LinkedIn publishes China white paper

LinkedIn, the California-based professional social network, has released its China B2B Brand Globalization White Paper, which calls for more domestic companies to adopt digital technologies to accurately seek overseas clients and better understand foreign markets.

The study, released in Shanghai, collected opinions from 2,646 corporate decision makers in 18 markets, as well as marketers at B2B businesses in China.

It found that Southeast Asia is the first choice for many Chinese companies to expand their businesses.

The report said this is because the regions share similar cultures. Southeast Asia is home to a large number of Chinese people, and it has a younger consumer base and fast GDP growth rate.

Among them, about 67 percent of the Chinese companies are small and medium-sized enterprises with fewer than 1,000 employees.

These companies are proficient with digital technologies and employ flexible decision-making procedures to operate in overseas markets, the report said.

Although the report found that up to 81 percent of overseas business executives were interested in working with Chinese companies, about 40 percent chose to purchase Chinese products and only five percent said they will continue to buy goods supplied by Chinese companies, primarily due to a lack of trust in products made in China.

The study also pointed out challenges, including the inability to build brands and inadequate localization strategies, Chinese players are facing.

"Many opportunities come from a large number of Chinese companies' surging demand to diversify their global sales channels, get closer to new customer bases, conduct international industrial capacity cooperation, as well as further compete with established foreign rivals across the world," said Sun Fuquan, a researcher at the Beijing-based Chinese Academy of Science and Technology for Development.