Chinese investments and acquisitions in Switzerland

Who is Baoshida? If you have never heard of them before, then as a Swiss it is high time to get interested in China: They are the savior of Swissmetal. Through their acquisition jobs could be saved in Switzerland. 

In the past Switzerland was mainly known amongst Chinese for its natural landscapes, but nowadays Chinese investors become also interested in Switzerland's attractive business landscape. Chinese companies starting to open branches in Switzerland and acquire Swiss companies. First of all Chinese are interested in the luxury and metal industry. Luxury hotels or the wristwatch industry are on top of the list. Secondly green energy and commodities are of big interest. One example is China's petrol giant Sinopec: They paid 7.3B USD to acquire the Geneva based Addax Petroleum. Based on information of the Swiss magazine L'Hebdo, 60 Chinese companies are already in Switzerland.

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Map showing Chinese acquisitions in Switzerland (Source: L'Hebdo and Workzeitung)

China holds huge dollar money reserves. This enables them to invest in foreign companies. On the map created by L'Hebdo, the presence of Chinese companies in Switzerland is clear. In the future, this trend should become even more important. This development is a double edged sword. On the one hand, critics fear the competition and power of Chinese companies, such as Jinko Solar, that are now operating in the middle of Europe. On the other hand, Chinese companies such as Baoshida are saving Swiss jobs. Altogether, the importance that Chinese companies might take in Switzerland in a close future has to be taken into consideration by politics and investors.

Intellectual Property in China: Expert Interview

Watch our interview with Nathan Kaiser, a partner with the firm Eiger law to learn more about his professional career. As the amount of Swiss business has continued to increase, a group of entrepreneurial lawyers have started offering services in China. In the short video, Nathan shares some observations on China as a market for Swiss companies and some advice about how to approach the difficult question of IP management and protection.

Business Model Innovation & Design

Last week we had the pleasure to host the co-author of the book Business Model Generation, Prof. Dr. Yves Pigneur. Around 120 people attended the event. 

A business model describes the rationale of how an organization creates, delivers, and captures value (economic, social, cultural, or other forms of value). Over the years, business models have become much more sophisticated. During his talk, Prof. Pigneur presented and showed how to apply his Business Model Canvas, a practical visual language tool to describe, challenge, and design business models. The concepts was illustrated by examples of business model innovation, such as Nespresso or SunEdison.

The Chinese version (and others) of the Business Model Generation handbook being a great success, many people attended the lecture. During the talk, the audience could try to use the canvas and therefore (for most of them) create their first business model! At the end of the lecture and during the cocktail reception, they could also ask questions to Prof. Yves Pigneur and share their ideas about business models and innovation. The audience was a nice mix of people coming from academic and professional fields and the evening ended up being a great success!

Innovation and social network analysis

Last Saturday at Xindanwei it was all about Social Network Analysis. The event was organized by Shairsm Lab. One of the speakers was Liu Yong, Mainland’s first MOOC (Massive Online Open Courseware) instructor. His areas of expertise are social network analysis and the program Gephi. Around 25 people attended the event. 

Social Network Analysis event in Xindanwei

In social network analysis the connection between nodes is analyzed. Usually the nodes are human beings in a social network, but it can also be done with words or locations. It can actually be done with anything that can be analyzed in form of a network. There are many free software available to do it. Gephi is one of them; it is basically a Photoshop for Social Network Analysis. It enables the user to easily create beautiful visualizations of networks.

The first part of the presentation given by Liu Yong focused on the non-commercial social network analysis. The general discussion with the audience focused then on the commercial value of such visualizations. From it, it can be concluded, that there are two different approaches: On one hand there is the research oriented approach and on the other hand the commercial one for marketing analysis with dashboards. Of course network analysis is just a tool and can be used from both sides. Note that people in the audience had mostly a commercial background.

The second part of the presentation focused more on the commercial potential of network analysis and about the platform ihezhu.com. The homepage of this website shows public transportation connection and also the possibility to search for flats in a specific user selected area on a map. The design is very clean and user friendly. In general the audience was impressed by this platform. Then the discussion switched on a possible revenue model. The conclusion was that they unfortunately did not have found a good way to create revenue so far and they estimate that it will take half to one year to copy their service. 

ihezhu.com map with public transportation network

Companies like ihezhu.com are good examples of the Chinese Entrepreneur scene. Someone has the skills to operationalize an idea. The next step then is probably the most difficult one: How to create a steady stream of revenue. Time plays an important role, because there is always the danger of copycats. Anyway, a product or service has first to be created, then investors might be willing to invest. Like Bob Zheng from PeopleSquared told us in an interview: “In China ideas are worth nothing!”. Copycats and the hesitation of investors are the biggest drawback. Things are changing right now and there is a lot of support out there to help start-ups.

At swissnex China we are all about innovation and business models this week: This Thursday we have Prof. Yves Pigneur as a guest speaker. He is the co-author of the book “Business Model Generation”. Subscribe for the event here. 

On the weekend of 14th to 16th December, the Startup Weekend takes place here in Shanghai. swissnex being one of the sponsor, we will cover the event and let you know about recent developments in the Innovation scene in China.

Stay connected with us! Soon we will show you a short interview with Liu Yan, co-founder of Xindanwei and we will tell you more about the internet business in China.

Discover with us China's innovation landscape!

swissnex China is your channel to learn more about China’s innovation landscape. Until end of this year we will feed you with background information, interviews and news about what is going in China’s innovation, entrepreneurship and creativity scene. Watch our teaser, an interview with Bob Zheng, co-founder of People Squared, entrepreneur himself and one of the key person in Shanghai’s innovation and entrepreneur scene. Bob studied computer sciences in Vancouver and stayed several years in Canada before he came back to China, which enables him today to understand very well the Chinese and Western culture. People Squared is an open working space, offering different services and these days, base of 18 small teams. The different teams benefit from synergies and support each other with ideas and brainstorming sessions facilitated by Bob and his team. The full interview with Bob Zheng and more insights on Shanghai’s startup scene follow soon here!

One point every startup needs to deal with is the question of the business model. Together with HEC Lausanne we invited Dr. Yves Pigneur, Professor of Management Information Systems at the University of Lausanne, visiting professor at Georgia State University, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and the University of British Columbia, Canada. He is editor-in-chief of the academic journal Systèmes d’Information & Management. In 2012-2013, he is visiting professor at the National University of Singapore (NUS) Business School.

Dr. Pigneur will talk about the Business Model Canvas, a practical visual language to describe, challenge, and design business models. The concepts will be illustrated by examples of business model innovation, such as Nespresso, SunEdison and Cirque du Soleil. Register here for this event

Follow us on Facebook and Weibo to be updated about news on innovation from Switzerland and China!

"We need more risk communication!"

Beginning of November the “China International Food Safety & Quality Conference + Expo 2012” took place in Shanghai. International and Chinese experts from academia, industry and government came together to exchange latest research results and discuss on best practice experiences with a focus on public policy and risk communication in food safety management.

Overall all the speakers agreed that food safety is a global problem, which needs commitment from all the involved parties, from the start to the end of the food value chain. It is not only about the responsibility to communicate but also to educate the bottom of the pyramid, such as for example the small farmers at the beginning of the value chain.

China is very hard working on catching up with international standards. At the moment there are too many different regulations in the provinces and too many local standards. In order to improve food safety, there is a strong need of national standardization,  to have a better punishment system, and furthermore to have a strong monitoring system to prevent food hazards and stop any incidents already before they reach the costumers. At the moment Shanghai is one of the leading cities in implementing new international regulations.

“There is not enough risk communication, we need to communicate much better”

— Xumei Liu, Professor at Chinese National Center for Food Safety Risk Assessment

The Codex Alimentarius CAC and the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) are very important tools to standardize and improve food safety globally. More and more governments adapt their regulations accordingly, which helps improving transparency.

Everyone’s responsibility

As Michael Taylor, Deputy Commissioner for Foods, U.S. Food & Drug Administration said:” It is crucial to work with all stakeholders and share all information!”. To improve food safety and consumer confidence, in his opinion it needs:

• Industry commitment and responsibility: the actions of all are related. Detect problem early and act swiftly, this can help to keep confidence
• Comprehensive systems: everyone has responsibility
• Credible and effectual government oversight: regulations should not be a replacement. Government is essential for international collaboration and building scientific foundations.
• Collaborations and partnerships: distinct but comprehensive roles. Government Inspections are most effective when companies collaborate. Government invest in data collection, with private sector input, this is even more effective. The whole food industry  benefits when governments,  industry and other private stakeholders work together.
• Transparency in industry and government: in China work is needed to modernize system. Transparency is starting point for real improvement.  Do work effectively through transparency. Use internet to share knowledge with consumers and industry! Engage directly with all players.

“Food hazard knows no borders and there must be a shared responsibility, from farm to table, a global continuum!”

— Yves Rey, Chairman global Food Safety Initiative, Corporate General Manager Danone Group France

Testing Methods

Douglas Marshall, Chief Scientific Officer, Eurofins Microbiology Laboratories, gave some insights on the biological monitoring possibilities. He stressed  that for every sector, every part of the food value chain experts are needed. He sees several trends in the testing world:

• There new detection platforms and methods available for everyone
• Lack of retailer interest  and well-trained  technicians in the industry and academic community developing good bench-top molecular biologists with little practical understanding of food processing
• Too many labs performing tests they know little about and too many conflicts of interest with internal labs and some government-sponsored labs.

swissnex China is currently working on the workshop program on food safety in the framework of the conference “From Crisis Management to Risk Governance” taking place in Beijing from January 9-11, 2013. Find the conference program here

Food Fact Finding Mission

Discussion in cosy Swiss environment at Chalet Suisse

On November 14 we welcomed a delegation from the Swiss food indutry, such as the cheese, chocolate, wine and logistics industry. The group came in the framework of the OSEC Food Fact Finding mission, co-organised by SwissBusinessHub and Peach International. The delegation participants were all keen to learn more about the food industry and food safety in China. We organised an evening discussion and invited several Shanghai based Swiss and Chinese experts from business and academia, who could shared their experience and knowledge on this topic. The delegation highly appreciated the knowledge exchange and network opportunity. Besides various experts from different industries, we were also happy to have several alumni from the famous Swiss Ecole Hotelière Lausanne, who are all very successfully active in the hospitality sector in China. Our host of the evening was one of them Philippe Huser, owner of the Swiss Chalet. While he offered us a warm welcome in a Swiss sourrounding, he also shared the experience on food safety in China.

Chinese citizen find their own solutions

Increasing food safety scares during the last decade made the topic of food safety a major challenge for China’s future development. The Chinese government steadily enforced research and regulations to address the problem while also the raising awareness of Chinese consumers puts more pressure on the government to address the problem. The long supply chain with many small and medium businesses involved, make the traceability of products and the control on the implementation of regulations very difficult. Although China is one of the biggest exporter of agricultural products and food ingredients, the farm scale in China is smaller compared to farms in the western world. Chinese farmers typically farm on plots of one to two noncontiguous acres, which makes it difficult to standardize and monitor production practices. This small scale farming leads to a fragmented marketing system dominated by millions of small farms handling small volumes with few or no documentation to trace products. As the government is trying to enforce regulations and control mechanism more than 10 different departments are involved in this process which might cause unclear responsibilities. China faces a big challenge in adapting its standards to the international levels,  the value chain with millions of involved parties in a huge domestic market. 

Iphone application "China Survival Guide"

While these are just a few problems causing insecurity about food safety, some citizens did not want to wait until the situation has improved and took the initiative by developing different tools to stay informed about food scares. To name only two such examples the internet security firm Kingsoft launched the “China Survival Guide”, an iPhone app that tracks food scandals across China. According to the newspaper China Daily the app was downloaded more than 200,000 times in its first week. An other service offers a website developed by students from Shanghai Fudan University, through which you can follow the latest news reports all over China: http://www.zccw.info/

Overview map on food safety incidents www.zccw.info

The food industry in China is confronted with different challenges and it is interesting to see how they developed different strategies to fight increasing insecurity within the value chain.  As an example Nestle developed a dairy farming system  to  keep high quality levels by very close contact with the farmers and also educating them to Swiss standard levels. We have also been in contact with Jiaotong University and its Bor S. Luh Food Safety Research Center. Ongoing research projects are for example the molecular detection methods for food-based pathogens and applied research in microbiological food safety and heterotrophic metabolism of Chlorella. Other universities like Zhejiang University of Science& Technology in Hangzhou to name only two of many institutes working intensively in this field as well.

While Switzerland has established itself on a very high level  in regards of regulations and food safety standards, research is being continued, as for example at the ETH Zurich institute for Food Biotechnology or the School of Life Science at the University of Applied Sciences or Zurich to name only a few. The platform Swiss Food Research is a very good instrument to stay informed and also connect to different industries and academia involved in food science.

We are currently working on a conference/workshop on food safety and innovation in 2013. If you are interested in this topic and want to discuss  with us or get involved , do not hesitate to contact viviane.gut@swissnexchina.org

Entrepreneurship and Juke Biotech Park

On the occasion of the visit of Samuel Hess, Head of Economic Development Canton Basel Stadt und Nina Ryser, Head of Economic Development Sectors and Companies Canton Basel Stadt, we organized a day of visits to introduce them to Shanghai’s innovation and entrepreneur scene. Starting the day with a breakfast roundtable discussion with three very successful Swiss entrepreneurs: Ivan Beldi, Partner Malik Management, Patrick Schaufelberger, Founder and General Manager AsiaCompete International Ltd. and André Gisiger, President Ivy League English shared their experiences of starting business in China and discussed about challenges and opportunities Swiss companies might face.

Breakfast discussion about China’s entrepreneur scene from Swiss perspective

Following this discussion about entrepreneurship in China from a more Swiss perspective, we visited PeoplesSquared, a co-working space for startups, to have a look at a more Chinese perspective. Bob Zheng, founder and CEO of PeopleSquared, talked about the innovation and entrepreneur scene in China. Thomas from GitCafe and team member from Girls in Tech China gave some further insights on being en entrepreneur in China.

Samuel Hess, Bob Zheng and Nina Ryser at PeopleSquared

As Canton Basel-Stadt has a very strong LifeScience Industry, we visited the famous Shanghai Juke Biotech Park in Xuhui District. Dr. Jiong Zhang, CEO of Juke Biotech Park and his management welcomed us for a working lunch. We discussed about Biotech companies in China, future development and the situation for foreign companies interested in coming to China. Further the delegation was also very interested in sharing experiences in managing life science and technology park, as Nina Ryser is also CEO of Basel Technology Park.

Shanghai Juke Biotech Park

Working lunch discussion

After this discussion we visited two startup companies in the Juke Park. Richard LI, President of Shanghai Laibo Bio-Chemical Co. Ltd, a company that produces beauty products on bases of the Traditional Chinese Medicine TCM. Mr. LI showed us the company’s R&D labs and explained more about the TCM products. Last but not least we visited BaiO, which develops and manufactures diagnostic kits for personalized medicine with biochips technology. BaiO is currently working with hospitals all over China.

One of the labs of Shanghai Laibo Bio-Chemical Co. Ltd

BaiO’s product overview

The delegation will go back to Basel in a few days, fully packed with new contacts, impressions and ideas from Shanghai and we are looking forward to further collaborating with Shanghai’s sister city Basel!

Chinese Friendship Award for Andreas Götz

Andreas Götz, Vice Director of the Federal Office for the Environment FOEN, was honored with the Chinese government’s Friendship Award in Beijing. Premier Wen Jiabao presented the Award, which consists of a medal and a certificate, the highest honor awarded to foreign experts who contribute to the economic and social development of China. Mr. Götz did valuable work through the promotion of near-natural hydraulic engineering in China and also contributed to the improvement of flood prevention.

Andreas Götz has been collaborating with swissnex China several times over the past few years. Last time we were honored to have him as a guest speaker for our swissnex China Lecture on “Climate Change and Risk Management”.

Good cooperation has existed between Switzerland and China for several years in the areas of environmental protection, water management and natural hazard prevention. Switzerland is involved an intensive exchange on water management and the management of natural disasters with the Chinese Ministry of Water Resources. This cooperation is based on a formal agreement concluded between the Swiss Department for the Environment, Transport, Energy and Communication and the Chinese Ministry of Water Resources.

Mission accomplished

On Friday September 21, Christoph Haemmig, Daniel Bieri from GEOTEST AG Zollikofen, Switzerland and Heidi Lüdi, MD visited swissnex. They just got back from a 4 week expedition in the Karakoram Mountains. Together with other members of the delegation, and their Chinese partners, they installed the early warning system of glacial lake outburst floods (GLOF) and climate change monitoring. This project was initiated in the framework of the memorandum of unterstanding MOU, signed between the FOEN Federal Office of Environment and the CMWR Chinese Ministry of Water Resources.

Sharing the latest pictures of the expedition

Christoph Haemmig (Geotest), Pascal Marmier and Daniel Bieri (Geotest) and Isabel Götz

Visit of State Secretary Mauro Dell'Ambrogio

Mr. Dell’Ambrogio, Swiss State Secretary of Education and Research, visited Shanghai shortly on September 13th and 14th after his participation in the World Economic Forum in Tianjin. 

It has been 3 years since Mr. Dell’Ambrogio’s last visit to Shanghai in 2009. This time he was able to see something new. On the morning of September 14th, together with Mr. Pascal Marmer, the new Executive Director of swissnex China, Mr. Dell’Ambrogio visited Shanghai Zizhu National Hi-tech Zone located in Minhang district. After a tour to the impressive Planning Hall of Zizhu Zone, Mr. Qiang Guoxia, Vice President of the Chamber of Commerce of the Zizhu Zone, had a discussion with the delegation. The International Education Center and YBC (the incubator for university graduates and staff) are particularly interesting for the delegation. 

Mr. Dell’Ambrogio then paid a visit to Andress+Hauser, a Swiss automation equipment company located inside the Zizhu Hi-tech Zone. Andress+Hauser is a time-honored Swiss family-owned company specializing in measuring instrument and automation solutions. Mr. Jiang Mingsheng, Deputy General Manager, introduced the history and development of the company and the delegation also had a tour to the warehouse.

The third visit was Firmenich Aromatics, which is located in Xinzhuang Industry Park. Firmenich is a large private-owned Swiss company in the perfume and flavor business. VP China Group, Mr. Pierre-Alain Ceralli, shared with the delegation the company’s development and effort in sustainablity.

In the late afternoon, swissnex China organized an exclusive event for Swiss Alumni in Shanghai and Mr. Dell’Ambrogio as a highlight of the programme. 14 Swiss alumni joined the round-table discussion, focusing on the topic of discussion on education, research and innovation, the situation in Switzerland and its relation to China. The invited Swiss university alumni exchanged their experiences with Mr. Dell’Ambrogio and discussed possible way to further enhance the role of Swiss innovation in China, through for example more activities to promote Swiss excellence and take part in the strongly growing R&D environment in China. Further they also discussed possibilities to introduce a similar vocational system in China, as in Switzerland this education opportunity offers young people great education and start into professional life. Though the big cultural difference of the perception in society of vocational education, might be a (too) big barrier in China. The conclusion of the discussion was that there is a need to further enhance the  promotion of Swiss innovation and that Swiss companies definitely see a need to foster the exchange of young talents between China and Switzerland to stay the most innovative country in the world. 

Mr. Dell’Ambrogio’s day in Shanghai was closed by a dinner hosted by Consul General Mr. Schellenberg. High level representatives from Tongji University, Novartis Shanghai, Hua Wei China, SwissCham, and senior professors from Fudan University were invited.

Group picture with State Secretariat Mauro Dell’Ambrogio and the participants of the round table discussion.

Find more pictures on Facebook or swissnexChina.org

Visit of Federal Councillor Johann Schneider-Ammann

In the afternoon of July 12, swissnex China was delighted to welcome Federal Councillor Johann Schneider-Ammann, Head of Federal Department of Economic Affairs, together with the Delegation of high level Swiss business leaders. Flavia Schlegel introduced the swissnex China team and their activities to the visitors and explained about chances and challenges swissnex faces in China. Following her talk, three invited guest speakers shared shared some China insights:

Dr. Gary LIU, Deputy Director Case Development Center, CEIBS, shared his view on future development of the Chinese economy. 

Prof. TAN Qiang, Vice Director Regenerative Medicine Lab, Shanghai Chest Hospital talked about Sino-Swiss collaboration in Science and Research.

Ms ZHANG Xi, Architect & Owner of EXH Design, ETH Zurich Alumni, explained to the visitors her view on different understandings of quality and future opportunities in green building constructions.

The afternoon at swissnex China finished with a lively coffee break, where the whole delegation mingled with team of swissnex China and Consulate General of Switzerland of Shanghai. 

Dr. Flavia Schlegel, Executive Director swissnex China, gives Federal Councillor Johann Schneider-Amman a small paper-cut art piece for his Shanghai memories.

Impressions from the delegation