Regional Director of Rolls-Royce Talks about Challenges Faced with Foreign Manufacturing Industry in China
Apr 18-2013
By He Hua
On the afternoon of March 20th, 2008, Mr. Richard Margolis, Regional Director of Rolls-Royce, Northeast Asia, thoroughly exchanged ideas and opinions with trainees of BiMBA in Zhifuxuan Classroom of Peking University. Before taking his present position in March, 2003, Mr. Margolis has worked in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and in an investment bank. At the meeting in Peking University, he analyzed, from the perspective of Rolls-Royce, the organizational, commercial and cultural challenges that are faced with globalization. The meeting between Mr. Margolis and BiMBA trainees is aimed at upgrading China’s manufacturing industry that is being integrated into the international market by emulating Rolls-Royce model.
Mr. Richard Margolis first gave his analysis of challenges that Chinese large local companies faced and put forward some original ideas. He believed that challenges mainly came from two sources. The first source is the macro-economy and the system itself. The second source is corporate culture. Then Margolis reviewed the past 30 years when Rolls-Royce had grown from an SOE into a global leader in the business. He said that two factors had played a key role in the process of the transition, a consistent long-term state policy and Rolls-Royce’s manufacturing ability that creates high value. Mr. Margolis also talked extensively about China’s Civil Aviation Program, saying that China is undoubtedly capable of making aircrafts. However, merely making aircrafts is far from sufficient, the more important thing is to sell them in the international market, he added. Regular flights hate taking risks. Therefore it will be a great challenge to convince them to buy aircrafts from an inexperienced supplier devoid of any record of success. An established civil aircraft is not as simple as an assembly of different parts and components. Equally important is the coordination and integration of all plans, which is a challenge even to global leaders in the field.
The students of BiMBA also raised many questions for Margolis to answer during the Q&A session. He shared his views and talked about his career moves and life experience. Before conclusion, Mr. Richard Margolis highly praised BiMBA students for their talents, saying he would be very pleased to see BiMBA students becoming members of Rolls-Royce.
