The Haier Way: The Making of a Chinese Business Leader and a Global Brand

Rating:
Summary: A great business book for readers in any country.
Review: In the highly competitive appliance industry, Haier has had remarkable results over the past 20 years starting from the position of a small and almost bankrupt firm.

To achieve these results, Haier has successfully employed a mixture of leading edge manufacturing and management schools any Western company would be proud of and combined them with a set of "Confucian" and other deeply rooted values unique to Chinese culture.

The story of Haier is well presented and easy as well as compelling to read. It should be required reading for any student of management. Unlike many difficult books to follow dealing with improvement methodologies such as Six Sigma, the authors of The Haier Way do an outstanding job discussing all of the factors including the "invisible" cultural evolution that have allowed this company to become a leading world brand with over US $8 billion in revenues. This is all the more remarkable given the capital market limitations faced by Chinese companies.

As an appliance industry executive who was sent to China to help teach the Chinese how to manufacture high-quality goods, I have now learned a great deal from Haier and the Chinese authors of this book.

Charles L. Green