Mediaboss Marketing

Beijing, Feb 24:

Professional social networking Web sites such as LinkedIn trying to tap into Chinas vast business world are finding a formidable domestic foethe ingrained system of personal connections known as guanxi.

Two leading sites, California-based LinkedIn and the French company Viadeo, are targeting networkers in the worlds most populous country, but acknowledge the challenges they face.

China has the worlds biggest online population at 564 million web users, but the history of Western Internet giants looking to establish themselves in it is littered with failures and disappointed retreats.

Google relocated its servers to Hong Kong over censorship and hacking and now has only a small share of Chinas search market, while Yahoo! has had a troubled relationship with partner Alibaba.

Groupons entry was turbulent from the start, and it closed several offices and laid off hundreds of staff just months after launch.

Business network sites face a huge extra obstacle of their own: guanxi, Chinas system of personal relationships reinforced by mutual favours which plays a vital role in conducting business and navigating a messy government bureaucracy.

Wei Wuhui, a professor at Jiaotong University in Shanghai, says that online alternatives will have a hard time supplanting its deeply embedded role.

I dont think the Chinese middle class has the same needs in terms of professional networks as people in the West, because of the concept of guanxi, he said.

In China, people do not want to meet with people they dont know. The Chinese have a culture based on relationships among family members and close friends.

Link:
Business networking giants face China ‘guanxi’ battle