Not so long ago, China has been in hot seat in India. Two of the Chinese biggest telecom equipment manufacturers namely Huawei and ZTE try to get New Delhi to reverse its policy prohibiting Indian companies from buying their Chinese made products. This is not just a small standing issue, as smaller companies from China are also facing their own problems.

It was said that the Indian government are trying to solve problems in their own country as they took steps to stop a flood of China-made phones entering the country. The phones are said to be made by Shanzhai or bandit manufacturers, specializing in producing inexpensive, no  brand phones. Indian partners often import them and stamp on a local brand name.

For several years, Indian sales of these gray market Chinese products have soared. Who wouldn’t want one, when the price is cheap, while the quality had vastly improved? In 2009, it accounted for more than 30 percent of the Indian Market, which can be translated to 40 million handsets, up from almost zero in 2007.

But the impending problem was that these shanzhai companies don’t put International Mobile Equipment Identity Numbers on their phones. Essentially, this could be a high risk for terrorist to attack which was what exactly happened in Mumbai on 2008, as owner’s identity would be very hard to track down.

Having tens of millions of anonymous cell phones in the country obviously creates a major security threat. So last year, the Indian government began forcing operators to disconnect phones without IMEIs.  But this move, including the latest against Huawei and ZTE, may be forcing some Chinese companies to rethink of India.

As an alternative, instead of exporting stuffs from China, why not consider branching out to the country? As such, it would create local jobs and many other positive benefits that would eventually win them some friends.

San Miguel Corporation Chief Operating Officer, Ramon Ang said recently that Carlyle and the Gokongweis are the top two bidders for their hotdog unit, Purefoods.

The hotdog unit was said to be valued at 1.8 billion dollars, making it one of Philippines biggest food and drinks company. According to And, the decision has been made as they decide to put more focus and accelerate the expansion of faster growing business such as the energy,telecommunications,  mining, and power.

Also the sale is a bid to raise assets to fund expansion into industries. Since 2008, San Miguel has raised about 3 billion dollars from asset sale that has led to triple returns in equity.

Among other bidders are the Aboitiz Group, owner of the Philippines biggest transportation system, and the majority shareholder of Unionbank; and the Campos family, who owns closely held United Laboratories Inc., the largest Philippine drugmaker, and Nutri Asia Group, which bought out San Miguel in Del Monte Pacific Ltd.

However, if offers would not meet eye to eye, the Philippine-based company may opt to publicly sell the shares, as Ang himself once said, he plans to sell a 49 percent stake.

San Miguel’s A shares, which are reserved for Filipinos, declined 0.7 percent to close at 67.50 pesos in Manila. The company’s B shares, which don’t have ownership restrictions, fell 1.5 percent to 67.50 pesos.

Perhaps, labor unrest is part of Chinese culture most especially in its factory towns. But yet, this summer’s strife is quite different and would obviously lead to broad implications for the global economy. The truth is, it will take years for the changes to take hold. Although we are witnessing nothing yet, this implications will mark the end of China’s role as sweatshop of the world.

Here’s how the story goes. Over the past month, several major foreign companies have agreed to give pay hikes to many of their Chinese employees.  Workers at a plant in Goshan, Guangdong province, that makes transmission to Honda will be given about 25 to 30 percent hike. Subsequently, it was followed with a walkout at an exhaust parts factory partly owned by a Honda subsidiary and another strike followed at a plant that makes mirrors for the same auto giant.

Where before, labor disputes often results from a government intervention. The present strife obtained came from all over the media. Moreover, it was all because of workers’ aspirations for better conditions.

Thus, the likelihood for this kind of situation to happen again is high. Creating a potential cascade of pay increase at foreign and locally owned companies. In an effort to head off worker demands, China is planning to establish a minimum wage sometime this year.

Well, perhaps the Chinese people are learning and treating this way as a means to better their lives.  But the long term effect would perhaps bring a lot of negative things to China. For one, the country who was once known as the cheapest producers of some of the important goods will be put in jeopardy. And another would perhaps be a significant drop in exports.

And if this happens, China’s future overall will be jeopardize…

Not so long ago in Tokyo, Naoto Kan, the straight talking populist was named Japan’s new Prime Minister. He will be facing a host of daunting tasks from reviving the nation’s stagnant economy to cutting back its ballooning national debt.

But first, like many great leaders his job is to mend fences. And that will be an urgent test of survival. He will need to win back voters disgusted by the broken promises of his predecessor, Yukio Hatoyama, by next month’s upper house elections.

His attitude might just fit well, as it is obviously likeable. Decisive and down-to-earth, Kan has what it takes to regain support for the battered Democratic Party of Japan. Unlike his predecessor, Kan came from an ordinary family. He got his political start in civic activism, where he was known for speaking his mind and gained popularity during the 1990s for exposing a government cover-up on HIV tainted blood products.

As what Koichi Nakano, a political science professor at Sophia University in Tokyo said, “Kan has a chance. Because he is a credible new leader. Nobody doubts his reformist credentials.” But then the reality speaks about no real walk-in-the-park. Even though the election is his first, it will be his make or break.

Initial signs are obviously positive, according to a survey conducted by Kyodo News Agency, The Democrats’ approval rating jumped to 36.1 percent, which was up by 15.6 percent points from the previous poll in late May. People who expressed high hopes for Kan totaled close to 58 percent.

The democrats swept to power just nine months ago, trouncing the long ruling conservatives amid high hopes for change and more government accountability. But public opinion soured high after Hatoyama got ensnared in a political funding scandal, which certainly Kan don’t want to happen again.

Well, first and foremost allow us to express our congratulations to Philippines for their very successful first fully automated election, which was won by Benigno Aquino III. Many looked at the victorious guy as a symbol for change, peace, and hope.

This after, the nation were being swindled by the incumbent Arroyo-administration that was hounded by scandals. The said scandals include the overpricing to many of the government’s project to a 2 million pesos meal with her cabinet in the United States, which many had thought would be better spent through helping the poverty-stricken country.

The success of the 2010 elections allowed the United States and Europe to give commendations to the country.  Now, many foreign  companies are looking forward to doing business and put up major investments in the country.

It came as a surprise to many that after the historical event, stock market would all go up while the currency is also getting stronger. And as a good indication, the value of pesos is getting its worth.

The success of the event allowed this potential investors to show confidence to our nation. And most importantly, it is good to hear many of them would like to be in the country. One of the most notable, was the recent opening of JP Morgan Chase Technical Support Center to two of the country’s major cities.

On the Aquino administration, we do look forward for him to create more business ties that would eventually led to investments in the country and most of all job creations.

Amidst the crisis on many Western companies cultural differences and business policies, there is one company that stands out there – Amway. For one, Rose Yang is an avid believer of Amway products. She sells full time for the Ada, a direct marketer of vitamins, detergents, and skin creams. Subsequently, she recruited her mother, as well as other relatives to the Amway banner, which states “I Can’t Help Myself.”

In essence, her hardwork, which paved way for her to be financially independent and enthusiasm to western companies is a testimony of Amway’s fortunes on the mainland China. As a company, they started training sales people and selling door to door on 1995. Not so long, it turned around as fly by night imitators faking the products became prevalent. They eventually collapsed and sparked riots among sectors. To Beijing, it seemed like a custom-made way to spread religious beliefs and political views so they banned all direct selling companies in 1998.

However, instead of giving up, Amway hung on. They never lose hope and instead opened up stores to show their real commitment to China. As a matter of fact, executive committee management team from the company have to travel back to back several times before the government relented in late 2006. This time, Amway was allowed to sell directly to consumers again. For the company’s chairwoman in China it is all about patience.

Today, Amway has now 238 shops in China with over 160,000 sales agents and 3 billion US dollars in revenue. China is their top market and the company is spending 100 million dollars in marketing the products.

Amway and China are simply two companies with good cultural fit. Many Chinese likes Amway’s entrepreneurial hustle.

Silicon Valley has followed the business models in China before. It has always been What’s your China strategy? But presently, the 2010 update could be What’s you China headache?

This is all because of the Chinese allure getting stronger than ever. Although it is still a place deemed good to manufacture goods, where there are approximately 400 million Internet users and 700 million mobile-phone subscribers, making these numbers unmatchable in any other nations around the globe.

But the country is becoming less welcoming to foreign businesses. For one, Google’s frayed relations with the Chinese government over intellectual property theft and censorship spotlight the growing discontent over many Western companies. More so, American companies are certain to face even bigger tensions when China plans to control its currency tool – which many experts said would boosts China’s exports while limiting importations from the United States – such a very one sided business situation.

As what former deputy assistant secretary of state during the Clinton administration said, “It was inevitable after a certain time they would no longer roll out the red carpet for foreign companies and give them special treatment. But now we don’t have a level playing field. We have no tariff barriers (in China) designed to protect local companies.”

Like Google, many western companies are reviewing their commitments to China. Longtime Silicon Valley forecaster also added, “I think we will see more companies opt to quietly back away or at least limit their exposure in the Chinese market.”

In general, as China’s business sector continues to mature, the government has shifted emphasis to nurture its own corporate champions to become global competitors. China has emerged so quickly from the global recession while U.S. companies have been slowed down.

Presently, there are so many Western companies who are reluctant to complain publicly for fear of retribution from China. They are all frustrated by the official policies they say that prop up Chinese companies at the expense of foreign competitors.

In a tight economy where money is hard to come by, most business makes suitable measure to lessen operational cost as a mean to balance their budget. Companies that have engaged in cost cutting proposal which have led employees to be layoffs and their product quality to be reduced, have projected a sign of weakness. This weakness entails to their competitors as well as their shareholders, a sign of exhaustion cause by this recession.

Their buying power has weakened alone with the worth of their shareholders. Even though these companies have laid-off workers and cut on manufactured goods quality to keep their stocks values in competition with their competitors, doesn’t mean they have conquer their weaknesses.

On the other hand, any attempt to cut in cost to keep their market shares up is advantageous in the sense that if the reason for the cut is not noticeable by investors, then their weaknesses would have gone invisible. If this were to happen, it would have helped avoid a rapid drop in stock prices because then investors would not have noticed that the true reason for the layoff is because of a loss in revenue.

However, companies that are strong enough to increase their profit margin under this recession should now takes the advantage of their competitor’s weakness to increase their market shares. They must then promote to their competitor’s shareholders, their strength for having battled this economic wave.

A business plan is a declaration of your business; what you like to achieve and how you plan to go about it. It must outline the structure of your business, the service, the customer, the growth potential and the financials. It must also inspire you for the future. It’s a blueprint for what you like to achieve.

Choose an only one of its kind name for your Business. If you can pay for to rent an office, do so. On the other hand you can use a room at home which can be transformed into an office. Or else, rent a post office box so all your mail can be directed there and that way no Clients visit your house. The significant thing is that you have an address for correspondence.

Once you have sorted out the address, email and contact numbers you can keep to have your Business stationary prepared. E.g Letter heads and Business cards. The companies that do this normally have logos you can choose from. Or else, make your own Logo.

For this the bank would entail, proof of ID, your Business Letter head and Every now and then a small amount deposited into the account which would be yours anyway. This takes about 7 – 14 days to set up and you will be offer a cheque book in your Business name, a Paying in book.

Keep financial records. You could use an Excel spreadsheet to record details of your expenditure and details of incoming monies. This is significant and will make it easy for when you prepare the Yearly Accounts for your Business. Keep receipts of everything you purchase for your Business. On this scale, you do not need an Accountant. If you keep records very well, you can do the annual accounts yourself.

Hyundai Motors is creating a huge splash on the automobile industry. They made an aggressive marketing blitz last year to take advantage of the weak Korean currency. The blitz included a string of promotional packages including its “assurance program”, where a buyer can return their cars and cancel their loans without hurting their credit ratings.

And as a result, the company is stepping up its sales pitch with its toughest rivals, Toyota, who incidentally was suffering one of the world’s worst public relations as far as the auto industry is concerned.

The campaign took off last February 7 at the Super Bowl in America. The said advertising campaign will run eight multi-million dollar commercials in CBS Sports, the broadcaster of the 2010 Super Bowl. The aim of the launch is to kick off its 160 million dollar campaign promoting its re-engineered Sonata family sedan.

Meanwhile the car model, Sonata, is actually built in Alabama and obviously would give a good run for Toyota’s Camry, Honda’s Accord, and Ford’s Fusion. The strategy was simple. During an industry slump on 2009, they delivered results – that allowed them to sell 8.3% more units that translates to about 435,000 vehicles. It doubled its net profit to a record 2.5 billion dollar last year, where global market share also rose by 5.2%.

Hyundai seems to be keeping its momentum going. And they seem poised to give giants a good run for their money. But they cannot be too over-confident, and must learn lessons from the Toyota fiasco. Otherwise, history will repeat itself and it would be so hard for them to clean up the mess. They must remember that its not always about promotion and advertising, but quality too.