Brand to Be Displayed in World Cup...

Advances Newsletter, January, 2015

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Vol. 5, #1, January 2015, No. 45

Brand to Be Displayed in World Cup Stadium

Midea’s brand name will appear by the pitch in Brazil’s Arena Castelão


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ADVANCES Newsletter

Contents

Midea Advances Newsletter is published monthly

by the International Strategy Department of

Midea Group. We welcome all comments,

suggestions and contribution of articles, as well as

requests for subscription to our newsletter. You

can reach us by email at: [email protected]

Address:

ADVANCES, International Strategy Department

Midea HQ

No. 6 Midea Road

Beijiao, Shunde, Foshan, Guangdong

P.R.C. 528311

Tel: +86-757-23270461

Web: www.midea.com/global

Managing Editor:

Kevin McGeary

Regular Correspondents:

Nadia Mathias

Wang Haiyan

Tian Hua

Chen Minshan

Tian Fangling

Ceeya Cui

NEWSLINE

Food Safety Inspections

Held at 6 Factories: All Clear PAGES 4

Midea Sponsors Brazilian

Soccer Tournament PAGE 3

Midea-Carrier Announces

New Brazil CEO PAGE 4

23rd Annual Group Wedding PAGE 5

www.midea.com

Midea University Opens in

Shunde PAGE 14-15

Big Picture

University

Idea

Idea of the Month: The Win-

Win Situation PAGE 13

Air-Cooled Screw Chillers

Win Indonesia

Airport Project PAGE 9

Soft Power PAGE 12

Rice Cookers Donated to

Malaysia Flood Victims PAGE

10

A Brief History of the Fan PAGE 11

Fun Facts

Mission Air Conditioner

Launches on 4 Continents PAGE 9

Group Arranges Spring

Festival Travel for Migrants PAGE 8

Group Holds 2015

Management Conference PAGE 6

Strategy Agreement with

Jingdong PAGE 7


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Midea Sponsors Brazilian Soccer

Tournament By Nadia Mathias

M idea‟s logo

will be on display at the

side of the pitch, in televi-

sion commercials and on

internet banners during

the fifteenth edition of

the „Copa Nordeste‟, a

professional soccer tour-

nament in northeast Bra-

zil of which Midea do

Brasil is the sponsor. The

first game will be Ceará vs

Fortaleza in Arena

Castelão, where Brazil‟s

World Cup quarter final

against Colombia was

played.

The tournament

involves 16 teams

who will play a total

of more than 70

matches before the

final on April 29. All

of the games will be

televised, some na-

tionally.

Throughout the

games, the Midea

brand will appear on

LED advertisement

hoardings, in com-

mercials before the

broadcasts of match-

es, during web cam-

paigns, during net-

working events and

custom materials at

points of sale. “The

Northeast is strategical-

ly significant due to its economic importance for the country

and we want to meet increasingly high consumer demand. Our

goal is to be part of the

daily life of people who

live in the Northeast, either

by our products, made to

make life easier, or taking

our brand to make part of

this passion, the soccer”,

said marketing director

Henrique Mascarenhas.

Last year, the final at Arena

Castelão in which Sport

Recife overcame Vitória 3-

1 was watched by a record

60,000 fans. To put that in

context, the average at-

tendance at the 2014

World Cup was 52,762.

Turnout is expected to

be as high this year. The

winners of the tourna-

ment will be given a

place in the Copa Sul

Americana, an interna-

tional tournament whose

current champions are

River Plate of Argentina.

This is not the first time

Midea has been involved

in Brazilian sport. In

2014, the brand signed a

sponsorship deal with

Grêmio, whose manager

is World Cup winning

coach Luiz Felipe Sco-

lari. Midea-Carrier pro-

vided equipment to nine

of the twelve World Cup

stadia, but this will be the

first time Midea‟s brand

appears so prominently in major Brazilian football stadia.

NEWSLINE

A logo for the official partnership

Sport Recife celebrate their 2014 Copa Nordeste triumph


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Midea-Carrier Announces New

Brazil CEO By Nadia Mathias

J oint venture Midea-Carrier an-

nounced January 1 that the new chief exec-

utive officer of its Brazil Business Unit is

Luiz Felipe Costa, he replaces Carlos

Renck. Felipe is a mechanical engineer who

graduated from Jesuit university UNIS-

INOS in Rio Grande do Sul with post-

graduate studies in Production Engineering

followed by a Master's degree in Mechani-

cal Engineering from University of Rio

Grande do Sul.

Costa joined Carrier in 1991, his first

role being product technician. His work has

mainly involved product engineering, mar-

keting and operations management.

“I am honored with the trust relied

on me and I hope to contribute to the

growth of Midea Carrier in Brazil,” said

Costa, whose international experience in-

cludes holding the position of Engineer-

ing Director for Europe, the Middle-East

and Africa for Carrier‟s Residential and

Light Commercial International Division

while based near Milan, Italy from 2005 to

2007. Carlos Renck, a graduate of the

Purdue Krannert School of Management

who first joined Springer-Carrier in 1994,

maintains his position as CEO of Midea-

Carrier Latin America and president of the

joint venture‟s board.

Mechanical engineer Volmir Packeiser

replaces Luiz Felipe Costa as Operations

Director of the Brazil Business Unit, gain-

ing a promotion from Supplies and For-

eign Trade Director. Also with the com-

pany since 1991, Volmir is now responsi-

ble for product development engineering,

manufacturing (Manaus and Canoas) and

quality.

NEWSLINE

By Wang Haiyan

Food Safety Inspections Held at 6 Factories:

All Clear

T he smog in Beijing has earned

international headlines in recent years, but

to most ordinary Chinese, food safety is an

equally important issue. Famously, some

restaurants have been caught using recycled

cooking oil and foreign fast food brands in

China have come under scrutiny for their

practices. Fortunately, recent food safety

inspections by authorities at six Midea

Group factories have found nothing unto-

ward.

The factories in Shunde, Wuhu,

Chongqing, Wuhan, Handan and Guang-

zhou all held inspections of the canteens, kitchens, freezers and

other storage facilities to ensure that

no rules were being bent or broken.

Samples of rice, soybean, wheat flour,

and cooking oil were sent off for in-

spections, all of which were passed.

A policy of carrying out regular food

safety inspections was started by the

Residential Air Conditioning factory in

Shunde and has now taken off

throughout the company. The promo-

tion of good nutrition does not just

make sense from an altruistic point-of-

view, but is also ultimately good for

productivity.

Luiz Felipe Costa


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23rd Annual Group Wedding

By Tian Hua

M idea Group held its 23rd annual collective wed-

ding on December 28 during which 32 couples from thirteen

divisions and departments celebrated their new lives together.

Three-hundred family members were also in attendance as the

couples arrived in a wedding carriage before a photo session

outside the Midea Group Headquarters in Shunde in Western

wedding attire provided by the company.

It was the most well attended group wedding yet and in

most

cases

both

Bride

and

Groom

were

Midea

em-

ployees.

The

wed-

ding din-

ner contained both Western and Chinese traditions before the

couples were provided with a luxury wedding suite in the Mar-

riot Hotel.

Gong Minghua, who works at the Residential Air Con-

ditioning factory in Chongqing some 1,000 kilometres away,

came down to Beijiao a few days in advance to prepare for his

nuptials. His family came from Shanghai for the ceremony (their

first time in Guangdong Province), and Gong described it as a

“perfect day.”

Ye Xing of Commercial Air-Conditioning who tied the

knot with Fu Chong of the Motor Division said one of the

proudest moments of her day was when her younger male

cousin

told her

he wanted to join Midea Group just so he could one day get

married in the same fashion.

Wu Ping, an employee at Midea‟s compressor factory in

Shunde said that, as an ordinary line worker, he felt honoured to

be treated to a wedding of such majesty. Two other workers on

his line were among the newlyweds.

From a cultural point-of-view, the concept of a group

wedding is very interesting and perhaps peculiar to a Westerner.

However, there is one universal. Getting married is the easy

part, the hard work of making it a success is just beginning.

NEWSLINE

A wedding suite with replica swans

The outdoor ceremony

Newlywed Ye Xing poses with her family


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Group Holds 2015 Management

Conference

M idea Group held the 2015 Annual Management

Conference in Shunde from December 24-26 with the main

theme of “laying out the future, adapting to survive.” Each de-

partment and division was represented and given the chance to

raise issues, the key points for discussion being internationaliza-

tion, capital, logistics, and e-commerce.

The two-and-a-half-day conference was the biggest ever,

with events held in thirteen locations including Guangzhou,

Wuhan, Hefei, Chongqing and Shunde. A combined total of

2,200 people attended the conference.

The various events were also unprecedentedly interlinked,

with conference call technology being used to help the repre-

sentatives in the various locations communicate with each oth-

er.

Meixin, the recently created app designed to boost internal

communications at the company, came into its own at the con-

ference. Through the app, each attendee received each Power-

Point presentation (PPT) that was used at the conference. Com-

munications

were almost

entirely

paperless,

which also

increased

security as

each at-

tendee

needed a

password to

use Meixin.

The main

event, at-

tended by

360 repre-

sentatives

from the

headquar-

ters and

Shunde-

based prod-

uct divi-

sions, was

held at the

recently com-

pleted Mar-

riot Hotel in

Daliang Sub-

district. Meixin was used to help attendees interact with the

twelve other events that were dotted around mainland China.

NEWSLINE

By Chen Minshan

The Shunde event which was held at The Marriot Hotel in Daliang


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Strategy Agreement with Jingdong

By Advances

appliances manufacturer that saw revenue of US$19.47 billion in

2013 and US$16.1 billion in the first three quarters of 2014.

Jingdong, also known as jd.com, has over 60,000 employees and

a 58% market share in China.

The companies have long been on friendly terms. They

started cooperating in 2013, this cooperation reached its zenith

on November 11, 2014 when Jingdong helped Midea Group

achieve online sales of US$32.5 million in one day.

“Jingdong Mall has a vertically integrated platform, which

increases the convenience to the consumer; working with them

can help improve

our logistics and

distribution. Jing-

dong also has a

first-rate grasp of

internet technolo-

gy, big data analy-

sis and cloud tech-

nology platforms.

Therefore they are

an ideal partner as

we make the

smart home and e

-commerce central

to our strategy.

Jingdong founder

and CEO Liu

Qiangdong, who

was named

“CCTV Econom-

ic Person of the

Year in China” in

2011, shared Mr.

Fang‟s excitement.

“Midea Group

doesn‟t just lead the electrical appliances industry in industrial

chain, manufacturing capacity and channel development, it is

ahead of the curve in its appreciation of the importance of The

Internet of Things and the smart home for the future. Jingdong

values courage and adventurousness so have chosen Midea

Group as a company we want to work with through a very im-

portant period in both of our histories.”

NEWSLINE

M idea Group President Paul Fang was in Beijing on

the last day of 2014 to sign a strategy cooperation agreement

with Jingdong Mall, one of the largest B2C (business to consum-

er) online retailers in China. Midea will cooperate with the retail-

er, which pulled in over US$16 billion in sales in 2013, in the

fields of intelligent appliances and network expansion.

Midea Group hopes this deal will help result in sales of an

extra US$1.6 billion worth of electrical appliances in 2015. While

the recent agreement signed with Xiaomi showed Midea‟s seri-

ousness about mobile devices, this deal shows that e-commerce

is also a big part of the group‟s strategy.

“The future of the home appliances industry depends on

systems and platforms. The reason why we have signed these

deals is that we want to develop a mastery of these systems and

platforms going forward,” said Mr. Fang.

It is a deal between two heavyweights. Midea is a leading

Liu Qiangdong and Paul Fang discuss the deal in Beijing


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By Tian Fangling

Group Arranges Spring Festival Travel for

Migrants

T he annual rush for migrant workers to get home

for Spring Festival in China is among the most large-scale

migrations in human history. As workers try to get home

from the cities where they make their money to the villages

and counties where most leave their families behind, the

competition for tickets is not for the faint-hearted.

The queues at train and bus stations are as long as

those outside any mall in the United States during Black

Friday and the rides themselves can resemble the final

journeys of battery hens. Items on sale at the train stations

include adult diapers (because the queue for the toilets is

infinite), stand-up pillows (because sleeping

standing up is often the only option), and spiked

anti-pervert shoes (because women never know

whose body they will be pushed up against).

Such are the perks of working for Midea

group in China that migrant workers at the

group‟s Kitchen Appliances Division, Small

Domestic Appliances Division, Air Treatment

Division, Dishwasher Division, and Motors

Division have been given free train and bus

tickets home for the holiday. The Air Treatment

Division and the Kitchen Appliances Division

have arranged free bus rides to Jiangxi, Guangxi,

Hunan and Hubei provinces.

The Air Treatment Division, for example,

has 7481 employees, most of whom are migrants. In

December, the division started trying to figure out the

logistics of getting them all home for the important

day in the Chinese calendar. On January 6, the tickets

were bought en masse in Zhongshan, and on January 7

they were presented to the jubilant workers.

After a 20 day application process, the Motors Divi-

sion managed to get all 610 tickets it applied for from

the Guangzhou Railway Company, which will bring a

lot of joy to 610 families this Spring Festival.

NEWSLINE


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Mission Air Conditioner Launches on 4

Continents By Ceeya Cui

M ission, a residential air conditioner that can easily

be connected to the internet, will be launched in seven countries

over the coming months after being unveiled in Italy in Novem-

ber, Kazakhstan in De-

cember and Turkey in

January. Midea Group

expects that its vast expe-

rience with residential air

conditioning and research

and development will help

Mission succeed interna-

tionally.

The road show be-

gan on November 14 in

Milan Matteo Griziotti,

Marketing Manager for

Midea Italia S.r.l., helped

demonstrate the diamond-

cut outdoor unit and Arctic Fox remote in front of dealers and

press. The title of the event was “We Are the New Air in Italy‟s

HVAC Market.”

The product made its first appearance in Central Asia on

December 23 when it was launched in Kazakhstan. Production

was stepped up on

January 5 ahead of

further launches

around the world.

Both launches were

hugely encouraging

and saw a lot of posi-

tive feedback. In

March, launches will be

held in Russia, Angola,

Saudi Arabia, Tunisia

and Mexico. Then in

May, Mission will be

launched in West Africa.

NEWSLINE

Air-Cooled Screw Chillers Win Indonesia

Airport Project By Advances

Production of Mission being stepped up

M idea Commercial

Air Conditioning (CAC) won

the Labuan Bajo Airport

(Komodo Airport) project in

Indonesia in January with its air-

cooled screw chillers. It was

another success for Midea after

winning the Jakarta International

Airport project.

Located at Labuan Bajo

City, west of Flores Island, the

new Labuan Bajo airport terminal

covers an area of 3.3 km. With

initial investment of US$13.9 million, the terminal is expected to

go into operation this year.

Midea won the bidding due to its relia-

ble chiller system and first-class after-

sales services. Midea has set up a glob-

alized operational management system,

with service centers in more than ten

countries, including Brazil, the United

States, Argentina, Egypt and India.

With focus on local management,

Midea has also set up regional market

and technology research centers in

different countries to provide profes-

sional and quality services to local cus-

tomers.

Labuan Bajo Airport


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Rice Cookers Donated to Malaysia Flood

Victims By Advances

M idea Group has donated 450

rice cookers to help 100,000 flood vic-

tims in Malaysia. The company donated

the money to Tee May Chin, a Malaysian

student in China, to purchase the rice

cookers in the Southeast Asian country

to sidestep issues such as import taxes,

Malaysia Times reported on January 16.

In December, the states of Kelan-

tan, Terengganu, Pahang, Perak and Per-

lis in Malay Peninsula were hit by flash

floods. Such occurrences are common in

a country whose drainage infrastructure

is not always equipped to deal with the

regular monsoons. “A rice cooker is the

most useful and ideal merchandise to use

at home when you have lost everything,”

said the 25 year-old Tee, whose family

once lost most of their possessions in a

fire.

Tee May Chin says a total of around 10,000 are

needed and hopes her fellow overseas Malaysi-

ans will help her reach her goal. Yang Dan Fui,

39, a Malaysian who has been residing in Beijing

for 13 years, has offered to use her fundraising

experience to make the process more systematic.

“We are Malaysian. Despite living in China for

years, it does not mean that we have forgotten

Malaysia as our motherland,” said Yang. Yang

herself has donated five rice cookers for the

flood relief effort.

Midea Group, which donates at least 10 million

RMB (US$1.6 million) every year to Beijiao Vil-

lage in Shunde where its headquarters is located,

has a long tradition of charitable activities.

Midea contributed 10 million RMB to the Ya‟an

earthquake relief efforts in 2013. Overseas-based

divisions should act in the same spirit when their

host country needs them.

NEWSLINE

A tough place to survive.

A useful item to have in a home stripped to its bare bones


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Fun Facts: A Brief History of the Fan

By Advances

T he fan is one of many inventions that has made life in

the 21st century unprecedentedly easy. Like all great inventions,

it is the product of necessity, several brilliant minds, much trial

and error, and skilled marketing. Here is a brief history:

The punkah fan

was used in India

as early as 500

BC. It was a

handheld device

made from bam-

boo strips or oth-

er plant fiber, that

could be rotated

or fanned. During

British rule, the

word came to be

used in a special sense by Anglo-Indians to mean a large

swinging fan, fixed to the ceiling, and pulled by a servant,

called the punkawallah.

In the 17th century, the experiments of scientists elucidated

the principles of vacuum and airflow. English architect Sir

Christopher Wren applied an early ventilation system in the

Houses of Parliament that used bellows to circulate the air.

This would be the catalyst for much later improvement and

innovation. British engineer John Theophilus Desaguliers

demonstrated a successful use of a fan system to draw out

stagnant air from coal mines in 1727 and soon afterwards

he installed a similar apparatus in Parliament. Good ventila-

tion was particularly important in coal mines as it reduced

casualties from gas asphyxiation. Civil engineer John

Smeaton, and later John Buddle installed reciprocating air

pumps in mines in the North of England.

David Boswell Reid (1805-1863), a Scottish physician, in-

stalled four steam powered fans in the ceiling of St George's

Hospital in Liverpool. The pressure produced by the fans

would force the incoming air upward and through vents in

the ceiling. In 1849 a 6m radius steam driven fan, designed

by William Brunton, was made operational in a colliery in

South Wales. The model

was exhibited at the

Great Exhibition in

1851.

Between 1882 and 1886,

New Orleans resident

Schuyler Skaats Wheeler

invented a fan powered

by electricity. It was

marketed by the Ameri-

can firm Crocker & Cur-

tis electric motor com-

pany. In 1882, Philip

Diehl, a German-

American mechanical engineer and inventor, introduced

the electric ceiling fan.

In the 1920s, industrial advances allowed steel fans to be

mass-produced, bringing prices down and allowing more

homeowners to afford them. In the 1930s, the first art deco

fan (the "swan fan") was designed. Central air conditioning

in the 1960s caused many companies to discontinue pro-

duction of fans.

Then in the 1970s,

Victorian-style

ceiling fans be-

came fashionable.

In 1998, inventor

Walter K. Boyd

invented the

HVLS (high-

volume, low-

speed) ceiling fan.

Boyd developed a

slow moving fan with a 8-feet diameter. Due to its size, the

fan moved a large column of air down and out 360 degrees

and continuously mixed fresh air with the stale air indoors.

They are used in industrial settings, because of their energy

efficiency.

Fun Facts

A manually operated punkah

Schuyler Skaats Wheeler

A HVLS ceiling fan


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By Kevin McGeary

The Big Picture: Soft Power

T he Hellenic Empire is the earliest known nation to

use language and culture as tools of power. After Alexander the

Great conquered the world, men with more prosaic talents

helped „Hellenize‟ it. It was under their watch that Greek be-

came the language of power from Cyrene in North Africa to the

Oxus in Afghanistan and the Punjab in north-west India.

Just like English today, whether your trade was politics,

poetry or import-export, if you wanted a line to the elite who

were now running your country the first necessity was to be able

to read and write Greek. China, despite successfully expanding

its influence in Africa and Latin America, is still catching up in

the Anglophone world and dealing with the fact that English

remains insurmountable as the lingua franca.

The term “soft power” was coined by Joseph Nye of Har-

vard University in his 2004 book: “Soft Power:

The Means to Success in World Politics.” Fifty

factors are used to assess it, ranging from the

number of cultural missions, Olympic medals

and foreign students to the quality of a coun-

try‟s cuisine, architecture and businesses.

In 2007, then-President Hu Jintao told

the 17th Communist Party Congress that the

People‟s Republic needed to increase its soft

power. Since then, the construction of Confucius Institutes –

designed to promote China‟s language and values around the

world - has escalated. The Confucius Peace Prize was also

founded as an alternative to the Nobel Peace Prize, with winners

including Vladimir Putin in 2011.

As phenomenal as the opening ceremony for the 2008

Beijing Olympic Games was, the 2012 London Olympics, with

its quirky and self-deprecating introduction, helped Britain rise

to number one in Monocle magazine‟s annual „Global Soft

Power‟ that year. China, which famously did not allow a crooked

-toothed young girl to appear on screen singing “My Mother-

land” in 2008, has yet to enter the top 20.

As Joseph Nye has pointed out, the best propaganda is not

propaganda. 2012 was the year in which Psy‟s “Gangnam Style”

helped bring Korean pop music to global prominence and took

the East Asian country to number 11 in Monocle‟s list. Korean

entertainment has long been a staple on Chinese television and

radio and the recent hit mainland movie “Miss Granny” is

merely a transposition of a Korean movie to mainland China.

That last fact is not to say that this copycatting is neces-

sarily a bad thing. In “China in Ten Words,” novelist Yu Hua

claims that the word “copycat” (山寨) has more of an anarchist

spirit than any other word in the contemporary Chinese lan-

guage. At its best, copycatting can take something established

and self-serious (such as a brand name cellular phone) and turn

it into something that can corner the lower end of the consumer

market by being roughly as good, though less original.

One example of how this is playing out in Chinese society

is the music video (MV). Though very few of these videos are

widely promoted, institutions are using them to promote their

values in a country where the popularity of karaoke means even

the shyest people tend not to be averse to

joining a song and dance routine.

In 2011, a group of Urban Administrators

(城管)， the widely reviled low-level law

enforcers that patrol China‟s cities, scored a

soft power success domestically by making

an MV in which they danced to pop songs

in a cheaply produced video to show they

had a sense of humor. In late 2013, police in

Panyu, Guangzhou made an elaborate song and dance routine

to promote vigilance in preventing petty crime. Shortly after

that, traffic police in Shunde made an MV titled “Daddy Drive

Carefully” to the theme tune of “Daddy, Where Are You?” a

smash hit television show over the past two years.

Midea Group has made a soft power tool of its own. In

November, workers at the residential air conditioning factory in

Shunde got together and did their own take on “Little Apple”, a

pop song that last year became the closest thing China has had

to a “Gangnam Style.”

Portrayals in international media of factory workers in

China overwhelmingly focus on the negative – worker‟s sui-

cides, obscene hours and underage employees. The skillful pro-

motion of such MVs might show the lighter side of China and

make a dent in the notion that “bad news sells best and good

news is no news.”

Big Picture

The Chopstick Brothers


13

IDEA

Idea of the Month: The Win-Win Situation

By Kevin McGeary

N ear one of Midea Group‟s many campuses is a bar

& restaurant that opened in the hope of seizing on the rapid

growth of the local economy. It overcame its growing pains to

break even after just six months. However, just as it was start-

ing to turn a profit, an exact replica opened across the street,

with the same design, similar menu and same décor. The two

bars now compete for the same clientele.

This situation supports the claim made by author and

entrepreneur Sam Goodman in “Where East Meets West: The

Street Smart Guide to Doing Business in China” that in the Middle

Kingdom the business culture is very much about zero sum.

The new bar could have positioned itself differently in the mar-

ket so that they could have helped each other succeed. For ex-

ample, if the existing bar was a fancy place with a selection of

imported booze, then the other could have positioned itself as a

gleefully low-brow joint where you could hold a bachelor party.

One could have been for the wives; the other could have been

for the girlfriends.

This is known as a win-win (共赢) situation. Any situa-

tion where parties agree to act in both their own interest and in

the interest of the group can be described as such. The expres-

sion has become something of a buzzword in China in recent

years. Then-Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi used it in Munich in

February 2010 to describe China‟s contribution to the global

economy. Premier Wen Jiabao used it the same year to describe

relations with

Japan.

On a micro lev-

el, an example of

a win-win situa-

tion (from the

website Wise-

geek) could in-

clude a male

breadwinner

helping a house-

wife with child-

care and a few

chores. This is

win-win because

a housewife can

work up to 18

hours a day depending on the age and number of children. In

this situation, the man benefits from having a wife who is less

tired, perhaps more devoted to the relationship, and certainly

less resentful. The wife wins some free time and the share of

work becomes equitable.

The win-win situation appeals to the better angels of

human nature. Its basis is that compromise and cooperation

must be more than or at least as important as ego and competi-

tion. Everyone likes to “win” but the question raised to create

the win-win situation is: How can a situation be established

where nobody loses?

In the workplace, the most fundamental example of a

win-win situation is when an employer treats underlings well.

Google, for example, provides gourmet food on campus, free

gym facilities and even allows some employees to bring their

pets to work, according to Business Insider. An intelligent com-

pany knows that a good workforce is a well-fed and well-rested

one that has time with family and time for side-projects and

hobbies.

In terms of negotiation, a win-win situation could involve

a hitherto corporate raider deciding against buying a company

and selling off its property and instead helping the company

turn its fortunes around. Admittedly, that idea is stolen from

the plot of “Pretty Woman”, but it applies nonetheless.

The most astute example of a win-win situation may be

this that I found on the internet: “I shaved my cat. I don't get

hair on my furniture, and he finds things he thought he had

lost.”

Wen Jiabao in Japan

“Pretty Woman,” a movie full of inadvertent wisdom.


14

Midea University Opens in Shunde

By Kevin McGeary

O n-the-job training is one of the most effective ways

a company can ensure the strength of its own staff. As well as

helping develop specialized skills that will help employees do

their jobs better, it helps initiate employees into the culture and

philosophy of a company. The most successful companies use

on-the-job training to propagate their values and thus ensure

that their integrity survives changes in leadership.

To increase the discipline and comprehensiveness of its on

-the-job training, Midea Group has established Midea University

in Shunde, a short drive away from the global headquarters and

several other key Midea campuses including factories and re-

search and development laboratories. Two weeks after the uni-

versity opened in early January, Principal Roger Zhao kindly

gave Advances a tour of the new campus, which was converted

from an old air conditioning headquarters at the cost of 1.7 mil-

lion RMB (US$273,888).

The university can hold 1600 students at a time and has 31

classrooms of varying sizes and functions. Ninety-two trainers,

all Midea employees, will share their specialized skills with col-

leagues. Midea Group President Fang Hongbo

was once based in the same building, so the Midea

University project is particularly close to his heart.

One classroom for research and development

engineers has computers built into every desk and

boasts a capacity of 80 students. There are two

similar classrooms with a capacity of 43 each.

There is also a large auditorium at which confer-

ence calls can be held so those who are not pre-

sent can share in the training and beside it is a

meeting room for top leaders. The design of the

latter was inspired by Harvard Business School.

There are a total of 62 courses and around 1,100

managers will train at the university, according to

UNIVERSITY

The atrium

Roger Zhao on the campus where he will be based

A recuperation area for staff and students


15

By Kevin McGeary

Midea University Opens in Shunde (Cont.)

Roger Zhao who has previously served as Director

of Talent Development for Tencent and Dean of

Hewlett Packard‟s China Business School. Having

only joined the company three months ago, Roger

has spent much of his time developing appropriate

courses and curricula.

The training will broadly fall into three catego-

ries depending on the level of those who are being trained: Pilot

Training is for senior managers, Far Sailing (远航), is for the

middle managers who will make up the senior executives of

tomorrow, and Start Sailing （起航） is for junior employees

who are set to become middle managers.

Midea Group is committed to getting the best out of its

existing talent and is committed to contributing to education in

the local area. The company is a stakeholder in the Shunde Pro-

fessional Education Institute. Roger Zhao, who studied Strategy

Management in Leysin, Switzerland, before starting his career, is

a non-executive director of the institute.

Other big companies that use formal on-the-job training

include Apple, whose methods include training sessions in tra-

ditional classrooms, career management systems such as men-

toring, organizational development such as team building, inter-

vention activities such as goal setting, and system redesign such

as “confrontation meetings” and strategic planning, according

to the article Training and Development Program for Apple

Inc.

UNIVERSITY

A room for discussion-based classes

Commercial Air Conditioning workers receive a logistics training session

A classroom for R & D engineers


16

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