies are increasingly turning their attention to Southeast Asia establishing their global footprint, they will remain focused on China”, said Garcia Alves, “and local presence with  localized supply chain are crucial factors for the ambitious new foreign entrants to China market.”

Arthur D. Little (ADL), founded in 1886, is a well-known global consulting firm headquartered in Brussels, Belgium, with offices in more than 40 countries and regions. ADL has established three offices in Greater China, respectively in Shanghai, Beijing, and Hong Kong. Its sophisticated  management tooling and innovative industry insights in strategy, operations, digitalization, and sustainable development are highly recognized. According to Garcia Alves, ADL has always seeing China as a rapid developing market. He stated that, the Chinese government implements a sustainable and high-quality development plan both in improving infrastructure and raising innovation capabilities.

Garcia Alves also mentioned that China has already taken the lead in technological innovation in many fields, such as consumer & retail, mobile communications, and transportation & logistics. For example of  E-payment, technology companies have helped China dash to the era of digital payments. In logistics, companies are more willing to embrace new technologies, such as drones, self-driving trucks, and intelligent warehouses, which may change the whole industry disruptively.

Garcia Alves explained that an important mission of ADL is to help client understand and grasp the development trends of China's opening-up policy, and to build bridges for cooperation and change. “In the past decade, the ‘One Belt One Road’ Initiative proposed by China has effectively promoted multilateral cooperation, within Asia and the surrounding areas, continuously expanded the footprint of large-scale infrastructure and manufacturing in the world, and highly enriched and improved the global supply chain,” he pointed out. Adhering to opening up will provide a more free and convenient policy environment and trade services for domestic and foreign enterprises to “bring in” and “going out”.

At present, China's green development concept has deeply penetrated into people's hearts. In Garcia Alves's opinion, this transformation is essential. Not only should the government support this concept, but all enterprises should seize this great business opportunity. “In the short term, the transformation and upgrading of high-consumption and high-emission industries are imminent; in the medium term, green finance such as carbon credit and carbon asset will trigger heated discussions; in the long term, new energy and related industries will ”unleash their potentials."

Garcia Alves believes that the “China experience” is increasingly attracting attention and recognition around the world. Previously, it was Chinese companies seeking to learn from foreigners. However currently, more and more foreign companies have switched to learn from the China’s experience, mainly because the Chinese enterprises have been continuously growing along with the domestic industry, which has spurred comprehensive reforms of private and state-owned enterprises in the global competition.

Regarding his impression of Shanghai, Garcia Alves said, “I have visited China and Shanghai many times. I think Shanghai is one of the most suitable cities for living and working, and its degree of internationalization is second to none among cities in China and the Asia-Pacific region. Shanghai is also a highly modernized city, accommodating people from all over the world, gathering global talents, and providing people with sophisticated living, working, shopping, and entertainment facilities. It has already been four years since my last visit to Shanghai. This time, I have felt the vitality and innovation of this city, which is precious wealth for a city's development.”

With deeply rooted technology DNA in firm culture, ADL has helped  Dubai government successfully undergo digital transformation. Garcia Alves pointed out, although the two countries have totally different cultures and political systems, there are some common ideas that can be learned from each other. Effective financial means can help enterprises stabilize their supply chains, recover vitality, and develop new markets, especially for SMEs.

Garcia Alves said that high degree of internationalization, and attraction to high-quality capital investment are Shanghai’s biggest advantages, among which he specifically values talent policies, digital transformation, and financial policies. ADL will continue to show optimism towards China market. This year, ADL will increase its investment in China, promote its localization strategy, and form a stronger team combining international vision and local experience.