The Baosteel Group is the largest steel-making complex in China. Now, they are also looking to expand this success beyond the Chinese borders. Speeding up the international strategy and personal development of employees are hot topics to achieve this. ‘The Baosteel Group sent us to NIKOS to study another culture and the latest management theories’, senior manager of the Planning & Development Department Dianna Zhang explains. ‘We followed Master and Bachelor courses, executive courses at VentureLab Twente and workshops by external experts.’
The Baosteel Group sends many of its senior managers abroad to help establish a sound global and diversification strategy. The program focuses on management aspects such as entrepreneurship, strategy making and leadership, to complement the usual high-technology skills of the managers. At the same time, it serves as a bonus for those who do their job well.
Although Baosteel employees are sent to different places in the world, Kevin Gao, vice president of Baosteel Howa Trading, was happy to be able to come to Twente. ‘The University of Twente has a good reputation in China. There are many famous professors and everybody speaks English, unlike in France or Germany.’ Also the experience of professors in real business is something that Kevin appreciates.
William Zhu, director of the hot rolling plant believes to have benefitted a lot from his stay in the Netherlands. ‘I learned about ways to motivate people. This is important, because the culture in our company is becoming more people-oriented.’ Upon return, he will immediately introduce a learning and innovation team in his plant to implement his newly gained insights.
Charles Ke, director of Xinjian Bayi Iron & Steel, was more interested in strategic aspects. ‘I learned to think about long-term relations with customers and how to use our networks, instead of merely thinking about tomorrow.’
However, the main benefit is perhaps that the managers followed this program together. ‘We are all from different fields. We enjoyed it a lot, and learned a great deal of things from each other,’ said senior manager of the coal development and trading department Charlotte Cao.
Despite all positive experiences, the managers also needed to get used to a few things. William: ‘In the Netherlands you plant a lot of grass. We never plant grass in China, it can grow by itself. I think cows and sheep have a nice life here’, he laughs. More striking were the experiences with banks. Dianna: ‘It seems that people here are slower than in China. There is less efficiency in procedures. However, the people are more polite’.
The managers will return to China on Saturday, only to start working again next Monday. They will report to their headquarters soon, and give a presentation to the big leaders in which they will make suggestions for the global strategy of Baosteel. There will be little time to relax and reunite with family. Dianna smiles: ‘They already planned another business trip for me next week’.
Mariska Roersen
Kevin, Dianna, Charles, William and Charlotte will fly back to China after following three months of trainings, workshops and coaching at the University of Twente. They defended their suggestions for Baosteel last Wednesday to a panel of experts. (Photo by Eric Brinkhorst)
