As I've mentioned before, I'm a big Tom Peters fan. Tom has been blogging about the goings on in China so when I saw that the latest issue of Business Week has a special report on China, I decided to pick it up. Here are some interesting (at least to me) tidbits and quotes from the article:
“What is stunning about China is that for the first time we have a huge, poor country that can compete both with very low wages and in high tech.“ - Richard B. Freeman
3Com has a switch manufactured in China - $183,000 list price. Cisco's comparable swith, $245,000 list
Bedroom furniture made in China has a list price 40% less than the comparable furniture made in the U.S. This list price (China) is often less than the cost of materials of the U.S. product.
$120 a month productions workers (that was per month)
$2,000 a month chip designers
350,000 new engineers a year
Think India was\is a big deal? Think it can't happen to your job? Think it's interesting that software development has been borrowing ideas from manufacturing (Lean, TOC, quality, etc.) and in many cases manufacturing can no longer compete?
May you live in interesting times........