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Select from the consultants below for a short interview with each.
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How long have you been with
InterChina? |
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I was working in China consultancy
before I joined InterChina. The more project experience
I gained, the more I wanted to specialize in strategy
consulting. I applied to InterChina for a Consultant
position in the Strategy Practice, not knowing too
much about the nature of their strategy work until
I interviewed with the Strategy Practice Director.
I was impressed not just by the nature of InterChina’s
projects and clients, but also by the corporate culture
and the consultants I met. I was very pleased to receive
an offer, and joined InterChina in February 2006. |
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What do you spend most of your
time doing? |
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Most of my time is spent on client
projects. We work in dedicated Project Teams, normally
for 3 to 6 months at a time, starting from understanding
the client’s issue at the project outset to delivering
a solution to the client in the project deliverable.
Perhaps best of all is the close interaction we have
with clients throughout the project, sharing our thinking
with them and receiving their feedback. It’s through
this process that I learn most, and I’ve learnt a
great deal. |
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What is InterChina like as
a place to work? |
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I think InterChina must have one
of the best corporate cultures in the consulting industry.
What makes InterChina different is that the company
upholds strong ethical standards, starting with how
it values its employees. This is not just a promise
made on paper, but something that you feel when you
work here. We are given the opportunity to develop
our areas of interest, to gain broader experience
by working in different sectors and fields, and to
contribute to the limits of our abilities. This has
an impact on the way colleagues interact with other
colleagues, supporting each other just like the company
supports us, making for a very constructive and cheerful
workplace. |
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What advice would you give
to candidates? |
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If you’re considering applying
to InterChina, then I would recommend researching
our website carefully. There’s a lot of information
on the website, and this allows candidates to determine
how well the company suits them, and what they can
bring to the company. Such topics are likely to come
up during the interview process, and there’s always
the chance for candidates to ask questions too. |
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How long have you been with
InterChina? |
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I joined InterChina in 2005 because
I wanted to start a career in management consulting.
One of the really attractive aspects of consulting
is the diversity, working in a range of sectors with
clients from different countries on a great variety
of issues. As I already had quite broad experience,
this diversity really appealed to me. |
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What do you spend most of your
time doing? |
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China’s frail information infrastructure
makes good primary research essential to good strategy
development. Some may regard conducting interviews
as a fairly straightforward and effortless process.
However, there is actually much more to primary research
than you might imagine.
To begin with, you have to organize interviews so
that interviewees are incentivized to speak freely
and frankly. As interviews take the form of an interactive
discussion rather than question & answer, you
have to be able to engage with executives and professionals
expert in their own fields, which means demonstrating
the requisite knowledge and acuity to earn their trust
and respect. Furthermore, in pursuit of detailed or
sensitive data, you have to approach the same issue
from different angles, all the time assessing the
validity of the information and insights being shared.
The importance of primary research means I spend as
much time on the road as I do in the office. When
I’m traveling between interviews, I’m often on the
phone with the Project Manager or other Team Members,
working through the implications of our findings for
the client. New issues and ideas tend to arise that
need to be addressed or tested, which means carefully
considering the approach to the next interview. It’s
a constant problem solving process, and one that I
really enjoy.
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What is InterChina like as
a place to work? |
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What makes InterChina different
from other management consultancies is that it’s a
very stable work environment. There are many reasons
why my colleagues and I are happy working here, and
I suppose everyone being happy working here is a reason
in itself. It feels like we’re in the same boat, striving
to overcome the same challenges and sharing the same
successes, reaping the benefits of our continuous
improvement. It gives meaning to the working day that
would not exist in an unstable work environment. |
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What advice would you give
to candidates? |
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Management consulting may not
be a suitable career for everyone, but if you are
already a consultant or considering becoming one,
then InterChina should certainly be on your shortlist.
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How long have you been with
InterChina? |
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I joined InterChina from another
management consultancy in 2003. I was attracted by
InterChina’s vision for my own personal development,
as well as the emphasis InterChina placed on having
a good work environment. |
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What do you spend most of your
time doing? |
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As a Company Establishment Consultant,
I help clients select the best location for their
production plants in China. This is a much more comprehensive
process than you might expect. We start by gaining
an understanding of the client’s product and value
chain, especially upstream suppliers and downstream
customers. We also work with the clients to articulate
their location requirements, both the ‘threshold criteria’
that are ‘must haves’ and the ‘comparative criteria’
that are usually ‘the more the better’. From that
point on we start conducting fieldwork to gather data
on the potential locations, recording the findings
in an analytical framework, and eventually ranking
them in order. It’s very satisfying watching our clients
using our deliverables to make informed and confident
decisions, and choosing locations that we’ve recommended.
I also support clients establish their Representative
Offices, Joint Ventures and Wholly Foreign Owned Enterprises.
One of the challenges is that the regulatory environment
is constantly changing, which necessitates frequently
updating myself on the regulations and policies. Another
of the challenges is that, when it comes to implementation,
each project has specific issues that need to be addressed
and resolved, often by negotiation with local government
bureaus. It’s these two aspects of my job that I find
the most challenging, but achieving the end result
is also very rewarding. |
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What is InterChina like as
a place to work? |
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One of the characteristics of
management consultancies is that everybody is focused
on project work, which makes for a very productive
work environment without the bureaucracy and politics
found in other work places.
Moreover, as I work on Project Teams, I benefit from
the knowledge and skills that other Team Members bring
to the project, and I enjoy sharing my own experience
and ideas with them too. Our working relationships
are very open, right from the President to the Project
Assistant. |
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What advice would you give
to candidates? |
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InterChina’s growth creates opportunities
for candidates. If you are looking for challenging
and interesting consulting projects, and place value
on having a good work environment, then you should
consider applying for a position. If you are the kind
of person who would enjoy contributing to that work
environment, and have the experience and skills to
bring value to the projects, then you really should
apply. |
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How long have you been with
InterChina? |
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I joined InterChina in 2005 when
the Human Resources Team was being expanded. This
was a great opportunity for me, for in addition to
the HR consulting work, I was also given the responsibility
for building InterChina’s HR Team in one of our Operations
Offices on the Mainland. |
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What do you spend most of your
time doing? |
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As an HR Consultant, I spend most
of my time recruiting candidates on behalf of clients,
interviewing a great variety of people from a wide
range of industries. This is not a simple matter of
Q&A. For example, if the client is a steel mill
and searching for a sales engineer, then prior to
conducting the interviews I will research the relevant
steel products and applications, the main industry
dynamics and trends, as well as foreign and Chinese
players. This allows me to engage in a discussion
with the candidates, and better assess their match
with the client’s requirements. I really enjoy this
process of getting up to speed and speaking on a level. |
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What is InterChina like as
a place to work? |
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InterChina is a fun place to work.
As I’m involved in Human Resources, I’m also involved
in team building activities. We have a membership
with a nearby sports center, so colleagues often go
swimming or play table tennis together after work.
We also organize events, such as the ‘Mini-F1’ evening
(at the nearby karting track) and the ‘Mini-Olympics’
afternoon (at the nearby sports center). From time
to time we also do ‘InterFridays’, which means heading
out for a beer or martini on a Friday evening. |
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What advice would you give
to candidates? |
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It is quite common for candidates
to receive a Case Study during the interview process.
The case is an opportunity to discuss a real life
problem that one of our clients faced in China, and
to see how the candidate would approach it. Normally
the interviewer will choose a case that they were
involved in themselves, and so the discussion can
actually be very interesting for the candidate too. |
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Value Proposition
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We maintain a value proposition both to our clients and to our employees, such that the value proposition to one fully reflects and reinforces the value proposition to the other...
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Our Vision
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In China's dynamic business environment, InterChina will maintain and further strengthen our position as a leading boutique management consultancy...
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Our Mission
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To deliver unmatched value to our clients by... To deliver unmatched value to our employees by...
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Our Values
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Our values first existed in the mindsets of the founding partners, and as our senior colleagues lead our junior colleagues by example...
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