BCG - The Boston Consulting Group

Publications

January, 2009
[PDF] The 2009 BCG 100 New Global Challengers: How Companies from Rapidly Developing Economies Are Contending for Global Leadership There are some new global challengers from rapidly developing economies that are now playing prominent roles in global markets. These challengers are rapidly globalizing their businesses and competing with incumbent multinational companies for market share, resources, and talent both at home and abroad. The report identifies and discusses 100 outstanding companies based in China, India, and 12 other RDEs. Nineteen of these companies are new to this year's list. All these companies share a handfu

July, 2008
[PDF] China's Digital Generations: The 570-Million-Hour Opportunity During the past few years, the Chinese embraced digital technology so rapidly that conventional views about that nation's Internet and mobile-phone use are out of date. The report China's Digital Generations: The 570-Million-Hour Opportunity seeks to dispel many outdated impressions about digital life in China and to show companies how they can profitably serve China's "digital generations". The report is based on interviews with 3,700 Chinese consumers. Urban Chinese consumers, in par

January, 2008
[PDF] Winning the Localization Game: How Multinational Automotive OEMs and Suppliers Are Realizing the Strategic Potential of China and India Although virtually all of the world's leading automotive OEMs and suppliers have localized at least some of their operations to China, India, or both, in many cases these companies are not yet realizing the competitive advantage they sought in making the move. For instance, some are even finding that their unit production costs are higher in these countries than they are at home. Clearly, the challenges of localization are proving more daunting than anticipated. A BCG team led by Nikolaus Lang,

December, 2007
[PDF] The Quest for Defendable Scale in China Scale is one of the most important advantages for overcoming China's pricing pressures and rising costs. Size is also crucial in negotiations with smaller retailers and distributors. Defendable scale—which we believe is necessary to win in China—depends on securing strong competitive positions (measured by relative market share) in large and profitable categories. In this report, the authors discuss how companies can adapt their business models to China's unique markets, target the n

October, 2007
[PDF] Winning the Hearts and Minds of China's Consumers Until recently, global companies in China have focused on geographic expansion in search of new consumers. Going forward, the game will shift to one in which consumer marketing is the source of greatest advantage. BCG’s recent survey of 4,000 Chinese consumers across 13 cities indicates that emerging trends in China are playing out in ways that differ from other markets. It is a complex market with striking cross-generational disparities. And unlike in the West, trading up beats trading do

July, 2007
[PDF] Sourcing from China: Lessons from the Leaders Global companies have been sourcing from China for years, reaping the much-publicized rewards of that activity. However, a number of them are finding China sourcing considerably more challenging than they anticipated. Constraints limiting the growth of China sourcing include internal resistance, the difficulty of retaining a sourcing team, the challenge of managing an extended supply chain, the challenge of building up a sourcing team, and cultural and language issues, among many others. A recen

June, 2008
[PDF] Foreign or Local Brands in China? Rationalism Trumps Nationalism Although Chinese consumers often claim to prefer local brands—and patriotism is undoubtedly a factor—nationalism plays a relatively small role in their actual purchases, according to a new BCG study. What might appear to be a patriotic bias toward local brands is actually a preference for reasonably priced products with reliable quality. That's a wake-up call for marketers to stick with the basics. The authors of this report report on a number of strategies by which smart global comp

Press Releases

October 17, 2008
New Era of 'Globality' Has Competing with Everyone from Everywhere for Everything Global business has entered a revolutionary new phase of competition—one that is fast replacing the globalization model, according to experts at The Boston Consulting Group (BCG).

July 09, 2008
China Set to Burst on Global Scene as Digital Giant Chinese consumers have emerged as leading users of mobile communications, instant messaging (IM), and Web 2.0 services, pushing the boundaries of digital activity in ways unimaginable just a few years ago, according to a new report by The Boston Consulting Group (BCG).